Life's not a fairytale

 

And you're not the little mermaid...

 

 

---

 

 

"Yah! Hyung! Why did you turn off the alarm, we overslept again!“ 

 

The way too tall grown maknae jumped out of the bed, rushing through the very chaotic 2 - bed room, looking for a way through his roommate's laundry pile to reach his closet. Benji, who had spent the whole night texting, slowly turned around to check what Heedo was doing. The guy sighed and let his head fall into his pillow again, slowly opening his eyes and looking at the ceiling.

 

"Seriously, no matter how much I look up to you, I sometimes wish I had been paired up with one of the other hyungs to share a room.", the maknae whined and collected some of the clothes on the floor he thought were still clean enough to wear and threw them right onto Benji. Benji and Heedo were both students at Seoul's very renowned Academy of Performing Arts,  a special university for artists to prepare to debut as either singer, dancer, model or actor. The university provided dormitories for their students so each student was made to live with another one, regardless of age or major. Even though every student had to take classes in all of the subjects, they were able to choose their major individually. As dancing was Benji 's major, Heedo majored in acting.

 

"The new semester just starting today… Why on earth are you making such a fuss about being punctual?“, Benji murmured and slowly got up, stretching like an old man. While Benji was still getting on the crumpled clothes Heedo had thrown at him, the younger one was already all dressed up nice and neatly. 

 

"Hyung, I'm leaving first.", Heedo informed him about his soon departure and bowed down before he left the room. The elder could only roll his eyes and shake his head about the diligence of his roommate. He was taking this way too serious. It was just the first day. The first of many.

 

"Aigoo...it's his first year, he's too diligent."

 

 

♤♡♢♧

 

 

Heedo made it just in time being punctual but yet too late to sit in one of the front rows. He didn't know anyone since this was his freshmen year. The other students all seemed to have already formed groups, talking to each other agitatedly. Heedo immediately felt frustrated when he imagined how he could have been a part of one of the groups if he had arrived just a bit more early.

 

"Don't feel sad because you're alone here today.", someone suddenly spoke to him. When he turned his head to the left to see who was talking to him, he couldn't believe his eyes. The girl talking to him was unbelievable pretty, her smile bright as sunshine and her eyes sending a friendly warmth. 

 

"I...", he stuttered but Heedo's voice died out immediately. 

 

"You're a freshman, right? If you face any troubles, tell me. I'm mentoring, so feel free to come to me whenever you want.“ The girl was still smiling while Heedo's eyes were flashing from up to down, from left to right, scanning her whole appearance. Her dark hair was falling in soft waves onto her delicate shoulders, making him want to touch them just to make sure if they were feeling as soft as they looked. Even though she was wearing simple jeans and a dark Beanie she looked dazzling. Heedo just nodded, feeling the deep urge to ask her name but instead he just looked straight to the front where the lecturer had already started talking to his students. Somehow Heedo wasn't able to bring up the courage to even look at the girl again, being afraid she might feel uneasy because he might stare at her. He eventually tried to gather enough courage to talk to the mysterious mentor as long as he was sitting so close to her but whenever he was about to turn around and face her, he directed his gaze automatically to the other direction. During the whole lecture, his heart was beating in excitement, making it impossible to concentrate just for a single second.

 

 

♤♡♢♧

 

 

Benji was late, of course. He neither took a shower, nor did he brush his hair. At least he was caring enough for his classmates to brush his teeth. The crumpled clothes Heedo had thrown on his bed had been used twice, but to Benji they were still fresh enough as long as they didn’t start to smell too strong. No matter how scruffy and lazy Benji seemed at the moment…there were times when he was all styled up. Those times were the times he tried to impress his significant other who still wasn't aware of her luck. Benji had a crush on that girl since the very first semester. He liked one of his classmates who unfortunately didn't major in dancing like him but in singing. Therefore he met her just in the basic lectures. Today included none of them which kind of depressed him and made him less motivated to even attend classes. That explained why he was dressing like a hobo.

