The luxury of sleeping until naturally waking up was something I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. Even when I did slowly open my eyes, I stayed in my bed for a long while before reaching for my phone to check both for any missed messages from home and the time. It seemed the longer I was in Korea, the less I heard from anyone stateside. I did keep in touch with Ian Eastwood, the choreographer who did me the massive favor of sending me the first video draft of Danger. It seemed he took a strong liking to his Korean counterpart and was curious about what I had to say about mine.

It was still surprisingly early in the day. I had a nice day off yesterday with the party shenanigans, but now I was looking forward to getting back to work. Once I gathered all of my usual things, I made my way down the quiet hallway to the now familiar door to VIXX’s apartment. I opted to knock gently in case anyone was still asleep.

The door opened soon after, and it was Ken’s face the peered through this time. A smile instantly crossed his face when he saw me, “Well hello professor!” he greeted.

“Good morning, Jaehwan.”

“I’m going to guess,” he said, tapping his chin dramatically, “you’re looking for Ravi?”

I nodded, “Is he around?”

“Probably still asleep, but come on in,” he opened the door fully and gestured for me to follow him. He was in a simple white shirt and some anime-themed pajama pants.

I hesitated at the threshold of the hallway, “Are you sure it’s okay for me to just come in like this?”

Clearly unfazed, Ken rolled his eyes at me and gestured for me to follow again, “Oh stop, it’s fine.”

I was pretty apprehensive about the whole thing, but I decided to follow him anyway. As we walked down the hallway, I was glad to see the fake blood had been cleaned up off the hardwood floor, but other than that, clearly no cleaning had been done since last night. Stepping over the pillows strewn across the floor, Ken turned around to face me, “We never really gave you a tour last night, did we?” When I shook my head, he frowned, “How rude of us. Well at least you know this room, though it’s not usually covered in posters of lovely ladies,” he started, gesturing to the walls. “I guess this is our common room where we spend most of our time. Over there is our little kitchen,” he waved lazily in the direction of where I had seen Hongbin run off to last night. “Now,” he turned to me, a mischievous look in his eye, “time to show you the rest of the rooms.”

“Aren’t all the other rooms bedrooms?” I peered down the hall at the four closed doors.

“Yup!”

“Uh,” I considered protesting, but Ken would clearly have none of it, so I simply sighed, my shoulders sagging, “Alright,” I conceded. I set my things on the common room coffee table before following Ken.

He opened the first door on the right, and he was surprisingly quiet as he did so. “This is N’s room,” he whispered, “It’s technically also Hyuk’s room, but you never know who else falls asleep in here,” he said with a smirk.

“Really?” I asked incredulously. I knew Korean culture had a very different outlook on male-to-male affection, but having known these guys for over a month now, I was still a little surprised.

“Ravi and I are common offenders,” he stepped into the room, looking around suspiciously, “Ah looks like it’s just Hyukkie today.”

On the one hand, this felt like a giant invasion of privacy, but on the other, I was genuinely curious. I peeked around Ken to find that Hyuk and N were indeed sleeping together on the low bed situated along one of the room’s walls. It was clearly designed to be two single beds that had been pushed together to be one big double bed. . The room was tidy and scantly decorated. “Huh,” I said simply, not really sure what else to say

“What can I say,” Ken said as he turned to me, “Leader-N is a good cuddler.” He slipped past me through the door into the hallway, and I followed closely behind, carefully closing the door behind me. We went directly to the door across from N and Hyuk’s room. “This is just me and Hongbin’s room,” he said casually, opening the door for just a moment before closing it again, “nothing to see here!”

For the split second I was able to see in the room, it was a complete disaster. Clothes everywhere. It appeared as though the same bed layout was used in this room as in N and Hyuk’s room, where Hongbin seemed perfectly content to consume the entire bed. “Does he always sleep like that?” I asked quietly.

Ken groaned, “Yes,” he turned and started down the hall, “It’s not so bad, though. I kick in my sleep.” We reached the next door down, “This is our office, though for sleeping purposes, it’s Leo’s room.”

When the door opened, Ken let me step in first this time, and I hesitantly looked around. There were desks lining the walls sans the wall adjacent to the door. On that wall was a large couch, on which a blonde puff of hair gave away that Leo was, indeed, sleeping there. I took a careful step backward out of the room, lest I risk waking him up. “Why does he sleep in here?” I asked Ken once the door was secured.

He shrugged, “He likes couches, I guess.” We quickly crossed the hall one last time, “This is Ravi and Leo’s room.” Instead of gingerly opening the door as he had with the other three, he practically kicked it open, “WONSIK-AH,” he yelled as he stepped into the room.

