The rest of the week flew past without much fanfare. Sungmin started school on Monday, and was coincidentally placed into my class. As I was assigned to help him get used to the school environment, I managed to pick up some more information about him. I noticed that even though Sungmin was very bubbly and fun-loving around us, he was more of a recluse around others. We could be talking happily one minute, then the next when my other friends approach us, he would become withdrawn and quiet.

The girls in our school almost wanted to start a fan club for Sungmin due to his good looks, especially after they realized that Sungmin was Kyuhyun’s cousin. However, Sungmin was unresponsive to their advances, unlike Kyuhyun, who savours every second of it. In the end, they gave up on the idea. Sungmin was very relieved when the whole incident blew over. Anyway, it only took a few days for the hoo-ha of a new student to die down before everything returned back to normal.

Soon, the day for Heechul's concert came. The concert was scheduled at 8pm, so after school, Kyuhyun, Sungmin and I went home to change out of our school uniforms. I was pretty worried about whether or not we would be allowed into the pub as there was an age limit of 18 and above. Among the three of us, we were all underage. Luckily, Heechul had given us staff passes so we can sneak into the concert.

"Anyway, I know the bouncers there." Kyuhyun said as we were walking home, "Let's try going in by the front first."

"What if they don't let us in?" I asked.

"They would definitely let me in. I've been there a couple of times." Kyuhyun answered, giving me a big smile, "If they don't let you guys in, then we'll use the passes."

"I like his idea," Sungmin had an excited look on his face, "Since we’re consumers why should we sneak in from the backdoor? Besides, it is more exciting to try to go in by the front. We just have to dress a little more smart casual-ly," 

"Smart casual?" I repeated, thinking hard about what do wear.

"Basically anything but T-Shirts and jeans,"

Once we reached home, Kyuhyun asked us to get ready first while he played a couple of rounds of Star Craft. Sungmin let me have the wash-room first, saying that girls need more time to prepare. I was thankful to him as I had decided to put on some make-up in an attempt to make myself look older.

In the end, I decided to wear a peach pink maxi-dress, together with a white cardigan for I felt that it will be rather cold in the pub. After slapping on some bb-cream and lip gloss, I stepped out of my room. Sungmin was sitting on the armchair, playing with his Nintendo DS.

"Kyuhyun's not done yet?" I asked, ruffling my long black hair such that they fell naturally around me.

"He just came out from his..." Sungmin trailed off as he raised his head to look at me. He stared at me from head to toe while standing up from the chair, putting his game machine down slowly. I shifted uncomfortably from one foot to another under his intense gaze.

"What? Do I look weird?" I asked, looking down at my dress.

"No! NO!" Sungmin exclaimed, shaking his hands at me, "No... You don't look weird..."

"Then why are you staring at me like this? Is this dress inappropriate?"

"No, there's nothing wrong with the dress!" Sungmin smiled shyly, a little blush building up on his face, "It really suits you. You look different..."

I heaved a sigh of relief and started walking towards the kitchen, "Different in a good way or in a bad way?"

"Good way, of course..." Sungmin answered, walking into the kitchen behind him. I took two packets of apple yoghurt drinks from the fridge and passed one to him. I leaned back against the bar top and took a sip out of the packet, looking at him from head to toe. He was wearing a sky blue shirt with a white pullover vest and white pants.

Now it was his turn to feel uncomfortable, "Do I look okay?"

I smiled and raised the drink up to my mouth again, "What do you think?"

"Urm..." Sungmin straightened out his vest nervously, "I'm not sure actually..."

"You look fine!" I laughed as I finished up the drink in one shot, "In fact you look great! Very handsome!"

"Really?" He had a satisfied smile on his face as he too finished his drink in one gulp. Just then, Kyuhyun came into the kitchen. Wearing a white dress-shirt, grey blazer that buttons up only at the centre, and matching grey pants, he looked much older than his actual age. "Can we go?" he asked, looking from Sungmin to me.

The both of us nodded as we exited the kitchen behind Kyuhyun. Since we were all dressed up nicely, we decided to cab to the pub instead of taking the public transport. We reached our destination at around 6 plus, and since the bouncers have not reported for duty, we managed to sneak into the pub without getting caught.

The interior of the pub was really nice! It was a rock metal themed pub, and the tables and chairs were made from piling barrels and rubber tyres together. I felt a little out of the place. “Damn, Heechul could have told me that the pub’s theme is rock metal… I would have dressed in something funkier rather than this sweet dress… But again, Kyuhyun and Sungmin are dressed up as well… So I guess its fine…” I thought self-consciously as I tugged on my dress.

We sat down at the table that was nearest to the stage, wanting to get a clear view of the performance. “I want to go find Heechul!” I said to the boys and started walking off. Kyuhyun reached out and held on to my arm, pulling me back into the seat.

