It would be completely true to say that Yixing found himself doing this because he loved music. He still did. But it was also completely true to say that this was nothing to do with music now.

It was coming up to his 2nd year working at Attracktion- 1 year and 8 months to be more precise, but in a place like that, time barely had any relevance at all. A group swaggering into the joint at 10 may stumble out at 4 when the lights and it could feel like they'd been there only 20 minutes. They don't come for the music- that's a given. In fairness, Yixing's set usually only started at 1 or 2, by which point the people could barely hear the music, let alone feel it in place of the skin-to-skin contact flowering between the bodies on the dancefloor. It was a bit of a shame in his opinion, for a name like Attracktion not to focus a bit more on music, it being in the title and all, but who was he to be a snob; at the end of the long and strobe-lit night it was what it was- a club.

Deliberately he doesn't play the tunes he adores. It was after the he got his first "boo" from some sad soul who was obviously listening instead of getting some, that he realised he was playing for an audience, not himself. In retrospect, that made his job easier- he didn't need to polish his personal records and make sure they weren't too scratched for their sleeves, he could bung anything from the Attracktion collection on the decks and have competitions with himself to see how beat up he could get them by the end of the night. It didn't matter if they were broken by the morning; like the patrons that came to the club, the vinyls all sounded the same.

Yixing didn't have many vinyls, he meant to expand his collection... he vaguely remembered his neighbour putting a post on Facebook about some vintage Stevie Wonder recor-

His train of thought was emergency stopped by the large black backpack slammed down on the table in front of him. The fluorescent strip lights overhead flickered a little. . It was Friday night. 

He was here. 

"Good morning, Zhang."
He checked his watch. It had just gone midnight. Yixing really needed a fairy godmother and a pumpkin coach to take him away from this situation.
"And to you, Chanyeol." he tried not to sound bitter, but Chanyeol snorted at him anyway.
"Oh, yeah, buddy-" he clapped a hand on Yixing's shoulder, which he tensed immediately. Urgh.
"I'm not sure if you'll be needing to go on tonight, I meant to pass the message on- the crowd got pretty hyped when they saw I was headlining so.... I think a warm up act would only cool them down really...you know how it is around here buddy."
'I'm not your ing buddy.' Yixing's head muttered.
But he did know how it worked around here. 
"But it's chill- I'll buy you something from the bar afterwards- you strike me as a... On The Beach kind of guy?.." Chanyeol clapped him on the back again with a wink and he felt like he was going to physically vomit. Park Chanyeol was disgusting. But by Guetta was he talented. His mixes were just enough to blur the lines between matrimony and anonymity on the court of dance floor, and he was great at getting the clubbers to actually listen. When Chanyeol was up, the euphoria he gave the air that the masses gasped to breathe in sloppy-handed exchanges in the stuffy club corners almost made it seem like a normal nightclub. And he was right; seeing his name slicked curly, crimson and cursive at the head of the most recent round of Attracktion's promotion posters would definitely have lured a few people through the doors, and definitely have added a few numbers to the club's bank balance at the end of the month. Didn't stop him from being a though. 

Shrugging off his ankle-length 'gangsta' parka with the grace of a bird soaring on its wings, Chanyeol was left with the outfit of a simple black dress shirt open over a white vest reflected in the grimy backstage mirror. A slick of fingers through his hair was enough grooming, and off he strode straight from the green room up to the DJ podium at the front of the stage. If he didn't try his best to think kind thoughts, Yixing would have torched his ugly parka there and then. How fine was the line between casual rivalry and jealousy- and was Yixing really the one to draw it? He sank down in the pleather armchair and put his hat over his face. He was here now, even if he wasn't playing tonight it wouldn't hurt anyone to take a quick na-

"AHHh, who plays music so loud at this time of night?! There are people trying to ing sleep you know-" a voice addressed the empty backstage with a shout that was quickly smothered by the screams of the crowd a thin wall away.
His hat was whipped away from it's shading spot over his face and tossed onto the collapsed sofa on the other side of the room. Yixing looked up and scowled. Jongdae's face was in perfect position to block out the harsh overhead light. It almost gave him a halo. And that thought almost made Yixing burst out laughing.
"Wow. In the nicest way possible... you look like death."  
"Cheers." Yixing gripped the hand offered out to him and was pulled to his feet.
"If it makes you feel any less offensive, I feel like death." Yixing said, rubbing his neck where the armchair had cricked it at an angle- to be honest Attracktion didn't really buy furniture for comfort- as long as it was easily wipe-cleanable and didn't retain the smell of strawberry-scented lube it ticked all the boxes needed.

Jongdae scrunched up his lips before letting them curve back to normal. 
"What's up? If some 's booed you again I'll throw them out-"
Yixing shot him a look.
"Well I'll... give them to the bouncers..."
"No one's booed me Jongdae... and no-one will tonight- my set's been cancelled-"
"BULL. Who have they got instead I hope it's not that PCY knob his mixes make my ears feel like they're being dragged down a gravelly blackboard-"
Yixing was the one to interrupt this time, but silently, with a nod. Jongdae groaned.
"To be fair, your music tastes aren't exactly common club tunes, Jongdae- I'm pretty sure noone's ever ed to Mozart in a dark corner with at least 200 others in the room."
"You'd be surprised.." Jongdae quipped back with a chuckle. He straightened his bow tie before taking it off. He sighed.