Ravi, who had appeared to be sleeping, sat up abruptly in his bed (which was, as expected, set up exactly like the others). He was wearing a baggy black shirt and a beanie, though blue hair still peaked out around the edges. What as strange, however, was seeing him without his signature eyeliner. There were still traces of it from the day before, but he looked quite a bit younger without it. He was clearly disoriented, “What, what?” he asked in a panic.

“YOUR LADY HAS ARRIVED!” Ken sang loudly into the room.

“Mira is here?” Ravi asked sleepily, clearly unaware that by ‘here’ he meant RIGHT here.

“Hi Ravi,” I said timidly.

Shaking his head vigorously, Ravi finally looked at me, his eyes gleaming in horror and confusion, “What?”

“Ken’s idea, sorry,” I smiled apologetically.

Ken huffed, “Ken’s great idea,” he corrected. “You have five minutes Ravi!” Ken called as he whirled around and strode out the door, leaving me behind.

“You can take your time,” I said with an awkward laugh. “Sorry, I didn’t know he was going to do that,” I spoke again, unsure exactly what to do now. “I’ll just, uh,” I started to turn.

“Wait,” he called after me, “it’s okay, he does stuff like this all the time,” he explained with a yawn. “You can hang out in the common room if you want,” he offered, “I’ll be out in a little bit.”

“Alright,” I confirmed as I turned around to head back to the hallway. As I closed the door behind me, a soft click caught my attention. When I looked up, I saw Leo standing there, eyeing me curiously, “Oh, good morning Leo,” I greeted.

His eyes narrowed slightly, “Did you stay the night here?”

“Oh, no,” I said casually, then realized precisely what he was asking. It was morning, and I was practically sneaking out of Ravi’s room- Leo’s room, to boot. “Oh! No, no, I just got here. Ken gave me a tour and we just woke up Ravi so we can start working,” I spoke a little too quickly, trying not to sound defensive.

Leo continued to stare for a short moment, glanced behind me quickly, and then muttered a quiet, “Okay,” before running a hand through his bleached hair. And just like that, he his heel and retreated back into the office.

“I wonder what’s got him so upset.” Ravi’s voice from behind me startled me. I hadn’t realized he had opened the door again. The voices in the hallway piqued his curiosity, no doubt. I guess that explained what Leo glanced at. When I turned to look, Ravi was wearing an extremely smug smirk on his face. He clearly knew exactly what had Leo so worked up.

I shrugged, “If I had to guess, he thought I slept here. It’s technically his room and his bed I would have slept in,” I sighed. I could understand him being upset about me invading his space.

“With me in it,” Ravi reminded me. Double bad, I thought. Leo definitely seemed like a professional relationship type of guy, and hopping into bed with one of his bandmates seemed like a pretty good way to lose his respect. “Luckily,” Ravi’s voice cut through my thoughts, “it looks like he believed you.”

“You think?” I asked hopefully.

“Yeah,” Ravi laughed once, “If he hadn’t, he certainly would have come after me.”

I sighed, relieved. He was right, “Well I guess I’ll wait for you in the common room?”

He gave me a little nudge, “You’d better hurry before someone ELSE walks by and gets the wrong idea.”

Ravi always had a way of making me feel better. I smiled at him, “Got it,” I turned and made my way back down the hall towards the common room. I went to pick up my papers that I had left on the table, only to find them gone. Extreme panic coursed through me for a second before I saw Ken on one of the couches, papers in hand. “Hey!” I called out to him.

“This is some really interesting stuff, professor Mira,” he said casually, his chin.

I hurried to him, plopping down next to him. I looked at the pages, then at him, stunned, “You read English?”

“No,” he said in disappointment. “I have no idea what any of this says,” he handed them back to me, a deep frown on his face.

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Thanks,” I said as I took them. “They don’t make much sense yet anyway. Just brainstorming ideas,” I admitted. “I can’t get any further on this until we finish the lyrics.”

“Ahhh,” he said, as if finally realizing something, “so that’s what all this searching for Ravi is for.”

“Yeah,” I spoke carefully, as if I might have opened a can of worms that I should be avoiding.

“See, I was worried you might have started playing favorites, noona,” he pouted.

I thought for a moment, then looked at him innocently, “What if Ravi was my favorite?”

He gaped at me for a moment, “Well,” he sputtered. I felt pretty proud to catch Ken off guard like this. He was usually so quick witted. He seemed to finally gather himself, “I might know a guy who might be a little jealous.”

I shrugged, “Maybe that guy should come visit me more,” I suggested offhand.

A genuine smile crossed his face as he looked at me, “I’ll let him know.” Suddenly he looked past me, “Ah the golden boy himself has arrived.”

I turned to see Ravi appear in the entryway, “Huh?”

“Oh, Ken’s just super jealous because he thinks you’re my favorite,” I spoke plainly as I stood.

They both looked at me in shock. Ravi seemed to catch on quickly, though, as his face softened, “Well, I am your favorite.”

“I know, that’s what I told him,” I was trying hard not to smirk.