“He’s busy preparing for the performance right now. Let’s just get something to eat first.” He said, passing a menu to me. He was right, now would be a bad time to go disturb Heechul as he would need all the time he had to do some last minute preparations. Kyuhyun got himself an alcoholic drink while me and Sungmin got ourselves some fruit juice. Amidst laughter and chatters, we started eating our late dinner.

Just as we finished eating our food, the speakers whirled to life with some static, “Ladies and Gentlemen! Let’s put our hands together and welcome the band that you guys have been waiting for! I give you… THE TEMPEST!”

Applauses and cheers exploded in the small premises of the pub as the stage lights blasted on. Almost immediately, the loud wail of an electric guitar rang out through the air, followed by the pounding beats of the drums that were making the ground tremble. More screams and cheers followed as the patrons slowly got used to the bright stage lights.

I looked around me. I realised that most of the patrons were made up of young girls that looked no more than their mid twenties. Some of them even had light sticks and were squealing and yelling as if they were high school girls. Their eyes were glued to the stage like hyenas to meat. Turning towards the stage, I saw the objects of their interests.

Heechul was wearing a black leather jacket and a white shirt with a huge glittery black skull in the middle. His head was thrown from side to side along with the rhythm as he drummed away, totally engrossed in what he was doing. There was another outburst of screams as he drummed really fast from left to right, before throwing the drum sticks up into the air. The sticks did 2 somersaults in the air before Heechul caught it a perfectly.

Then his band mate attracted everyone’s attention by jumping high up in the air before landing with another loud wailing note on his electric guitar. This guy had short, golden brown layered hair, but due to his constant movement on stage, I was unable to get a closer look at his face. He was wearing black jeans pants and a punk leather jacket with blunt metal spikes along the shoulder pads.

Jumping up and down, he jammed his guitar animatedly while singing the song. With Heechul’s rhythmic backdrop, the excitement in the pub was slowly escalating. Screams could be heard from all the corners, and most of the patrons, including me and Sungmin, were on their feet, jumping up and down to the beat of the song that they were performing. Kyuhyun, the gamer alcoholic, was simply sitting calmly in his seat, nodding to the beats while sipping his 4^th cup of red wine.

The concert reached its when the vocalist jumped off the stage and actually got near to the tables. The girls went crazy, and were just all hands over him. To my surprise, he actually danced closely with some of the girls, and even planted kisses using his fingers from his lips to their faces. “Just what’s wrong with this guy?” I thought to myself disapprovingly. Call me an old-fashionist but I felt that this was inappropriate behaviour.

If first impressions weren’t enough for me to judge him, his image, in my personal opinion, dropped even lower when he actually took off his jacket at nearing the end of the song, revealing his white sleeveless shirt underneath, which were soaked through by his sweat and was practically see-through. He then threw the metal studded jacket behind him. He must have forgotten that Heechul was behind him for the jacket flew straight toward Heechul.

I covered my mouth in shock as the jacket got closer and closer to Heechul. No one else seemed to have noticed the incident for their attention was still on that show-off flirt, who was flinging his hair from side to side, causing the beads of perspiration to be flung off. More screams ensued.

I was on the verge of screaming, even though my screams would be camouflaged with the rest. If Heechul got hit by that ‘bomb’, he would definitely get hurt! Did you even see the size of those metal spikes by the side? Even if they were blunt, they could still poke him in the eyes and blind him! As these horrible thoughts flooded my mind, Heechul managed to duck away at the last instant. However, the jacket still managed to brush against the side of his face.

I thought I saw Heechul grimaced in pain, but he continued his performance without missing a beat. I looked over at Sungmin and Kyuhyun, and saw that they too had a worried look on their faces. Kyuhyun nodded at me in acknowledgement, indicating that he had seen the incident. I stood up from my seat, filled with worry for my brother but Sungmin held me back. He shook his head when I looked over at him, mouthing the word ‘later’.

Glancing back anxiously at the stage, the current song had come to an end. “Was he so excited that he forgot Heechul was behind him?” Sungmin leaned over and said into my ears so I could hear him above all those ridiculous screaming. I shrugged as I watched the vocalist put down his guitar and started looking around, seemingly looking for his jacket.

“It must have been an accident… If not he would know where he threw the jacket…” I thought as I watched Heechul threw the jacket back at him with an angry look on his face, “Oh no. Heechul’s angry. That guy is in for a bad time…” Strangely, the guy simply grabbed his jacket from Heechul and gestured for him to start the next song without any form of apology. Heechul looked a little shocked too. Was this guy always so rude?

Their performance lasted for 2 hours, and ended at around 10.30pm. Once it ended, I saw Heechul stormed off the stage immediately without even a bow to the audience. It seemed like he was really pissed. The other guy however, bowed and winked at the audience playfully before going down the stage.

