[A/N: Past events again]

 ****

Your alarm blares at you, telling you to wake up. You quickly turn it off, groaning in protest for having to wake up. Yawning, you slowly sit up in bed, stretching your arms and back. Your back gives you a rather painful reminder of the day set ahead of you. You sigh, thinking about how you have to bind your chest once again.

Today is the filming of "Shirt". You can only hope that the costume designer did not decide to change your wardrobe on you again, so you will not have to worry about being discovered.

You climb out of bed with a sigh and begin to quickly make up the covers.

If only you did not have to do this stupid dance in a revealing shirt, then it would not be so bad.

You take off your pajama shirt and then look in the mirror. You are definitely going to have to do something about that soon.

You open up your dresser drawer and pull out a roll of bandages and beginning binding your chest once again, wrapping the bandages around your sore s. 

After you finish, you look down at your bound s and sigh, already feeling pain in your back and chest. You can tell it is going to be a long day...

****

2005.05.05 (May 5, 2005) [A/N: You may want to refer to the latter past events in Ch. 13: Breaking Down]

You start fanning yourself, your body warm from all the dancing you did from you and Youngwoon's time as disk jockeys. "I think I'm going to step outside for a few minutes to get some air, 형 [hyung]. 또 봐요 [Ddo bwayo (See you later)]. You wave, walking towards the exit. As you walk, you hear someone start talking to Youngwoon. You cannot make out the words, but you recongnize the voice. It belongs to Heechul. You quicken your pace, knowing that if you see him and he is still in one of his moods, things will probably end badly for you, since he does not seem to want to forgive you after your little prank with Youngwoon the other day.

You reach the exit and open the door quickly, stepping out into the nice, cool air outside. The chilled breeze nips at your warm cheeks with a slight sting, but you do not mind. The cool air feels good after being in there. 

You let out a sigh of contentment. 

What a fun thing you got to experience, just doing what you love in front of others. 

The DJ's words echo in your ears. Someday you will make it big.

You smile at the thought, wondering just how big your dream will become. You take in a deep breath of the night air, closing your eyes as you imagine what your life will become once you attain that dream that you have dreamt for so long. In just about six or seven months, T.H.E.E.N.D. will debut...

You fail to notice the door open behind you as you are so absorbed in your own thoughts with your eyes still closed. 

You feel a hand snake its way around your waist and your eyes immediately snap open as feelings of anger and irritation flood your being. 

"Party got too boring for you, didn't it?" you hear Heechul's voice purr in your ear. "I noticed you hanging around my friend, Youngwoon. I didn't know he kept such..." His voice breaks off for a moment as he brushes the hair from the right side of your neck. "...beautiful company." You feel his breath against your neck, sending chills up your spine. "You have lovely collarbones and--" his voice drops. "--y legs." 

You run your tongue along the left side of your lower teeth. He is just trying to get back at you for your prank. He wants to get you mad so that he can be satisfied with getting the best of you. It would be for the best if you just take your leave as soon as possible.

You remove his hand from your waist and turn to leave, not even glancing at him. 

Like a flash of lightning, you feel yourself spun around as he grabs your wrist and within a second, you feel your back against the wall with Heechul's face just centimeters away. 

****

Present:

You walk over to your clothes rack, eyeing the costume with distaste. You would love to just grab that shirt and walk over to Eunhyuk and start beating him with it until he can convince the company that it was a stupid idea from the start. 

You hear Heechul laugh from about a meter or so away from you. "야 [Ya], Jaekyu-ah, I don't know what kind of grudge you have against the clothes in front of you, but if your eyes could shoot flames then I think those clothes would have burnt to a crisp by now."

"Shut up, 형 [hyung]," you mutter as you grab the clothes from off the rack and the matching shoes from off the floor. 

"Oh, it won't be so bad, Jaekyu," he says with a smirk. "You'll be able to get a good look at our abs too." He sends you a smirk.

You roll your eyes as you reach the washroom. You turn the knob, entering the washroom quickly so that you can hurry and change. After locking the door behind you, you swing your duffel bag off your shoulder and set your costume on top of it before stripping yourself of your street clothes. 

You glance down at your bound chest and adjust the bandages a bit to make them a little tighter since you will be dancing in awhile. You bend down to your duffel bag and grab your pants for the performance. You tug on the black jeans, sliding the white belt through the loops after doing so. You bend down again, putting on your black and white Nike® shoes over your feet, your bound chest groaning in pain as you do so. You quickly tie the shoe laces and then stand to put on the dreaded shirt. You pull it on over yourself and instantly know that there is no possible way that you can pull this off.

You stare in the mirror at the skintight shirt. The top half of the garment is made of some spandex material with a white collar at the top and white, short sleeves. The bottom half of the shirt is of some sort of stretchy mesh material with large rips in different sections of the abdomen. Your eyes pierce the glass in front of you, staring at the top half of the T-shirt. The spandex clings so much that it clearly shows the fact that you are wearing bandages around your frame. There is no way this is going to work. 

Biting your lower lip, you think about what you could do to resolve this issue.

Maybe one of the 형 [hyungs] has an idea...

You stuff your street clothes into your duffel bag before hoisting it over your shoulder. Opening the door with one hand and keeping your eyes covered, you prepare yourself to call out to ask if everyone is decent or not. Before you can speak, however, you hear a voice. 

