“Damn that PN woman!” Dae cursed. After their successful performance during the underground showcase, the news of the pre-debut group Persona rescuing a suicidal fan had reached every part of the world already and the hype for their debut was growing and growing. They had just finished recording a show that would air later at night, the young men that made up Persona were in the process of changing.

“Stop calling her that, she will get mad if she hears you!” Riku laughed at her complaints. Dae had decided on calling Saeko PN from now on, meaning Pedo Noona as she was seen flirting and showing a lot of PDA with her secretary Alex who was considerably younger than her.

“Aish…” Dae rolled his eyes as he rubbed his back against the wall, trying to get on a pair of baggy sweatpants. His back was itching him so badly since Saeko had taken away their comfortable binding tops and made them bind themselves with bandages. All because it risk of their binding tops getting misplaces was too big so if it would ever happen they would be able to fix themselves with first aid bandages. “The only reason we’d ever lose our tops is if Saeko took them away from us!”

“I know, I’m so itchy!” Riku nodded, trying to scratch his own back.

“Hey!” The door of the changing room burst open, revealing to eager looking guys.

“KYAAAAA!” The girls screamed out in reflect, covering their chests with their hands and turning away from the two men, completely forgetting that they were already dressed and looking like men themselves.

“What’s up with those girly screams,” one of the men asked, feeling as if he had just accidentally walking into the girls dressing room. Both guys were part of the staff of this late-night show they just recorded. “Anyways, I got a question for you guys.”

Riku scowled at the men as he adjusted his light-colored blazer and stuffed his hands into his pockets, “What do you want?”

The two guys were holding onto magazines and held them up proudly as if showing off a treasure they had found. The pages of the magazines were filled with half- women spread across them in various and tempting poses.

“These s,” the bigger guy of the two held up his magazine in front of the two of them before pointing at the magazine his friend was holding. “And these. Which looks better?”

“What?” Riku asked as they blinked as a group, feeling slightly disgusted and disturbed by the two men in front of them.

“Why are you asking us?” Dae squinted his eyes slightly, staring up at the two of them and trying to avoid a glimpse of the magazines.

“Young lads like you must know what men should look for nowadays, ya know?” the man with the goatee chuckled slightly, “Look at the size of these big guys! They’re the best! But this guy over here says that smaller is better…”

“Get out of my way,” Dae snorted and pushed past the two, rolling his eyes. Riku followed immediately.

It that staff could just walk in and out of a dressing room like that and that they had to share their room with the background dancers. After getting rather spoiled during their showcase with their own personal dressing room where no one was allowed to enter except for Saeko and Alex, for obvious reasons, they were quickly pushed into a dark corner to work hard all the way. Their dressing room didn’t even have a door! But they didn’t mind it though, they accepted the fact that they had to work hard to reach their goal and that which Saeko had set for them, they barely even got any spending money from her and it felt like everything was going against them but at least they were safe from those creeps with guns and they were having a chance at living their dreams, sort of.

“Men are seriously the worst!” Riku whispered to Dae.

“You’re right about that!” he grumbled as he shot a couple of dirty looks towards some of the dancers. His sour expression melted however once he caught sight of some shirtless guys walking around, talking and relaxing their muscles after the show. “Alright, maybe not all of them..”

The door suddenly slammed open and Alex rushed in, looking overly excited as usual, “Hey guys, the release date of Persona’s first single has been confirmed!”

“Seriously?!” Dae squealed which caused the two guys from earlier look up from their dirty magazines and send them weird looks. Dae quickly cleared his throat, trying to take on a deeper tone. “Uh… I mean, is that so?”

“It’s true! Very true!” He continued gushing over the news, seemingly even more excited than the guys themselves. “On top of that, Jessica is going to play a main role in your music video!!”

“Awesome!” Riku squealed even louder, clapping excitedly at the news that they not only got to make their official single debut but also had one the best paid idols from their company showing up in their video. The staff that had been eavesdropping on the conversation, gave Persona another strange look. Riku immediately shook his head, lowering his voice as much as he could. “That… THAT’S GREAT!”

