Chapter Twenty One

“So what do we do at Family Fun Night?” Briley asked as her eyes scanned the area around the crowd that was beginning to gather behind the River Market.

“They have bounce house obstacle courses, there’s a small ferris wheel, popcorn, and then a few schools from overseas put on demos. It’s really cool!” Aaron said excitedly.

“I wanna see the guys go up against each other one on one of the obstacle courses,” Briley said. The other three girls agreed.

“I’m in. What’s the punishment for the losers?” Choongjae asked. Briley, Lily, and Nik all looked excited when he brought up a punishment. The eleven of them ended up in a huge debate as they walked down to the obstacle courses. Nik and Aaron had to occasionally stop and talk to people as they passed, but overall, they spend the whole walk arguing over punishments.

Briley suggested that they do something like Super Junior had once, where Heechul ended up having to get spanked by all the other members. Aaron suggested they had to do a girl’s dance cover in a dress. Minwoo suggested an ugly photo on their SNS account. Hyemi then said they should combine all of them, which led to even more debates, until Junghyuk made the final decision. The loser had to go on their VLive and do a five minute video after the others choose their wardrobe and do their makeup.

The Fangirl trio set up their cameras to capture footage for start, middle, and end of each run. They decided to run in age order, and the members got ready to go. Junghyuk did surprisingly well going first, or at least everyone thought that until Minwoo went next and absolutely killed the course. Everyone else ran, and it came out to be a tie for slowest between Junghyuk and Pilkyo. Of course Choongjae won, everyone knew the athlete had nothing to worry about.

“So what are we going to do?” Briley asked.

“Do they both get punished or do they play another game to decide the true loser?” Lily asked. Pilkyo was sulking but Junghyuk seemed unfazed mostly.

Joy, and perhaps something a little more sadistic, flashed through Nik’s eyes. “I say they should play Di Bi Di Bi Dib, loser of 3 rounds has to do the punishment.”

(a/n: For those who have not seen, or those that would like to watch again, THIS is the game. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dp4szTsM0gU)

Pilkyo’s jaw dropped. Did she want him to be the one punished? His mind raced as he tried to find a way out of that one. Junghyuk had his number in that game and everyone knew it. “We don’t have a rubber hammer!” he exclaimed, full body facing Nik.

“We could wait until we got back to the hotel and use a pillow?” Hyemi suggested.

“Actually, I do have a rubber hammer back at the hotel,” Aaron smirked.

“I like that idea,” Junghyuk grinned. He seemed happy with this turn of events. Pilkyo groaned in frustration.

“All in favor?” Minwoo asked.

Everyone but Pilkyo raised their hands. He shoved Junghyuk, who was now smirking. “This is stupid, why not just rerun the course?”

“This way is much more fun. Besides, if y’all are gunna upload all this onto your VLive, all the fans love watching y’all play Di Bi Di Bi Dib.” Nik tilted her head up at him and grinned, biting at her bottom lip.

“You must really hate me,” he grumbled. Nik didn’t respond, just laughed and turned away from him to practically skip over to her camera and load it back into her backpack. He groaned again rubbed at the back of his neck.

After the cameras were put away, Aaron and Nik led everyone to the seats so that they could watch the demos. Schools from Brazil, Portugal, India, China, Korea, and Little Rock put on routines and everyone was impressive. It was dark by the time everything had finished and they made their way back to the van, being stopped here and there because Nik had to talk to everyone she knew.

Finally back at the hotel, the girls set the cameras back up. “I need one of y’all to sign into your account. Lily will control which camera is filming at a time, so y’all can explain what is going on and play the game live.” Everyone but Pilkyo was really excited about this. The girls downloaded the footage of the race onto their computer so Lily could access it.

“We should hire you to do this for us from now on,” Minwoo laughed. Though the three of them always worked in different time zones, they worked smoothly and efficiently. The girls all beamed at the compliment, but continued working.

Briley and Aaron were messing with the lighting while Nik moved the furniture around and Lily finished up on the computer. “Do we want a backtrack for the races?” Lily asked.

“Yeah, I stripped the vocals from All Your Dreams if you wanna use that, or Eusha Eusha,” Nik offered laughing at her last suggestion, but then turned to the men. “Would y’all wanna use a different song? I have several other songs stripped, too. Or use one with y’all’s vocals in it? Most recent comeback?”

“We could also have each of your solo stuff playing as each member was running?” Briley offered, pulling the mics out so the men could set up.

“We could if someone would ever come out with a solo album,” Nik said, shooting an annoyed look at Shinhwa’s leader.

“You could use one of his raps from one of the other’s solo stuff?” Aaron offered.

“That could work,” Lily said. “But we need to know what you want. We’re the ones spouting out ideas,” she grinned.