Jongdae worked two jobs at Attracktion. He'd just finished up his shift as doorman for the night. That was part of the reason his tux was coming off. When Yixing looked back 30 seconds later, Jongdae being the club-renowned master of quick-changes was already dressed in a suit identical to the one now hanging up. But as he turned his body around the sound of Velcro was unmistakable. And this suit was designed to come off as quickly as it could be put on- if not, quicker.

"I think we both need a drink."
"I couldn't agree more."

"I think maybe this wasn't such a good idea." Jongdae nibbled on his lip as Yixing sank into his second Tequila Sunrise. The bar was a great place for a mediocre drink, but it also doubled up as a great place to view the stage and feel the beats spill from the DJ decks, trickle through the floor and all the way up the neck of your drinks glass. As with every night he was here, Chanyeol was killin' it. The crowd heaved with the bassline and Yixing's stomach heaved with not-quite-envy.
Even so, Jongdae had to cut his good-friend duties short. 
"Right, I know this isn't exactly the best time for you mate, but I'm due on stage in tee minus 30 seconds, so seize the night- you're in the perfect location after all..." he quirked his eyebrow and grinned- the Jongdae signature. Yixing lifted his head to greet the two air kisses given to the sides of his cheeks- apparently he gave Jongdae luck before performances. But if he was so damn lucky, then why was this evening turning into one floating turd after another?
The moment he swayed onto the podium, even still fully clothed, the nearby crowd erupted into screams and whistles. With a blow of a kiss and a flick of his wrist, he launched hip-first into his routine.
Jongdae always went down well. Yixing chuckled. 

Then, turning to the main stage, he choked.

Chanyeol was now controlling the decks with his bare feet, standing above the pit of humming figures and chanting "SAY MY NAMEEEEE" while being half interrupted by erratic volume jumps. Of course, he was playing his title track, the monotonous droll that brought him to mainstream fame and jetted him first class out of Seoul to wherever the mecha music money's at. '5 Letters' spent 2 weeks at the top of the Korean dance music charts, and even a week in the top 10 club music billboard in America, as well as a further fortnight being blasted from every small-name supermarket or bar Yixing and Jongdae visited. '5 Letters' being DJ PCY, his name, as opposed to A , his nature. Damn, Yixing was almost as salty as the Margarita he just ordered: it was just as well Jongdae kept him in check. Besides, the crowd were loving it. 

But Chanyeol perhaps... not so much? Yixing looked back at where he was, toe-stepping between the decks- his overshirt was long discarded and his vest was sweatily plastered to his chest in the same fashion as his chestnut hair to his forehead. His eyes were bulging and his jaw was slack to accommodate his heavy panting. Something wasn't quite right. 

Yixing straightened up his back as a pea-green drink, salted and limed, slid across the mahogany bar and into his vision. He span on the bar stool to face the bartender.
"Your Margarita, 'Xing- in your favourite glass, as always." Yixing chuckled as he took his first sip; Minseok was too well-meaning to be hated due to his cheesiness. His eyes stayed on Yixing as he drained his glass and his lips to clear the salty tang, and he shook his cocktail shaker to the beat of the bass- there was no one to show off to with fancy rhythms- Yixing sat alone at the bar feeling older than ever: he could practically feel his hair turning grey. his finger and collecting the remaining salt from the glass rim he hoped would shock his tongue and hair back to honey-blonde. He shuddered a little at the bitterness being thumped through him by the steady hammer of the club beat.
"You okay?.." Minseok asked, his caterpillar brow raising as he threw the shaker behind him and caught it with the other hand; no need to look with his level of skill. 
"I'm fine.." Yixing began, "But do you see Chanyeol?.. he's acting larger than life.. but like, more than he normally does... it's weird man..  I've never"- he suppressed a hiccup-"seen him quite like this before-"
"Ah, that would be my fault."

Chanyeol opened and emptied a 2 litre bottle of water over his head and was peeling his vest away from his chest to try and ventilate himself, all while grinning and whooping along with the crowd. He was still standing on the decks.

"wHAT-" Yixing almost bent over the bar slinky-style in surprise.
"Shhh... it's not that bad, Xing, earlier, he asked for his coffee backstage; decaf, an ungodly amount of creamer, how his system puts up with so much sugar I have no idea-"
"Get tthe pointe-" Yixing slurred slightly.
"sHhh..." Minseok put a finger to his lips. "Anyway, I told him that we were out of decaf, we only had full-caf or nothing, and he said if I didn't get him his coffee he'd get me fired and, in his own beautiful words, 'use my eyebrows as damn coffee filters'. You tell me what the I was supposed to do, Yixing- all the coffee shops were closed by that time, and I spend more money on my eyebrows than I do my rent. Plus, he was being a prize-, who did he think he was, the President of The United States or something? So-"
"SSo y'gave him caffeine in his decaf?"
"Yeah-"
"I don't think his tummy likes it very much Minseokkie.."

