I decided to switch it up a bit, and I woke up a bit early. Once I was ready to go, I walked down the hallway to VIXX’s main apartment door. After contemplating knocking, I decided against it, leaning against the adjacent wall instead.

“Have a good day, Wonsik!” I heard N’s voice as the door cracked open and Ravi slipped out.

“Aww,” I whined, causing Ravi to jump in surprise.

He looked at me with wide eyes, “Mira!”

Ignoring his near heart attack, I continued to pout, “So far everyone’s given me their real names at the end of our day together, but N just ruined it for us!”

After a moment of furrowed brows, Ravi relaxed and laughed, “Eh, I should have told you by now, anyway.” He motioned for me to follow him as he walked down the hall.

“You’re not going to ask for mine?” I was admittedly a little surprised, but Ravi kept walking as he looked over his shoulder.

“It’s cute that you think I don’t know it already,” he said casually as he reached the stairwell, “but if you want proper introductions, we can do that Miss Halley Browne.” Cheeky bugger. I couldn’t help but grin as we went downstairs together. “You don’t have my last name, though,” he pointed out as we reached the studio lobby.

I thought for a moment, “Well statistically I should just guess Kim, right?”

He stopped and narrowed his eyes at me, “Dammit,” he grumbled.

“Okay, introduction complete!” I pumped my fist in victory and I could hear Wonsik laugh behind me. “You know,” I turned to face him, “I actually like Ravi, it suits you.”

He gave me a little crooked smile, “Good,” he spoke as he gestured to the many studio doors, “it means I chose well.”

I pointed to the piano studio and we made our way inside. “I’ll be honest, Ravi,” I said with a sigh, “I don’t have a whole day’s worth of stuff planned for you.”

The disappointed look on his face was priceless, but then he lit up as if he got a brilliant idea, “Then maybe I can teach you a thing or two.”

My gut instinct was to sass him about that, but I was genuinely excited at the prospect, “Alright then,” I gestured to the chair by the piano, “then let’s get this over with so I can get a master class from Kim Wonsik himself.” Once I settled at the piano bench and organized all of my papers, I looked at him expectantly, “Alright, which of your raps is your favorite?”

A look of embarrassment crossed his face for a moment and he looked away from me, propping up his head with his hand as he mumbled, “Actually, On and On is my favorite.” He caught sight of my expression and sighed, “You were expecting Voodoo Doll, weren’t you?”

“Honestly,” I paused, “yeah,” I admitted. It was his most impressive by far, but I did ask for his favorite, so I took a moment to think back to that song. “That was the one where you had bright orange hair, right?”

Finally he relaxed as he laughed, “Yeah.”

Something crossed my mind then, “Before that you had bright red for Rock Ur Body, and then Hyde it was white.”

“Yeah, yeah, and it was black for Voodoo, and now it’s blue,” he actually sounded sad about it.

“What’s wrong?”

He looked at me sadly, “I think I have to cut it short now,” he sighed, “Too much extreme colors has damaged it.”

“Let me see,” I gestured for him to scoot closer. Once he obliged, I reached out and combed through his hair. It was soft near the roots, but as I went along, it began to feel brittle and coarse. “You’re right.”

But his eyes had closed and he sighed contentedly. I gave him a swift flick to the forehead, “Hey!” he exclaimed, “It felt nice, is all,” he pouted again.

“We’re getting off track, see if you can find the instrumental for On and On. We’ll start out with you rapping it as you normally would.”

He deftly took my music player and hooked it up, going so far as to scroll to the right part of the song. As soon as he began, I could see how it could be his favorite. The beat of the song changes just for him as he gets gradually more aggressive as the rap continues. It was only twenty seconds or so, but it did the job. When he was done, he paused the track and simply looked at me patiently.

“Not as cool as Voodoo, but very nice,” I admitted reluctantly, winning me a smirk from Ravi. “Now, try repeating it without the backing track.”

He surprisingly pulled it off flawlessly with no indication of a beat. His face was nothing short of smug when he was done. “Fine. Now I’ll actually challenge you,” I leaned forward a bit towards him, “I’m going to be your metronome. Stay on beat, no matter how fast or slow I go, got it?” I snapped my fingers to demonstrate.

After a moment’s hesitation with narrowed eyes, he nodded, “Okay, let’s try it.”

It was a disaster. We both broke into giggles before we even made it halfway, “This is hard,” I admitted, “I don’t expect you to get it right away.”

