soundtrack:Plug in Baby

Scarlet was unsure when exactly would be an appropriate time to cash in on the offer of a lesson in Korean. She was very aware that classes, studio and her work with the museum all started in the following weeks and although she knew conversational Korean, school level skills would be little help in an academic or work environment. Taking her courage firmly in hand she dressed neatly before crossing the hallway and knocking at her new neighbour’s door. It was opened once more by the tall young man with large sensitive doe eyes- although this time he was fully clothed.

They had loud music on when she came inside, and to her happiness it was a song she was very familiar with- enough so that she began to sing little pieces of it under her breath as he left her in the entrance hall to divest herself of her shoes. She slowly felt herself beginning to sway a little, hips moving to the heaviest beats and head nodding along to the guitar riffs. When the rising scale came on she began to dance a little more actively, not noticing the interested gazes of Sung Jong and Myungsoo from behind her. Swaying a little she turned around and noticed them watching her. Immediately embarrassed she smiled through it although she could feel the blood warming her cheeks.

“Hello. Sorry, it is a best liked song.”

They greeted her in return and sung Jong corrected her phrase to “favourite” even as she walked over to the table they had placed a jug of cold coffee on in preparation for her visit.

“Do you like to dance?” Hoya asked.

“Only at the party.” She replied. She sort of wanted to not talk about her non-existent dancing skills but the whole point of these meetings was to improve her Korean by conversation. “I used to run the ballet, but it is not the dancing you do at party of the house.” After a moment where they made sense of what she had just said they nodded n understanding.

“We dance as well, me and Dongwoo are the ones in charge of it.”

“Real talk? That is sounding cool.” She wondered if they danced to rock songs like this, but doubted it. She asked anyway though “Who plays this song? It is one that you dance with?” Sung Jong piped up in the negative. “It’s one of Sunggyu Hyungs favourites. He put his phone on earlier. He likes rock music the most.”

Nodding in understanding ( she understood Sunggyu meant the one who had come to fetch her the night before, and knew ‘phone’ and ‘the most’, this Sunggyu obviously had the most rock music as his ringtone) she sat down at the table with them and they started talking about little things that had happened during the week, and they corrected her awkward Korean as they went along. She had found that the repetition of a language through conversation and the opportunities for new speech patterns through conversations were the way that she best learned.

She noticed that they didn’t talk about what they did for a living. And she didn’t question them about it either in case it was rude, like asking someones age. The atmosphere of their lessons was relaxed as they took turns correcting her and talked about little things. Including her age, so maybe she could have asked what jobs they had? They had to explain in broken English that wneh they called her Maknae it wasn’t because they had confused her name, but meant youngest as she was born in late 94, well after Sungjong.

Eventually the conversation turned to their families and they were interested to learn she came from a family of six, Hoya had two siblings whereas Sung Jong was an only child, and Sungyeol had a younger brother. After mentioning she and her sister used to go to the same ballet classes the conversation turned to dance.

She learned than Hoya had been dancing since a very young age and had even had his own crew before he became a singer. Sung Jong learnt to dance during his training period.

However this mention of training period was not spoken upon at any real length, she got the sense that it had been a stressful period of their lives and they were happier not reviving the ghosts of the past. They weren’t that tall but they were handsome, perhaps they were models? (by this point she had forgotten the boy bands her new friend mentioned).

Retelling the conversation makes it seem as if it was all smooth sailing. In reality Scarlet had trouble keeping up with them, and they had trouble explaining things to her in a way that made sense.

One topic made all the boys burst into uproarious laughter was when she was trying to explain ‘fox hunting’ and translated it to ‘the quest violence of the Sunggyu’s’. A bewildered Scarlet had it explained to her that Sunggyu wasn’t a nickname they gave to their Mat-Hyung based on his appearance, but his actual name. Mortified, Scarlet begged them not to tell him. “Please, don’t tell him! I really didn’t mean to be rude, he’s really very good looking I just thought it was the same because of the sweatshirt the other day…”

“It okay, Scarlet.” Switching back to Korean Sungjong wiped a tear from the corner of his eye and patted her arm where it lay on the table. “We won’t even tell him that you think he’s handsome.” By this point her face was flaming even though she was doing her best to retain her composure despite the embarrassment.

Meanwhile both Hoya and Sungyeols attention had been drawn to the little gem that Sungjong had spotted first. Both of them had noticed the attentiveness with which Sunggyu had interacted with Scarlet, despite the prickly attitude to her abrupt appearance in their lives.

