프니엘: Se Na-ssi takes so long to reply, for a moment, I actually doubt if she’s still functioning. She just stares back at me with these slightly widened eyes and slightly parted mouth, as if she just lost the ability to speak.

“Why don’t you join in, yourself?” was my question.

After five long seconds, she finally says, lightly turning her head to one side, “Hm? Let’s see,”

Sungjae chuckles. “Make me the main character, alright,”

She pulls a face at him. “How about no,”

“Aw, come on!”

Rolling her eyes, she taps my arm lightly, gesturing us to go. “I’d have Minhyuk-oppa.” She turns to me. “Kaja,”

We collect the others, as we have a lunch-out together with Father today. Soon enough, we’re at a restaurant, with a sumptuous dinner before us, and we eat to our hearts’ content whilst talking.

“Cheers to our resident writer, Pyo Se Na-ssi, my daughter, for an excellent speech!” Father Hong holds his cup upward, and we follow his example.

“Cheers!”

It’s followed by a huge round of applause.

“You know, dear, I couldn’t have done better,” here he swallows a shot, and leans his shoulder a little closer to his daughter. “That was short but very summed up,”

“Ah, ah, that was nothing Father,” Se Na’s face is pink now. She flaps her hand, dismissing the idea. “Really, no biggie,”

“Of course it was dear,” father Hong rubs her head affectionately. “Well anyway, who do you think would best fit as the main character in the story?”

Se Na eyes us one after one. Others clandestinely raise their hand, like Eunkwang-hyung and Changsub-hyung, who are timidly waving their hands and mouthing “Me! Me!”

She pouts for a while, and thinks with her finger on her lower lip. “Anyone could be the main role, really. That would depend upon the story itself.” Then she chuckles. “But my favorite’s…Minhyuk-oppa,”

“Aw, yeah!!!” Minhyuk-hyung offers a long-range high five to Se Na. “That’s my Se Na!”

Se Na just laughs at this while I catch Sungjae gagging. Of course, of course. Se Na is an official possession of Yook Sungjae.

Two weeks later, everyone is busy again; Sungjae and Ilhoon are schoolboys once more, while the rest of us eat play and do whatever we want (it’s quite a shame Se Na is even more busy than we are, actually), and the accumulated submitted stories are increasing at a shocking rate. Since the forum that was opened was for Korean and overseas fans alike, the PDs are having a hard time picking which one should be made into the mini-series. All the stories are altogether creative; some are romantic, comic, some are even grotesque. While this is going on we are all slowly holding the auditions for the main female role. So as to have less hassle, father said we should just pick one among the trainees. Everyone seems to be very enthusiastic about this. Father seems to really trust Se Na so much he even asks her to be one of the judges on whom to choose. I can’t really deny that though. The fact that she truly has an eye for that, I mean. I’m starting to agree with the idea that she’s better off not going to school. It’s not like learning and showing your specialties can only be exhibited in the confines of the four corners of the classroom, right?

Sungjae once mentioned to me that Se Na was part of some sort of drama club they had at school when they were kids. Once she was the lead, twice she was the director.

“And you know what, hyung,” I could remember how maknae said it. “I was once a part of the lead actors and Se Na was the director and…”

“…And?”

He zoomed his face close to mine and said with scared, widened eyes, “She’s…a per-fec-tion-ist.” And I think I had a hint on what he was trying to say. Se Na is all OC when it comes to acting. If she’s terror, though, I don’t want to think about it.

“Darn it!” I hear something is thrown upward and several leaves of papers rain down in the room. Looking around, I realize I’m not the only one who noticed the ruckus. All five of us plus Se Na are in the office (our usual hang out) and the latter one is apparently throwing a fit.

“Oi! What’s wrong?” Hyunsik-hyung jumps in his seat, startled. “Se Na-ssi? What’s wrong?”

I’ve never seen Se Na get irritated this much. Too vexed to even respond, she points to the stacks and stacks of paper lying on the table.

We all take a look at it. “What’s wrong with all these?” Eunkwang-hyung queries.

The girl gathers her bearings for a while, and I see her struggle not to cuss out at whatever that is annoying her. “The stories.”

“What about the stories?”

“They’re all nice, too…nice, some, even, but ugh,” she makes these rough sounds in and ruffles her hair with a wrathful scratching.

“What’s the con?”

“Some are cliché and I actually don’t know which one to really choose. I’ve been scanning them lately, non-stop, but I still haven’t found which one is the best one yet…”

“Aww,” Minhyuk-hyung coos and ruffles her head. “Come here, you…” he pulls her head close to his chest like how he cuddles with his Rilakkuma stuff toy. “Our hard-working sister,”

“Yeah, I agree…” Changsub-hyung seconds, and joins in their hug. Since we’re all huddled together, Se Na is just within the vicinity of our arms. “Our dear dongsaengieeee,”

“I-uh-yeah-now if you’ll—“ Se Na is being suffocated now, but they’re clearly oblivious of it. Minhyuk-hyung even invites,

“GROUP HUG!!!”