“It’s fun to watch you work,” Choongjae confessed, everyone else nodding their agreement. He came to sit beside Lily after he got his mic set up under his shirt. “Can you put all of us running at the same time instead of individually? If so, we could just use the chorus of the comeback and it will be easy for everyone to tell who won and who,” he coughed, “lost epically.” The girls all laughed.

“I can do that. Give me a few more minutes and I’ll have it all set up to go.” Lily had to move Choongjae back as he had started crowding her as she worked. She had two laptops running at the same time and was playing with the camera settings and lining up everyone’s starts from the race. Choongjae reached over to run his fingers through her hair as she worked, occasionally brushing it out of her face some. Hyemi and Nik shared a look watching the the two. “Alright, Nik if you’ll adjust camera two a fraction to the right and raise the stand up for camera three to the next level, I think the camera angles will all work perfectly.”

After Nik had adjusted everything, everyone but Minwoo and Junghyuk went to sit on the couch. The Co CEOs looked at the screen to confirm that they liked what they saw and watched the run through of the video before joining their members on the couch.

The VLive was a success and lasted twice as long as they had originally planned. They had explained that they were vacationing in the United States and had ended up having a competition. After the race was shown, Junghyuk and Pilkyo took their places in the middle of the room. They had moved all of the furniture completely out of the way just in case Pilkyo had one of his violent outbursts. They flipped a coin to choose who started, and Pilkyo won the toss. Unfortunately for him, that is all he won. As with every time they played the game, Junghyuk could read him and easily defeated his Momma Bird.

After causing a scene, mostly threatening his leader, he accepted his defeat. He turned to the camera mournfully and explained that later that evening they will be uploading a video of him dressed up and doing a dance for everyone.

Right before Lily hit END, Junghyuk announced loudly that he ‘lost the game’, and everyone groaned. As soon as the live ended, everyone was laughing and cheering. Well, everyone but Pilkyo. The girls happily dragged him over to their room to play dressup. Him being one of the thinnest members played to their advantage, and they ended up making him wear Nik’s dress from the girls performance. They then sat him on the bed so that Lily and Hyemi could do the makeup. Nik placed herself behind him and wrapped her arms around his middle and rested her chin on his shoulder.

“I hate you,” he grumbled. Everyone in the room laughed.

“If you hated her, you would have already pushed her off of you,” Briley laughed.

“Not necessarily,” Hyemi laughed, making eye contact with Nik before starting on his eyeliner.

“Hyemi’s right. He pushes Junghyuk off all the time but we all know Pilkyo loves him most,” Nik teased. Pilkyo groaned. He had no idea how he got himself into this mess. Wasn’t the woman behind him supposed to like him?

“That’s right, RicSyung couple is truth!” Hyemi said as she finished the liner. Pilkyo was in a full on pout. “So wait, if the two of you get married, you will be the wife of my husband’s husband.”

“That would make you my wife!” Nik shouted excitedly making everyone, including Pilkyo, laugh. “So wait. If that’s the case, and Lily married Choongjae, that would make her both my younger sister and and our daughter-in-law.” More laughter.

“And if Briley married Wannie, that would make her my sister and sister-in-law.”

“So we’ll all be one big family!” Hyemi said happily and everyone agreed.

“So I guess that means we have to get married,” Pilkyo said to Nik, turning his head so he could look at her better when Lily had stopped applying the lip tint.

“Yah, don’t rush me,” Nik acted scandalized for a moment and then laughed. “We can discuss that more next year,” she kissed his cheek. “For now, I think you are unfairly pretty and in need of dancing.” Pilkyo groaned.

They dragged him back to the guys room where everyone whistled and outright embarrassed the little prince. Lily went to set up the computers again so that they could begin recording when they were ready. Pilkyo had his phone and was watching the dance for Sistar’s Shake It. He didn’t know many girl group dances, so they had a very short list to choose from. Luckily, this dance was pretty easy as long as the dress didn’t ride up on him. He was wearing shorts under, but it would still be really awkward.

He groaned again and Nik laughed, attaching herself to his side to watch the video with him. “I hate this,” he said.

Nik gave him a mock pout. “How do you think I feel? The guy I like is prettier in my dress than I am,” she burst out laughing again until he shoved her off of him. She stuck her tongue out at him and started to walk away until he grabbed her wrist to pull her next to him again. “You’ve done crap like this before, why are you so annoyed with it now?” She questioned, tilting her head and giving him a concerned look.

“It’s because you’re here,”  Sunho informed her.

“That makes no sense.” She frowned at both men and then hooked up the music on the big speaker. “Hey Lil, mind helping so that he can do a bit better on the dance?”

“You don’t wanna help him shake it?” she laughed.

“No, I’d much rather watch him suffer.” Nik smiled and chewed her lip as she plopped down ever so gracefully onto the floor by the speaker. Pilkyo groaned again and rubbed at the back of his neck.

After Lily and Pilkyo worked through the dance a few times, they were ready to film. “Going live or just record and upload?” Lily asked as she prepared the computers.

