“Are you okay?” Himchan looked at him in concern.

Yongguk was looking at him speechlessly as he didn’t realize that he was staring at the guy too close for how many long minutes for him to realize that he was in completely weird position with him.

His mind immediately snapped as he quickly rose up from the guy’s hold and pushed him away, causing the other man to fell down on the floor instead.

“Y-Yah! D-Don’t touch me!” Yongguk mentally slapped himself for saying that to him.

Himchan blinked oddly at the stuttered man. “I….I don’t need your help….so please…..don’t touch me….” Yongguk hurriedly get out from the toilet, trying his hard to hide his embarrassment not caring the frown look he earned from the guy.

“He didn’t even say ‘thank you’ for that. What an ungrateful bastard….haish!” He cursed silently as he stood up and noticed that his were already wet. “Dang it! I’ve just washed this pants last night! Now I have to rewash it back again. Haish!!”

Few seconds after he tried to wash his pants a bit, Yonghwa poked his head from the toilet’s door and looked at him curiously. “Yah, what took you so long? You know that the chief is a very impatient man, right….”

“I’ll be there in a minute….I need to take care of this first, please…..” Himchan kept pulling out the tissue from tissue roller and tried to dry out wet area of the pants.

Yonghwa chuckled and walked to him. “It’s just pants, Himchannie. I don’t think people would notice it anyway. Did you get your pants while defecation?”

“Yah! I’m not that dirty or impatient enough while letting go of everything….so please don’t get it wrong,” Himchan taking one tissue for a last time.

Yonghwa smirked and smacked the guy’s playfully. “Let’s just go, Himchannie….haha,” Leaving the man alone in the toilet.

Himchan startled by Yonghwa’s sudden action. He never thought the guy would smack his for fun like that but he decided to take it in a matter of joke instead. It’s not like Yonghwa was gay or something….right?

Himchan shook his head at the assumption and threw the tissue into the dustbin before leaving the place in wonder of the unknown man earlier; who is he anyway?

“Hyung….”

Yongguk snapped from his fantasy and looked at the youngest man in the car in a shock. “Y-Yes?”

“You looked like you’ve just seen a ghost. Is everything alright?” Junhong poked his head in between the front seat and the driver seat, looking at the blonde curiously. Manager Kang just kept his view in front while driving the car with his ear listened attentively to their conversation.

“I-It’s nothing….And no, certainly I didn’t see a ghost! Not any….” Yongguk gulped nervously and avoid an eye contact from him.

Junhong cocked his eyebrow at the weird gesture and pouted. “Okay, if you say so….” He leaned back to his seat and fastened his belt once again.

Yongguk breathed deeply and stared blankly at the window next to him. The street lights in the city flickering beautifully tonight and even though it’s nearly midnight, there are still a lot of people walking around the town, hanging out with their family and friends.

The sight of the happy face on them made Yongguk wondered of his happy times during his school days with his friends. How he missed those memories so much. Maybe he should call them once in awhile since he will get busier once the recruitment for new members settled. But instead of calling his close friends that night, he decided to call his parents first since he also missed them. What a caring son he was.

The next day, after another meeting with Ji Hwan about the upcoming audition held by the agency the chosen three decided to choose which slots they prefer to be participating in and preparing themselves with a short training before the day came.

“Hyung….”

“What?”

“Why did you choose the second one instead of joining the both of us in the first slot?” Youngjae asked Himchan curiously. Together with Jongup, they were sitting in a nearby cafeteria for a lunch, waiting for their food to come.

“Are you crazy? I certainly would not choose the first one and like, hello! I don’t have anything to show on stage! Well…..besides my skill in martial arts, though….” Himchan cleared his throat while slurping his Americano.

The second slot was a close audition whereby the participants were auditioning in a private room while the first one is an open audition which is the participants will auditioning on a stage in front of public.

Surely that is not what Himchan wants. Even most of the information included in his resume prepared for the audition was faked. In the resume, he was claimed to be a multi-musician, to know most of Korean traditional musical instruments such as daegeum, janggu, kkwaenggwari, and jing.

