I was going to skin him; I didn’t care whether he was my older brother or not. I was going to skin him and make sure he felt every second of it.

“Come on, you’ll have fun, I’m sure of it.”

Fun? I doubted it.

It was Yongguk’s birthday – time flies when you’re having fun, they say – and my brother had thought it’d be brilliant to invite me along to their little night at the clubs. Himchan knew I hated going to the clubs.

I glared at little at my friend before sighing, throwing myself on my bed, where I’d earlier tossed half of my wardrobe to. Let’s face it; I wasn’t ever going to be able to find anything suitable to wear to the club. I was going to be the oddball out, and Yongguk was going to be embarrassed he’d let my stupid brother convince him into the idea of inviting his dorky little younger brother.

“No, I’ll flop like a fish out of water and everyone’ll just stand there feeling sorry for me.”

The closest thing to a club I’d gone to had been that one night Daehyun and I had spent jumping on his bed, speakers on full blast on my birthday until we got complaints from the lower floor. (I don’t know what exactly came over me to think that doing that would be fun. It’s just impossible to say no to Daehyun.) Needless to say, the bed and the club were too far different things. I wouldn’t last a second out there on the dance floor.

“Can’t you come with me?” I huffed, only so close to whining desperately.

But apparently, I wasn’t anywhere as close to as convincing as Daehyun was. Figures. “Nope,” he laughed, flashing a smile at me before patting me on the chest. “Yongguk hyung invited you, remember? Just have fun, alright? Pick up a few girls?”

I cringed and he mumbled his apologies, standing up to pick out my outfit for me.

“Everyone’ll love you, girl or boy.” I could just barely make of his mumble as he dug through the contents of my closet. But who was he kidding? No one could love the mess I was.

No sooner after Daehyun was done playing Barbie with me, Himchan was at the door, threatening to knock it down unless we answered the door. (His first reaction being to gawk at our furniture as I had done the first time in.) But before Himchan could spit and call dibs on our living room, Yongguk pulled the both of us out, waving a goodbye to my housemate before loading us into the car.

I heard before that Yongguk had an older sister; maybe that was how he could deal so easily with Himchan.

“Why am I here again?”

The club was loud. Loud. That was the only possible way for me to describe the place. Loud and crowded.

Himchan, unlike me, seemed to fit right in, whimpering like a slapped puppy when I managed to pull him away from the crowd. “This is Underground, UG for short.” He yelled over the pumping music, trying to emphasize his words with his madly flailing arms, “Yongguk sometimes raps here so they let us party here. The drinks are real cheap!”

Cheap or not, that didn’t explain why they’d invited me over.

“Just go find some pretty boy to dote on you.”

Of course, that had been his objective.

Rolling my eyes, just to spite him, I moved toward the bar, planting my right on the longue chair, where I’d stay for the rest of the night. Let’s see just how many pretty boys I could grab from here. (Count, zero.)

I’d gone through my second can of beer – the day was dragging – when the first interesting (first and only) thing of the night happened. A run in. A run in with a certain someone I wasn’t all too interested in meeting again; at least not in a circumstance like now.

“Youngjae, is that you?”

It took one glance – no, half a glance, seeing as I’d memorized everything there was to know about him in the deeps of my brain – to realize who it was.  

“Jaebum?”

The room was dark, but not dark enough to block out the shocking blond he’d dyed his hair to, his fringe painted neon pink in contrast. He was tanned as usual, probably from having run around the soccer field too much without proper appliance of sun screen; he never liked putting on sun screen, not matter how much others nagged.

Around his arm was another boy, the two pushing and pulling at each other playfully, just as Jaebum would have with Daehyun just a number of years back on the practice fields. They looked close.

“It is you!” He was quick to weave his way to me, his new dark haired friend clinging tight to his hand. “Man, it’s been forever since we last met! How’ve you been doing?”

I shrugged.

“You want to introduce me?”

The boy to Jaebum’s left nudged him harshly, elating a choked whimper from him.

They looked close.

“Right, sorry, sorry, don’t hit me.” Holding up his hands innocently, Jaebum turned back to smirk at me, flicking away his bangs with a careless sweep of his finger. “JR, this is Youngjae, Youngjae, Jinyoung.” (“That’s JR!”)

I held out my hand to shake, an awkward and formal approach to an introduction, but was quickly tugged into a hug by the dark haired boy – JR accordingly. “H-hey, it’s nice to meet you.”

“Oh? You’re the Youngjae?” Jaebum made a longue at him, but missed horribly, ending up in a half-assed headlock. “I’ve heard so much about you.”

So much? What was there to talk about me? I lifted a brow, frowning slightly.

“Nothing bad, I swear,” JR laughed, “I hear JB here’s been chasin’ after you since forever. I would’ve expected a fairytale princess from the way he put you to words. I mean, not sayin’ that you don’t look good – you do – but you’re not a princess. If you get what I mean.”

I didn’t, especially not with the roar of the crowd behind us (according to the crowd’s chants, Yongguk was on stage, Himchan probably not too far away) cutting off all communications. But I was surprised to find that Jaebum had spoken about me. About me.

About me.

“Th-thanks … I think?”

“You’re competition,” JR seemed to laugh, brushing the thought off as almost a joke, “I’m his new boyfriend.”

I don’t quite remember the rest of the conversation from there, too stunned to really pay attention. New boyfriend. What had happened to Jiyeon? I looked to Jaebum for explanation, but he wasn’t paying attention to me. Of course he wasn’t. He was too busy looking at Jinyoung.

“We’re gonn’ go and dance, you wanna join us?”

I shook my head. No, I was good here.

“You sure?” Jaebum seemed only then to turn to me, slapping Jinyoung’s arm away to straighten up. “You should come play with us Youngjae, I mean, you haven’t got anything better to do, right?”

Right, because plain old Youngjae couldn’t possibly have someone waiting on him. Of course.

I shook my head, forcing out a smile. “I’m fine. I’m waiting on my brother anyways.” That was a lie. Himchan would probably end up getting wasted and crashing somewhere in the club with Yongguk. “You go have fun.”

It took a while, but eventually, Jaebum and Jinyoung left (Jinyoung whining something about his song being on), leaving me to mope on my own. I needed a drink, a strong one at that.

Because it would have been a lie to say that I was completely over Jaebum.