After the tour of the house and introducing themselves formally. Chanhee and Yurin excused themselves to go back to their respective homes for some clothes and toiletries. They said good-bye to their families and went back to Lim’s house that they would be sharing together. Even though they always hoped to live in a dorm like other groups, considering the circumstances, living like this was the safest option.

“We’re back,” both girls dragged their suitcases and other bags into the house, closing the door behind them.

“Welcome back,” Alex was there to greet them. “Manager has gone for the day to take care of some things, so the both of you will be working with me today!”

“De~” both replied enthusiastically. “We’ll just put our stuff away upstairs and start immediately!”

“Oh!” Alex seemed to finally notice their luggage. “I’ll show you where you can store these since you won’t be wearing much of your girl clothes anyways.”

“Wae?” Yurin blinked stupidly at him, pausing half-way up the stairs. Alex merely chuckled at her state of confusion.

“Well, the both of you are debuting as male idols after all. You’ll have to keep up appearances!” he bounced up the stairs, past them and turned to two other rooms that they had not been shown to earlier. Opening the door to one of the rooms, the girls were faced with racks and racks of clothes obscured in darkness. The only window had heavy curtains blocking the light from coming through and a flick of the light switch showed the girls exactly what kind of clothes there were. Men’s clothes.

“While you were gone, I called up the station and borrowed some clothes,” he said cheerfully. “I asked for size small to medium in men’s size. Clothes for every occasion from formal to casual; but your stage clothes will be made as soon as I take exact measurements.”

“So we’ll have to wear men’s clothes all the time?” Yurin cringed, looking through men’s dress shirts in her size. They were nice but she really liked wearing her own clothes.

Alex put his finger on his cheek thoughtfully. “Well, no, not ALL the time. Like now, Persona hasn’t even made their first appearance and nobody knows you. So you’re free to take your free time in your regular clothes. However, you do understand appearances have to be kept up when your job calls for it, right?”

 “Deeee~” they both pouted, dragging their suitcases to a corner of the room Alex pointed to. But they couldn’t help being a little but excited. This was it, this was their chance.

“You should change into your male disguises now, though. We have to get to the studio to work on your first song!” a little thrill of pleasure ran through Chanhee and Yurin’s body. Working on a song. They were actually doing this!

“De!” They chirped together enthusiastically. At the stern look they got from Alex they lowered their voice a bit. “DE!”

“Here, you’ll need these,” he handed them both a tank top. This was a special top, though, with extra lycra for extra compression power to bind their chest. “Instead of bras, you can wear this! It’ll give the illusion of a moulded, defined men’s chest! ”

“You’ve really thought about this, haven’t you?” Chanhee thought gloomily as she looked down at the small white tank top with disgust.

He ignored their gloomy look, “Come on, we don’t have time to hang around, we have the studio booked and they’ll give it to someone else if we’re late!”

“De!” the girls jumped, immediately stripping out of their clothes as soon as Alex closed the door behind him. Slipping out of their bras they donned their binding shirts, struggling a little with the tight fit but paused afterwards to grudgingly admire their now square, masculine chests.

“This is amazing!” Chanhee poked at her chest, noting that if felt like hard muscle underneath her fingers. Her usually soft upper body was compacted to a more masculine shape with the ingenuous binding and the hidden extra padding in the tank top. Plus, it didn’t really restricts her breathing too much either.

“Huh…” Yurin poked at her stomach after feeling her chest, goofily smiling at how the top flattened her stomach and made it look like she had abdominal muscles.  She started crossing her legs and bouncing up and down, humming to Mr. Simple.

“Girls! How long are you going to take?” Alex’ voice called from the other side of the door as he respected their privacy enough not to stay in the room while they changed.

“3 seconds!” Chanhee called back as they both hurried out of their clothes and grabbed a set of clothes while singing quietly to herself, not even really knowing what she was doing. “3 seconds is all it took to look at you…”

“And my heart seems to fall for you,” Yurin sung laughing, making up the following lyrics on the spot. Chanhee grinned at Yurin as she buttoned up her shirt, the two falling silent as they cast around for clothes and dressed.

Meanwhile, Alex stood outside the door, stunned. Had the vice-president discovered… naturals? She had said that they were quick to pick up dance steps they didn’t know, were they naturally inclined towards making music?

