“And… Why are we here again?” Dae sighed unhappily as he was surrounded by girls trying to get him to take the drinks they were offering. Both of them were wearing nice, casual clothes though Riku decided to wear a tie nonetheless. Persona had been invited by Donghae to go out with him and some of s and friends at a very exclusive club in Seoul. Riku had decided that his was the perfect opportunity to lift the heavy mood after what happened earlier at the studio and although Saeko had protested at first, when she had been given the phone and Donghae pleaded to let the two have some fun, she was happy to oblidge and break their curfew just this once, though they were starting to wish that she hadn’t. The situation they were in wasn’t exactly what they would call fun.

“This is good… We get to know our sunbaes a bit and learn from them… This is research.” Riku tried to make this sound more positive than both of them felt it was at the moment. They had no idea that this was that kind of club when they got invited and for a moment they thought they were home free since they weren’t of the right legal age, but since this club didn’t allow any measures, they were allowed inside.

“Yah! Don’t touch me there!” Dae hissed as his face scrunched up in pain. A couple of girls seemed to take a lot of interest in Dae and leaned closer at his exclamation, humming about how they would make Dae’s little boo-boo feel all better again. Where was his boo-boo? Well, funny story about that. Since Dae had told Jessica off in front of everyone, he had to pay dearly for his mistake. Both Saeko and Alex were furious at his lack of respect for someone as important as Jessica Jung and as a result they punished the hot-headed Yurin with some old-fashioned whipping.

“Don’t you even dare to think about kissing me there! y girls, get off!!” he blushed slightly, his cute flailing attracted even more girls to him.

“We saw how you guys saved that girl from killing herself during the showcase,” one of the girls cooed, clinging onto Riku’s arm. “It was so daebak!”

“Yeah…” Riku felt slightly uncomfortable at how close this girl was, trying pull his arm out of her grasp. This definitely wasn’t how he had planned. The professional, calm-minded member of Persona had imagined that they would all go out to eat, have a little chat with a drink and head back home just in time for their curfew. However, never had he expected to find himself surrounded by women who were just a bit too much into the skin ship than he was used to or comfortable with.

They already had a difficult morning, aside from the whole argument between Jessica and Dae, but also the run-in with Chanyeol that Chanhee experienced earlier. She felt grateful that she was wearing that hoodie at the time to cover up most of her hair and that Chanyeol bought her disguise.

“Really,” Riku tried to be as polite as possible as the girl pressed herself closer to him, “You really don’t have to hold me like this…”

The girl batted her eyelashes at the young man, “But I feel so good like this!”

“Oh, sorry for calling you guys out so suddenly,” Donghae chuckled, a girl on either side of him. “But don’t worry, I’m paying tonight so everyone drink as much as you want!”

 Some of the other members of Super Junior were with them, Eunhyuk, Kyuhyun, Shindong, Kangin, as well as Changmin from TVXQ, Minho and Jonghyun from SHINee, Kris, Luhan and Suho from EXO and a couple of trainees and buddies, who were all ecstatic to hear that the young model was treating them all.

“Excuse me…” Riku tried his best to hide his annoyance as he spoke up, “What is this place?”

“What?” Donghae blinked as he looked over at the young brunette, “You’ve never heard of the Panto Club?”

“The… Panto Club?” Dae repeated slightly confused as he tilted his head.

“Ahaha, this is your first time here, right?” Shindong grinned, “How innocent… It’s about time then.”

“Panto Club, it comes from the word Pantomime… It’s like a hostess club where they dress up to the theme of the day. It’s all fun and games really, which is why they lowered the age limit for this place,” Changmin explained calmly, smiling at the girl who was rubbing her cheeks against his arm.

“A hostess club?” Dae scrunched up his nose at the very idea of it. Sure, he knew about those, mostly from watching Japanese animate movies or manga but never really liked the idea of it.

