No matter how many times I went on that stage, how many times I ignored the nearly blinding light and the swoons coming from the crowd and the thudding in my chest from the heavy bass speakers blaring on the side of the stage, I was always nervous.

   It was a chilling kind of nervous fear that crept up my spine as I sat in the dressing room.

   I could hear them out there, waiting with restless anticipation, over the accented voice that rang through the PA system. ‘Our next beautiful act is one you’ve been waiting for all night,’ It was that country twang that person turned up to the max whenever they were in front of a microphone. ‘I assure you, if you don’t leave this club happy after this, I will personally give you a happy ending you could never forget.’

   MinJun had a way with the crowd, I had to admit, though I always thought the man overdid it. But they loved it. They cheered and clapped as I walked from the dressing room to backstage to where I was just barely hidden behind the curtain. “So without further adieu, please welcome our resident beast – I tell you, he is one y motherer – Taecyeon!”

   Here I was, stepping into the spotlight just as MinJun was stepping off stage, and like usual, my eyes scanned over the crowd, never lingering on any one gazing pair for long. It was a full house, mostly young men or middle aged women, a table of off duty soldiers sat up front and I knew immediately who I would be targeting for this dance. As the music started, my teeth clenched my bottom lip out of pure habit, and then I did what I did best.

*

“I want you out now!” The irate girl across the living room screamed at the top of her lungs as she threw a sneaker that I just barely managed to dodge. “I hate you!”

   “Se-young, jagiya~” I barely got the words out before another shoe was thrown, followed by a book, a videogame controller and a few other things. “Aish, – Baby, please don’t act this way.” It was like something snapped when a coffee mug flew past my head and shattered against the wall. “Yah, jugulle?!” This ing woman, I always knew that one day I would end up killing her. “If you think I’m going anywhere, you’re more delusional than I thought!” I huffed at the girl that was now pushing all of my clothes onto the floor and kicking them out of our bedroom, at least what was our bedroom. “You can’t just kick me out, Se-young, because you’re having a hissy fit. Is that really how you want us to end? Are you crazy?”

   “Go yourself, Wooyoung!”

   Truth be told, I couldn’t even narrow down what I had done to piss her off this time, and that bothered me more than the splitting headache I had from the night before. I rubbed my temples, growling. “Why the are you suddenly acting like this?”

   I looked up as my fiancé rushed over and slapped the living out of me so hard I stumbled backwards. Feeling the crack of the picture frame that hung on the wall behind my back breaking and glaring at her while she hissed venomously. “You ed another man! You’re sick and twisted and I want you out of my house!”

   Well .

   Maybe it was always just a matter of time until she found out, so I shouldn’t have been so surprised. I shouldn’t have been shocked that this miserable façade I had put on for almost two years was toppling down with a huge bang. I shouldn’t have been, but I was.

   “I don’t want you calling me. I don’t want you texting me, no contacting me at all – nothing!” Se-young went on and on while I just stood there, trying to plead with her in an attempt to sound apologetic.

   “Jagiya~ I’m sorry, okay?” My fingers brushed her arm when I reached out to pull her close but she just pushed me away again and again.

   As much as I wanted to hate her, I just couldn’t. It wasn’t her fault. She did nothing wrong except attempt to love me and put the ed up pieces of my broken life together. It wasn’t her fault she didn’t have the right equipment to match the criteria I desired. But still, it was frustrating. Listening to her ramble about how disgusted she was with herself, with me, for being who I was. It was the exact reason I chose to hide it to begin with.

   “How long?” She demanded. I raised a questioning eyebrow as she continued. “How long were you with him? Weeks? Months?”

   “Which one?!” I yelled back, almost regretting it when I saw the horror in what was now officially my ex-fiancé’s tearing eyes. I wanted to apologize, I almost did, had I been given the chance before the lamp that rested on the night stand was suddenly ripped from the plug and being launched at me.

   “Get out!”

   I never had to be told twice.

   Grabbing my keys and wallet, I left the apartment, my heart racing the whole way down the lobby and out the building of the place I no longer would live. By the time I came around the front of the building, there was a pile of clothes, CD’s, notebooks and other various electronics scattered across the sidewalk and in the bushes along the building. Looking up, Se-young dumped another box out the window, letting it all shatter into pieces as it hit the pavement.

   “Ya’ know, maybe I wouldn’t have found someone else if you weren’t such a PSYCHO !” It was a harsh and unnecessary lie that I screamed at her, in attempt to make myself feel better, as Se-young tossed another jacket out the window, no longer caring about curious onlookers.