His face grew serious, “I’m not giving up, let’s go again.”

We did go again. In fact it took us several tries before he got close to keeping up with me. But finally, he was starting to nail it. “Very good,” I said victoriously, relaxing.

He sighed heavily, slumping forward, “Ugh,” he groaned, “that .”

“Practice it with N sometimes and you’ll be a beat master,” I said with a laugh. “At least you see where I was getting at.”

A sly look suddenly appeared in his eyes, “Your turn,” he said simply.

“What?”

“You heard me. You’ve heard me do this rap enough times to know it by heart, right?”

I eyed him suspiciously, “Yes,” I wasn’t liking where this was going.

He snapped his fingers once, “Ready, master Mira?”

I sighed, “Fine.”

It wasn’t a fair comparison. I had done this exercise tons of times and I had just heard him do the exact same thing. I didn’t quite nail it, but I certainly did better than his first several attempts. When I was done, he let his head hang on the back of the chair, “Not fair!” he cried.

With a shrug, I suppressed a chuckle, “Sorry Ravi.”

With another groan, he sat up properly, “Okay, I guess it’s time for me to teach you.”

“And what will I be learning today?”

“Dance,” he said simply, standing and retrieving a tablet from the main lobby. “Might as well teach you all of our signature moves,” he wiggled his eyebrows at me as he spoke. “But first, scoot over.” I obliged and he took a seat next to me on the hard piano bench. “We have to watch our videos again so we can decide what you need to learn,” he explained happily as he pulled up a playlist on the tablet.

Super Hero was a song that I didn’t like on my first listen, but it definitely grew on me. Except the intro, “Ravi,” I said once it was over. “I know I said I would leave you alone about the English thing,” he groaned loudly, but I continued to speak over him, “but you have GOT to practice for the future. This intro makes me cringe,” He pouted at me, but I didn’t budge, “Promise me,” I urged.

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes, “I’ll practice,” he barely mumbled. Clearly trying to change the subject, he perked up, “Well you have to learn that chorus dance. Next,” he scrolled to Rock Ur Body, definitely not one of my favorites. However… “That red hair was a good look for you, Ravi,” I said offhandedly after the intro.

“Really?” he asked, suddenly very interested.

I nodded, “You and Leo both look way better in this one.”

He smirked, “I thought you’d be all about Leo’s mesh shirt in Super Hero.”

I gave him a strange look, “It didn’t match the video’s overall aesthetic.”

Continuing to smirk, he eyed me carefully, “Ever the professional.” He paused for a moment, “I guess there’s no signature dance to this one that you wouldn’t be able to do right now.” He skipped to On and On, chronologically the next video, “Since you got on the topic of aesthetics, what did you think of this one?” he asked as the song played.

“Those contacts did not suit Hongbin, and I think everyone’s hair was a little overdone,” my voice was unmistakably unimpressed, “I totally dig those light up glasses though.”

Ravi laughed at this, “Everyone had fun with those.”

“Is that poor Hyukkie holding you on his back before you rap?”

“Oh don’t poor Hyukkie me,” he scoffed, “We needed Leo and Hongbin’s strength to pull him up, but Ken and N are too short.”

“I appreciate the theatrics of your videos, but I wish I could see the choreography better.”

“Actually,” he said with a grin, “you sat in on our Eternity dance video, right?”

“Oh yeah. Do you have those for your other videos?”

He nodded happily, “We’ll watch them next, but first I need you to superficially judge us on our video looks.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at his comment, “Well you asked for it. Literally.” As soon as Hyde started, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut, “What was with that haircut, Ravi?”

“Not my choice!” he said defensively.

“And Leo’s hair,” I sighed, “a tragedy.”

“You’d be surprised how many fans wish he’d grow it out again.”

“Your fans are weird.”

“This dance is too easy for you, too,” he said after the second rendition of the chorus, skipping to the next song.

“Oh I love this video!” I exclaimed as GR8U started. “And that hat is fantastic, and that style for that hair color worked way better.”

“Hyukkie bleached his hair, too,” Ravi nudged me playfully.

I shook my head, “It’s cute, but it would be better if he were wearing black instead of white.”

“This was super fun to film,” Ravi reminisced as the image of him smashing the TV came on.

And finally, the clean version of Voodoo Doll came on, and I had to pause it after the intro, “Sorry Ravi, I need to watch that again.”

“Ken’s lift?” he asked smugly.