He wished to include his martial arts skills and art defense in the resume but somehow Ji Hwan changed everything into art related talents which is much to Himchan’s worries and annoyance. What should he answer when the juries asked him various questions about the musical instruments? What if one of them was an expert in art performance and asked him to play one of the musical instruments that he had never touched one before?

Himchan cursed mentally at the thought as he wished he could jump off from the building and die instead of going for the audition, which is in 2 days from now.

“Argh!!! Dang it! Why are we such in a rush?! Why can’t they just hold the audition next week? I’m so doom….” Himchan slammed his head on the table miserably; ignoring the odd looks he received by the people passed by them.

“Well, at least you got one more day to prepare while our audition is tomorrow, hyung….You should feel grateful for it,” Youngjae sighed.

“But still, I don’t want to go for the audition! I don’t want to embarrass myself again, Youngjae-ah….” Himchan looked at him with a pout.

Jongup chuckled by the guy’s childish act while Youngjae rolled his eyes by the whining man. “Everything will be alright, hyung. Don’t you worry about it, okay? Just do your best for the audition, surely you can pass it easily if you practiced hardly tomorrow….”

“Fine…I’ll do it. Gladly, you don’t have worry so much about it since you guys were born talented in music. Lucky you….” He pouted again.

Youngjae was the expert code broker in their group, but in the same time, he also had a very good voice among all of his peers. Many people had suggested him to go for a singing audition but most of the time he turned off the idea despite his love towards technology mechanism and mathematics more than music.

Youngjae admitted that he once wished he could stand on stage and perform as an artist or singer one day – just to get the feelings of being a star in everyone’s eyes. But he had never thought his wish was already granted.

While Youngjae was known for his great voice, Jongup was known to be the best free-style dancer in their group for having the ability to dance freely based on any kind of songs he heard. He always took it as an interest but never thought of using it as part of his future career. And now, it was an advantage of having such talent for the mission. He had no regrets at all.

“Chill out, hyung….we’ll help you out with it….as long as you didn’t screw it, you’ll pass the audition smoothly and everything will be fine afterwards….” Jongup patted the elder’s shoulder.

“What do you mean by not screwing it?” Himchan narrowed his eyes.

Jongup blinked innocently as if he didn’t realize he just said something sounds so sarcasm in the guy’s ear while Youngjae was trying his hard not to laugh. “Ohh look! Our food is here! Yeah! Let’s eat!” he dismissed the elder and quickly ate his food in trying to avoid any eye contact with him instead. Himchan mumbled something as they all started to dig in with their food before continuing with their training.

It’s just an audition. What other possibilities could happen if they did not get selected anyway? The founder still hired them to be part of the team just to solve the case.

The next day was the audition and luckily, after lining for half an hour and registered themselves as the participants both Youngjae and Jongup was one of the earliest participants to perform on stage which is much to their relief.

After finished the audition, they have to wait for the results to come out as they decided to watch some of the performance from front and much to their surprises, most of the competitors had a very nice voice and some are just showing off their talents and skills in dancing and beat-boxing which what makes the competition looked a lot harder and tense but at the same time, exciting.

Youngjae couldn’t control his excitement towards the whole auditions and more to his amusement; most of them dressed that almost resemble many of famous pop singers like the one he saw on television.

“Wow….appearance sometimes does matter, huh? I mean, I saw one of participants who auditioned for singing competition few months ago at the other side of town got selected because of their appearance instead of their talents. Do you think it’s really fair enough?” Jongup turned to him.

“Well, that’s K-POP to you. Sometimes, they got selected to be part of the team just for a matter of appearances while some other has to take care of vocal jobs instead of them. I would be lying if I admit it as fair play. But, you must know that most of famous group nowadays were famous because of their multi-talents skills, Jongup….”

Jongup nodded in agreement. Even his favorite singer, Chris Brown was a multi-talented singer. The guy can sing and dance at the same time which is much to Jongup’s amusement. This is why Jongup admired him for his entire life.

“Here….” Jongup have Youngjae a milkshake while he was holding on some snacks. Youngjae stared at the food that the guy was holding on and wondered when did he bought those while they were busy watching the show for the entire time.

