---

Luck's got everything to do with winning, Kai thinks.

Currently, Kai watches as two of his friends, Xiumin and Chen, and other strangers in white masks and white outfits play around the poker table in front of him. He's at the head of the table wearing all black with a smirk on his face as he watches a player roll two dice. Once it's his turn, he grabs the dice into his hand, kisses his fist for good luck and then releases the dice onto the table. His attentive eyes watch as the dice roll on the table and he laughs in disbelief as the numbers facing upwards on them means that he now has the highest total score for the game. Xiumin grumbles and Kai looks up at Chen who exclaims that the game is rigged and gets up to leave.

"You'll be back!" Kai calls out as Chen leaves the room.

The door is left wide open though so Kai turns to a random stranger and asks if they can close it. After they close it and sit down to look at him, he picks up a few dollar bills and hands it to them with a smile and a Thanks.

They decline the offer though with a slight shake of their head and Kai sniffs in disapproval. He quickly glances around and watches as a masked man at his left adjusts their tie over their well-defined pecs. To his right, a woman's cleavage is showing from her low-cut dress and her chest lightly bounces as she gets up from her seat. These masked strangers always look so y but damn, it's like they feel nothing.

The others at the table stay relatively still and he turns to them and asks why they stopped playing. The strangers simply reply that they're waiting for him to start a new game and he gulps as he sees all of those beautifully-crafted yet creepy masks facing him. Xiumin doesn't seem to be focusing on what's going around him anymore as he peers down at a roll of money in his hand with a blank expression on his face.

---

In another room, Kyungsoo is holding a small black camera in his hand and grins as he watches two masked men in tattered suits boxing inside of an open cage. Other people in masks are standing around--cheering and whooping at the fight. At some point, Chen and Baekhyun stop by and stand right next to him to stare, almost in a daze, at the two boxers. Chen looks disgusted while Baekhyun watches with hooded eyes and a sleazy smirk on his face.

The sound of each punch's impact seems almost rhythmic in a way as the two masked men punch each other to the point that blood spurts from their noses and lips and lands outside of the cage. The strangers around them rush into the cage as the fight seems to reach its peak and Chen abruptly says that he needs to find something to drink and runs off.

Baekhyun continues to smirk as he watches him run away before turning to nudge Kyungsoo and asking if he wants to go closer to the fight. Kyungsoo shakes his head, his eyes glued to the action showing on his camera, and Baekhyun lets out a chuckle. He resigns to stay outside of the cage too and clasps his hands behind his own back. With pursed lips, he looks over Kyungsoo's shoulder to see how the action looks from the camera's point of view and lifts an eyebrow in amazement.

The people look like they're one big entity of writhing bodies from this viewpoint and suddenly Baekhyun realizes something.

There are full bottles of alcohol in this very room.

And a mini-fridge in that corner over there filled with water and fruit juices.

So where'd he run off to?

He leans back and scans the room before telling Kyungsoo that he's gonna go check on Chanyeol. (It's a lie but Kyungsoo easily believes it since Baekhyun's always had a soft spot for the fire-maker.) Kyungsoo grunts out an uninterested Uh-huh and gives a dismissive wave of his hand as he continues to watch the action through his camera. Baekhyun's used to Kyungsoo responding like that so he doesn't think much of it and leaves the room in search of Chen.

Once he closes the door behind him, Kyungsoo swivels his head to see if he's really gone before turning back to the cage of people. His eyes quickly gain a wild look to them and a manic grin creeps onto his face as he slowly walks up to the cage of people. Some beckon him to come closer as the fighting continues and some simply stare as he comes closer. When he's standing right in front of the cage door, instead of entering the cage like some expect him to though, he reaches for the side of the barred door with a hand. Then, with the conscious thought to use his inhuman strength, he easily slams the door shut and bends the lock.

The ones who saw him slam it jump back in fear and the fighting quickly stops. The others inside don't even question how he could've closed that heavy cage door so easily, and instead look around in a mixture of shock and confusion. Some try to jiggle the lock but the ones who saw tell them that he jammed it. Kyungsoo silently chuckles as they grab the bars in a panic and yell for help, and pauses his camera recording to look around for something to get a better view of the action.

Ah, he thinks as his eyes land on a ladder nearby.

He walks over to where the ladder is and deftly carries both it and his camera over to the cage. Then, he sets his camera on the floor and places the ladder against the cage so that he'll be able to climb to the top of it. The people inside rattle the bars and move around the cage to try and make the ladder fall but with a simple grip from one of his hands--he manages to make the ladder unmovable. He then bends down to grab his camera before climbing the ladder with it, and ignores the pleas and crying from the people inside. It's amazing how getting trapped in a cage is what finally triggers some actual emotion from these people.

When he gets to the top of the cage, he sits with his boots dangling right above the ladder and angles his body to look down at the people trapped inside. With a blissful sigh, he unpauses his camera and tells the people to continue with what they were doing before. When no one does though, he blinks in surprise and finds that his voice isn't as confident as he would like when he states, Or else.