 

The door to the lecture hall was already closed when Benji arrived. He nevertheless tried to sneak in to it as good as possible. Unfortunately something hit him like a thunder, making him let all of his stuff crash on the floor, causing a noisy disturbance. Eunjung was sitting in one of the rows. The girl he had a crush on for already one year was sitting in one of the dancing major lectures. Why on earth…? The short haired girl turned around - like all of the others - when he disturbed the lectures and slowly waved at him to sit next to her. Benji gulped, bowing to the professor as an apology and quickly collected his stuff. He rushed over to Eunjung and took seat next to her after hesitating for a moment. In situations like this he wished he had been more like Heedo who was always taking a shower in the morning and dressing up in fresh clothes. Benji didn't want to imagine how he must have smelled.

 

"You're late!", Eunjung whispered towards him with her natural bright smile and her excited voice going up and down as if she was sitting on a boat, jumping over the waves. She was chuckling in amusement, showing a row of perfectly looking with teeth. Eunjung always looked perfect. Even though she tended to dress up in oversized shirts, they looked gorgeous on her… and the one she was wearing right now was smelling alluringly like a sweet coconut. Or was the scent of her just so present because of Benji’s own filthy smell of not taking a shower for the past days? "Yah...what are you even doing here?...This lecture is for dancing majors...", Benji muttered. The girl next to him didn’t seem as if she sharing just a bit of his irritation about her sudden appearance in the lecture hall. "I am a dancing major now!", Eunjung informed him. "I changed my major.“ Benji 's eyes immediately widened once the news reached him and he couldn’t hide his surprise about it. He should have been happy about it for sure, but something was fishy about it. "But why?"

 

As expected Eunjung instantly revealed that there had been a specific reason for her major change, yet she didn’t explicitly told him what it was. “Who knows?", she answered playfully. "Maybe because there is someone I like in the dancing faculty."  Eunjung grinned and leaned against Benji's shoulder. The mild scent of peaches coming from her hair mixed with the coconut scent of her clothes and embraced him softly, reminding him again of how he must smell at the moment himself.

"Yah...! What are you doing?", he hissed and tried to get away from Eunjung by leaning away from her, leaving her scandalized about being rejected all of a sudden. "Eh...? Why? Is it bothering you? It didn't bother you before!", she complained. "Back then we were freshmen but now we are seniors, so we should act like some!", Benji told her harshly. Eunjung didn’t seem to like the idea at all. "Tss... If you want to act like a diligent senior how about being punctual first?", the girl next to him muttered and got back to her original position on her seat. She crossed her arms and formed narrow slots with her eyes before she turned her head into his direction again. "And how about taking a shower, second."

 

Benji glanced at Eunjung with shocked eyes, feeling all busted. He avoided any further  eye-contact with her because of the embarrassment.  Still she was sitting next to him. She had transferred because she liked someone... Since he was the person she was spending the most time with in the dancing department chances were high that he was that one specific person, right?

 

The thought of it made Benji grin.

 

 

♤♡♢♧

 

 

"Do you want to meet my evaluation group?"

 

After the last lecture of the day, Benji had finally decided to invite Eunjung to meet him outside of any classroom.  Actually meeting his evaluation group would be in a practice room, but he would be able to enlarge the meeting and maybe make it a hidden date once practice had ended. It was obligatory to attend an evaluation every month with a group of at least 4 members at the academy. Since every student had to undergo it, they were forced to find groups on  their own. It was even said that after graduation the evaluation groups stayed to debut or fall apart if they hadn't been separated after a failed evaluation.

 

"That's pretty cool! Sure!", Eunjung accepted his invitation enthusiastically. "I finally get to meet your friends.", she said and laughed. "Until now, you’ve always hid them from me.“ And there was a good reason why. "It wasn't as if I was hiding...I was just too busy and we just got all along so - so until last semester.", Benji tried to explain. Back then the members of his group didn’t get along that well. "Ah, really? Then why do you invite me now?  I heard you have a freshman student in your group."

 

Busted, again.

 

"Where do you know that from?", Benji wondered. "Are you a crazy stalker?!“ Eunjung laughed. "Maybe?" She then shook her head. "I just checked through the evaluation list for this month. Your group's name is BIG, so it's quite on top. I saw that you had a new member, that's all.“ The guy watched her shrugging her shoulders and smirk.