The two exited the room, being confronted by Alex who pulled them along to the next room. “Pick a wig. It’ll be your hair from now on.”

The two girls concentrated on the wigs on top of the dummies.

“Hmm…” Chanhee pressed a finger to her lips. “Which one…”

Both were short, men-style wigs. One was a stylishly-cut dark brown wig with parts of it highlighted red while the other was a deep black with blue highlights that complimented it. They were excellent wigs and would pass for real hair with no problems.

“Let’s try them on,” Yurin suggested. Alex showed them quickly how to tie and clip their hair into place, then put a thin stocking cap on top of it. Then, they were taught how to put the wig on.

“Hmmm…” Chanhee ducked back into the change room to look at herself in the full length mirror, making a face at the black and blue hair. “Blue isn’t really my colour.”

“Yeah, this looks horrible on me.” Yurin grimaced. “Switch?”

Carefully taking off their wigs so it wouldn’t misplace their real hair underneath, they traded and carefully put on the hairpieces.

“This…” the transformed Dae looked at himself in the mirror, unable to stop a grin from appearing on his face. “This is me!”

“And this is me,” Riku was grinning too, fiddling with a few strands of errant hair on his head, but otherwise satisfied with his appearance. The hairstyle was edgy and bold, a hairstyle that told whoever looked at it that the owner had impeccable and demanding taste. Also, it told whoever looked at Riku that he could afford a stylist skilled enough to give him such a perfect cut. The shaggy blue hair hadn’t been ‘Riku’. This small cut with the bold red streaks definitely suited him. Meanwhile, Dae’s slightly longer and shaggy black hair seemed to match his outspoken personality and lengthened his face, making it a bit more angular and sharp and less feminine. The bold blue highlights seemed to illuminate like pure bolts of lightning.

“You look like a delinquent,” Riku laughed, nudging Dae with his shoulder good-naturedly.

“Shut up,” Dae nudged back, a smile on his face to show he was joking. Da was very pleased with his new hair. It didn’t require too much extra primping, like with Riku’s hair, and Dae actually liked longer styles on guys anyways. It made them look a bit more dangerous and bad boy and Dae would have to say that with the type of company Yurin hung around with, she would’ve totally been the bad boy type if she had actually been a guy.

“Now, pin it to your heads with these bobby pins!” Alex helped them out, showing them how to do it so the bobby pin was invisible and the wig held tight. “See? Because of these strategically placed pins, now even a good sharp pull-” he pulled Dae’s hair, causing him to scream girlishly, “- Won’t take it off easily!”

“Right,” Riku took a step away from Alex nervously. This guy knew a lot about these kind of things that it almost seemed awkward.

Riku was decked out in a nice black suit with a suit jacket, looking incredibly good-looking and polished. His thin tie was tightened close around his neck in a perfect Windsor knot which Alex had showed him to do earlier, the cufflinks were elegant and tasteful and the shoes she had donned were patent leather and fit her whole outfit spectacularly well.

Dae on the other hand, even though he was wearing a suit too, had a totally different feel about him. He wore his white shirt un-tucked and cuffs and collar ed, tie tied loosely around his neck, which his pants hanging low and a wide white belt to compliment the whole package. His suit jacket was a silvery-grey. Dae’s boots added a few more inches to his height, which he really needed, and the large scuffed metal bracelets on his wrists have him a bit more of an edge.

Even though they still had girlish mannerisms, Riku and Dae were trying and if Alex wasn’t in on the secret, he probably wouldn’t have guessed. But they still had a long way to go.

“Okay, this will be your first time out in your male disguises, so remember to always be aware of three things,” Alex held up three fingers and pointed to the first one. “How you walk, how you talk and how you act. You’ll be working with people in the industry now and they all gossip; rumours get around fast. So keep in mind that the two of you are men now! Men amongst men!”

Chanhee frowned, “Doesn’t walk fall under act-”

“Completely different!” Alex hummed quickly. “Com-pu-lete-ly dif-fer-rent! Now, let’s head to the studio instead of standing around splitting hairs!”

Think these girls will pull it off? Or will they fail at being boys? Leave a comment and let me know what you think so far!