A few actually laugh at him--no longer intimidated. 

"Or else what?" one of them calls out.

His eyes glint with anger and he slams a fist down onto the cage, causing a vibration to travel through the bars and making the ones that were gripping onto the bars jump back in shock. The ladder that's cradled by his foot stays upright throughout all of this and the ones who were laughing at him now look up at him with plain fear.

"That's more like it," he says with a sly grin.

---

In another room, Suho is sitting on a huge pile of money (that he earned all by himself)--sniffing a random pile of stacks and wondering what to do with himself tonight. Something in the air seems different tonight--like something bigger than he could've ever imagined has been brewing right under his nose and is about to tip the scales of everything he's ever known.

Or maybe it's just the stack of money under his nose that's making him feel so poetic tonight.

He throws the money-stack down towards the floor in front of him and lies back onto his pile of money to stare up at the ceiling with his arms outstretched. He watches the chandelier above his head swing to and fro and just as his eyes close at the repetitiveness of it, Lay and Sehun burst into his room--shouting his name and waving their arms frantically in the air. Suho's eyes fly open and he peers down at them with wide eyes and asks them what happened.

"It's Kyungsoo!" Sehun calls, his own eyes wide. "I heard something weird coming from the cage-room!"

Suho feels his stomach lurch and he quickly slides down his pile of money before dashing past them out of the room. They follow after him and catch up to his side, and Sehun asks if they should find Chanyeol too. Lay shakes his head no, saying that Chanyeol's probably on the other side of the palace pretending he can drive like he always does.

Suho grits his teeth as he imagines the worst scenarios happening inside the cage-room and they all turn a corner. Near a wall, he spots a bat with nails hammered in the wood and grabs it before slowing down. (Just up ahead is the cage-room and loud footsteps would alert Kyungsoo to their presence real quick.) The other two slow down as well and he turns around and puts a finger to his lips, which gets Sehun to roll his eyes and whisper, No, duh.

Suho blinks at him, unamused, before turning back to the door and letting the bat drag behind him as he walks. Surprisingly, it manages to make little noise and he accidentally thinks aloud that if there was a camera filming him he'd look so cool right now. Lay locks eyes with Sehun and shakes his head while slightly smirking.

Once they reach the door, Suho looks back at them and suddenly hears low and high-pitched groans coming from inside. His eyebrows raise and he blinks rapidly as a blush creeps to his cheeks. He's not ignorant when it comes to ual matters but...it sounds like an is going on inside there.

"Maybe we should go in another time?" he whispers to the other two with a nervous smile.

Sehun lightly pushes him aside and pushes the doors open with the help of Lay, and Suho's lips part as he takes in the sight of the room. Everything looks tinted with lavender and a light film blows from the change in air pressure caused by the doors opening.

Has it always looked like this? Suho thinks.

They spot Kyungsoo sitting on the top of the center-cage, aiming his camera down at the masked people inside. The friends' eyes widen and the masked people look at them with fearful and pleading eyes, and Suho realizes that they were probably groaning in discomfort instead of pleasure. Kyungsoo looks up at them with a surprised look on his face as they walk towards him--so busy filming that he didn't even sense them being there until now.

"Oh, hey," he greets innocently. "What's up?"

Suho sputters in disbelief, and Lay looks up and asks why the people are inside of the cage while Sehun asks what the is going on. Kyungsoo simply chuckles as they get closer to the cage and flashes them his distinct heart-shaped smile.

"Simple," he says, his smile twisting into something darker. "I'm making art."

---

Chanyeol is drunkenly walking towards his own room when he hears a knock at their entrance-door and stills.

Holy , he thinks.

No one should know where they all live at. So, who the is at the door at--he doesn't know the exact time right now.

He tiptoes towards the door with his fist raised and frowns because he told his friends that they should've invested in a peephole. Now he's gonna have to open the door and hope that he doesn't get sniper-shot on sight by some assassin or whatever.

But when he opens the door, instead of an assassin, he lands eyes on a young woman around his age who's wearing a really long white dress. His jaw drops as he gives her a once-over and his eyebrows furrow when he realizes that he's seen her somewhere before.

"May I come in?" she asks, fiddling with her hands.

"Um," Chanyeol utters, internally battling with himself on whether or not to let her in. Something about her innocent smile makes her seem trust-worthy to his drunken mind. "Um, okay...but no funny business."

The doors close behind her and she compliments him on the place as she walks down the hallway. He quickly locks the door and follows behind her, telling her to not wander off too far as he points to certain things. He'll probably regret this later down the line but right now he just doesn't care.

---

Back in the gambling room, Kai and Baekhyun are arguing over whether or not Baekhyun cheated during their coins game. (Xiumin's still there--boredly fiddling with a wine glass in his hand.) Earlier, Kai had seen Baekhyun walking past the room and called out to him--asking if he wanted to play a quick gam