Author's note: This is just a piece of absolute silliness I amused myself with after a stressful work week. A lot of nonsense really, but I hope you enjoy it anyway <3

“Don’t do this to me.”

Sehun stares from face to face with a sense of mounting panic. Four of his hyungs have him surrounded. His back is to the wall. Nowhere to run.

“Just relax, Sehun,” says Chanyeol, smiling at him. Usually Chanyeol’s smiles are reassuring or filled with laughter. Sehun has come to rely on Chanyeol’s smiles. They always help him calm down when he’s stressed out before concerts, or liven up a dull evening when everyone’s tired and down.

However, this particular smile doesn’t comfort Sehun in the least.  “It won’t hurt a bit,” Chanyeol continues, and Sehun presses his lips together nervously. There’s no doubt about it. This smile is even toothier than usual. This smile definitely evil.

He presses his back harder against the wall. If only he could somehow magically fall through it and escape the torture in store for him. He pictures how surprised his hyungs would be if Sehun suddenly sank through the wall like it was made of jelly, and starts to giggle somewhat hysterically. He claps a hand over his mouth to cut himself off. This isn't helping. He focuses back on Chanyeol. 

“Of course it will hurt," he says. "How could it possibly not?” He ducks as Chanyeol attempts to ruffle his hair. Next to him, Baekhyun is smirking.

“Don’t be such a baby,” he says. Sehun eyes Baekhyun warily. The golden-haired singer might look like he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but Sehun knows better. That angelic face is capable of the worst kind of mischief. “I know exactly how to do this,” Baekhyun continues confidently. “I’m practically a professional. I could open my own business if I ever get tired of being an idol.”

“Hyung,” Sehun says seriously, “have you ever actually done it before?”

Baekhyun avoids his eyes. He looks at the ceiling and gives a melodic hum. “I watched it on YouTube. Same difference.”

“What? It is not!” Sehun cries. He turns desperately to Kyungsoo and Jongin. The maknae line of EXO are usually more likely to be on his side. Kyungsoo looks as calm as ever. Sehun can never quite tell what his quietest hyung is thinking. Jongin, however, is just the opposite. His emotions are written all over his expressive face. Jongin looks half-amused, half-anxious, and he giggles nervously when Sehun meets his eyes.

“Help me out here, guys,” Sehun pleads. “When I said I wanted this, I didn’t really mean it. Or, well, I did—but not like this!”

“Be careful what you wish for,” Kyungsoo says solemnly. The corners of his lips twitch.

“Sehun...it’ll...be okay?” Jongin’s own nervousness makes his intended reassuring words sound not reassuring at all.

 “It will not 'be okay!'" Somewhere among his frustration, Sehun is rather horrified to find himself using finger-quotes. "It’s going to hurt!”

“All good things come at a price,” says Baekhyun firmly. “You wanted this, and now you’re getting it.”

“You can’t get out of this,” Chanyeol agrees, grinning broadly. “Come on now. Guys, help!”

Sehun wails as all four of them grab him, two at each arm, and drag him towards the bathroom. He resists with all his strength, but while he might have been able to hold his own against one at a time—or well, okay, not Chanyeol. Or Jongin. And, yeah, not Kyungsoo either—that hyung has the power of pure evil in his deceptively cute little body. But Sehun could take Baekhyun. If Baekhyun didn’t cheat by using his hapkido skills, anyway—

Okay, fine. Sehun doesn’t stand a chance against any of them, let alone all four combined. He struggles and writhes and does his best impression of a slippery fish, but they all just laugh at his pathetic attempts to free himself. They drag him through the bathroom door and push him down onto the closed toilet seat. 

“Hold him down,” Baekhyun instructs. “Don’t let him get away. Everything is nearly ready.” He picks up a cup from the edge of the sink. It rattles ominously. Baekhyun puts his hand inside, fishes out an ice cube, and passes it to Jongin. “Ice it till it goes numb.”

“Ah!” Sehun flinches as Jongin holds the ice against his skin. “It’s cold!”

“Stop struggling,” Chanyeol commands in his deepest voice, sounding dead serious for the first time in as long as Sehun can remember. “It’ll be dangerous if you move.”

Sehun stops struggling, immediately subdued. When he’s told by a hyung in a voice like that, he can’t help obeying. Being the youngest of a nine-member group and at the bottom of the pecking order for the last however many years has given him some kind of complex, he thinks moodily, trying not to pout. 

He grips his knees and watches with growing dread as Baekhyun picks up the largest kitchen knife. It gleams in the cold bathroom light. Baekhyun holds it up and turns it from side to side, inspecting the sharpness of the blade. Sehun’s breath hitches in his throat. 

“Baekhyun, stop messing around,” Chanyeol says, exasperated. “This child is already freaking out enough as it is.”