“You guys are the worst,” Ken muttered from the couch, clearly pouting, “Just you wait, professor, I’m going to come visit so much, you won’t have time for that pesky Wonsik anymore!”

I felt Ravi’s arm fall around my shoulders, “I’d like to see you try, hyung!” he called back, but they were both grinning. Satisfied, Ravi steered me away, and we made our way out of the VIXX apartment. “To your place?” Ravi asked once we were clear of the door.

“Can we get the piano studio?”

“Of course,” he and I walked like that- his arm around my shoulder- all the way down to the studio. Once we made it to the basement, he let me go in favor of opening the door for me.

I took a seat at the bench, at looked expectantly at him, “Have you given any thought to the lyrics yet, Ravi?”

He scoffed dramatically, “Who do you think I am, some amateur?” he asked as he tossed me a little notebook.

I flipped through the pages until I got to the entries that were clearly recent. The last entries were titled ‘Error.’ “Error?” I asked.

“I thought it might be a good title,” he shrugged as he flipped his chair around so he could sit on it backwards.

“It’s perfect,” I grinned as I read through the lyrics, “these are actually really good, Ravi.”

“Duh,” he said with a goofy smile on his face, “of course they are, I wrote them.”

I rolled my eyes, but continued to read, “You really ran with my concept idea.”

“Yeah, it’s like a guy was so devastated about the loss of his girl that he became a robot to erase his feelings,” Ravi spoke passionately, and I couldn’t help but watch him as he spoke, “But he sees her again, and it all comes back to him.” He stopped when he caught my eye, “Or, something like that,” his voice fell quiet and he was visibly embarrassed.

Holding back my impending laughter, I smiled, “It’s great, Ravi, I think we can work with this.” Thinking for a moment, a question popped into my mind, “Have you ever been in love, Ravi?”

The question clearly came as a surprise to him, as he looked at me with wide eyes, “What?”

“I mean, I know it’s a pop music thing to write about love in one way or another, so I was just curious,” I gave a little shrug.

He nodded very slightly, it was almost undetectable, “I guess not truly,” he admitted. “A crush here or there, one or two strong ones, but we’re not exactly allowed to have relationships in this industry.”

I couldn’t help but laugh, “Total opposite of America.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, I was forced into fake relationships in order to generate press attention,” I explained.

He looked at me for a long moment, “So all of those movie stars and musicians you dated,” he trailed off.

“All fake,” I said with a little shrug.

He seemed to think hard for a while, “Did you ever want to be with any of them?”

“No,” I spoke plainly, “Some of them wanted to continue the relationship once the publicity died down, but I never did.”

“But,” he seemed confused, “they’re probably the wealthiest and most talented people in the country, right?”

I held my laugh this time, “The talented part was debatable for a lot of them, but,” I sighed, “I don’t care about that stuff, anyway. Talent is attractive, sure, but wealth doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“So then,” he scratched his face as he thought some more, “have YOU ever been in love?”

I sighed. I suppose I should have expected the counter-question. “Yeah, once.”

“What happened?” he had now crossed his arms on the back of the chair, his chin resting on his arms as he settled in for my impending story.

I chuckled, “Do you really want to know?”

“Of course.”

After a deep breath, I decided to just be honest, “It was in college, before I dropped out to become a musician.” I couldn’t hold his gaze as I continued, opting instead to pick at my own fingernails, “We dated for a full year while we were in school together, and for another year after I left. I was lucky that I went to school near Los Angeles, so when I left, we weren’t that far apart. But I started getting so busy, and I could only visit every once in a while. He didn’t like just talking on the phone, so he drove out to West Hollywood just to break up with me in person.” I looked up at Ravi, who appeared to be pretty enraptured by my story, “He was a gentleman about it,” I sighed, “one of our mutual friends later told me he almost turned around to come back for me, but,” I trailed off. “He didn’t.”

Ravi’s eyebrows were downturned in worry, “Why?”

I tugged at the short pieces of hair around my face as I continued, “It was the right thing to do. He didn’t want this life. The entertainment industry life, I mean. He was going to be a scientist. It would have never worked,” when Ravi stayed silent, I felt compelled to continue, “I was heartbroken. It took two years for us to get over it.”

“You talk to him now?”

“Yeah, when I get the chance.”

“Do you want him back?” Ravi lifted his head when he asked this.

I looked at him carefully, “No. Sometimes I think that I do, but I know it would just end poorly again.”

We were quiet for a long while, “Thanks for telling me,” Ravi finally spoke up.

“What?” I was a bit surprised at what he said.

“It’s really nice, you know,” he started again, “getting to know you, I mean. I knew tons of FACTS about you before I even met you, but it’s nice to actually know who you are.” He paused, “Does that even make sense?”

