프니엘: On normal circumstances she would not be here right now, but today, for a reason that she keeps as a secret, Se Na had come with us to our live performance. The kid had somehow managed to get into the waiting rooms and now she’s having a good time with Changsub-hyung, and I don’t know what the joke is, but they’re laughing very hard.

“Ten minutes to airing; BtoB, please prepare,” a PD enters our room and informs, and as swiftly as she had come in, she goes out.

“I must go then,” Se Na smiles, rising from her seat, and bids us a “Hwaiting!” with a fist pump, before she exits.

Now that we’re all left to ourselves, we continue grooming or if not that, fixing again the make-up; correcting any misplaced tress of hair and whatnot. It’s only when Sungjae speaks of it do I realize that the skies are dark outside. He’s been looking out the glass. “Hyung,” here I turn. “Do you think thunder will be heard inside the studio?”

“What?” I blink. “What are you saying?”

“Just…answer me,” he says, quite grave in parlance, still eyeing the grey clouds with wariness. “Thunder is imminent,”

“How do you know?” and just in time, a flash of lightning swiftly passes across the entire city, and a few seconds later, it’s followed by a very loud clap of thunder, I could imagine the ground shake.

“Yikes,” maknae flinches.

“Scared?”

He takes a deep breath. He purses his lips and doesn’t answer me. Instead he walks to a table where his phone is, and taps something rapidly on the screen.

For the entire time we wait for our turn to perform, Sungjae couldn’t help but fidget, whether he’s sitting or he’s standing. Whatever it is, I think it’s got something to do with the storm outside, and, moreover, the thunder.

“Sungjae-goon, pray, do sit down, boy! What are you so jumpy about?” Eunkwang-hyung finally asks, when I’m not the only one who notices.

“Sorry,” he behaves then. Nonetheless he still doesn’t stop looking out the window. “Darn it, when is it going to stop?” I hear him mutter once.

Finally, we’re called up onstage and we perform I Only Know Love. I have to admit, our wardrobe on our promotions for this song is better than for ‘WOW’. Our wardrobe here has  a touch of class to it, very far away from our wardrobe in ‘WOW’ which was so funky.

A few numbers after our performance, Se Na’s friends perform. I mean, her friends from our fellow rookie band, B.A.P. They’re currently performing their song Stop It. These past few weeks Se Na seems to even have gotten closer to them.

Have I mentioned before, that she’s really close to their maknae? They even call each other ‘comrade’.

Se Na really likes maknaes, doesn’t she?

Once I asked Se Na about whom she is a fan of; between the two, who would she choose? The funny thing is she merely shrugged her shoulders with a playful laugh, obviously teasing me. I have to admit that it kind of worked, because I did get jealous. Unfortunately she has the ability of seeing through people (and especially me, because we’re really close already), and when she saw that I was affected, it made her laugh even harder, saying that I looked adorable being jelly like that. Go ahead, Pyo Se Na. Go laugh at my feelings.

“Shouldn’t she be here now?” Minhyuk-hyung clucks his tongue, looking around the room. “She’s late.”

“Late for what?” Sungjae asks.

“To congratulate us!” the squirrel cries. “Why, she always does that after every performance!”

“By ‘after every performance’ you mean after our comeback stage for ‘WOW’, and for our Goodbye Stage for it? Which are, in fact, the only performances she’s ever really been?” suggests maknae nonchalantly.

Hyung is flustered for a while, but snaps, “Aw, c’mon! What about those times when she was still our Coordi?”

Maknae shrugs his shoulders with the same indifferent air, not even going for a rebuttal.

“Oh, guys,” Eunkwang-hyung enters our waiting room, having just gone somewhere with Yonghyun-hyung. “I have an announcement to make,”

“What is it, hyung?” we chorus.

“Where’s Se Na? I’m sure she’ll like this,” Eunkwang-hyung looks around briefly, then shakes his head. “Never mind. Hyung says we’re going to have a collab-stage with B.A.P.,”

“Wow, really?”

“Really, hyung?”

“For sure?”

“Yes.” He answers. “And we’re going to start practicing soon. Very soon,”

“But what about The Lunch Box?”

“That will be Yonghyun-hyung’s problem. He fixes the sched for us,” he laughs. “Anyway tell Se Na about this. I’m sure she’ll be very pleased,”

“Alright, hyung,” only Changseob-hyung and Hyunsik-hyung agree.

I am quite surprised at myself when I’m suddenly attacked by the urge not to tell Se Na. Because, apparently, she’d do everything in her power to in to practices and there’d be no stopping her once she wants to see us rehearse. And that’s just another time she’s going to spend with them and that Zelo kid. Instead of us.