“It’s going to be the best viewed debut video ever!” Alex smiled brightly. Right now Girls Generation was one of the biggest and most popular groups of all, with Jessica making a name for herself as actress, musical star and model as well and being one of the highest paid member of the nine-member group and elected as one of the most beautiful girls of 2012. She would surely boost up the popularity of Persona if they put her in the single.

“Jessica! It’s like a dream coming true!!” Riku clasped his hands in front of his chest, noticing another look from the guys on the other side, quickly changing his tone once more. “Uh. I mean. It’s a dream come true, yo!”

“But you’re not dreaming!” Dae grinned as he pinched Riku’s cheek, “See?”

“Yeah! See?” Alex reached forward and pinched Riku’s nose.

“Stop it!” Riku pushed their hands away, a frown on his face. But he still felt happy, incredibly happy.

“Isn’t it wonderful…” One of the guys spoke up, his loud voice carrying over to them easily as he subtly started yelling at his partner, “To have such an influential person backing you? No talent or skill at all, but still getting to debut! I guess SM really is living up to their plastic idol name.”

“Yah!” his partner hissed, looking over at Persona with a slightly nervous look. But everyone in the dressing room had heard and while Persona as a group was angry at such an accusation, Dae was too hot-tempered to not do something about it.

“You got a problem?” His natural boyish nature and quick-witted tongue caused him eto move towards the two even though the first guy topped him by at least a head even with his insoles. Riku and Alex were quick on his heels, trying to hold him back from causing any problems.

“You better watch that tone of voice when speaking to me, punk!” the guy stood up and looked down at Dae threateningly while his partner desperately tried to calm him down, “We’ve been working in this industry for ten years!”

“Ten years?” Dae scoffed as Alex tried to get the hot-headed boy to shut up. “Never heard of you and you’re still stuck working here? Some talent you guys have!”

“What did you say?” the man roared. “You wanna have a go?!”

Dae held up his fists and scoffed, “Yeah! Come on! Let’s fight one on one!” Alex tried to pull Dae back with his grip on his shirt but immediately lost that when Dae pulled loose to lead the way out of the dressing room, into the hallway for their fight.

“He sure is manly…” Alex tilted his head thoughtfully. It felt both pleasing and worrying that he got into his man role so perfectly. But fighting definitely wasn’t part of the prince-like image Saeko was going for.

“Yah! Don’t be like this…” his partner tried to stop the taller man.

“Come on, give me your best shot!” Dae taunted as he loosened his tie and got rid of his jacket. Angered by his cocky attitude, the man pushed his friend aside roughly.

“Dae!” Riku called out, following the stream of young men who were eager to watch the fight. He grabbed Dae’s arm, leaning in to hiss into his ear. “You idiot! If you cause trouble here, what are we going to do? What if you slip your gender? We’ll be through before our debut!”

“Let go of me!” Dae brushed his band mate aside with an surprisingly amount of strength. He then turned back to the man with his chest puffed out and sneering slightly. Dae was hig on an adrenaline rush right now and the crowd that gathered around the two had only set his blood racing more. “I dislike, no, I hate guys like you who do nothing but whine all day!”

“You have a death wish, don’t ya?” the man roared, throwing his body into a wild right hook. Dae, however, saw that one coming from a mile away and quickly used his lack of height to duck under his arm, turning to watch the bigger man trail after his momentum. The smirk on his face died, however, as he realized the big man’s fist was now on its way to hit Riku instead.

Thankfully, just as he was about to be hit, some guy ran in front of Riku and intercepted the punch, K-O’ing effectively. The fight was quickly abandoned as everyone gathered around the fallen young man, looking at him curiously as the whispers started filling the crowd as they realized who the young hero was.

“We’re screwed!”

That gross dude did have it coming. But who might that unlucky stranger be? And what was he doing inbetween the man and Riku in the first place? Questions, questions, questions...