Struck by a sudden idea Hoya decided to play a little joke with his leader and subject of the majority of his attempts for a coup d’etat. Excusing himself while Sungyeol watched him over Sungjongs shoulder, who was still teasing Scarlet in an attempt to break into her cool façade, Lee Howon made his way quietly over to the heap of shoes by the entrance and picking up Scarlet’s carefully placed them in a corner before covering them in several pairs of Sunggyus boots, topped off by Woohyun’s lurid leopard print trainers.

Feeling like cupid he made his way back to the table, catching Sungyeols understanding smirk before he re-joined the stuttering conversation which had conveniently turned to ideal types although it was being foiled by Scarlet’s lack of understanding of the slang term before he resorted to English to explain.

The general idea of ‘operation shoe mountain’ was to get Sunggyu and Scarlet to interact a bit so he could have a closer look at his brother trying to balance sulky politeness and blossoming attraction to her, and her obliviousness.

Sungyeol was highly amused. Publicly Howon kept his image as macho and arrogant as he could get away with but in a private setting his natural mischievousness and sass came out to an extreme degree. Which often expressed itself in pranks at the cost of their oldest member.

Sunggyu did eventually make it home from his appointment with their vocal coach, trailed through the door by Woohyun. It was at this point that Hoya decided that he was indeed cupid, at least if it meant embarrassing Sunggyu.

So he made a small fuss about cooking dinner, which made Scarlet look at her watch and realise that she had promised to meet Amy that evening and head for the door to make her greetings and farewells, as well as grab her shoes. Which were no longer there.

This precipitated a hunt for the shoes which Sunggyu found himself increasingly annoyed by, as the only one still in the entry hall he found himself obligated to help her in her cursory search for shoes.

“Are you sure you really wore them over here? They’re nowhere, and you do live just over the hall.”

“Yes, the shoe was most there for sure!” She looked up at him, blue eyes meeting warm brown. Inexplicably flustered Sunggyu responded “You must be mistaken.”

Slightly confused she looked around their feet. She wasn’t sure what “mistaken” meant so she just stayed where she was.

Eventually he sighed, deciding that after a long day of training he didn’t want to deal with this (and it had nothing at all to do with the fact her long honey legs and sliver of exposed stomach were slowly turning the tops of his ears pink) and made a decision.

Kicking the door open he wrapped his hands around Scarlet’s waist and bodily lifted her into the wall and deposited her directly in front of the door of her own department.

“There, feet not dirty.” Making a shallow bow of farewell he went back inside and closed the door – only to find his everyone in it staring (or looking smug in Hoyas case) at him.

Refusing to explain his actions he went into his bedroom and closed the door, before sitting down in his office chair and seriously questioning his sanity, while trying very hard not to think about how nice her soft skin had felt, radiating warmth against his hands before he let her go, and the bemused expression on her face which curved her eyes up ever so slightly so they caught the light.

For their part the four other occupants of the apartment were highly amused.

“Did you see his ears? Oh god it was like a scene from a cheesey drama.  She could be a student across the hall in university house, and he could be the grumpy tutor, and he would fall in love at first sight but constantly deny himself… and then she would come to love him but break it off because she didn’t want to get him fired… and then there’s a flashback showing that destiny brought them together… Hey guys! Doesn’t that sound like a great story? I should be a novelist!”

“Oh Yeollie, for it to be a true cheesy drama there should be a chaebol, loan shark and a secret birth too!” Woohyun reprimanded him.

“Don’t forget the secret birth and the evil mother. You have a ways to go yet.” Sungjong added.

Sungyeol pouted. “Well I think it was a pretty good story. Just wait! I’ll publish this under another name and it’ll be a bestseller.”

“Will it even be a hit on the internet?” Hoya asked with a slightly evil smile.

“Yah! Of course it will- just wait.”

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Aaaaand thats another chapter done!! hope you liked it, 

Next time!! Excessive drinking, nostalgia for delinquency and late night swing sets feat. drunk!ailee, confused!woohyun and it'saconspiracy!sungyeol

I will make everyone appreciate him if it kills me! 

Also happy birthday to Kim Sung Kyu I sort of love him too much to be coherent about so have this uallyfrustratedauthor.gif

many thanks to classicallyrenee, yadong2ne1, alwaysanelf, aileesarangheyo and cheekykpop for subscribing to this little fic of mine! Love you so here is some myunggyu cause I know what you us fangirls like

stay happy and safe till next time!! *muah*