 

 

After telling Eunjung place and time of the rehearsal Benji luckily had some time to take a shower and dress up in freshly washed clothes before he had to show up in front of his group mates. "Woah, hyung, you're cleaning?", Heedo instantly blurted out when he entered the room and witnessed how Benji was collecting the clothes on the floor. "I need fresh clothes - enough of them!", Benji explained to him and threw the dirty clothes into a laundry basket. The mountain in the basket was growing and growing. "But why? Don’t tell me you met someone special during classes today?“ Even though Heedo was just trying to make fun of his roommate, he instantly had to think about his crush himself. He had met the most beautiful person on earth today.

 

"Yah! What are you...-", Benji wanted to scold Heedo but when he remembered that his group mates would meet her anyway in the evening he gave in and decided to let Heedo know. "Yes, and she's coming to our rehearsal today…“, he admitted sheepishly, feeling a bit awkward considering Eunjung officially as a love interest. "Woah! Hyung, how can you invite a girl you just met to our rehearsal?!", Heedo asked scandalized with dropped open mouth. Nonetheless amusement was underlining his statement and he even had to grin. "It's not somebody I just met.", Benji contradicted and shook his head. "I met her in my very first semester...it just took me a while to ask her out.“ And while he was still making the laundry pile grow, Benji was smiling delightedly. 

 

 

Once the rehearsal had started, Benji was sure Eunjung would be late for just 5 or maximum 10 minutes.  But the minutes passed and after an hour she had still not shown up. He knew her well enough to know that she usually was a punctual person but even Eunjung was late sometimes. Yet, she would have contacted him if she was late… but this time she didn’t. Benji didn’t know how to interpret it.

 

"Are you sure, she's coming?", Heedo asked his roommate worriedly when he noticed Benji being lost in thoughts. "Who's coming? Did our Benji just got dumped?", the leader J-Hoon asked and laughed. He was sitting at the windowsill during the short break the boys decided to take. Even though the others didn’t interfere or pay too much attention to the others love lives in general, they showed a lot of interest in it once Heedo dared to point out Benji’s current situation.  "Wow, I never thought our Benji would ever experience the rejection of a female individual.", J-Hoon joked.

 

"Yah...I didn't get dumped! It's just a friend I invited to come over today. But she didn't show up until now...maybe she suddenly got busy. But we're just friends, I tell you! JUST FRIENDS!“, Benji barked at his group mates. It was driving him nuts how they were making fun of him, especially by claiming that he had been dumped whereas such a thing had never happened. And he was afraid they would jinx it by saying it too often.

 

"Who's just friends?“ The sudden appearance of a female voice made all of the members stop and turn around. The pretty girl with her short, black hair was standing in front of them, armed with a plastic bag in her hands, and bowed. “Hey everyone, my name is Eunjung. I'm a second year student, majoring in dancing. I'm glad to meet all of you. Sorry for interrupting and being late,  I wasn't able to make it in time, but - I brought this!“ She held up the bag but the members didn't react. Eunjung was standing there like frozen, holding up the plastic bag and smiling, until Heedo went towards her and checked what was in the bag. 

 

"Popsicles!", he shouted and freed Eunjung from the bag. The girl was all relieved, Benji could tell how nervous she must have felt after being late and how insecure and afraid she must have been because of the thought his group mates would judge and dislike her. Her worries were all in vain, though. The others immediately liked her the moment she stepped in. "Who are you, an angel?", J-Hoon asked and helped Heedo handing out a popsicle to everyone. "Haha, I'm not sure if I'm an angel or a devil.“. Eunjung replied with joy in her voice.

 

"Benji, if you're not dating her, can I?", the leader joked and also handed one of the popsicles to Benji. "You wouldn't want to date her, hyung. This girl is too expensive for you. She's eating so much, you would spent all your money on her.", Benji warned him by telling him about Eunjung. He was more or less marking his territory on top of it. He was the one who knew so much about Eunjung and he wanted to stay as the only one. "Plus, when she oversleeps, she doesn't wear any make up and wears old pullovers and ragged jeans in class. And she is super loud at times."

 

"Yah! How dare you say something like this about me?!", Eunjung huffed and angrily trampled onto Benji's feet. He immediately winced back in pain and jumped at the non- hurting foot, holding onto the trampled one. „YAH! I forgot to mention that she’s freaking violent when she gets furious!“, Benji added.

 

 

Eunjung didn't stay long. She watched the guys perform a few times and then left again. Heedo was the only one noticing how much effort Benji put into his performance to impress the group's special guest and how disappointed he was when Eunjung had to leave early and didn’t have any time left to spend some more time alone with him. 

