“Guys, what’s an otome game?”

            Zelo and Jongup both glanced fearfully at each other from the blatant statement that Daehyun just made. The oldest of the three sat to their left in the back seat of the van waiting patiently for a response from the younger boys who were sharing worrisome stares.

Oh god.

I knew this day would come.

Does he really not know? Should we tell him?

Hyung, no.

               “Why? What’s that?” Zelo asked, playing the innocent card. The long-legged maknae sunk into the car seat, avoiding eye contact with Daehyun to make things less obvious. Luckily for them, the van was moderately noisy;  Yongguk was in the passenger seat, fidgeting with the radio, Youngjae was napping in the seat behind him, and Himchan was on his phone idly chatting with the two in front. Zelo didn’t want such an awkward conversation picked up by the other members.

                “I heard a fan say that at one of the fanmeetings..” The younger boys continued their concerned exchange.

                “Why don’t you look it u-ahhhhh ah!” Zelo quickly pinched Jongup’s side, causing him to falter over his words.

                “What was that?”

                “Nothing, nothing!” Jongup replied through a forced smile, and swatted Zelo’s troublesome hand away.  

                “Hey guys, keep it down, I can barely hear myself think!” Himchan grumbled from the seat in front of them.

                “Sorry,” the three responded in unison. Daehyun disregarded the younger boys’ last comment and returned to leaning against the window. The tension between the two maknaes, however, didn’t leave. Another 5 minutes and the group was finally back at the hotel. Yongguk and their manager got out first, followed by Himchan. Youngjae was nudged awake and nearly dragged out of the van by the two. Jongup and Zelo exited after them, but allowed Daehyun to move on ahead.

                “Well, if anything happens, it’s not our fault,” whispered the older.

                “Definitley not.”

                The six boys gathered into the lobby, made their way to the elevator and arrived at their floor. They split off into pairs by age, as they usually do when they traveled abroad. The two vocals entered their quaint room together; Daehyun immediately plopping onto his bed and a sleepy Youngjae following suit. Excited to be back in the comfort of the bed, Daehyun took the oversized navy colored blanket and began rolling around in it.

                “Ahhaaahaaaaa!” he shouted between the motions.

                “You look like drunken cat,” Youngjae remarked from his side of the room.

                 “Well, you look like a drunk,” Daehyun retorted, his voice muffled by the dense fabric on top of him. Youngjae carelessly tossed one of his pillows at the other singer, which he happened to dodge by a hair. After securing the pillow for himself, Daehyun rolled onto his stomach and rested his head on its plush side. He relaxed himself and remained motionless for some time. After a few minutes, he heard several plastic bags rustling from the bathroom. He slowly opened his eyes and saw Youngjae fussing about with his clothes in his luggage. The younger caught his glance and slowed his pace.

                “I’m going to a few shops down the block with Himchan hyung. Wanna come?”

                “Nah,” Daehyun said after a momentary pause. “I’ll just hang out here. But aren’t you tired? You were sleeping in the van..”

                “Resting,” Youngjae commented sharply, “but I’m fine now, and some walking will do my legs good.” Daehyun was in disbelief, but he wasn’t in the mood to pester him further. The older reached over the bed for his black backpack, took out his phone and began surfing the internet.

                “Well, ok, have fun then,” he said airily. Youngjae took a few things before muttering a, “don’t do anything stupid,” and headed out the door. Once the room was one occupant free, Daehyun let out a heavy sigh.

                What to do.

                 It was late morning and this was a rare free day on the tour. He thought about getting something to eat but the group just had a big meal an hour ago. He could practice for the upcoming concert but he didn’t feel like it. The singer scrolled through the trending articles online, but nothing was interesting. Just then, a thought occurred to him suddenly. He went to the search bar on the default page and delicately typed in otome game. The search brought in a mix of and sites but nothing of a good match. He squinted at the screen.

                Do I have to spell it in Japanese? Or English maybe?

                After a few more experimental searches, he finally got a ton of hits. He tapped on the images section. The phone screen was saturated with colorful artwork of anime-style characters. Finally intrigued, he sat upright on the bed to look at the images closer.