“LIVE!” the entire room said. The girls all hid in the back and Shinhwa took their place in front of the camera.

Minwoo took center stage this time, and explained what had happened for the few fans that hadn’t seen the previous video while Junghyuk and Choongjae hid Pilkyo behind a sheet so that none of the fans could see him. After Minwoo finished explaining, Briley started the music from behind the scenes and Junghyuk and Choongjae dropped the sheet, revealing Pilkyo in all his drag glory, and he shook it. While he was incredibly embarrassed, he still tried to go all out and did very well. Before the last chorus, his other members had jumped in fanning him or, in Choongjae and Minwoo’s case, shook it as well. After the song was over, Pilkyo turned to the camera and thanked everyone for watching and Shinhwa all said goodbye, then Lily ended the video.

After filming, everyone was still giving Pilkyo a hard time. Minwoo, Choongjae, Nik, and Lily were all mimicking his dancing skills while everyone else rolled around laughing. Nik finally agreed to take him back over to their room so that he could change back into his clothes and wash the makeup off.

Choongjae stood up and pulled Lily by the hand. “I still have too much energy, let’s go for a walk!” Lily laughed and agreed, letting herself be dragged out of the room and into the elevator. Once downstairs, he led Lily out onto the street and down the sidewalk. “It feels good out tonight.” He released her hand in favor of resting his arm around her shoulders.

“Much better than earlier. That bike ride was really hot,” she laughed, letting her head fall towards him and rest against his side. Like this, she could feel just how much taller he was than her. They continued walking in silence for a while and Lily as Choongjae began to hum. A few minutes passed and his humming had her eyes nearly falling shut even as they continued their walk, their pace quite slow so that they could enjoy their time together. “What are you humming?” she finally asked.

“Oh, just something that popped into my head.”

“It’s pretty, very soothing,” she blushed as she said it. He chuckled and continued humming.

Eventually they made it to the river and they sat down on one of the benches. Choongjae pulled Lily closer to him and she rested her head on his chest and ran his hands gently through her hair. She could feel him filling with anxiety suddenly and she pulled back to look him in the eyes. “Are you going to come visit me after I go home?” he asked.

“Would you want me to?”

“Of course! If you don’t want to stay in my apartment, I understand. I could get you a hotel close by if that would make you feel more comfortable.”

Lily laughed. For such a confident man in the public eye, he truly did not maintain it in private sometimes. “We can discuss where I stay when time comes.” She hummed and looked away for a moment, hesitant to speak her mind fully.

“What are you thinking?” Choongjae asked, gently grabbing her chin to make her look at him again.

“Nik has been trying to convince me that I should move to Korea with her when she goes. I could probably teach until I found a job in journalism. I have been considering it for a while, not that I let her know I had been thinking about it seriously. She’s moving next fall or winter, so it would be at least a year before, if I decided to go.”

Choongjae smiled and leaned in to place a kiss softly on her lips. “That would be great.” He gave her another soft peck. “Come on, we should head back.”

Back in the girl’s room, Pilkyo went into the bathroom and changed back into pants, Nik pushed him to sit on the edge of the bed so that she could get the makeup off for him. “You did really well,” she said quietly, running a cloth over his face.

“Oh, so you’re only nice to me in private?”

She quirked her eyebrow. “Did I cross a line? I told you before that you need to let me know if I do.” She chewed her lip as she sat down the cloth and grabbed her oil cleanser, using her fingers to gently rub and pat it in.

“If I said you did?” he asked, shocking her a bit.

“I...I’m sorry.” It was barely above a whisper, and she never stopped working on his face. She wasn’t even sure that he had heard her. She felt his hands run up her thighs to rest on her hips as she continued, taking great care on each step. She saw him smile even as he kept his eyes closed so that she could continue the pampering. “You’re not upset.” It wasn’t a question.

He shrugged, massaging her hips as she continued her skincare routine on him. “That feels really good. I could get used to this,” he smirked, then yelped as she shoved him hard enough that he released her and fell back to laying completely on the bed.

“You can finish for yourself,” she bit her lip and stepped out of his reach when he grabbed for her.

He sat back up and sighed. “But you were being so nice for once.” He was pouting childishly and reached his hands out, making grabbing motions with his hands so that she would come back. Nik glared at him, just out of reach, before sighing and returning to her earlier actions. “Thank you,” he grinned and rested his hands on her hips again. She just rolled her eyes and finished her task.

“Don’t get used to it. Time for bed,” she said, and stepped back to point at the door. “You can send the girls back over. I’m going to get ready to sleep.”

Instead of heading to the door when he stood up, he pulled her close and kissed her. She immediately returned the kiss but he pulled away before it could go anywhere. “Good night.” He kissed her once more and headed out of her room. She groaned in frustration once he was out of earshot. A few minutes later, the girls returned and everyone turned in for the night.