"야 [Ya]. What? Are you afraid of seeing our abs?" You hear Heechul begin to chuckle before cutting off suddenly. "야 [Ya]! What are you wea--" He stops speaking and you suddenly feel yourself pushed back into the washroom. 

As the washroom door closes, you take your hand off of your eyes. "야 [Ya], what are you doing?" you ask, looking at Heechul with confusion.

"What do you think you are doing wearing that?" he spits, staring down at your chest. "I can see your bandages."

"You think?" you mutter sarcastically. "I was going out there to see if anyone had any ideas of how I could fix this."

He continues to stare.

"야 [Ya], 형 [hyung]!" You punch him hard in the arm. "If you continue to stare, I'm going to hurt you."

Without another word, Heechul takes off his own shirt. "Here. Take mine. Give me yours. I would look better in that than in this one anyway." He tosses the shirt at you and then walks out of the washroom briskly. As the door shuts behind him, you look down at the garment in your hand and a smile creeps onto your face. This one will work much better. 

****

2005.05.05 (May 5, 2005)

You can barely make out his features in the darkness of the night, but you do not let that stop you. Fuming with anger, you grab one of Heechul's hands, which are placed on either side of you, and duck under it, twisting it behind his back as you do so. 

"Ow!' he cries as you push him away with a hard shove on his back with your heeled shoe. 

"What is wrong with you, 형 [hyung]?!" you spit out, your voice seething with indignation. "You know I can hurt you, right?" You reach down and take off your heels in a hurried manner. "Want to try that again and see where it takes you?" You drop your heels on the ground next to you and hold out your fists. "I'll beat you up, if I have to, 형 [hyung]."

Heechul looks at you and you can see an expression of shock in his face even in the dim night light. "Jaehwa?!" he asks in disbelief. "You--Ummph!"

You cut off Heechul, slugging him hard in the abdomen. "Jerk!'

Holding his hands over his abdomen, he looks up at you, coughing a moment to compose himself. "Jaehwa-ah, 미안합니다 [mianhamnida]! I really did not realize it was you. Really."

You scoff, you cross your arms in front of you. "Yeah, right. You're still sore about the other day and wanted to get back at me."

Heechul shakes his head, straightening himself. "아니 [Ani]." He scoffs. "I would never put that much effort into trying to get back at you, especially like this. Why make people think I lowered my standards?" He reaches a hand up to fix his hair, sending you a smirk after he does so.

You roll your eyes. "Aish... you jerk." You reach down, grabbing your heels off the ground and slipping them on your feet quickly. You walk to the door, opening it.

"Wait," Heechul begins. "I--"

You walk inside, shutting the door behind you, not wanting to hear any more of his pathetic excuse. 

****

Present:

You look at your reflection in the washroom mirror, thankful that Heechul's shirt works much better than the other one. This one is much looser and does not expose your identity as a girl. It sort of looks like how you would imagine a shirt would look like if you mixed a vest with a dress shirt. It's black with a white collar and a white stripe that trails down from the collar to about three or four centimeters below your rib cage where it divides into two stripes in opposing diagonal angles, revealing your abdomen below. You tug at the ends of the "vest" part where it divides. You can only hope that this will work. 

You bend down, scooping up your duffel bag and the shirt that you will now give Heechul to wear. You exit the washroom and find Heechul leaning against the counter where the mirrors are with his arms folded in front of his bare chest. "감사 [Kamsa], 형 [hyung]," you say, tossing the shirt to him.

He catches it and quickly puts the shirt on over his head. "야 [Ya], what took you so long?" he says, adjusting the shirt as he turns to face the mirror. "Admiring yourself in the mirror too long?" He scoffs as if not understanding why anyone would look in the mirror if it was not his own reflection in it instead.

You chuckle, walking over to an empty space by the wall where you drop your duffel bag on the floor. "I'm still having trouble buttoning shirts because I'm used to the buttons being the other way." You shove your hands in your pockets and walk over to Heechul with that bit of masculine swagger in your step.

As Heechul gazes into the mirror in front of him, adjusting his hair, he smirks at you. "Maybe you should have me it for you after."

You slug him in the arm. "Shut up. I can hurt you, you know."

He rubs the sore spot now on his arm. "Maybe I should just take my chances."

You shoot his reflection in the mirror a glare.

"Kidding." He chuckles, playing with his hair. "I think I pull off this look much better than you, don't you think?"

You scoff. "That's obvious." You look down on the counter and spot Heechul's sunglasses. You snatch them up, putting them on your face. "Of course, I look better in these any day." You smirk at him again.

"야 [Ya], only the Universal Super Star can wear those!" He turns to you, snatching them from your face. 

"Whatever, Cinderella," you mutter teasingly as you begin to walk away from him. 

"Ready, everyone?" calls Leeteuk, adjusting the collar on the white dress shirt that he is wearing that has two rips in the front. He and Henry wear similar dress shirts and they plan to pour water over themselves when the time comes to do the dance. 

"네 [Ne]!" reply thirteen other voices. 

"To the practice room!" Leeteuk shouts, running out of the room.

The rest of the members begin to file out the door behind him. You follow, be