I hope I don’t sound possessive or anything?

“Wassup people?” the door suddenly magically swings open and comes in the princess—I mean Se Na—carrying a blue book-like thing in hand. “Nice performance, by the way!”

“Se Na! Where’ve you been?” Minhyuk-hyung exclaims, which startles her a bit.

“Whoa, chill, oppa! I was just outside, see?”

“What’s that?” I ask, referring to the thing she’s holding.

“An album!” she presents, with child-like bliss. On it is where a creative image of a bunny is, and it’s obvious whose logo that is.

“You. Lucky. Brat.” Changseob-hyung looks at it in awe. “You—they—they gave you an album? Signed by all of them?”

Se Na nods twice, very proudly. “Ahuh,”

“Say, what did you do to them? Their fans would almost kill just to have this,”

Covering one side of with the back of her hand, she feigns whispering, “That’s my charm, ya know?”

“But didn’t you have an album of theirs last week, already?!” hyung cries. “And it was signed, too!”

“What? That was their No Mercy album! Too bad, I liked the cover of Warrior better,”

“Do tell me you’re not planning to have all of their albums?”

Se Na counts with her fingers for a while. “Nah. They’ve got like, so many albums so not really,”

“I am so hurt, Pyo Se Na,” hyung pouts.

To which, our muse merely ignores with a laugh. “Well Himchan-oppa promised me.”

“Why would he promise something to you?”

“Eh, it’s a peace offering—aish, why must I explain everything? It’s a long story! Now give me my album back!” she snatches the object from Changseob-hyung’s hold, making the elder yelp.

“Ah, by the way, Se Na,” Hyunsik-hyung starts. “Eunkwang-hyung told us that we would have a co—”

“—oh my goody, Hyunsik-hyuuuung! I forgot to tell you something!” maknae suddenly interjects, and without another word from hyung, he whisks the elder guy away, hindering him from continuing his speech addressed to Se Na.

Se Na blinks. “Told you what?”

“Nothing!” I exclaim. “Nothing, nothing! Want some drink?” I instantly offer her the unopened can of soda that happened to be sitting on the table.

“Sure, thanks.”

Up to the day of our practice with our fellow rookie group, we never told Se Na that we were going to have a collaboration-performance. Our groups have agreed that we’ll hold the practices on our dance rooms alternately; on one day we would practice in Cube, and on another we would practice in their agency. We’re supposed to practice thrice a week.

“Donggeun-ah, tell me something,” Hyunsik-hyung says to me one night, seriousness present in his tone.

“What is it, hyung?”

“Why do you guys not like telling Se Na that we’ll have a collab-stage with B.A.P.?”

“U-uh?” I stutter. I never expected him to ask that. “You mean us? All of us? Why, hyung, it’s not like—”

“—come on. Stop diverting from the topic here. I know you know what I mean,” he chuckles.

For some reason, I’m tongue-tied.

He elbows me. “You guys are too obvious. You’re all too attached to our ‘sister’,” he makes quotation marks with his fingers upon the emphasized word. “I’m not saying it’s a wicked thing, but you guys are starting to look silly, honestly.”

My face feels hot.

He rises from his position with a grunt. “Well, better get going. We’ll still have to go to TS later,”

And he leaves me at the mercy of my own bewilderment, and I find myself asking when I’m all alone, we’re really greedy when it comes to Se Na, aren’t we?

***

The track suddenly stops, somehow unexpectedly, and Bang Yongguk smiles at us. “And that, everyone, is the part where we all dance together,”

“I like it!” exclaims their vocalist named Daehyun, whom I always think to have the same accent as Se Na.

“So, what do you guys think?” Yongguk-nim looks at us. “You like it?”

All seven of us nod. “Yes, very.”

“Let’s start applying the choreography onto the music, then?”

“Game!”

“Alright, kaja!”

Though the part where all thirteen of us has to dance is like, just one-third of the performance, we practice for hours and hours because we have to do the formation, practice the timing, perfect our moves to a level of in-synch, and everything else in between. I have to admit, this friend of Se Na, this Zelo kid (who, by the way, is so obscenely tall; he’s even taller than our Sungjae) dances really good. Along with that hyung of his named Jongup (he, Sungjae and Ilhoon are schoolmates), they play a huge part in the choreography. I’ve also learned that this maknae line of theirs do partly the choreo of their songs.

After two straight of practice, we finally take a break. Gathering our breaths, each of us retired to sit down next to the mirror-wall.

Just in time, Sungjae is sitting beside me. “Sungjae, where’s Se Na?”

