“Next!”

Sungyeol takes a small step forward while glancing at his wrist watch impatiently. He counts the number of people lined up in front of him to estimate when he'll finally get inside to escape the cold night air and hopes that he'll make it inside in time.

Sungyeol shivers feeling the cold hit him as he pats his pockets to find his phone. He’s trying to busy himself from the judgemental stares people were sending his way as they walked passed him in their decked out night club attire.

He stands in line at one of the night clubs hesitantly still in his typical college boy clothes - a maroon cardigan over his white button up, his dark wash jeans, and a pair comfy grey sneakers. He thinks to himself that it was probably, no scratch that, was a great idea that he left his tan messenger cross over body bag in his car and only took out his wallet.

Sungyeol would’ve stuck out -even more than he does now- like a sore thumb if he had it on him still.

He’s actually never been to a night club. He usually spends his days running between school, working at the coffee shop, doing research on bones at the lab, and catching dinner or a movie with his friends in his spare time - so he’s never at a night club like this or know how to dress for the occasion.

But from what he knows thanks to his friends, he knows it just wasn’t for him - the loudness, the binge drinking, the people, the scene… just everything.

Besides that, clubs were expensive for guys - they have to pay an entry fee while girls sometimes don’t have to and Sungyeol needs to save up his money if he was going to finally get that research position with his professor to travel to Egypt.

Out of boredom and impatience in the line, he remembers Youngjae saying something about business casual (but flashier and maybe even tier) and regrets not taking the advice after seeing so many people entering and leaving the night club in front of him.

He finally enters the building after flashing his driver’s license to the bouncer who only looks at him questioningly for a second before letting him enter for free adding something about ‘first times for free, kid.’

He doesn't know if he should be happy he got in for free or not but just walks up the stairs hearing the music get louder. He then sees the emerging scene of dancing bodies dressed in flashy tight fitting clothes to some loud electronic dance music (EDM).

It’s starting to give him anxiety as the lights flicker rapidly and Sungyeol feels so out of place - he tugs his sweater unconscioisly.

He scans the room to spot in relief Jongup and Sungjong at a tall table top with their drinks and squeezes his way over.

“Hey guys!” Sungyeol is shouting as the music hits the . People scream and Jongup smiles greeting his hyung. Sungjong and Jongup were just nodding along to the beat as the bodies crowd around them.

“Where are the other hyungs?” Sungyeol asks and sees Jongup flicking his thumb towards the DJ stage in front of them. Sungyeol squints in that direction and he can faintly recognize Youngjae’s side profile wearing a deep green beanie with a middle finger gold pin talking to one of the DJs. The rest were probably in the room behind the stage.

“Did you get in okay?” Jongup shouts and Sungyeol nods.

“I got in for free actually!”

Jongup smiles as he looks at Sungyeol up and down understanding why the bouncer may have let him in for free - he doesn’t say anything about his hyung’s attire and only looks at Sungjong who’s still staring in shock at Sungyeol’s outfit.

“Nice! When are they going to perform?” Sungyeol shouts unaware of Sungjong’s prying eyes and Jongup shouts back,

“15 minutes!”

Sungyeol nods his head feeling relief that he didn’t miss it. The line was unbearably long for some reason - or maybe it’s usually like that and Sungyeol isn’t used to it.

Before Sungyeol could ask how many songs their hyungs were playing, Sungjong eyes him up and down with disappointment for the third time taking it all in.

“Hyung! Why didn’t you change out of your school clothes!? You look so nerdy!”

Sungyeol looks at him with an embarrassed smile,

“I didn’t have time, the lab closed late today! Had to rush here and find parking in the back!”  

Sungjong purses his lips and thinks to himself that Sungyeol probably didn’t have anything in his closet to wear for this occasion since he was a country boy after all. Sungyeol didn’t move to the city until high school which is how their group of friends met - and that was approximately 8 years ago.

Sungjong makes a note to himself that next time he’ll take the liberty to dress up his hyung if they ever get the chance to drag Sungyeol back out to the night club again - if they were going to be a flock then they need to be fierce, that’s always Sungjong’s motto.

“Okay! Well at least take off your cardigan! You look like your mom dressed you!” Sungjong tugs on Sungyeol’s cardigan as Jongup laughs amused watching Sungyeol struggle to whack Sungjong’s hands off of him so he could do it on his own.

Sungyeol takes off his cardigan and wraps it around his thin waist. Sungjong then starts ranting about how next time they need to go shopping with Sungyeol so that Sungyeol could get some new clothes since they’re not living in the era of The Little House on the Prairie anymore.

Sungyeol argues back that he’s fine with what he has because he doesn’t do much anyways - which Sungjong argues is the problem, like how is Sungyeol going to get married and have country babies for Sungjong to be the godfather over at this rate?

"No one is going to want to a donkey when they could have a stallion!" Sungjong shouts trying to make his point, but is taken back when he realizes what he said.

Sungyeol grimaces at the comment and Jongup laughs amused hearing all of this. It’s pretty normal for Sungjong to nitpick Sungyeol’s old fashion sense or anyone’s actually.

Randomly Youngjae pops up beside them and throws an arm around Sungyeol’s shoulders as Sungyeol was about to nudge Sungjong’s head for the horrible analogy.

“Glad you could make it out of your lab, buddy!” Youngjae flashes a long lasting smile and Sungyeol returns it.

“Wouldn’t miss this for the world! They let me in for free!” Sungyeol says proudly.

“Hyung, you should stop saying that,” Jongup says and Youngjae nods amused knowingly.

“What do you mean?” Sungyeol asks innocently and Youngjae puts a finger to cover Sungyeol’s lips and hushes him.