   I fought embarrassment the whole time I picked up what few things weren’t completely damaged and unlocked the trunk of my car to stuff everything I could in. Never was I one to downplay my own faults. I knew that I had been bullting myself and everyone else through my entire relationship with Se-young but, in a way, she was hope. She was that last tiny shred that I had tried to hold on to, that proved to my family and to everyone, that I wasn’t exactly what I was already positive that I was.

   And now there was no more hope, nothing to hide or feel guilty over.

*

The house was completely silent, apart from the murmur of the television left on in the dark living room when I stepped through the door, wide awake but so desperately tired. I didn’t even bother turning on all the lights, just the one by the front entry way as I kicked various toys and clothes out of my path on the way to the couch, already expecting to see the neighbor girl lounging comfortably asleep on the thick leather sofa. “Hey.” I crouched down. “I’m home now, wake up.”

   “What?” She murmured.

   “You’re sleeping with your mouth open.”

    Jessica sat up and wiped as if I totally didn’t just see her drooling on my couch. “Yahh Taecyeon!” Her protest turned into a yawn and she just hit my arm when while I struggled to hold back my laughter. “Aish, you ert.”

   “You’re calling me a ert? You were making out with my couch.” Okay, so I exaggerated, she hit me again for it and shot a nasty glare at me while I stood up and walked to the kitchen, knowing already that she had followed me.

   “How did the show go?” Jessica asked somewhere behind as I peered inside the fridge and grabbed a beer. Then another.

   “I got the money to renew my lease.” I answered guardedly, not really sure what I was doing with . . . anything. When I turned around and offered her one of the beers, she politely declined. “How was he tonight?” I asked before she could mention anything else, barely motioning to the bedroom at the end of the hallway because I didn’t have to anymore, this was a question I’d asked too many times already.

   Her face fell slightly but she smiled anyway. “He wet the bed earlier and was pretty upset about it.”

   “You’d be embarrassed too, wouldn’t you?”

   “Taec,” She was using that tone again, that one particular voice she used when she was trying to be persuasive. “He needs to be with professionals.”

   Not this. Not again. “I’m not dumping him in some facility, I’ve been taking care of him just fine and I’m going to continue taking care of him–He’s not crazy, he’s . . .” It almost surprised me, how I still couldn’t say it, even after all this time. “He’s my baby brother.”

   That’s all that mattered, nothing else.

   “I know how much you love him.” Jessica reached for my hand and I wasn’t sure if I believed her, until she looked at me and sighed, her fighting expression changing to one of lost hope. “I know it pays the bills, plus some, but you can’t keep doing this forever.” She put so much emphasis on the word that I lost all my will to fight. I was just tired.

    My taste for the drink in my hand dissolving away by the second, I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out the bills I had specifically set aside. “Here’s what I owe you for the night.”

   Jessica looked as if she had so much more to say, yet I was more than thankful when she didn’t. She pocketed the money and looked up at me. “You need to be happy, too, Taecyeon.” Her quiet goodnight was the last thing I heard her murmur before she faded away with the sounds of the front door closing. Instinctively, I found myself leaned over the window above the sink, peeking out the blinds to watch her walk the short distance across our yards and to her home next door.

   After a few lonely moments, my feet were moving quietly down the hallway, my hand pushing the door to the bedroom next to my own open just slightly. As I watched the sleeping boy, I had to smile. Slowly, I walked into the room that was filled with action figures and decorated to any first grader’s dream. I looked down at the younger boy, unable to keep myself from reaching to him, just to feel his warmth, to know that he was really there. I pushed the dark hair back from his forehead. But those words echoed inside of me, crashed against my mind like stormy waves that soaked my thoughts.

   ‘I am happy.’ I argued with myself.

   I was happy, as long as this boy was happy.

   That was the trouble of it. I was realistic enough to admit when I was suffering from a mild form of denial, which I was. This boy was a boy only to me because he would forever be my baby brother but to the rest of the world, this boy was a man. The fact that he was a man with the mind of a child meant nothing.

   Chansung stirred when I pulled my hand back and I could see two sleepy eyes peer open. “Hyung!”

   I could see the tiredness step in the way of his excitement and shushed him gently, brushing his fingers through his thick dark hair and pushing him back when he tried to sit up. “Go back to sleep, I was just checking on you.” I assured him, and despite his pout, leaned in to kiss his forehead. Like our mother used to do. “Goodnight, Channie.” As I turned to get up, Chansung’s hand wrapped firmly around my wrist, I gazed back at the now awake and alert eyes.

    “Stay?” It was an offer, a question, but most importantly a plea; one I could never, ever resist.

   “Of course.”