He drinks, and shrugs his shoulders with a grimace. “I don’t know about her. Meh, she doesn’t even inform me where she goes now,”

I’m about to say that’s sad, but Sungjae would take that badly. ”Oh,” is all I say, and no words are exchanged between us.

“Junhong-ah, where are you going?!” the guy with plump lips (he’s called Youngjae) halts when their maknae suddenly scrambles from his seat on the floor, and runs to the door.

“I’ll be back!” is all the tall blonde (come to think of it, they’re all blonde!) says before going out in a haste, phone in hand.

“Sungjae-goon, where’s your best friend?” Eunkwangie-hyung inquires.

Maknae sighs. “Believe me, hyung, I wish I knew,”

“By the way,” a deep voice speaks in the room, and it takes only a single second for all seven of us to realize that the voice is referring to us. Their visual sits closer to BtoB’s circle,  saying, “I heard you’re all close with Se Na!”

“Uh…yeah,” Eunkwang-hyung laughs.

“She’s a trainee, right? Under your agency?”

“Yes.”

“How did you become close to her?”

“Um, actually…” Minhyuk-hyung answers, scooting closer to Himchan-sunbae. “Sungjae, our maknae, was the one who’s originally close with her,”

Here I notice that the other B.A.P members are starting to move towards our circle. We finally end up making this really huge ring on the floor. Now all we need is a bonfire at the center and we’d look like we’re having a campfire.

“Really? Why?”

“You see, they’re…childhood best friends. And just a few months ago Sungjae…I mean, Se Na, had to live here in Seoul,”

“She lived in Busan before, right?” the guy named Daehyun said.

“Ne,”

“So Sungjae-ssi is Se Na’s crony…” their leader smiles, out of pondering. “Interesting,”

Sungjae sort of becomes flattered at this.

“But honestly, Se Na’s more than just some colleague to us now,” says Changseob-hyung. “We call her our little sister,”

We all share a light laugh. “By the way, our Jongup likes her very much; says she’s really pretty,” Youngjae-ssi chuckles, and he’s rewarded with a small whine from their lead dancer.

“Aw, Youngjae-hyung!”

“What? We’re all guys here; they won’t mind,” the vocalist replies, then he turns to us. “You guys don’t mind, right?”

I’m about to say I do, but I can’t do that. Also, I don’t think he harbors feelings for her as hard as I do (why does this sound so oddly deep?) and the urge to say Oh really? Ilhoon likes her too! But I merely settle for, “We do get that a lot. Se Na is indeed pretty,”

Here Sungjae lets out an amused snicker at my remark, that I elbow him. Seriously, don’t tease me now.

“Does she have a boyfriend?” the question comes from the Daehyun guy (would you mind if I say he’s really talkative? Yes, very. He’s very talkative.)

Six out of seven BtoB members turn their heads, all aimed at the maknae.

“What?” Sungjae blinks, genuinely bewildered. “Don’t give them the wrong idea!”

Everyone in the room then explodes into a barrel of laughs.

“But seriously!” our maknae protests, his face pink. Normally he wouldn’t but because there are other guys here who would believe whatever is told to them, Sungjae is now frantically clearing his name. “I’m not Se Na’s namjachingu!”

“You got friend-zoned?” Youngjae-sunbae asks.

“Ah, ani; it’s not like that,”

“Best friend-zoned?” Daehyun-sunbae suggests, and laughs even more raucously.

“Daehyunnie, stop it,” Yongguk-sunbae elbows his dongsaeng with a tender smile of reproach.

“We used to tease Junhong that Se Na’s his girlfriend,” the Himchan guy says with a laugh.

“We also thought about that once,” our visual agrees. “These guys here kept on badgering her about it,” Minhyuk-hyung points us with his thumb. Actually the thumb is pointing at me, Ilhoon, and Sungjae. “They kept on doing it, Se Na almost flipped them,”

Here Ilhoon slowly slides his away from Sungjae and I, so he wouldn’t get included in the accusation.

Suddenly, we hear a ramble come from outside; heavy footsteps and an echo of arguments coming from the door. For once or twice the door of the practice room is knocked.

Alas, the door is opened, and high-pitched exchanges of, “No, you can’t go in there!” and “But I want to!” are spoken.

My heart finds the easiest shortcut to the pit of my stomach when a redhead comes tumbling into the practice room of TS Entertainment.

“HI GUYS!!!!” Pyo Se Na cheers upon the sight of us, waving her arms.

“Hi, sweetie!” Minhyuk-hyung interjects. “Nice to see you here!”

