“But why?” Emily whines. It’s Saturday morning and they’re all currently in the studio, the coordinoonas putting the final touches on the boys. They have a fan-meet in an hour and Chanyong is insisting that Emily accompanies them. “I do not want to spend my Saturday watching tween girls fawn over these idiots.”

Chanyong is distracted, busy answering an email on his phone. “Because you may need to translate, Emily,” he says as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world.

“We’re in Korea,” Emily points out, furious at her forced involvement. “Why would anybody be speaking English?”

“There are actually quite a few foreigners in Seoul,” Taeil points out. “And from other places in Asia. Most of them speak English but not Korean, so a translator could be very helpful.”

Emily shoots him a death glare and he immediately falls silent.

Jiho rolls his eyes, shrugging off the coordi who is applying the billionth coat of eyeliner to his already kohl-rimmed eyes. “ it up, brat, and do your job,” he says.

And, for some inexplicable reason, Emily listens to him. She throws herself huffily into the nearest chair and crosses her arms and sighs a lot, but at least she stops whining.

“Do you have magic powers or something?” Chanyong whispers half an hour later when they’re heading down to the parking garage and the waiting van. “She never listens to me like that.”

Jiho just shrugs, but he’s secretly a little pleased that he has a certain sway over Emily.

Emily ends up in the front seat of the van, her shoes nowhere to be found as usual, her feet propped up on the dashboard and her big aviator sunglasses pushed low on her nose.

“Why do you hate shoes so much?” Jihoon asks from the middle seat, leaning forward so he can rest his chin on her headrest.

She reaches up and flicks him in the forehead. “I just don’t, okay? They’re constricting.”

“But don’t you hurt your feet?” Jihoon presses, rubbing his forehead. “And don’t they get dirty?”

“I’m tough, and everybody is dirty,” Emily answers immediately, but there’s a subtle shift in her voice that says that, for some reason, they’re on shaky ground.

Jiho is fairly certain he’s the only person who realizes this and, wanting to avoid a scenario that could quite possibly end with Emily jumping out of the van, quickly changes the subject. “Do we have any snacks? I’m hungry.” And that successfully diverts the conversation away from Emily’s opinion that everyone is dirty.

The venue where the fan meet is being held is a hotel, and they’ve set up a long table for the boys at the front of the room. There are supervisors and assistants fluttering around, making sure everyone has working pens and bottles of water and anything else they might need.

“You sit here,” Jiho directs, placing his hands on Emily’s shoulders and guiding her to the chair right beside his.

She gives him a weird look, wrinkling her nose, as she unscrews the top of her water bottle. “Why?”

“So you won’t cause any trouble,” he answers, although he may not be being entirely honest when he says it. “And so you won’t run away.”

“I’m not going to run away,” she grumbles, but it’s obvious from the blush in her cheeks that the thought has crossed her mind at some point in the past hour.

The fan meet starts, throngs of screaming, red-faced, giddy fangirls in a winding line that’s so long it goes out the door. They’re loaded down with their merchandise: towels and posters and official light sticks and any number of things they really don’t need. The screams in the room are deafening.

Emily groans. “Shoot me now.”

Jiho only grins at her.

Unfortunately, Emily was right when she guessed her translating services would not be needed at the fan meet. Everyone in the crowd speaks Korean, and her presence right between Jiho and Yookwon only seems to annoy some of the louder and more outspoken fangirls.

After the third altercation in which a fangirl demanded to know who she was and what she was doing with their oppas, Chanyong arranges for Emily to wait in a private room for the end of the fanmeet. Emily tosses out an ‘I-told-you-so’ before the door shuts behind him.

Luckily the fan meet doesn’t last much longer and soon Chanyong is coming to fetch his niece. Only she isn’t where he left her.

“Who saw that one coming?” Kyung whispers not-so-quietly under his breath.

“Dammit,” Chanyong grumbles. “Do you guys have any idea where she might’ve gone?”

Nobody answers, but Jiho already has his phone out. Between texting and googling, he manages to find the time and location of a foam party taking place in Seoul in an hour. He figures he knows Emily well enough by now that it’s a pretty good guess as to where she’s disappeared to.

He nudges Kyung’s shoulder as they’re walking towards the van and shows his bandmate his phone. Kyung takes the device and scrolls through the page advertising the party. “Sounds fun,” he says, handing the phone back.

“So that means you’ll go with me?” Jiho asks, tucking his phone into the back pocket of his too-tight pants.

Kyung backtracks immediately. “Hey now, I didn’t say that.” Then he gives Jiho a suspicious look. “You’re going to look for Emily, aren’t you?”

“Chanyong has enough on his plate without having to look for the little brat,” Jiho shrugs. “Besides, you said yourself that the party looked fun.”

Kyung shakes his head. “Emily gets me into enough trouble as it is, Ji. I don’t think I need any more.”

Jiho sticks out his lower lip. “Dude, you’re supposed to be my best friend. Who else am I going to ask to crash a foam party with me?”

Kyung groans. “I really ing hate you sometimes.”

Jiho’s frown turns upside down real quick. “Awesome!”

An hour later, after making up an excuse to peace out for a bit, Jiho and Kyung slip out of the dorm. It’s dark by now, but it’s a Saturday so the nightlife in Seoul is just starting to come alive. They pull hats down low over their faces to prevent them from being recognized – most people are already too intoxicated to really recognize them anyway – and they make their way to the address on the website Jiho had found.