                “Oh my god what is this..” he tried his best to stifle a laugh, but some of the drawings were excessively romantic. And then some. He returned to the web section and clicked on one of the first articles. It was in Korean so he was able to read through the whole thing. The number of odd faces he made only increased as he scrolled down page. As he finished, he chuckled lightly to himself.

                Ok.

Curious, he went to a few more sites and found lists among lists of games. He scrolled through the titles, left and right; it seemed endless. It all dumbfounded him.

                So...girls are into this kind of stuff.

                He wasn’t sure what compelled him to dig deeper into his new findings; he only knew that he couldn’t stop. No one was watching anyway, so what could be the harm? After what seemed like an hour of clicking on links and attempting to read game descriptions, he stumbled upon a rare gem on an app download site.

                They did not.

                He did a double-take to confirm it, and sure enough it was there. It was a B.A.P based otome game. Daehyun promptly dropped the phone into the depths of the bed sheet and rolled on his side. His face was contorted with both hysteria and embarrassment. The singer wanted to laugh, but his body would just not allow him. Just as quickly, he picked up the phone to inspect what he discovered.

                 It was a free fan-made game created by a team of two girls. It was published recently, just within the last week, and so far it only received 300 hits. Daehyun made a pout. There was a part of him that was curious, but another that was deathly afraid of what scenarios were in there. 

                It looks pretty harmful though. Maybe...

                 A logical part of his brain seemed to click because he suddenly stopped himself from tapping on the screen again. It was still technically the company’s phone. He didn’t want to be caught downloading suspicious things. He thought for a bit and came up with a solution. He’d download the game and give it a test-run. Then he’d delete it before anyone finds out.

                Yes. Perfect.

                The singer grinned at his own naive genius. Without a second thought more, he tapped on the screen and proceeded to download the game. He anxiously waited for several minutes, until the device made a loud ping. Startled, he lowered the phone volume and adjusted himself on the bed for more comfort. He pressed on the app icon, which was the matoki icon, except it was pink and had a heart within the mask. The game loading screen then popped up. Paranoid, he took the blanket and draped it over his head and body, hoping it would contain him if he experienced any sudden weird feelings. He expected a lot of them.

                The menu soon came up, which was accompanied by a soft piano version of Coffee Shop. The notion put a nervous smile on his face.

                How cute.

                The game was in English, so it took him some time to navigate around the first menu. Once he got through it, he was directed to a screen with three girl characters. The singer was at first confused, but then he realized he was choosing his player. He decided on a sandy blonde haired girl, since he had the same hair color. Daehyun bit back his lower lip as the actual game started.  

                Aww look at the artwork.

                 His smile widened as he witnessed the six 2-D versions of his band pop up on the screen. The drawings themselves were actually pretty decent; he didn’t deny that he was impressed by whoever created them. Then came the introduction. He tapped the screen repeatedly to get through it as quickly as possible; his grin was beaming. Finally came the cast of characters. Daehyun must have carried an inner mechanism to turn himself into a three-year old, because the second he saw Himchan’s character up-close, he bursted into a laughing fit.

                  ..What did I get myself into?!

                  He squished his cheeks, trying to wring out the embarrassment as he saw his own character. They captured his distinct features, he gave them that. Daehyun partially pulled the blanket over his eyes. It wasn’t even the first 5 minutes in and already he couldn’t handle it. Youngjae’s character was next and he nearly fell off the bed.

                Why does Youngjae looked cuter than me?

                Through the blanket, he pretended to pat the younger singer’s hair, as he tapped the screen to make the text run faster. Once the introduction finished he made a small whine out loud.

Ahhh, this is so embarrassing!..
Maybe I should stop.

               But he didn’t stop. He kept going, despite the ridiculous amount of flustered smiling he was doing. It didn’t even occur to him until three scenes into the game that he hadn’t settled on which of the member’s paths he would pick yet. Himchan was definitely out; if he had that reaction at first sight of him in the game, he would surely not survive picking him. After some thought, he decided to attempt Youngjae’s path for s and giggles of course. As he immersed himself into the new world, the quaint hotel room became occupied with his occasional laughter and his childish antics.