While we’re all snuggled Hyunsik-hyung says, “I have a proposition,”

“What is it?” Se Na’s voice comes out from the center of the cuddles.

“Why don’t we all check out the stories? That way we could lessen Se Na’s work,” he says, his eyes disappearing into mere slits as he smiles.

“That’s right,” I assent. “Besides all these stories are made for us so why don’t we check them all out?”

“Right!”

“Right!”

Just in time, the glass door swings open and it reveals her best friend and a gaping Ilhoon behind. “Someone seems to be everyone’s favorite today,” Sungjae laughs, as soon as he recovers from the surprise.

We all unclasp ourselves from each other, and make room for them to sit. Changsub-hyung, who happens to sit at Se Na’s left, especially makes space for Sungjae to sit on.

“Wow, look at all these papers! Where are these from?” our maknae asks, eyeing the stacks with fascination.

“Stories,”

“Stories.”

“Stories submitted by the fans.”

Ilhoon takes one cluster and scans. “’The Adventure of Prince Minhyuk and His Rilakkuma’ oh my gosh hyung you have to read this. This is golden!” Ilhoon laughs so hard we have to laugh along with him, while Minhyuk-hyung takes the paper with an expression of mingled bewilderment and ridicule.

“Have you chosen one?” Sungjae asks Se Na.

She glumly shakes her head. “But these guys promised me they’d help,” here she meets my eyes, and I try to offer a smile, but she looks away instantly that my smile is left hanging on the corners of my lips awkwardly. “On another note, how’s school?”

“Great!” he answers too abruptly.

“Yeah, great.” Ilhoon’s shoulders slack with a sigh.

Se Na eyes her best friend with the most interrogative gaze ever. “Drop it,”

“Alright. I got a C on Physics,” the boy admits.

“Physics? But I thought you were doing well with it?”

“Well not on the Half-life,”

“Half-life? Yook Sungjae, you’re having difficulty on half-life? Come on man, that’s as easy as breathing!”

“I think you ought to remember not everyone is as smart as you,” he harrumphs.

“I remember learning that at school,” Eunkwang-hyung states. “Not very sure how I toiled along, though,” he looks at us all and laughs, “But it was all thanks to my nerd seatmate who always teaches me,”

“I’ll teach you.” I volunteer.

The couple, I mean, best friends look at me. “You will?”

“I’ll try to relearn then teach you,” here I pick up one of the stories, signaling them to go back to the topic. “Sungjae, catch,” I toss it to him, which he does catch easily.

He eyes the front page and peruses. “Wow, I’m the main character in here,”

“What’s the story all about?”

He flips a few pages. “I think this is romantic comedy,”

We all nod, and each of us gets papers, and for the next few hours we all fall into silence, save for some few words exchanged. A little later, Ilhoon asks Se Na, “Oh, Se Na-ssi, are you going to be the director?”

“Well, not really, but I’ll be a part of the production unit. I assist the adults,”

“Well then, are we supposed to act these all out? What if there are scenes that must be omitted?”

“What do you mean omit?”

“Well,” here he closes in to her and shows her the paper. “Uh…here, this scene’s pretty hot,”

She chuckles. “Who’s gonna do that scene?”

“…Me.”

We all break out into hysteric laughing.

“Hey don’t blame me!” Ilhoon whines. “These are fan-fics, you guys! Fan-fics! It’s not my fault this is what runs in the mind of our fans!”

“Hoonie-oppa’s right,” Se Na is the first one to stop laughing. “That would depend upon the degree of the, uh, let’s just say, hotness. If it’s not that suitable for viewing then we may have to omit it,”

We all nod our heads.

“One question, Se Na-ssi,” here Hyunsik-hyung pushes himself forward.

“Hm?”

“If Sungjae were to be the main character…” here he eyes our maknae with this really mischievous glint in his eyes. “And there will be, of course, a very big chance that there will be a female lead, would you get jealous?”

Her flipping of the paper suddenly stops, and after two seconds, she looks up at him. “Why would I be?”

We could all hear the bursting of Hyunsik-hyung’s bubble.

Eunkwang-hyung comes to the rescue. “Well, we thought you might be a little more possessive,”

Se Na tosses this thought in her mind for a while, gradually seeing our intentions. “As long as she doesn’t fall for him like, for real, I’d be fine with that.”