It ends up being an enormous warehouse, much less abandoned looking than the one where the laser paintball tournament had taken place. There are bright lights out front, as well as bouncers checking the IDs of everyone who goes through the big double doors. The boys can see flashing lights and hear blasting music every time the door opens to admit someone else.

“If they’re checking IDs, then how the hell did Emily get in?” Kyung demands, adjusting his hat.

Jiho just shrugs. “She probably knows the bouncer or something. For a kid who hasn’t been in town that long, she sure has a lot of connections.”

One of the bouncers checks their IDs, shining a light very carefully in Jiho’s baby face, before letting them inside.

The music envelops them at once, the lights overwhelming. They find themselves in a crowded room with hardly-dressed men and women sporting brightly-colored beads and plastic cups of beer. What’s more, the stone floor of the warehouse is covered in soapy foam, towering higher than Jiho in some places.

Kyung lets out a low sort of whistle. “This is certainly a party,” he comments.

Jiho grins. “Glad you came now?”

His friend just rolls his eyes. “I don’t even think we can find Emily in this place,” he says. “There’s too many people and-holy I’m pretty sure that girl isn’t wearing a top at all.”

Jiho chuckles and grabs his friend by the arm. “You can play after we find Emily. The boss’s niece is priority number one right now.”

Kyung grumbles as he follows Jiho into the crowd, eyes lingering on some of the more scantily-dressed women. “We’re not security. Shouldn’t it be Junhwa or Seungbin out here looking for her?”

“They don’t get her like I do,” Jiho mutters distractedly, standing on his tiptoes to try and see over the dancing crowd.

Kyung scoffs. “And how do you know her so well?”

“I just do,” Jiho mutters. “Come on, she’s over here.”

They find Emily dancing in between a group of boys who are definitely too old for her. She’s one of the more dressed of the partiers, wearing short denim shorts and a plain t-shirt rolled up to reveal her belly and pierced naval. It’s revealing, yes, but at least it’s not a bikini.

Jiho worms his way into the group, effectively creating a barrier between the too-old guys and Emily. Though her eyes are closed, she realizes pretty quickly that her group of admirers has disappeared and she opens her eyes. When they land on Jiho, they roll.

“Jesus, do you have a ing tracking device on me or something?” she demands, taking a long sip of her beer.

“You’re just predictable,” Jiho replies, taking the beer from her and taking a sip himself. “And you’re too young to drink.”

“ off,” Emily grumbles. “Just let me enjoy my beer.”

Jiho sighs but hands her the cup back. “Drink it fast and then we’re peacing out of here.”

“Fat chance,” Emily says, draining the rest of the cup in one go as if she’s afraid Jiho will steal it again. “This is a ing party and I want to stay.”

“She’s got a point, bro,” Kyung says, and now he’s eyeing a girl in a fringed bikini who is batting her eyelashes at him. “This party is pretty tight, and we don’t have any schedules tomorrow.”

Emily gives Jiho a flat look. “See? Even Kyunggie-poo there wants to stay and party. So just babysit me here.”

Jiho gives in, but only because Kyung is already sidling over to the girl in the bikini to dance.

“But we need more booze now!” Emily decides, and she links her fingers through his and goes in search of the bar. “Hope you don’t mind that you’re paying!” she calls back over her shoulder.

Somehow, even though he knows it’s an absolutely terrible idea, Jiho ends up buying more drinks for the two of them. Then, still drinking haphazardly from their little plastic cups, they wind their way back to the dance floor. There are so many people crammed onto the soapy, wet floor that they’re forced to dance pretty close. And by pretty close, Jiho doesn’t think they would wedge a piece of paper between their bodies. Eventually the drinks are gone, the empty cups forgotten on some ledge or table somewhere, and his hands are all over Emily.

Somewhere in the back of his mind he thinks about how wrong this all is. For one thing, she’s his boss’s niece. That makes her very much off-limits. For another thing, she’s only seventeen. She’s not even legal. She’s ing . But still Jiho dances with her, his hands on her hips, her pressed into his crotch as she sways and grinds her hips.

At some point – and Jiho is embarrassed to admit that he doesn’t know quite how much time has passed – the sprinklers go off. There are a few startled screams and then everyone starts cheering. More people shed clothes and everyone begins dancing in the makeshift rain. Jiho tries very hard not to look at the way Emily’s wet t-shirt clings to the subtle curves of her body. He’s certainly going to hell for some of the things he’s currently thinking.

Kyung finds them not long after the sprinklers go off, and he’s got bright purple hickeys blossoming on his neck. “It’s almost five o’clock in the morning,” he points out. “We should probably get out of here pretty soon.”

“Do we have your permission to leave yet?” Jiho teases Emily.

She purses her lips like she’s contemplating it, but in the end she leans into the curve of Jiho’s body – fitting perfectly like she’s always been meant to be there – but then she smiles and nods. “Yeah, as long as I can crash at your place again. I don’t think my uncle will appreciate me showing up at dawn.”

“Fair enough,” Jiho replies, and so the three of them leave together.

Emily falls asleep in the car on the way back to the dorm, sprawling across the backseat since Kyung and Jiho are up front. Kyung catches Jiho glancing in the rearview mirror, checking on her.

“You like her,” he says. It’s a statement rather than a question.

Jiho starts. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, man,” he lies. “She’s just a kid.”

“Still, you like her,” Kyung repeats, and his lips are twitching like he’s fighting back a smile. “You don’t have to deny it, Ji. It’s just an observation.” Then he frowns. “You know she’s got some serious baggage, though. Don’t get yourself in too deep.”

Jiho glances in the rearview mirror again. Too late for that, he thinks to himself.