 

"Hyung.", he directed his words at Benji when the two of them were heading back to their room after rehearsal was done."What is it?, Benji asked, still being lost in his depressed thoughts about how his plan to get closer to Eunjung failed today. "You and Eunjung are matching quite well. Don't ever let her leave you, I think you might never find someone being as similar to you.", Heedo warned his roommate of the possible loss of his matching soulmate.

 

"You think we're similar?“, Benji wondered, a glimpse of happiness and hope igniting in his eyes. The corners of his mouth were quirking up as Heedo’s words were confirming that his choice of deciding Eunjung being the one for him was the right decision. Heedo could only shake his head and smile about it. “…nah…“, he said, “If I think about it more thoroughly, I guess she's the better part of you two. She brought popsicles for being late. You wouldn't have brought anything."

 

 

♤♡♢♧

 

 

It was still dark outside when Heedo was woken up by a weird electric sound. The moment he opened his eyes and found Benji standing in front of the mirror, shaving his face with an electric shaver, the younger one was so shocked that he couldn’t sleep anymore. Heedo slowly got up and blinked at his hyung. His hair looked extremely styled and his clothes looked chosen carefully and clean. Heedo had never witness Benji behaving like this before. "What are you doing?", he asked in surprise.

 

"Getting ready for the first lecture today. I'm not going to be late. I'm not going to be looking shabby. From today on, I'll be the No. 1. Fighting, Benji! Fighting!", Benji cheered for himself. It was a bit disturbing and more than odd to see him talking to himself in the mirror but Heedo told himself to just accept his roommate as he was. "You're insane...", Heedo mumbled and wanted to get another few minutes of sleep but once he touched the soft pillow, he thought back of the mentor and that he would probably meet her again today. His eyes suddenly were opened widely again.

He should present her the best of him too,  shouldn't he?

 

 

The path to the Art of Musics building was crowded as always in the morning when Heedo and Benji were heading together to the lecture rooms since Heedo's first lecture was musical notation.

 

"Good Morning!!!“ The loud yelling was followed by a jumping around Eunjung, who crashed against Benji's back and landed in the middle of the two guys. "It's 8 AM, how can you be so active and enthusiastic?", Heedo wondered and laughed. Eunjung’s power in the morning was impressive. "It's all a question of your attitude.", she answered with a cheeky smile. "What she wants to say with it is that she usually isn't like this, either.", Benji added and immediately gained and angry reaction of his crush. "Yah! Why are you so mean all of a sudden! I was about to invite you to meet my evaluation group, but if you're like this I don't want you to meet them!“, she huffed and crossed her arms, ready to stomp away every moment.

 

"Eunjung...", Heedo cleared his throat, ready to help his friend out who wasn’t willing to take a single step back and give in to the also stubborn girl he liked. At times like this Heedo wondered if humanity would have died out if the world consisted of people like Eunjung and Benji only. „Benji definitely wants to meet your group, I'm sure he'll behave if you allow him to come meet them.", the maknae assured her. The girl looked at him for a second and then chuckled before she suddenly ruffled through his hair.  "Yaaaaah! Why are you such a cute maknae?! You deserve to live better than with this bad hyung over there!“ Her words were followed by a very slight glare towards Benji. She was the one giving in, yet she obviously showed how much she disliked to do so. "You can come. But bring this maknae with you. He told me to let you come, so he's responsible for you tonight.“, she set her conditions clearly. Neither Benji nor Heedo answered to it. They only looked at her with rounded eyes. Eunjung again grinned, stuck out her tongue at Benji and quickly rushed straight to the lecture rooms, leaving the two friends behind.

 

"She's tough.", Heedo mumbled. "She plays tough.", Benji corrected him.

 

 

♤♡♢♧

 

 

Spending the evening with meeting people he didn't even know was not quite the ideal way he could imagine, but since Heedo tried to support Benji and after Eunjung had made her conditions very clear, he had accompanied his roommate. Benji and Heedo arrived around ten minutes early because of the maknae urging his hyung to be at least punctual at an occasion like this, already meeting one of the girls in the room.  She was stretching, her flexibility leaving the two guys in an awe about her inhumane skills to bend her body. "Woah!", the girl snapped, when she saw the two guys entering. "Who are you?!"