“T-Thanks, Jongupie….” Youngjae murmured as he slurped the liquid from the big straw with his eyes locked on the stage, waiting for the next contestant to appear. As the juries called the person’s number, a guy with a casual appearance walked on stage with polite smile plastered on his face.

Youngjae can’t see the guy’s face clearly because of the bangs covered most of the guy’s forehead but judging from the figure, he can guess the guy might be around his age or foremost.

“Hello, my name is Jung Daehyun and I’m from Busan. Nice to meet you….”

After telling the juries about the song he was going to cover, he started to sing. That was the moment when Youngjae felt his heart stopped for a few seconds.

Daehyun’s smooth yet clear tone voice echoed around the place as it made the entire audience that were watching the audition started to pay fully attention to his performance, making Youngjae stunned wholly.

For a minute, Youngjae never thought he could hear someone can sing as beautiful as this guy. He listened to the song emotionally as he slowly smiled at the lyrics sang by the guy. Suddenly, he saw Daehyun looked at him in the eye.

Youngjae was awestruck by the sudden eye contact as they both were staring at each other from afar. His eyes were dazzling, eyeing him deeply as if he was reading him through his mind. The time felt like it was froze for how long hours he could thought until the guy stopped singing. Daehyun turned his eyes back to the juries and smiled at them before left the stage as Youngjae was looking at the stage speechlessly.

“Hyung….”

Youngjae jolted by the sudden touch on his shoulder and eyed the man scarily. “Hyung, are you alright? You looked like you’ve seen….a ghost…..” Jongup asked him.

“N-No, it’s nothing. I-I’m fine, really!” Youngjae chuckled nervously and gulped hardly before he tried to breathe normally. “I think I need to go to toilet. Do you know where it is?”

“I think it was at the backstage, hyung. Do you want me to come with you?”

“N-No, no! It’s fine! I’ll go by myself. You just wait here, okay?” Youngjae gave him his drink before rushed to the backstage and quickly find a toilet. As soon as he found one, he went to the sink and the tap to wash his entire face with the cool water for few times.

He then eyed the mirror and blinked at his image for a few seconds, wondered of the sudden feeling he got a moment ago. “What was that just now? It feels as if….” He touched his chest, only to feel his heart beating faster than usual.

“No, no….it can’t be…..haha. Youngjae, you’re dreaming,” Youngjae sneered and shook his head for his stupidity.

“What can’t it be?”

Youngjae glanced at the person next to him only to see Daehyun was fixing his bangs while eyeing the mirror in front. Once again, Youngjae was shocked by the guy’s sudden appearance as he quickly backed away until his back touching on the wall behind him.

Daehyun glimpsed at the wide mouth-open man and laughed. “Yah, why are you so shock all of sudden? Never seen a human before, hmm?”

Youngjae didn’t take the sarcasm hurriedly as his mind trying to fix its gear back to place and processed what the man was actually said. He just stood there and looked at him with wide eyes.

Daehyun cocked his eyebrow and crossed his arms on his chest, smirking at the younger. “By the way, my name is Daehyun, Jung Daehyun….what’s yours?” he shoved his hand for a handshake.

Youngjae turned at the hand as he hesitantly reached for it. “Y-Youngjae...Yoo…Youngjae…”

As soon as he grabbed the hand, suddenly Daehyun pulled him to his chest and sliding his other arm around Youngjae’s waist. Youngjae gasped by the action and looked up to the man. They were so close that he can even feel Daehyun’s breathe touching his face – and Daehyun’s heartbeat touching his chest.

Not being able to pull off, Youngjae just froze there with his body being held tightly by the newly man. His face blushed hard enough by the skinship, not knowing whether he should put a fight or wait for a little bit longer since he didn’t want to cause any fuss or unwanted trouble.

What should he do now?

hello ~

How are you guys feeling ? Hope you liked the chapter very well ^^

I might going to start up a new story soon (but like usual , I won't promise how much often I'm able to update despite my schedule. It's a JongLo ship with a slightly BangLo ship too and sadly I don't think there will be any DaeJae ship in the story. huhu

The genre was a bit angst but if you want to read it , just let me know about it and I'll post the foreword XD

Thank you for reading and see you around !

Senichi_Yamada is reporting for duty , yes sir !