"Hey Suho, wanna grab a bite to eat?" Lay put on his most charming smile and pulled his wallet out of his pocket. "My treat."

"Sure!" Suho beamed and Lay had to admit that 'Gullible Gramps', the nickname that the Korean members had come up with, was rather apt. Pulling their hoodies over their heads to avoid detection, they slipped out the side doors of the SM building and headed to a neighbourhood noodle shop.

He waited until the steaming bowls of soup are set before them before dropping the bomb. Giving Suho his most serious look, he said, "I know what you and Kris are up to. I found his envelope with the contract."

Suho's reaction was even better than he had expected. The leader stared at him, wide-eyed and slack-jawed as half-bitten noodles slid out of his mouth. "What-how-oh ."

"As a sign of our friendship, I haven't revealed the details of your little contract to anyone–," Lay continued. "yet."

Suho flinched visibly and gazed at him with pleading eyes. "Please don't tell the managers. You know I spent seven years training for this and if I'm fired I'll never be able to face my parents and–"

"Shhh..." Lay pressed a finger to his lips and pushed Suho back into his seat. "If you tell me everything that happened on the night we got drunk, I promise I won't say a word."

Suho bit his lip and poked his chopstick in his noodles before letting out a dejected sigh. "Alright, here's what happened:

"That night, we were still fighting about leadership styles so I proposed a bet–you know how easily Kris rises to the bait when he's drunk. We decided that we would both test out the other's disciplinary methods and agreed that the first one to give up would be declared the loser. I didn't care about winning, but I did want Kris learn about mutual respect so I made him sign a binding contract and set a punishment so terrible that he had to play nice."

Lay leaned forward in anticipation. "What was it? Kris crossed it out and wrote 'an afternoon in hell with the spawns of Satan'."

Suho let out a small chuckle. "The loser has to look after all ten of you when we go to L.A. and the winner gets to fake a fever and stay behind at the hotel."

No wonder Kris had been so intent on winning; a day free of naggy managers and pesky members was definitely something that their esteemed leader would lay down his pride for.

"So what were the renegotiations all about?" Lay asked.

"How did you–never mind. Well, after you lot decided to pull your little prank, he went a little crazy and begged me to bend the rules. So we sat down and agreed that he would be allowed to glare at you guys while I got to send texts with smiley faces to my members." Suho grinned happily.

"Smiley faces?" Lay grunted. "That's all you got in exchange for our misery?"

Suho held his hands up defensively. "Hey, my members were freaking out and I'm pretty sure Sehun and Kai were ready to declare mutiny..."

"Well now that the bet's off, you can stay captain for a while longer." Lay tucked the envelope back into his bag and picked up his chopsticks. "I have to admit, I'm impressed. A few bottles of soju and bam–Kris is now your personal puppet."

"It wasn't that hard," Suho said, shrugging modestly. "All you need to do is outdrink him and wait for him to blab his deepest, darkest secret. Once you have that, he's very easy to persuade."  

"Wait, what? What secret are you talking about?"

Suho blinked at him in surprise. "I thought you of all people would have known. Doesn't Kris have a humungous crush on Victoria?"

*****

"Give it back."

Kris stood in his doorway, eyebrows furrowed in an angry V. Lay could almost feel the cold fury radiating from their esteemed leader's body but nonetheless plastered on an innocent smile. "Give what back?"

"The thing you stole from my room yesterday." Despite the hostility in his voice, there was a tiny trace of fear in Kris's eyes, a comforting sign that gave Lay the courage to plow on.

"Oh, do you mean this?" He pulled a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and waved it in the air as if it were a red cape in a bull-fighting (or in this case, buffalo-fighting) ring.

When Kris leapt forward, Lay jumped out of reach and whipped out his phone. "Don't even think about it. I have Manager-hyung on speed dial and I have a feeling he won't be too happy to hear about your attempt at feigning sickness to skip work."

Kris froze. The fear in his eyes escalated to flat-out panic before he pursed his lips and ground out, "What do you want?"

"What do I want? Lots of things, to be perfectly honest but I'm feeling generous today so all you have to do is take out your phone, call Manager-hyung–"

"If you think I'm stupid enough to turn myself in–"

"–and tell him that you want to put your English skills to good use and take us all to Disneyland for a field trip."

Kris snorted. "Hell no. Who'd want to ride spinning teacups and pose with princesses and..." He trailed off as he caught sight of Lay's thumb hovering over the 'call' button.

Shooting him a glare, Kris quickly pulled out his own phone. The conversation with their manager was surprisingly short (it seemed like Manager Kyun had a soft spot for women in colorful ball gowns) and Kris was assigned the task of making all the arrangements for the trip.

"See. That wasn't so hard, was it?" Lay smiled broadly and placed the contract in Kris's open hands.  

"That's it? You're just going to give it to me?" When Lay nodded, Kris narrowed his eyes in suspicion. "You don't have a hundred photocopies lying around somewhere to blackmail me later?"

"Nope. All I wanted was for the twelve of us to have a good old jolly time in America." He patted Kris on the shoulder and gave a cheeky two- salute. Leaving a stunned Kris standing in the middle of his bedroom, he punched a fist in the air and added another tick to his mental tally.

Lay two, Kris zero.  

Checkmate

| Posted on  May 15, 2012  | 10:40 pm |

Today, I feel like a downright Santa Clause who's brought joy and happiness to everyone under this roof (save for DZ the eternal Grinch). LH is ecstatic about meeting Donald Duck, his childhood idol while K is in the midst of making a checklist of the scariest rides available. Even SH emerged from beneath his rock to join in on the celebrations and I'm munching on D's impromptu batch of sesame cookies as I type.

Disneyland announcement aside, today was probably the most lucrative secret acquisition day in my career. The only thing better than discovering a secret is stumbling upon a secret by chance. DZ may think he's heard the last of me, but he doesn't know that I let him off easy. 

Remind me to take S out for lunch more often for advice on secret-extraction and DZ-manipulation. Best investment I've ever made.

Tags: buy one get one free

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