              Daehyun wasn’t an avid gamer like Jongup or Youngjae, so it was difficult to manage the menu screens. Since it was in English, he would often pick responses that caused negative effects. He didn’t know how to save so he would end up starting over completely. Soon, hours passed. He completely lost track of how many games he started. Because of this, he memorized which responses were good and which were bad, that way, he was able to get a little farther each attempt. And each attempt made him antsier than the last.

            Finally, after a few more tries, he got far enough for one of the major scenes to trigger. He was able to get Youngjae’s character and his character alone at a garden. After some brief conversation, the dialogue box mentioned a word Daehyun recognized on the spot: date. The singer dropped his head into the bed and laughed as he kicked his legs around and about. He tapped the screen again.

Why yes, I’d love to. I’d be upset if you didn’t ask me, thank you very much.

              He managed through the next scenes with pure luck. He reached the next major event without any mistakes, and by that time his sides were already numb and his throat was beginning to hurt. The Youngjae character beckoned his to the rooftop where all of the characters resided. It was a night scene, so everything was drawn prettily, with highly contrasted lighting and stars dotted across the sky.

Wow, how romantic.

              The screen went black, and the cutscene was about to trigger. Daehyun bit into his knuckles, anxious to see what would come next. A tiny laugh escaped his mouth as he tapped the screen.

“What are you doing?”

               Daehyun swore he threw the phone straight across the room the second he heard Youngjae’s voice behind him, but thankfully, his hands opted to quickly slide it under the covers instead.

              “WOAH, Youngjae, you need to announce when you’re coming in why didn’t you knock before getting in here you could scare someone to death like me of all people why would you even think of doing that oh my god.” Youngjae stared at the older singer as he spat out the jumbled mix of words at him.

“Did you eat something bad while I was gone?”

“No.”

“Then why are you being so weird? And what were you doing on your phone just now?”

“Nothing.” The older vocalist began sliding his body down on the bed, purposely over the hidden device.

“I see the charger plugged into the wall, didn’t you charge it this morning?”

“Yeah, so?”

 “And it’s dead already??”

“Sooooo?” Daehyun repeated, feeling completely helpless under the other’s nagging.

“Ohhhh, I know what it is,” Youngjae said with a wave of his index finger, as he inched towards the bathroom. “You were looking at bad things, weren’t you?”

“Youngjae,” the older sat up and spun around on the bed, “if I was looking at , you’d know even if you were 1000 miles away.” Youngjae paused at his statement.

               “Hmm. That’s true,” he admitted, much more amused than before. Youngjae’s face cracked into a small smile and Daehyun didn’t want to look because it would remind him of a certain drawing and that would cause him to feel weird things about the other singer. “Well, hurry up and get ready to leave,” Youngjae added, as he walked to the bathroom. “The team wants to go out for dinner but we have to leave early. That way when we return we have time to pack for the flight.”  The bathroom door closed with a light click.

               “Finee,” Daehyun replied with expressive sigh. He tossed himself back into the blanket and fumbled with his phone, obviously distressed over nearly getting caught. His fingers quickly resumed to tapping once again.

                  The following morning, the two maknaes and the two vocalists caught Himchan playing the very same game that Daehyun had. The two younger boys weren’t disappointed that it was Himchan instead of Daehyun they caught, or that it was a B.A.P game he was playing, but the fact that he chose his own path to play.

“See, I told you this would happen,” Zelo whispered to Jongup as everyone exited his room.

“Although, I’m pretty impressed, Himchan’s path was hard to complete..” Jongup hushed back. As they left, Youngjae turned to Daehyun.

“I’m a little confused and weirded out- what just happened?” Daehyun wrapped his arm around his shoulder and patted him gently.

“Oh, it’s nothing. Just forget about it,” the older singer said simply. He then headed back to their room by himself, leaving Youngjae all the more dazed.

After that, Daehyun deleted the game off his phone and never spoke of it again.

A/N: I'M SO SORRY I MADE THIS
Long story short I was messaging a tumblr friend and the scenario of "what would happen if B.A.P played a B.A.P otome game?" came up. 
Also, here's a bonus~

PS: The secret path is Manager Kang