“No,” I said simply as I reset it, “You.”

He was silenced by my simple statement, looking at me as if I had grown an extra limb, “What?”

“Your English is horrible, but that marionette dance and look you give the camera,” I stopped and simply made a guttural noise before glancing to him with a little smirk.

His laughter was clearly in disbelief, “What?” he said again.

“It’s hot,” I said defensively, “as much as this is totally Ken’s song, you steal the show on the visual side of things.” It was a perfectly reasonable thing to say, but he still seemed totally floored by the idea, as if the possibility of me being attracted to him was blasphemous. “Just wait, right when you start your rap is even better,” I said eagerly as the song continued.

Ravi wasn’t watching the video, but simply stared at me. I opted to ignore him until the part in question was about to start. I tugged on his sleeve and he shook his head quickly to clear his head, “Yeah, yeah, I’m watching.”

“When you take that skull stick thing, and it cuts to you with your body paint, that part,” I pointed at the screen as if he would miss it, “Good job,” I said simply, winking at him.

I heard him sigh slowly, running his hand through his hair. He looked at me with a sort of sad longing in his eyes that startled me. “Thanks,” he said quietly. He shook his head slowly, “If it weren’t for…” he stopped and sighed again, “You really derailed this whole thing, didn’t you?” he managed to smile at me again.

I was quiet for a moment as he struggled with himself. I wish I knew what was bothering him so much, but it was clear he wouldn’t tell me even if I asked. I gave a little shrug in response to his question, “Don’t pretend like you didn’t have fun.”

“There’s still one left!” he whined.

“I’m not sure if I want to see the abomination that is your center parted hair,” I teased, taking the opportunity to nudge him as he had done to me earlier.

Finally he smiled, “Fine, we’ll just watch the dance practices, then.”

I enjoyed myself, sitting there with Ravi going through all their choreography videos. They were well done and I liked them for sure, but most of all I enjoyed the comfortable company Ravi provided. Unfortunately we eventually ran out of videos. Except I saw something on the sidebar that wasn’t on the playlist. “Ravi, what’s that?” I pointed.

“Nothing!” he said quickly, trying to scroll past it.

I quickly wrenched the tablet from him and found what I was looking for. “Ravi, this is a Girls’ Generation song,” I stated simply, my eyebrow raised in questioning.

He sighed dramatically, “It was our Christmas present to our fans; we don’t have to watch it.”

“Oh yes we do,” I kept the tablet away from his prying hands as I hit play. Ravi was silent as the video played, and it took everything I had to keep my giggles at bad. “Leo is having none of this, is he?”

“Nope.”

“You and N seem pretty into it, though,” I couldn’t take it and burst into a fit of giggles as the video ended. “That was amazing.”

“Okay, time to actually do something,” Ravi finally hopped up off the bench and offered me his hand. I took it, still laughing, and he pulled me to him. “Dance time.”

Most of VIXX’s ‘signature moves’ were pretty easy to execute, but it was still a lot of fun to have Ravi teach me. He was a patient teacher who wasn’t afraid to step in and correct me when he needed to. Dancing with him was certainly a highlight; I couldn't help but think about how compatible we were as people. “You never know when you might need to win a dance battle,” he teased suddenly during one of our breaks.

“And you think I’d win with this?” I asked incredulously, breaking into the Super Hero chorus dance that was, while fun, not exactly impressive.

“Yes,” he said defensively, but his smile betrayed him. “Alright you,” he said as he reached for me, “time to the lady back home.”

“Hey Ravi,” I said as I took his hand. When he gave me a questioning look I continued, “Thanks for inviting me out here to Korea.”

A little panicked look crossed his face that all but confirmed my suspicions. But then his face looked as if he was in pain for a split second before he sighed, “You’re welcome.”

I stood on my tip toes and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek as a sign of appreciation. A warm smile took over his face as he looked at me, and in his dark eyes I saw signs of genuine affection. Be careful, Halley, I thought to myself. But as I thought more, why should I be careful? I felt so comfortable with Ravi, more so than any of my fake suitors back home. If nothing else, perhaps Ravi could be a true friend, which is something else I never had since joining the industry. With those thoughts consuming me, we made our way back up to my room.

He dropped me off, giving me a playful nudge as he let go of my hand, “See you soon Miss Halley Browne.”

“Likewise, Kim Wonsik,” I gave him a smile and a wave as I closed the door behind me.