Chanyeol always knew that one day his gambling would come back to bite him in the . He just never expected it would be while he was in the shower.

“Humans essentially have eight vital areas,” the intruder said, ticking off each one on long beautiful fingers. “Liver, lungs, spine, Clavicle Vein, Jugular Vein, brain, kidneys, and my favorite, the heart. Hit any one of them with a bullet and you’ll bleed out faster than you have time to pray to god.

“As you can see….I’m a very accurate shot, and with all the places I’ve just hit you, it’s probably hard for you to think straight. So today I won’t go through my usual routine, because I know you’re already about to piss your pants…or your floor. I’ll just make this short and sweet.

“You give me what you owe. 1,000,000,000 won. Twenty percent interest. By this Friday. Or. You can get a good security system. Because the next time I have to come out here and show your rat who’s in charge and who you’re dealing with…I won’t be using a paintball gun.”

Chanyeol could hardly think as he collapsed on the floor, as the day he was born, water washing away the hard stains of the red paint. The beautiful man with the shining black hair walked up to him then, slinging his weapon over his shoulder and pressing an expensive looking leather shoe hard against his throat. Chanyeol choked on the water streaming into his gaping mouth.

“If you understand me then bat your pretty little eyelashes twice.”

With all the fear in the world he blinked his eyes rapidly, and with a confident smile the man lifted his foot.

“Good.” He flicked a business card down with a wink, watching it float to the bathroom floor.

And on a turn of his heel the man was out the door, leaving Chanyeol sputtering and afraid on the cold tile.

---

“What the hell happened to you?”

Chanyeol slammed his already aching head down over the bar, and Sehun slapped his ragged dishcloth over his shoulder. No one was here at this time of day anyway, so they wouldn’t care if the counter was messy a little while longer.

“This is it, Sehun. I’m serious. This is the end of me.”

“Again. What happened?”

Chanyeol lifted his head up and Sehun saw the marks he’d already noticed when his friend walked in, large purple welts on his throat and forehead. His friend’s hands were shaking and he sputtered incoherently. Chanyeol was weird normally. But in all their years of friendship Sehun had never seen him like this.

So with a sigh he poured the man some Maker’s Mark whiskey, on the rocks.

“I won’t charge you for this one,” he said with a wink as he slid the glass across the counter. “Or I guess you can pay me later.”

Chanyeol finally regained his mouth when the glass reached his hands. “Oh great. More debt.”

“What do you mean ‘more debt’?” he asked with a frown. He looked quickly around the bar, even though he knew Chanyeol was his only patron.  He dropped his voice to a whisper anyway and leaned in closely. “I thought you were paid off.”

“I mean more debt. A guy came to my house, Hun. He shot me with a goddamn paintball gun and told me that if I don’t pay him by tomorrow he’s coming back with something real.” He lifted his t-shirt up then, revealing more welts, each expertly placed on his vitals.

Sehun couldn’t believe it and slammed his fist down hard on the wood bar. “Dammit, Chanyeol, you said you had everything under control!”

“Well I ing lied okay!?” he ran a hand through his hair, looking more crazed than ever. “I thought I did. I was gunna pay up when I won big. But first I had to get another loan-“

“!” Sehun cried, and for a moment he actually had to turn away from the sad man in front of him. He buried his face in his hands and rubbed his eyes. “God dammit I told you to be careful. You know what happened to me.”

“I know.”

“I told you, pay up before you borrow more.”

“I know.”

“Then why didn’t you ing listen!?”

“I don’t know, okay!? It all got out of control so ing fast! It was just a little at first but I wasn’t really paying attention to how much I was losing. I’ve been so busy with work lately I hardly had time to even go down to the track! I never ing thought it was this bad!”

He looked back after a pause. “…How bad is it anyway?”

Chanyeol sighed heavily. “1,000,000,000, with twenty percent interest.”

Sehun leaned back down on the counter, resting his head in his arms. “Yeol…” he finally began, but he didn’t know where to go from there.

“I’ve only got about a quarter of that…maybe.”

“What about your parents?”

“They’re on some church revival in India right now, helping some poor people in the slums. Can’t get ahold of them. And I realized that even if I did what the am I supposed to say? I’m addicted to gambling and it finally caught up with me? Your perfect little boy isn’t so perfect?”

“That’s really what matters to you right now? Your life is on the line!”

“Well it does matter, believe it or not.”

“…Well what about Yoora?”

“Forget about it. She’s got a deadbeat husband and three kids to look out for. There’s no way. Sehun….What about-”

“Please, don’t even ask, Yeol. I want to help you. I do. I really do, dammit. But I’m already under as is. They’re collecting next week. And I have to think about my mom.”

Sehun’s mom had been in the hospital for a long while now, diagnosed with pancreatic cancer a little too late in the game. The only thing helping her hold on now were the radiation treatments he paid for when he could. But those were rare and sporadic. She wouldn’t have long and he’d made his peace with that. He just wanted her to be as comfortable as possible before she went.

And what with the protection money he had to pay so gangs wouldn’t come shoot up the place, he hardly had money for rent, let alone three-quarters of a billion won for a friend’s racing debts.

“Right,” Chanyeol finally said. Both fell into a stupor then and Sehun silently poured them both some more. But before he did he switched to the expensive stuff. This could be their last drink together, might as well go out with a little bang.

When Chanyeol was satisfactorily drunk, swinging off his barstool, he finally began to speak again.

“Should I….should I just run away?” he slurred. “Should I go to Mexico?”

“It’s not gunna work,” hiccupped back Sehun, sloppily wiping his lips. He hadn’t meant to get so plastered, but he was depressed, dammit. His limbs were heavy but luckily his brain was still working. “My uncle did the same thing a few years back. They got him almost right away. Sent us his hands in a box. Funny how I still got involved in all this anyway…But….save that idea.”