Baekhyun grins, produces a green apple from the front pouch of his giant hoodie with a theatrical flourish, and positions it on the sink bench. He slices it briskly in half, then sets the knife aside.

“You hold this, Chanyeol,” he says, handing him one of the halves. “I’ll do the stabbing.”

“Stabbing?!” Sehun jerks back as he tries to free his arms again.

“I told you to stop struggling!” Chanyeol smacks him lightly upside the head.

Sehun shrinks back as much as he can while being restrained by three determined men. “You’re not really going to do this, right? Right? Hyungs!”

Baekhyun has his back to him as he stands over the sink. In the reflection of the mirror, Sehun can see that he’s holding a long silvery needle, the tip wickedly sharp. A chill crawls, spider-like, all the way down his spine. He watches with dread fascination as Baekhyun takes the open bottle of soju from the sink bench and pours the clear alcohol liberally over the needle, then shakes it dry, drops of soju flying everywhere. He turns around, needle poised in his dainty fingers.

“All sterilized. Kyungsoo, got the stud ready?”

“Right here.” Kyungsoo holds up a small gold stud earring. Jongin releases another high-pitched giggle.

“Chanyeol," Baekhyun declares, "position the apple!”

“Yes, sir!” Sehun feels his earlobe move slightly as Jongin’s ice cube is replaced with Chanyeol’s apple half.

Baekhyun advances. Sehun has never experienced tunnel vision before, but now, the whole world seems to narrow in on one point. The point of the giant needle, gleaming in Baekhyun’s pretty fingers. His thoughts come in panicked bursts. Why, oh why had he admired Jongdae’s new earrings in front of his wicked hyungs? Why had he voiced his wish aloud that he could wear earrings too? He feels his eyes grow wider and wider until the whites are surely showing, whole body going stiff with apprehension.

“Hold him still, Jongin,” says Baekhyun. He leans in close, until their noses almost touch, eyes narrowed in concentration. The needle slides out of Sehun’s field of vision, and he feels a slight pressure as Baekhyun positions the point on his earlobe.

“Dear God, please,” Sehun babbles, “please don’t let it hurt. I’ll be so good. I’ll never say anything embarrassing on broadcast again.”

“It’s too late for prayers now,” Kyungsoo says, out of sight behind Sehun. He sounds amused. Sehun wants to protest that this is no laughing matter, but he’s too fixated on Baekhyun’s expression of intense concentration to construct the sentence.

“On the count of three,” Baekhyun says, and the others all join in the count.

“One…” Sehun squeezes his eyes shut.

“Two…” His heart starts thumping in triple-time, hammering so loudly against his ribs he’s sure they must all be able to hear it.

“Three!”

Baekhyun makes a muted noise of effort. Sehun hears a faint yet sickening pop as the needle breaks through his skin, pierces his earlobe and buries its sharp tip deep into the apple half. He gasps, sweat breaking out instantly on his forehead. There’s a short, stunned silence, which is broken by one of the guys behind Sehun drawing in a breath and letting out a high-pitched, ear-splitting scream. The noise bounces around the bathroom, loud and long and not showing any sign of stopping any time soon. 

“What? WHAT?” Sehun yells, eyes flying open, only to find himself nose to nose with Baekhyun. He yelps in surprise, not expecting Baekhyun to still be that close.

Baekhyun’s eyes are round as saucers. He looks as shocked as Sehun feels as they stare into each other’s eyes, until whoever is screaming cuts off suddenly into a strangled mmmph.

“Shut up, moron,” mutters Kyungsoo’s voice. Sehun doesn’t need to turn around to know that Kyungsoo has taken the easy way of shutting whoever-it-was up and clapped his hand over his mouth.

“...Ah,” says Baekhyun faintly. He pulls the needle back through Sehun’s ear and straightens up, backing towards the sink. Kyungsoo swoops in to push the gold stud through the freshly-made hole in Sehun’s earlobe. Sehun winces as heat floods into his ear. It begins to throb with a hot, steady pulse that matches the rhythm pounding heart. Kyungsoo fastens the stud. When he's finished, his fingertips come away stained red. Sehun stares at them.

“Blood!” he wails. “Hyungs! I’m bleeding!” 

“Of course you’re bleeding, what did you expect? We just punched a hole through your ear,” Kyungsoo grumbles. He grabs a towel and holds it gently to Sehun’s ear.

“It’ll stop in a minute,” Chanyeol says, patting his shoulder. “The stud will stop the bleeding.”

“Does it hurt a lot?” Jongin looks stricken.

Sehun considers. “Not as much as I thought it would. It just feels really, really hot.”

“Uh, Baekhyun,” Chanyeol says suddenly, “are you