“Hush baby bird, we gotta get you some new feathers if you’re coming out here more often once we get that permanent gig,” Youngjae teases and Sungyeol frowns.

“See! Even Youngjae hyung agrees with me!” Sungjong argues once more.

“Okay I get it, I'm not wearing the right clothes!” He shouts and Sungjong shakes his head.

“This is why you should let me help you!” Sungjong shouts back but Sungyeol is stubborn and says no firmly again.

“Anyways!” Youngjae tugs Sungjong in now with his other arm wrapping around the other’s shoulders,

“Woohyun hyung wanted to know if you guys wanted to get BBQ and drinks afterwards!” Youngjae asks relaying the message from Woohyun who was currently at the back of the DJ stage with Yongguk, Daehyun, and Dongwoo going over their short set.

“Sure!” Sungjong says and Jongup nods in agreement. Sungyeol looks hesitant when Jongup senses it.

“C’mon hyung! You don’t have work until the evening tomorrow!” Jongup tries to convince Sungyeol. Tomorrow was Saturday and usually Sungyeol doesn’t work until the afternoon or the evening shift.

Jongup on the other hand always works the afternoon shift at their little cafe across from the University but that doesn’t matter anyways because he’s used to having fun and going to work the next day.

Sungyeol sees the eager looks from the three and sighs.

“Okay okay!” Sungyeol gives in and Youngjae ruffles his hair - letting go of Sungjong in the process.

Sungjong sees his phone vibrate on the table and realizes that it's from Daehyun. He swipes his phone unlock and sees an angry text,

From: Daehyun Hyung

To: Sungjong

If ing Yoo Youngjae is still with you, tell that motherer to get ing back here right now! We’re on in less than ing 10!

“Uhhhh, Youngjae hyung, I think Daehyun hyung wants you to go back now,” Sungjong says reading the angry text. He shows it to Youngjae who sighs.

“Well the wife calls, fellas, ” Youngjae states before taking Jongup’s glass and gulps down whatever was left in it. Jongup frowns and Sungjong shakes his head as Sungyeol laughs this time.

“You know Daehyun hyung is going to beat you up when he smells your breath!” Sungjong shouts trying to remind the former that Daehyun was the only one strict about performing sober this time considering the disaster that occurred when they were in high school. Youngjae shrugs it off and smiles.

“My wife isn’t going to beat anyone up. Don’t you worry about me, I’ll handle your Daehyun hyung,” Youngjae says before wandering off back to the DJ stage.

“For a couple that has been going out as long as they do, you’d think Youngjae hyung would learn that Daehyun hyung will put him in a world of hurt if he doesn’t listen,” Jongup notes and Sungjong nods hoping his hyung doesn’t get caught acting like a fool - or else they’ll have another incident like 2004 where one person’s pride was definitely smashed to pieces and it definitely wasn’t Daehyun who was the of every joke for a month in their group of friends.

It probably took their group a long time to forget Youngjae’s very drunk emotional singing about how much he loves Daehyun to pieces… to itsy bitsy pieces, and cue the spider song which morphed into the actual spider theme man song with the whole trying to kiss upside down fiasco with a stuffed bear.

Sungyeol laughs and Sungjong tries to remember amused where they saved that video of Youngjae being stupid.

In the corner of Jongup’s eyes, he sees a group of men over at one of the reserved VIP club booths staring in their direction. He follows the line of sight and sees that Sungyeol was facing smack dab full face frontal in front of them - they were staring at Sungyeol.

“I think those guys are staring at you, hyung,” Jongup shouts above the EDM blasting loudly and points over to the men sitting casually together. Sungyeol squints from all the frantic LED lights to look over and sees a very attractive feminine looking man dressed quite flashy staring directly at him along with other men in his booth who are just looking in their direction.

“What? No,” Sungyeol stutters confused and uncomfortable at the attention, he shifts his position. Sungjong laughs.

“Hyung, you should go talk to them, they look,” Sungjong pauses before taking another look at the men in the booth, “so friendly,” Sungjong says sarcastically and Sungyeol frowns.

-----------oh-hot-damn-this-is-my-jam-----------

“I think I found my prey for the night. He’s so adorably,” Himchan pauses and thinks to himself, “normal looking?”

Myungsoo grunts at that and turns to look at who Himchan was talking about so suddenly. He stares at the normal looking man with tousled brown hair and big eyes, clearly uncomfortable at the exchange. Myungsoo's eyes lock onto the man’s for a quick second. The man smiles politely and nervously at him before shifting to stand facing his side to their group now.

“Who comes to the club dressed so normal like that?” Hoya sitting on the other side of them asks, eyeing the man across the dance floor. Compared to how they were dressed and how everyone else in the room was dressed, the guy was the most casually dressed. It’s like the man just got out of a seminar and showed up to take notes on how night life was like for a school report or something.

Their group of friends aren’t used to seeing the rare sight of men (or ladies) who look like that - fresh still in or out of college and so normal.

Normal in the sense that they didn’t have millions of dollars piled up in the bank and closets full of business formal wear from designer brands. Their group of friends belonged to the most prestigious families so they usually only see people who were dressed similarly to them.

Night life was different though, there were people who were authentically like them or people who tried too hard. Either way, it was interesting enough for them to do in their spare time to get away from their boring routine lives.

Himchan and Myungsoo’s families are corporate founders and owners of top financial companies while Zelo and Hoya were part of families who were prominent in law politics. Sunggyu’s grandfather and father are the co-corporate founders of multiple major entertainment companies in music and television.

“I think that’s actually Woohyun’s friend,” Sunggyu eyes them and remembers the kid featuring on Woohyun’s snapchat story sometimes making coffee or some like that - Sunggyu honestly could care less now that he knows they’re j