B.A.P’s tall maknae comes in right after, heaving a defeated sigh. “I told her not to come in here,”

“Oh, why not, Junhongie? Of course Se Na is welcome here,” Bang Yongguk says.

“See? They all like me!” Se Na sticks her tongue out at her ‘comrade’.

“Well, I like you, too!” Zelo interjects.

Se Na’s face puts on the lightest pinkish color, because the sentence could actually be ambiguous. “Then how come you don’t want me to come here?”

“We were practicing!”

“Se Na knows?” Hyunsik-hyung looks at s, but when none of us seems to know the answer, he turns to the other boy band.

“Eing, Junhong told me, Hyunsik-oppa,” the girl informs, with a flattening of the eyes. “Why didn’t you guys tell me?”

“Well, we—”

“I want to be the first one to see!” Se Na says with so much energy, that we’re all convinced on the spot.

“But comrade, the performance still on the 21^st of December, and we haven’t done everything yet,” ‘Junhong’ reasons.

“No matter! I like all of you guys, very much! So I don’t care if it’s not complete yet. Besides, I’m more interested in the making, not in the very performance,”

“Really?” Zelo deadpans. Then he mumbles something that I don’t hear while he boyishly scratches the back of his head.

But the next thing I know, is that Se Na gasps, “Aw, really? Is that true, comrade?”

The ‘comrade’ blushes. “Yeah.”

“Don’t make me cry!” she coos, as she pinches both of his cheeks. Have I ever mentioned how audacious of a person Se Na is? She has the nerve to touch people like that. “Don’t worry; why don’t you practice now just a teeny-weeny bit of your dance? So not everything about your ‘late birthday present for me’ will get spoiled?”

“This is driving me crazy,” Sungjae sighs (or maybe hisses?) beside me, folding his arms, his face louring.

I laugh.

“Hmm…deal,” B.A.P’s maknae agrees.

“Cool!”

“Alright then; everyone, positions!” Eunkwang-hyung claps his hands and we all position ourselves.

“Sit here, sit here,” Zelo holds Se Na by the elbows and pushes her down on a chair, right in front of us all.

“I’m excited,” she giggles.

“Trust me, it gets better,” he remarks, and goes to the center, where his position is.

And in the count of “Five, six, seven, eight!” the track plays, and we begin dancing the part where all of us are supposed to dance. I think it’s because we now have an audience that we’re conscious, that our moves become a bit more synchronized, harmonized, and no one ever gets to make a mistake.

There’s this part where Sungjae and Zelo have to stand back-to-back. I take a look at Se Na’s face and just forms this small ‘O’ at the sight of it. She watches with curiosity mingled with enchantment, excitement followed by thrill.

Alas, the track stops, and we all freeze in this stance with our arms folded, our side-view exposed to the audience. After a second of delay, she springs from her seat, delighted. As Sungjae and Zelo are the ones at the center, she walks to them, and I could feel the insult stinging the best friend when Se Na merely brushes past him to congratulate the other maknae. “That was so cool! Again, again! Do it again!”

“Eh, sorry, Se Na, but I’ll have to refuse; once is enough. So you’ll feel like it’s still new when you watch it again,” ‘comrade’ replies with an apologetic smile.

Se Na pouts, protruding her lower lip outward. “Too bad.” But she brightens up again, and turns to all of us, “You guys are so awesome!!!”

Zelo’s band thanks her humbly.

“Why, thank you, Se Na-ssi,”

“Thanks!”

“Really? Thank you!”

“What about us, sweetie?” Minhyuk-hyung asks, feigning puppy eyes. “How come you don’t compliment us?”

“I meant all of you, oppa,” Se Na giggles. “You’re so cool!”

There is something amiss in the atmosphere, and then I remember—oh, right. There’s a lack of interaction between Yook and Pyo.

When I look at Sungjae his expression is just like that one he would usually wear; not negative, nor is it positive. That’s when I’m struck with the idea that perhaps I am even more possessive than he is.

But I think that had me stand corrected, because as we go home, that’s where a war begins.

“Just drop me by my apartment, Yonghyun-oppa, please?” Se Na politely requests manager, as she sits in the backseat, together with Ilhoon and Sungjae. Ilhoon sits in the middle of the pair of cronies, sleeping.

“Noted,” manager-hyung answers.

“Ah, Jae, would you like to come with me? I need help with something,”

“No,” says Sungjae, his voice deep with hate, along with his darkened expression.

“Why not?”

“Nothing,”

She leans towards him, and pokes his arm. “Come on, please?”

“No.”

“Pretty please? I’ll treat you out with coffee right after!”

“No,”

Se Na huffs, and, noticing the odd change in the manner her best friend regards her with, she says, “What’s with you, that you’re in a really bad mood?”

