Youngbae was watching the Girls’ Generation performance from backstage while he waited for his cover of Say Something with Ailee. Youngbae rather liked Ailee but he wasn’t particularly close to her, even after all their practices. They got along just fine but since they were both attached, neither stayed at the studio longer than they had to. Ailee was with Wheesung, her mentor. The only reason Youngbae knew that at all was because he accidentally caught Wheesung picking her up after practice to spend the night. Ailee had completely panicked, telling Youngbae that he had to keep it a secret; the public wouldn’t react well to their age difference and their business relationship. Youngbae had tried to calm the girl down as much as possible and ended up revealing his relationship with Seunghyun to her. That way, they both had secrets on each other and could release that information if one ever let it slip.

But Ailee wasn’t with him right now, she was on the other side of the stage and Youngbae was left by himself to observe the Girls’ Generation performance. Youngbae watched Yuri completely dominate the performance, drawing everyone’s eyes to her sensual hips and her suggestive expressions. The Big Bang vocalist felt his self-esteem drop when he compared his dancing to hers. Yes, Youngbae was a skilled dancer but he failed at pulling off anything remotely tempting. He had tried a girl dance one time for Seunghyun and the result was so disastrous, Youngbae would have cried if Seunghyun weren’t there to tell him how gorgeous he was, no matter what.

To make matters worse, Girls’ Generation just reminded Youngbae of the time before his relationship with Seunghyun when he had gone to a SNSD concert. He had attended with the intent to be charming and maybe get closer to some of the women but he was so shy and embarrassed by the nine females that Youngbae ended up only talking about the LED lights. It was a pretty humiliating experience for him and the girls had even brought it up on variety shows afterward. Now, the group only reminded Youngbae what a disappointment he was at charming people. He would never be as suave as Seunghyun, as cool as Jiyoung, as entertaining as Daesung, or as funny as the maknae Seunghyun. Instead, Youngbae was awkward and uncomfortable around new people, not matter how hard he tried to train his people skills. He was fine once he got to know people but before then, he was no charmer.

Noticing the lights die down, Youngbae put on his professional face and walked out to dazzle the audience with Ailee. He had to hand it to the girl; she had one hell of a voice and it complemented his perfectly. In stark comparison to his earlier performance, Youngbae didn’t dance in this one at all and instead concentrated on hitting the notes perfectly. From the monstrous applause of the audience at the end, Youngbae had succeeded in that. As they had agreed, Youngbae kissed Ailee’s cheek after the performance. It would quickly become a hot issue and also focus the media attention on their relationship instead of each of their actual attachments. All the fan-girls screamed like banshees at the kiss and Youngbae grinned coyly before grabbing Ailee’s hand to lead her backstage.

“I think that went well,” Ailee said when they had exited the immediate area.

“Want to bet on how many articles will come out about it within twelve hours?” Youngbae answered with a quirk of his eyebrows. He wasn’t normally a betting person but a few wagers here and there never hurt anyone.

“I’m thinking around seven,” Ailee replied. Youngbae scoffed before responding. 

“I think there will definitely be more than that. I’ll tell you what, if there are less than ten articles, you win but if there are over ten, I win. The loser treats the winner to dinner.”

“Deal,” Ailee said with a firm shake of Youngbae’s hand before she left for her assigned dressing room. She was done for the night, unlike Youngbae.

Youngbae waited until she was out of sight before turning for the Big Bang dressing room. He hadn’t wanted his fellow singer to witness his distress but Youngbae was in desperate need of Seunghyun. He hadn’t felt this self-conscious in a long time and Seunghyun had been Youngbae’s safe zone even before they were dating. Practically jogging down the hall, he threw their temporary door open. Youngbae sighed in relief when he saw that only the Big Bang members were in the room, no stylists or cameramen, just the way YG artists liked it. Jiyoung was still sleeping out his high, but on the floor now, and Daesung and maknae Seunghyun were enthralled with some new phone game so Youngbae was free to cross the room to Seunghyun and sink into his lover’s arms. He would have done it no matter what the other three were doing but he didn’t want the others’ attention on him when he spilled to Seunghyun.