“Come on, it’s okay to touch~” A girl with little curls giggled softly as she was clinging onto Dae’s arm and leaning in close. The fact that this was the first time Persona had ever visited this crazy club made the girls even more eager to throw themselves upon these newbies.

“Let goooooooo!!!” Dae let out a horrified cry but got drowned by the loud music and laughter of the girls as they started doing their rehearsed routines, seeing as this was in fact still supposed to be pantomime.

The other guys seemed to really enjoy the little show that the girls, wearing outfits that were a couple of sizes too small for their own good, were putting up, cheering along as they drank big gulps of their drinks. Thankfully the show got cut short by a whistle sound with pouts and hanging shoulders the girls suddenly left the area. The man that had blown the whistle, a tall young lad wearing a waiter uniform, bowed towards the customers and thanked them for coming but their time was up, to the disappointment of all the guys in the room except for Persona who were more than happy that the girls had left their sides and gave them room to breathe.

“Bye-bye!” Donghae waved them off cheerfully as he sat down next to Riku on the couch while the others joined around them. “Not bad, right?”

“Hae feels so proud that he discovered this place, up until the day he showed us the place we had no idea what kept him away night after night,” Eunhyuk explained with a slight grin on his face. “I totally understand now!”

“That was until HaeSica happened,” Kangin smirked. “It was over and out with Hae’s fun nights out!”

“Yah~”

“HaeSica?” Riku blinked in confusion.

“Yeah… It’s the couple name fans have given Jessica and Donghae, though they don’t know that they’re actually an item.”

Donghae sighed slightly, “I love the girl but she keeps me on such a tight leash. A guy’s gotta have some fun time with his buddies, you know! I can’t even go out drinking with my members most of the time!”

Dae leaned over to Riku, “Told you she was a horrible person!”

“Bwoh?” Donghae frowned, catching his whispers. “Horrible person? Who?”

“Your girl-” Quickly Riku covered Dae’s mouth with his hand to stop him from insulting yet another important person in their company.

“Don’t worry about it!” Riku quickly glared at Dae before removing his hand and turning back to the young idol, “Anyway, I still need to thank you for the other day. When you protected me from that punch…”

“Oh that…” He grinned, remembering the occasion. “It wasn’t like that, it was me just being in the wrong place at the wrong time when that weird guy started launching his fist. Pure luck.”

“You should have told your girlfriend that, she might have stomped that guy into the ground even more!” Dae said, crossing his arms and leaning back.

“Even more?”

“Yeah, right before I put her to her place yesterday,” he scoffed proudly. “How does that icy person even have a boyfriend, such a horrible person!”

Donghae frowned slightly as he stared at the young boy, “Yah! So that was why she was so upset the other day? Listen here kid, Jessica isn’t a horrible person!”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Yah!” Donghae jumped up, glaring at the boy who was busy insulting his girlfriend.

Riku immediately jumped up in between, “Guys! Let’s keep it fun here, okay?”

“Yeah, the kid is right. Let’s enjoy tonight, it’s  not every day we get to go out and be wild and free!” Kangin nodded.

“Or better yet, y free and single… except for Hae!” Shindong chuckled, raising his glass after which the others joined in as well. Donghae, when proposed with a large glass filled with alcohol, immediately forgot about the rude boy and cheered along with his mates.

Riku, in an attempt to lift the mood, raised his glass filled with nothing more but water, and cheered along with the other guys while Dae merely rolled his eyes. He got up from his seat and decided to leave the crowd, looking around for the men’s bathroom.

With a huff he splashed some cool water onto his face, making sure not to soak his blueish black wig before staring at his reflection in the mirror. He couldn’t understand why everyone was being so sweet and protective of a person like Jessica Jung who, as far as he had seen, only had beauty on the outside while on the inside she was a horrible, mean person. Was he really the only person who saw that or did she put some kind of spell on them? And really, if Jessica was all that great, why would Donghae complain about not being able to hang out with his friends?