 

Heedo coughed and pushed Benji forwards to signalize him that he had to talk. “Uhm… we’re friends of Eunjung. She invited us today.", Benji answered sheepishly and looked at the ground. It felt kinda weird to talk to a stranger girl who was a friend of Eunjung. "Invited? She didn't even tell us!", the girl exclaimed. Great, this made the whole situation even more awkward."Hyung... I told you, we should have brought snacks.", Heedo whispered towards Benji and even facepalmed. "And I told you, I don't have the money!", Benji whispered back. 

 

Luckily the door behind them opened again and the weird atmosphere was eased by the person who was responsible for it. “Oh jeez, since when are you punctual?“, Eunjung asked surprised and walked over to her female friend to introduce her to the others. "This is Victoria, Victoria , these two guys are Benji and Heedo.“

 

“Hey Eunjung, we need to-?!“, another female voice was booming through the training room and Heedo felt struck by the voice as soon as he heard it. The girl talking quickly moved around the guys and joined the two other females. Heedo's heart stopped beating when he realized who it was. 

It was her. How could this be a coincidence? The maknae's mouth dropped open and the room temperature raised about 5 degrees. "You invited friends?", the beautiful mentor girl asked Eunjung in a yet surprised but also worried way.

 

"We can leave at any time again!“ Heedo's words bursted out of his mouth and like a soldier he bowed down. "Sorry, for the inconvenience!“ The female in front of him who caused his sudden mood change blinked at him in irritation before she started laughing. "Ah...no, it's not that...!", Heedo's crush said, sounding all the more perplexed over Heedo's unexpected outburst.

 

"What is it, Youngji?", Eunjung wondered and took up her friend’s words from just a few moments ago before Heedo acted like a complete fool in front of her. Youngji. Her name was Youngji. Heedo immediately wanted to say her name out loud.

 

"You know....we told Bomi about your...", Youngji hesitated finishing her sentence and looked at the two guests. It was as if she didn't want to tell a top secret, "...she knows about...him...so she asked Taekwoon - oppa and Jaehwan- oppa to bring him with them today.“ Benji and Heedo both felt a weird and angry feeling in their gut. Benji just got the worst feeling ever about that person they called 'him' and Heedo simply disliked Youngji calling anyone oppa.

 

When the door was opened again, Heedo turned around first to see who was entering while Benji wasn't moving a single inch. A lively girl was entering, holding hands with a guy who seemed to be her emotionless pet - like boyfriend. They were followed by two other guys. All of them were way too handsome. Way too dislikable to the two boys. The second guy who entered directly went towards Youngji.

 

"Oh my girl~! Oh my girl~!", he was singing to her, and started dancing some body waves to it while pointing at the girl. Was he seriously imitating Sistar19's  ‚Ma boy’? What a stupid and tacky guy!  Youngji nevertheless giggled in amusement over the guy's weirdness and smiled even more happy when he kissed her forehead. Heedo's heart felt like falling onto the floor, cracking loudly. How was this possible? The girl he just met, he just had a crush, on was taken.

 

The last guy entering greeted everyone and just by observing how Eunjung suddenly became all quiet an nervous and how her face’s color was changing to a rosy red confirmed Benji's worries. Her crush had not been Benji. It was that guy.

 

Benji and Heedo both looked at this bizarre scenery. This was not how things were supposed to be. This meant war.

 

 

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Author's Note:

Welcome everyone! First of all: Thanks to everyone who subscribed to this story and upvoted it even though we didn’t upload anything, haha. You guys are seriously crazy and we really appreciate it! :D

However, this is our little baby. A story we just came up with a while ago and we wrote for ourselves for entertaining purposes (and a bit of competition, we have to admit that at least, muhahaha). It’s a weird mixture of a bunch of idols we picked because we found them matching the most into the roles, so hopefully you’ll all follow this story and get to know our characters and our crazy minds that formed them. Let us know at any time who you like/ dislike and who you ship with who. Since there are two authors working on this ff we also ship differently and so we came up with the idea to go for the ships that you readers like the most in the end (that’s our competition…making our favorite ships look the most appealing to you, let’s see who’ll win it).

See you in the next chapt!  

- Jey-chan