They both turned to face the stage. Chanyeol's face was, as expected, as green as Yixing's Margarita, and he squinted while throwing out rainbow handfuls of condoms into the crowd. For a second he stopped and swayed, much like a tower, before a haze set over his face and he whispered into his mouth mic:
"Ladies and expeshully gentlemen... I think I need to sleep.." the whisper harshing through the musty air before being swallowed by the still pulsating music, he crumpled, albeit gracefully, off the table and onto the floor, a steady stream of wrapped coloured squares spilling into the audience.

The crowd around barely noticed his absence- too busy noticing the absence of space between their anatomies, but a small party of 4 skinny guys parted the Red Sea of endorphins disguised as adults to reach the stage front. Within 3 seconds, they'd assembled into a foothold and launched the smallest guy, ashy blonde and adorned with more glow stick jewellery than a group of spring breakers, onto the stage, joining the sound tech man at Chanyeol's feet. He turned his face towards the attentionless audience and bent towards Chanyeol's face before speaking his mouth mic:
"It's okay everybody- I know CPR!" he winked his expertly smoky-lined eye and, obviously having been taught a different First Aid to Yixing, went directly to the kiss of life. Although Yixing didn't remember it ever involving tongue.
It worked though, and Chanyeol sat bolt upright and dazed, before being led off stage by the hand by the enigmatic glowstick doctor, giving a final sleepy wave at the audience.

Minseok's jaw dropped open. Yixing just about managed to keep his closed. 
"I think I need a drink." Minseok said, slamming a glass down, before deciding better and replacing it with a full bottle. Yixing smiled until he felt a hand on his shoulder. 

"Yixing. You've seen the problem. You're the solution. Go, be free..." Yixing wasn't sure if sharp-suited, hair-slicked Manager Junmyeon was a drunk hallucination, or an actual entity, but he wasn't going to second guess the angel arm gesturing towards the now-empty DJ decks.

He hopped off the bar stool and broke into a sobering run, running through the back-pat from Junmyeon, the 'gO ON' from Minseok and the façade-breaking wolf whistle from Jongdae's podium. He took the stairs to backstage two at a time, and by the time he ran out onstage he was sheened with sweat. But hell, wasn't everyone in this damn place?

The decks, despite their obvious abuse from Chanyeol's size-ridiculous clown feet, were in good condition, and...perfect. The setting they were on enabled the optimum easy mix. And he knew exactly what he was playing. He fished a dusty record out from the storage space under the decks and slipped off the sleeve. He knew this had been a good boot-fair purchase. Placing the vinyl parallel on the decks to Chanyeol's still-playing, gold-plated '5 Letters' record, Yixing switched on the mic he'd had clipped to him since before he heard the earlier news that didn't matter anymore. "This mix I'd like to dedicate to a special friend-"
He was interrupted by loud and y whistles from the listening mass, and giggled himself- they obviously took his meaning of 'special friend' and rolled with it. 

And without hesitation, he spun Mozart's #40 Symphony, syncopating it with the thick, regular beats from Chanyeol's name-maker. He'd taken something alright, and made it interstellar.

The crowd moved like a liquid, loved it, and screamed for more, although Yixing remembered they may not be screaming that for him exclusively. He didn't mind- he was having the time of his life.

His eyes fell upon Jongdae on the podium, jumping up and down, 100,000 won notes rustling in his silver shorts and a smile the size of California curving on his face. He blew Yixing a kiss before returning to his routine with an wiggle, and dropping as if he'd just found a golden ticket on the floor. 

He scratched away until 4 in the morning, when the lights and a sour looking lady picked up the used condoms and disinfected everything in sight. 

Jongdae and Minseok shrugged on their jackets and checked out the window. It was summer, so the sun rose earlier and earlier these days, but this time of morning was still bitter cold. Yixing grabbed his hoodie out his locker, before tripping over Chanyeol's parka on the way out. He'd leave the cleaning lady to burn it or sell it, anything to get the ugly polyester heap off the green room floor. 
"Junmyeon's going to throw a fit when he has to deal with what happened tonight. Chanyeol'll be lucky if he ever walks into this part of Seoul without being chased off by our bouncers, I swear-" Jongdae shivered, zipping up his jacket.
"Thank god that's not our problem." Minseok followed. "Come on, let's get some breakfast- the 24 hour Starbucks down the road's got the most GORGEOUS bacon rolls-"
"I thought you said all the coffee shops were closed when Chanyeol asked for decaf-"
"Sssshhh...." Minseok hushed him with his finger again before sticking both hand in his pockets. "I guess I forgot about this one-" he said with a chuckle.

Yixing had at least been right about one thing from the beginning- not a soul in Seoul had booed him that night.