An older man tried to intercept Heechul’s path to speak with him, but an annoyed and furious Heechul pushed him out of his way as he approached our table with a stormy face. He came over and grabbed my glass of fruit juice that I was holding and gulped it down. Then, cursing under his breath softly, he grabbed Kyuhyun’s glass of red wine and downed that within seconds as well.

I studied Heechul’s face closely. There was a small red cut on his cheek, where I suppose the jacket hit him just now. However, when I reached out to touch it, he pushed my hands away impatiently. “Aiish! What are you doing?” he scolded, reaching out for the bottle of red wine and gulping it straight from the mouth. I lowered my hand sadly. When Heechul was in one of his mood, even if the president was here, he would not give him any face.

“This is entirely that guy’s fault,” I thought miserably as the three of us stared at Heechul silently. I could already foresee how the situation would be if he brought this anger home with him. Just then, I noticed the culprit talking to the man whom Heechul pushed away just now. That man handed some money to that guy, who nodded at him. The older man then patted him on the back before walking away.

After that man walked away, that flirt started looking around him until he saw our table. With a stony expression, he started walking in our direction. I looked between him and Heechul nervously as I wasn’t sure whether Heechul would bash him up if he came approached now. I only managed to catch a glimpse of his face before he reached our table.

“This is your share,” He said, putting some money on the table before continuing to walk straight.

“Yah! Leeteuk!” Heechul growled, grabbing the guy’s arm tightly.

“What do you want?” Leeteuk asked, flinging his hand away impatiently, with a scowl on his face.

“What’s wrong with you tonight?”

“There’s nothing wrong with me!” Leeteuk tried to walk away again. I glared at him, annoyed by his lack of manners.

“Aiish! Shouldn’t you apologise for what happened just now?!”

“Fine,” he turned around and looked at Heechul in the eye, “Sorry. Happy?” He shook his head before walking away. Kyuhyun, Sungmin and I watched him as he walked briskly towards the door and exited the pub without looking back. Our attention was brought back to Heechul when he kicked one of the chairs in frustration.

“Calm do…” Sungmin wanted to calm him down, but was given a hard shove by Heechul instead.

“AIISH! Don’t touch me!” Heechul yelled as he too stormed out of the pub. Kyuhyun called for the bill immediately while I grabbed the money that Leeteuk had left on the table and ran out after my brother, with Sungmin following closely behind.

The way home was horrible. Heechul was like a walking thunderstorm, with his black face and heavy footsteps. I knew better than to pester him now for I would only be seeking trouble. When we reached home, Heechul kicked the screen door open and went straight into his room, flinging his door shut so hard that the loud bang shook the whole apartment.

The three of us exchanged looks silently. Being his sister, I was already used to Heechul’s tantrums. Kyuhyun, having stayed with him for more than a year, had also seen similar situations before. “Let’s just go to sleep.” Kyuhyun suggested, taking off his blazer. I nodded and went into the washroom after grabbing a set of pyjamas from my room whilst the boys went back to their room.

“What a horrible night…” I thought as I stepped into the bathtub, submerging myself in warm water, “This is all… What’s his name? Aiish, this is all that idiot’s fault!” I slapped the water a couple of times angrily, “Why couldn’t he have just apologized nicely?! BABO BABO BABO!!!” Right now, we should be having a celebratory party for Heechul. We even had the drinks and snacks ready. But because of what that guy did, we had a storm brewing up in the house. I sighed, sinking lower into the water, “Let’s hope that guy would call Heechul up and give him a proper explanation or we would all be suffering in his place…”

When I stepped out of the washroom, Sungmin and Kyuhyun were sitting in the living room, playing poker cards. “Wow!” I said, walking towards them, “I didn’t know our math genius knew any other games besides Star Craft!” Kyuhyun flashed his 1000-watts smile in my direction as he laid down his cards, winning the game. Sungmin groaned as he threw down his cards in frustration, “NOT AGAIN! How do you manage to win every single round?!”

Kyuhyun smiled as he stood up and ambled towards the washroom, “Because I had already calculated the probability of the cards,” Sungmin laughed and started gathering the cards, putting them back into the case. A sudden loud crashing sound startled me. It seemed to have come from Heechul’s room. “He’s at it again?” I asked, looking over at Kyuhyun, who nodded at me and entered the washroom.

I sighed. Every time Heechul is in a foul mood, I’ll have to straighten up his room afterwards as he would be smashing and throwing everything he could get his hands on. He has some serious anger-management issues. I just hope he would not bring this bad mood back to our town as the school holidays were coming in approximately a week’s time.

“Don’t worry, he’ll be fine after a night’s sleep,” Sungmin tried to comfort me. I gave a bitter laugh and patted his shoulders, “We would be lucky if this blows over in a week.” Then, shaking my head in resignation, I wished him goodnight before going into my room, leaving a confused Sungmin sitting on the couch.