“Why?”

“You gotta go beg first. Beg them to give you more time. You gotta try, Yeol.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“That’s when you run.”

Chanyeol took the business card from his pocket, looking wearily down at the address and wondering if he was really about to do what he thought he was.

Sehun took one look at the card and snorted, a strange bubble of laughter in the tense moment.

“What?” Chanyeol asked with irritation.

“I know it’s not funny but I’m a little drunk and…it’s actually a little funny. Who exactly did you say you borrowed from?”

“I never said, and you wouldn’t know him. Just some bookie who works for the guy who owns this club.”

Sehun snorted again and Chanyeol gave him another look. “I know I know. It’s just…. The club Chanyeol….on the card…” Snort. “You know…It’s the ing Banana Boat.”

“The WHAT?”

---

With drunken courage he stepped out of the cab onto the black asphalt, still wet with the late summer night’s rain. But the realization of what he was about to do was instantly sobering. The club was located in the warehouse district and it couldn’t have been odder in its surroundings. The flashing purple neon sign read ‘XOXO,’ the real name of the club, but the strange color of the building seemed to be what had given it its unfortunate nickname. Aside from the bright yellow paint job, even apparent in the dark, the line outside the club was mostly men, some looking immensely nervous and suspicious, like they weren’t supposed to be there.

He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to wait in line or not, because it seemed like an urgent matter (at least to him). So he went directly up to the large bouncer at the front of the line, earning a few disapproving looks and shouts from those in the queue.

He handed him the card. “I’m here to see the owner!” he yelled over the music, vibrating through his chest.

As soon as the man saw the paper he began nodding and signaled another large man to take over the line. “Follow me,” he said gruffly, and pulled the curtain aside, leading Chanyeol into the club in full swing and packed with people, even early in the morning. If the outside had seemed weird it was only because the inside was just as strange.

Chanyeol almost cried when he realized it was a gay strip club. The real innuendo behind the nickname ‘Banana Boat.’

As soon as he saw his first banana hammock thong on a passing waiter his hands shot up to his eyes and he blindly followed the bouncer through the cracks in his fingers. What had he actually gotten himself into? he thought miserably. He was raised to be slightly homophobic, and the half- dancers and expectant whooping middle-aged men did nothing for his already shattered nerves.

He weaved haphazardly through people and chairs, avoiding the half- servers like the plague. But soon enough the bouncer had left him behind and he was lost in a sea of testosterone, all focused on the scantily dressed dancers on the two wing catwalks around center stage.

He got even more freaked out when the lights dimmed suddenly, sending the room into a pitch black lull. He almost screeched when skin from someone passing brushed his arm. But before he had time to vocalize, the lights on the main stage lit up and the music began bumping harder than before.

The men began to hoot and holler and with misery he realized that this must be the main act of the night. His head began to swivel around desperately, searching for the big man he’d been following but to no avail.

However, his attention was caught otherwise as the lights focused center stage. A small male all in leather strut onto the stage to the beat with much more sass than any one person should have been allowed. He watched mesmerized as the beautiful man began to dance, much to the excitement of every other male in the bar. His hips swayed naturally rhythmic, and his thighs, full and plump, were strangely intoxicating even covered through his black pants. He found himself suddenly very confused at how much he was looking.

Much to Chanyeol’s delight the man didn’t strip, but he still managed to entice the crowd none the less, dipping down low and crawling around the stage. He was like a male dominatrix, even once lightly slapping a man’ who got too close and tried to touch him. But the crowd loved it anyway and threw bill after bill at him, the victim enjoying it the most.

At some point, even though he’d tried not to give in, his hands had come down from his face and he was staring full on at the dancer. After a while the dancer took notice of him and began staring back. For some reason, he thought, this man seemed strangely familiar. Only when the man himself gave a wink did Chanyeol realize who it was.

It’s the same goddamn bastard who shot me! he screamed in his head as the wink turned into a knowing smile and the dancer sauntered forward towards him.

He gaped open mouthed for a moment as the man made his sensual approach, hopelessly staring, but in a flash he was being choked back by the collar of his shirt and pulled from the room. Apparently the bouncer had come back to find him.

He dragged Chanyeol off the main floor and through a maze of concrete hallways, finally stopping at two large oak double doors at the end. With a flourish the giant man literally threw Chanyeol into the room. He landed in a heap on the floor.

“You should know better, but I’m just gunna say it. Don’t touch anything, and wait here.”

With the strange childlike warning the man left him there, closing the doors behind him.

Chanyeol wondered what he was supposed to be doing. The room was unoccupied, save for him, and covered wall to wall in all sorts of strange knickknacks. The desk and chairs were very regular, solid oak with red velvet lining, and situated in the center of the room. But the walls and shelves were another story. Each side ranged differently. There was everything from adorable toy figurines to deadly martial arts equipment, language dictionaries and other thick volumes to celebrity trash magazines, a goldfish in a tank to an ornately stuffed deer head above the doors. The desk itself was littered with papers and all kinds of strange objects, mostly more toys. He pretended he didn’t see the riding crop sitting off to the side. It looked much too used.

Tentatively he sat in the chair facing away from the door. He folded his hands in his lap to calm himself, but his feet tapped the floor impatiently and his thumbs twiddled faster with each passing second until nausea threatened to raise bile in his throat.

Finally the doors burst open behind him. His feet snapped together and he sat up straight, heart pounding hard in his ears, louder than the gulp he swallowed.

The man who sat down in the chair in front of him was nothing like he’d expected to see. But that was probably because he’d just seen him entertaining men on stage. The beautiful dancer from before flipped black fringe from his eyes, still managing to look flawless though sweat sheen brightly on his forehead. His dark eyes glistened under even da