   Chansung wiggled himself further away from the edge of the mattress, giving me not enough room on the already crowded bed but I tucked myself in and laid myself down beside my kid brother, hugging him close so that I didn’t fall off the edge. After so many years of practice, Chansung knew exactly where to put his head on my arm as he closed his eyes to sleep. There was never any talking between us on nights like these. It was just the two of us. Me comforting Chansung so he could sleep. The sound of Chansung’s slow sleeping breaths winding my mind down enough welcome sleep.

*

I had waited the entire day, for the sun to set and the familiar comforting rush of nightlife to fill the city streets, for the particular club owner to show up and open the doors. At first sight of him, I just watched from my car as I saw the other man walk up to the front door with a lit cigarette hanging at the corner of his full lips. The huge Hollywood star sunglasses and the plain, gym clothes the man wore were the perfect distraction for passersby, but Wooyoung knew what he was looking at. Under the clothes and glasses were a body of a god and the face of an angel.

   With a devilish smirk, I jumped out the car that was parked in the alleyway and walked up before the club owner could get the door closed properly.

   “Excuse me!” I said and the stranger looked back with one eyebrow raised and his keys dangling from his fingers while he pulled the cancer stick from his lips and exhaled a lungful of smoke right in my face.

   “What do you want?” The man quickly asked in that drawn out twang, that intriguing drawl that had caught my attention the night before and thus led me to be here in the first place.

   “My name is Jang Wooyoung,” I stuck my hand out, which he stared at in silence until I realized that he was not going to take it, lowering it and trying to ignore the awkwardness. “I was actually . . . looking for work.”

   That raised eyebrow pulled up higher as surprised crossed over the smooth, tanned face that looked me up and down skeptically. “You a dancer?”

   “Yes sir.”

   “You any good?”

    “The best.” It was a big statement coming from such a small guy, I knew it. But I also knew that I was more than capable to prove it true. The only variable that was a momentary unknown was whether or not this guy would give me the chance to.

   He pulled his glasses off and to say I was nervous under his gaze was an understatement. It was like he was summing me up with just a mere look, studying everything from my clothes to my body to my hair. It’s not like I was a ugly or anything, I considered myself a fairly attractive guy. But compared to him, I was absolutely no match.

    It was then that I realized the ridiculousness of this situation. I was standing on the street in front of a club, asking the owner for a job as a stripper. My life had hit rock bottom and I somehow hadn't even noticed.

   “Lemme see whatcha got, kid.” He said with a slight hint of excitement to his sultry voice as he opened the door to let me follow him inside.

   Turns out, lady luck was siding with me today.

   For once.

*

MinJun was leaning against the bar when I walked in the club, the conversation he was having with some scrawny looking guy I’d never seen before came to an abrupt stop the moment he noticed me, replacing the words on his lips with the same mischievous smirk he got whenever he was thinking up some new ‘big idea’.

   “I know that look, MinJun.” I warned him, unsurprised by the heavy arm that was slung over my shoulder and the scoff coming from the older man now hanging off of me like a damned koala.

   “Yah! Don’t shut me down yet, you don’ even know wut I was gonna say.”

   “You were going to say something ridiculous, what is it? Who’s this kid?” I slipped from under his hold and he just grinned while I gave a quick look at the youngish looking guy who was now swirling some fruity looking drink around a glass tumbler and looking at it as if he had no idea what to do with it.

   “He’s our new act.” I thought I heard MinJun say and did a double take.

   “Are you joking right now?” MinJun’s smirk confirmed that he was utterly serious. Which was crazy, no, it was stupid. Stupid led to crazy and crazy led to drama. “Who’s gonna train him?”

  That smirk grew wider, more sinister and manipulative and I felt my stomach turn a little. No. Just seriously, no. I squinted and then shook my head, since there was nothing I could really do. When big daddy boss man MinJun made a decision, it was a done deal. Of course, I broke first, sighed in defeat and clenched my fists. “I want two hundred for every day I have to spend with him.”

   “Done.” I hated when he gave in to my demands without a fight. He knew it. Again, his arm was around my shoulder and he turned to the guy at the bar. “Wooyoung-ah!” The kid looked up and MinJun waved him over. Wooyoung ran up like a puppy being called to his owner and I murmured under my breath.

   “Dammit, Jun, is he even legal?”

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, I am so excited to finally post this, seriously. So how'd you guys like the first chapter?
There is so much more to come so I won't be able to answer everyone's questions, just saying. But I promise answeres will come with more updates. I love you guys! I have to get back to finishing my Unreal 2PM Challenge fic now.
2PM Authors hwaiting!