I chuckled, “Yes, it makes sense.” I paused for a few moments to consider what he had said again, “It’s really nice to get to know you, too, Ravi. And all of VIXX.”

He smiled at me, and we stayed quietly like that for a while. “Well,” he suddenly perked up, “I guess you have enough heartbreak for the both of us to make these lyrics better.”

Grateful for the mood change, I nodded, “Yeah, let’s do this.”

Ravi had done a fantastic job matching the lyrics to the instrumental track that I had presented to him just a few days prior. And despite his inexperience in the romance department, his style of writing was extremely expressive. I only had to make minor stylistic changes to add some impact, but all in all, it was an easy process. I noted all the changes I had to make in the composition on my piano part, playing along with his proposed vocal melodies. I had expected this to take several days, but we pretty much knocked it out by late afternoon.

Given the concept the lyrics, Ravi came up with the title ‘Error’ for the song. It was perfect.

We were taking a break to eat the food Jellyfish management had brought to us. If it weren’t for them, I surely would have starved by now, “We’re almost done, aren’t we?” he asked, mouth half full of food.

“Mhmm,” I replied. Once I had finished my food, I continued, “I’ll start recording the instrumentals tomorrow, hopefully. I’ll need to get some studio performers in here for the instruments I can’t play.”

Ravi nodded, “Does that mean you’re almost done here?”

“Are you kidding?” I said with a laugh, “We’ve got a long way to go, buddy.”

“Good,” he said with a little smile, “It’d be a tragedy if you left so soon.” Suddenly, he stopped eating to look at me, “Unless you want to go home already?”

I shook my head, “Did Hyuk say something?”

“No,” he looked legitimately confused, “Did you talk to Hyukkie about it?”

I nodded as I took another small bite of food, “He caught me at a bad time.” When Ravi didn’t speak, I felt compelled to explain, “When you guys were preparing for N’s birthday, it made me miss home a little bit.” I laughed, more to myself than anything, “I didn’t think you guys would actually invite me to join.”

“That’s crazy,” Ravi dismissed, “why wouldn’t we?”

I sighed slightly, “I didn’t want to overestimate how close I had gotten to you guys yet.”

“We’re all really happy to have you here,” he said simply, as if it were an obvious fact.

“Yeah, but,” I began to protest.

“No buts!” he interrupted, smirking at me.

I shook my head, “Fine, fine. I am really glad Ken and Hongbin forced me to go.”

“I can’t believe Hongbin carried you!”

“It was a strange conversation,” I admitted, “Ken bust into my room, and he had Hongbin there like an evil villain’s minion.”

Ravi paused for a moment, “Sounds pretty representative of their relationship, actually.”

I almost choked on my food at that comment. I safely swallowed before speaking again, “It was fun, though.”

“The party, or being carried by Hongbin?” he winked at me.

“Both!”

We both fell into silence as we dug back into our food. Once finished, we simply sat for a while together. “I think we’re done, yeah?” Ravi asked as he pulled at his pale blue hair.

“Mm, I think so,” I confirmed as I looked over my now newly-noted paperwork.

He stood to stretch, “Guess it’s time to head back upstairs.”

I stifled a yawn. I was tired, but we had overcome a significant hurdle today, and there was a lot of work to do, “I guess I’ll stick around and start some of these recordings.”

“Nope,” he said simply. When I looked at him skeptically, he smiled, “You need to take a break, Mira. As I said before, it’d be a tragedy if you left anytime soon.”

“Ravi,” I sighed, “even if I finished ALL of the recordings tonight, I’d still need to stay for at least a few months more.” Despite my protest, his sentiment was rather sweet, and I closed the piano lid, “But if you insist.”

He grinned victoriously, and held out his hand. When I took it, he pulled me off of the piano bench, “Let’s get out of here.” Flipping the lights out as we went, Ravi led me back upstairs, “You’re welcome to come visit again if you like.”

“Likewise,” I smiled, “though I might actually go to bed early.”

“I figured,” he messed up my hair in a playful gesture, but then a look of sudden realization crossed his face, “Oh this reminds me.”

“What?” I asked, disgruntled as I smoothed out my hair.

“Have you given a thought of what aesthetic you want for this video?”

“Yeah, why?”

He sighed sadly, “I really need to cut my hair, and if you want it another crazy bright color, I’ll just get it pre-bleached.”

“Remember your hair in Voodoo Doll?” I asked.

“Really dark blue,” he recalled with a nod.

“Same thing, but with red.”

“Red?”

“Darker than mine, of course,” I combed through my own red hair.

“Everyone the same color?” he asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Yup.”

He paused, looking as if he wanted to comment, but he decided against it, “Alright.” He looked down the now empty hallway, “I’ll see you tomorrow?” he asked.

“Probably.” I wasn’t even sure why it was a question at that point. Of course I was going to see him. By then, I couldn’t imagine a day without seeing Ravi at the very least.