“Ohh,” we all nod our heads in satisfaction, except for Sungjae who’s biting his lip preventing a smile to come out as he scans his papers.

“Well that was the answer you were looking for,” adds our muse, slyly, with her head bowed down and her eyes perusing the lines. Out of the blue, she raises her right hand in a high-five, to which Sungjae automatically responds to.

These two.

The hours drag by, and we have piled up five stories that stand out. Sungjae insists that Se Na ought to go home by now, but Se Na doesn’t oblige. She says she doesn’t want us doing the work she’s supposed to do while she’s having a good night’s sleep.

“We’re used to not sleeping at night, sweetie,” Minhyuk-hyung informs.

“Well, I…” Se Na pauses to yawn. She blinks several times; her eyes are obviously too droopy to open.

“Awwwww,” we all coo, trying to prove our point. We can’t let our little princess have a sleepless night. She’s still young. She ought to take care of her body. “Come on, you,” Hyunsik-hyung crawls over to the pretty friend and gestures us to make room for her to sleep on the couch. “You’re just going to sleep here, then. So later we’ll wake you up when we’re done,”

The girl timidly nods her head, too weak to respond.

“Come, come!” Minhyuk-hyung taps his lap excitedly. “Put your head here!” he turns to Sungjae, as if to ask for permission. The other nods. “Good night, sweetie,” Minhyuk-hyung must be really fond of Se Na that much to the point that he’s sweet-talking to her.

Se Na immediately falls asleep as soon as she rests her head on his lap.

“Hyung, hyung,” I say, while reading what’s on my hand.

“Hm?”

“Look, there’s a story where I’m the lead,”

“Oh? Really?”

“And there’s Sungjae,” I read on the characters.

Changsub-hyung laughs. “What is that about? The PenJae couple finally getting married?” he gets an elbow from Eunkwang-hyung as a reward.

“Seriously though,” I say. “Ignore the fact that I’m the lead. The story seems interesting,”

They all lean closer as I present the paper, and they read the summary.

“How many chapters are there yet?” Sungjae asks.

“Well,” I flap the papers. “Three. It seems very intriguing, don’t you think? Father said the submission could be done in installment. I wanna see how this ends,”

Maknae chuckles. “Hyung I’m pretty sure she’ll end up with me,”

“Oh, really?” I raise my brow at him. “We’ll see then. It’s not like you could dictate that to the author,” I snigger.

“Shh, guys! You’re gonna wake Se Na up!” Minhyuk-hyung shushes with a finger on his lips; Se Na just budged in her sleep with an annoyed grunt, probably caused by our noise.

“Sorry,” Sungjae and I both mutter.

“Anyway hyung,” Sungjae looks at me. “What’s the title of that?”

I turn back to the front page. “The Lunch Box’. Wow, really.” I’m slightly taken aback by this. The author must have been too focused on the story that it forgot to think of a better title.

“’The Lunch Box’. Oh. Okay,” he bobs his head and gestures the other guys to come closer. “Guys, guys. I have a proposal to make,”

“Alright what is it?”

“What if we surprise Se Na?”

“How?” Ilhoon says.

“Well, as far as I know her…Peniel-hyung, hand me that paper please,” I do. He presents it, and speaks in a shushed voice, making sure Se Na won’t hear it, asleep or awake. “Se Na likes stories that aren’t really…cliché. And this is a little mysterious, so I bet she’ll really like this. Let’s tell father we like this one. And the entire production unit. That way Se Na wouldn’t even have to choose among the pile we segregated,”

Each of us seems to agree with this.

“So, who’s going to pick up a phone and tell father Hong?” Eunkwang-hyung says, and Ilhoon, being the nearest to his phone, picks it up and informs Cube’s president.

A day later, the surprise was in. Father, Se Na, the seven of us and the scriptwriter and director are already having the meeting, with Se Na of course in oblivion which story we picked. She kept on asking Sungjae, but the latter wouldn’t bend. But he assured her that ‘she’ll like the story very much’ because ‘it wasn’t cliché’. And since Se Na trusts him, there’s no problem.

“So, Se Na-ya, I think you and the boys have agreed this is what we’re going to have as their mini-series?” father asks Se Na from across the table.

“Just say yes…” mumbles Sungjae in her ear clandestinely. But Se Na, being the honest being she is, shrugs,

“Well, they said I’d like it. So maybe yeah,”

Father nods. The secretary roams around and passes the cloned copies to the director, the scriptwriter, and to Se Na.  “The first three chapters are there, and I read it myself. It really is kind of intriguing, I must say. It brings you back to your teen love all over again,” the president says, but Se Na doesn’t hear any of those. Across the table, I could see the color draining out of her face as she reads the papers.