“As expected… men are the worst!” he muttered, splashing more water onto his face, not noticing that the door had flung open and another man had walked in. It was a tall man, blond hair and an everlasting cool look on his face, towering at a height of 187cm, he was the leader of EXO-M, Wu Kris.

“You’re kind of a weird guy, you know? A really weird guy,” he spoke up. Dae was kind of surprised by the sudden appearance of the Chinese idol who spoke with such a clear voice that you barely could detect the difference between a Korean and a Chinese person with him. He was so fluent.

He frowned and turned around, staring up at the tall guy, “What do you mean by that?”

“People are usually spazzing out over Jessica, especially after meeting her even if you’re going to work with her more often in the future. They would talk about her beauty and body and personality… but you are different.”

“Just because I prefer not to kiss with those who don’t even deserve to get looked at?” Dae scoffed as he glared away from the tall person, crossing his arms. He had heard about Kris, the so called dance machine with his own Ice Prince image. The two could have been twins!

“You’re a pretty honest guy… A bit too honest sometimes,” he shrugged. “Sometimes you need to know when to kick and when to kiss it.”

“That is the worst thing I have ever heard!”  the short rookie sighed. “Is it so bad that I don’t like being fake? I mean, Jessica? Sure, she has talent but a rotten personality. In front of the cameras she acts all sweet and kind but when there is no one around she rather stomp hopeful fans in the ground and shatter their dreams…”

“Is that so?” Kris tilted his head curiously, “Well, I admire you for wanting to stay real, I guess. Then again, didn’t you do the same during the showcase? You pretended to care just so she wouldn’t kill herself.”

“No, I cared. I really, really cared,” Dae glanced back at him. “That person might seemed crazy but she was just driven to desperation… If you listen to her words, her reason for standing there with the gun… You could hear her genuine cry for help. And I felt sorry for her, I cared for that broken heart even if she wasn’t my fan.”

“But in the end you gladly took all the popularity you gained with your so-called selfless act, right?” The tall boy stepped forwards and studied the shorter one. “So far, did you guys ever had to work for what you gained so far? You didn’t have to go years of intense training like most of us, you got picked up by Saeko-nim and pushed forwards like that…”

“Yah!” he glared. “The popularity is something we can’t do anything about! And what do you even know about us? Have you ever met Saeko? That woman makes us work like slaves!” He couldn’t stand the way this boy was talking to him, he definitely could have been related to the icy queen with that cold stare and low words.

“Are you sure that you’re not faking it to try and make it to the top?”

“I’m not fake! I am one hundred percent real!” he practically yelled in the almost empty bathroom. “Just as real as my loathing feelings for you! You are just as bad as Jessica. No, you’re even worse!”

“Such a big mouth for such a tiny punk!” Kris glared, feeling his blood boiling in his veins.

Before anything else could be said or done the door swung open and two happily swaying members of Super Junior marched in, wearing huge grins on their faces that indicated how drunk they had gotten themselves. 

“So here you to are~ Cozy cozy!” Eunhyuk grinned widely as he walked over to one of the toilets and started ping his pants to take a pee.

Dae let out a soft yelp as he quickly turned his back on the peeing member only to be surprised by Kyuhyun who was busy relieving his own bladder. With his cheeks flaring up he quickly bolted past Kris and out of the bathroom, almost bumping into the filled beer glass that was held out to him by the cheerful looking Shindong.

Quickly he scanned the crowd, noticing that Riku was swaying along to the music with the same wide grin on his face as the others, before the brunette spotted his friend, jumped up towards him and swung his arm around his shoulder.

“There you are~” He hiccupped slightly before forcing a sip of beer down the shorter guy’s throat. “C’mon! Let’s have some fuuuun!!!”

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Is Dae really that hot-headed that he manages to piss off pretty much every one of his seniors even before his debut? And how about Jessica, is he overreacting about her coldness or are people really that fake that they're afraid to admit the horrible personality of the company's sweetheart?