“Nothing.”

“Yook, really.”

“Aish, leave me alone!”

“How can I leave you alone, when you’re acting like that?!”

“It’s none of your business!”

“No, it’s my business, that’s why I’m asking!”

Ilhoon starts to grimace and grunt, his sleep being disturbed. But the two still don’t notice this and continue with their bantering. “I told you, it’s none of your business! Why do you even care?!”

 “Well, stellar question! Of course I do!”

“You don’t even tell me where you go!”

 “Is that the issue you’re bawling about? Well, I’m sorry! Stop sulking over such a small matter!”

“Small matter?” he turns to her. “Small matter! Really! Well then, maybe you should start texting that new best friend of yours and you ask him for help!”

“New best friend? What new best friend? I don’t even know what you’re talking about!”

Here Minhyuk-hyung turns subtly at the girl to whisper, nonchalantly, “He means Zelo, dear Se Na,”

She gapes at hyung, then turns back to her crony. “Wait a minute, are you jealous of him? Is that it?”

Sungjae blushes beet red under the yellow light of the inside of the car. He doesn’t answer.

The female snickers, mockery in the highest level, self-amusement present in the snort. “Really. Look, as much as I am flattered but—geez, that’s just stupid! What, you think I like him more than you?”

“Yes!” the boy cries. “You got a problem with that?”

“Aish, how many times—”

“—will you cut that out?! Someone’s trying to sleep here!” Ilhoon yells and covers his face with a pillow. That’s enough to make the two snap out of it.

An awkward—really awkward pause takes place in the van; the rest of us couldn’t breathe.

It takes over for a long string of seconds, and if it weren’t for the really chilly wind outside, I would’ve opened the windows of the car to get some fresh air.

“Sometimes I don’t know if your jealousy is adorable, or miserably pathetic,” Hyunsik-hyung mumbles next to me, in a really small voice.

It’s silent for the next five minutes in the van. After so, Se Na glances at Sungjae, “Yook…” she coos, with much aegyo.

Sungjae slowly turns his head, glaring.

“Yook Sungjae-nim,” Se Na bats her eyes. And the Cringe-worthy Aegyo Award goes to…

The guy knits his brows. “What do you want?”

“Saranghamnidaaaaa,”

Slowly, slowly, one millimeter per second, one of Sungjae’s brows rises.

They stay like that for a long while, until maknae finally opens his mouth. “Is that true?”

Se Na resumes wearing her puppy eyes. “Ne,”

He gruffs, folding his arms indignantly, turning to the window. “Saranghamnida my ,”

Se Na gives up on the spot. She sits back in her seat properly; penitent in manner, silent in nature. That’s when another awkward, suffocating peace looms over inside the car.

When I look out the window, I notice that we’re already near where Se Na’s apartment is.

Just for the sake of saying something, Minhyuk-hyung speaks up, “Hey, The Lunch Box has updated!”

“When?” we all ask.

“Just today! Wait…hmm, just this afternoon!”

Each of us grab our phones, and start fumbling away to read the next chapter. But before I open the latest chapter I glance at the trio behind us, just to check, and Se Na and Sungjae are…looking at each other?

And they’re…smiling?

They share a smile, and it’s not just any other smile; it reaches up to their eyes. The thing is, it’s not just for a brief while do they do that. There’s some sort of sly gleam in their eyes, as if they’re sharing an inside joke. Honestly, they look really sweet just looking at each other like that.

“The Lunch Box updated, eh?” Sungjae muses, eyes still on her, and Se Na snickers.

“Okay, Se Na, you’re home!” Yonghyun-hyung announces as soon as the car halts. I open the door for her.

“Bye, guys! Thank you, Yonghyun-oppa!” she waves at us after she hops off, and we wave back. And even for that last second before I have completely shut the car’s door, Se Na and Sungjae are still smirking at each other with the same mischievous, but oddly, saccharine twinkle in their eyes.

What the heck just happened?

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

haven't posted an A/N in a while.

I don't feel like changing the font to Georgia, so please excuse my sudden change in mood.

anyway the 'collab-stage' they're talking about in this chapter did actually take place (in case you haven't noticed, FNF's setting is the year 2012!) and if you haven't watched their joint performance yet, here! it's actually considered a Dance Battle but, meh...I don't really like calling it that so...ahuh.

one week to go and I'm going to college! and I just availed of a dorm, and my course is a bit /hard/ so, kindly chastise me if the updates are starting to get...nonexistent .__.

this is has so much B.A.P in it, ey? sorry. but they're needed as a plot device, believe me. lol

ok bye

-b