TITLE: 16 Years Bad Luck

AUTHOR: pandorasnowhearts

PAIRING: OT6

GENRE: comedy, slice of life

WARNINGS: hmm...none really

SUMMARY: Andy seems superstitious lately, so the members decide he needs a prank or two to cheer him up. Too bad a superstitious Andy almost always seeks revenge.

ARTWORK: Gwillion

“Don’t you think Andy seems a little…weird lately?”

The question was asked by Dongwan in the practice room, after Andy had gone off for a short bathroom break. The other members glanced up at the inquiry, a little surprised.

“Yeah,” Minwoo admitted after a moment’s thought. “Now that you mention it…”

“That might be because of the other day,” Eric said, recovered from what little shock Dongwan delivered with the question. He lifted his face as he dangled an apple slice from his fingers and crammed it into his mouth. Then, with his teeth gnashing, he said, “He called me and told me he accidentally cracked his bathroom mirror.”

“And…?” Hyesung prompted, clearly more than a bit irritated by Eric’s disgusting eating-and-talking mannerism.

Eric swallowed before continuing, “He sounded kind of panicked." He put the tip of his thumb in his mouth, pondering. "Something about his mom always telling him that breaking mirrors was bad and that he’d have seven years bad luck now.”

Junjin snorted. “So, what? Our maknae’s unsettled because he’s afraid that terrible things will befall him?” He wiggled his fingers next to his face. "The mirror's ghost will come and haunt him; ooooooooh?"

“Well –“

A shrill scream came from the bathroom. Instantly, five spines straightened and five pairs of ears perked up. The bathroom door slammed open and out scurried Andy, his hair sopping with water and his shirt splattered with droplets' handprints.

“Oh my God,” Minwoo said, his jaw hanging open. “What happened…?”

“The faucet broke on me!” Andy wailed, his eyes bulging and his lip trembling as if he had never encountered such a horror in his entire life. He flailed an arm in the direction of the restroom, and the other members gradually began to hear the sound of splashing water. “It’s broken!”

An emergency plumber and a toss of the towel later, the six of them gathered wordlessly in a rough circle on the floor. Andy absentmindedly rubbed the towel against his wet hair, his eyes focusing on something nonexistent on his thigh. His face was pale enough to lead people to believe that he hadn't slept for days...which he might not have.

“Andy,” Eric started, taking on his authoritative tone after clearing his throat, “you need to stop being so superstitious.”

Andy jolted his head, miniscule orbs of water launching from the tips of his hair. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“You know about the placebo effect, right?”

The other members peeked across at their leader, intrigued as to what he was going to say. Eric was rarely this serious in anything unless it involved contracts of any sorts. Andy tipped his head in a slight nod in reply to the inquiry.

Eric inhaled and unscrewed the top of his water bottle. “In my opinion, it’s kind of like that. You’ve been antsy since you cracked that mirror of yours” – Andy flinched – “and that attitude of yours is starting to affect your everyday life.”

Andy swallowed and then flicked his tongue over his lips. “It’s true that I’m a little nervous about that mirror, but –“

“You’re just going to try and blame it on that broken thing," Eric interrupted, and the way in which Andy recoiled and bit his lip only confirmed Eric's statement. Eric heaved a sigh and then glugged down another mouthful of water. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand before saying, "But in the end, it'll only be your conscience about the mirror that'll give you all those scary misfortunes."

--

The noisy melody of a ringtone exploded through the apartment, and Eric sleepily fumbled for the phone next to his pillow.

"Hello?" he answered groggily, his eyes already fluttering back to their closed positions.

"Eric, help me!"

Upon hearing Minwoo's desperate and incensed tone, Eric raised his other hand to ruffle his own hair. "Yes?"

"Andy's been texting me and calling me and just driving me crazy all night and I need you to go to his apartment and shut him up!"

Eric furrowed his brow, computing the meaning of the words in his rusty brain. Andy? Calling? Shut him up?

He opened a single eye toward the electronic clock on his nightstand, taking much less interest in Minwoo's panic than the brilliant 3:30 lined up along the clock's screen. "What about Andy?" he mumbled, more than a little irritated about the time he had just seen.

Minwoo groaned impatiently on the other side of the phone. "He's literally been leaving me texts every ten minutes starting at midnight, asking me to tell him bedtime stories! Is this kid five?"

"Just tell him a bedtime story," Eric muttered, feeling an incredible desire to hang up on Minwoo and sink back into his fluffy pillow and warm blankets. "It's not difficult for you."

"Well, thanks for looking down on me, you jerk; to imply that I wouldn't even try!" Minwoo snapped. "For your information, I told him five stories and he's still bugging me. You don't think he's so superstitious that he's afraid to go to bed, do you?"

"Wait, wait," Eric said, something clicking in his head. "Did you just get me up at three in the morning to complain about how one of your group members is bothering you into not being able to sleep? Do you not see the irony in this?"

"Shut up and get over to Andy's house!" Minwoo hollered. Eric cringed. "Listen. You were the one who went on that whole valiant speech about the placebo effect or some crap, so you should go over and take care of Andy's developing insomnia! I can't deal with people at all when dawn hasn't broken, and I certainly can't deal with people who want me to tell them fables about bears and a girl with blond hair and freaking porridge!"

"Okay, okay," Eric replied, already swinging himself up into a sitting position. He may have been the assertive leader of Shinhwa, but he was no match for a sleep-deprived Minwoo. "I'm going. But to be fair, Andy's our maknae. If anyone's going, it should be all of us."

--

Andy swung the door open, and in the doorway stood five sleepy-eyed versions of his group members.

Despite their pitiful appearances, the relief that came over Andy's hyperactive form was incomparable. "Thanks for coming," he mumbled.

"Who ever heard of a perfectly healthy thirty-year-old man unable to sleep because of a goddamn mirror?" Minwoo grumbled, still sour that he had to leave his home after giving an SOS to Eric, who insisted on getting the rest of the members to join on their journey to heal their maknae.

His words didn't seem to insult Andy at all, rather, they only made Andy more nervous. "Um...yeah...about that..."

"This is bullcrap!" Minwoo said furiously minutes later, as all the group members (except for one very anxious maknae, who waited outside) carefully swept up pieces of a broken mirror in Andy's room. "He can't even clean it up himself?"

"Breathe, Minwoo," Dongwan said. "His superstition will resolve itself."

"How long will that take, though?" Minwoo demanded as he plucked up another shard of glass and put it into the plastic basin. "Because let me tell you, I can't come here every single night to make sure the kid falls asleep. Physically and mentally, I can't do that." His lip twitched.

"You know what we need to do?" Junjin remarked. "We need to scare him out of his paranoia."

"Oh god," Hyesung groaned. "No. We're not."

"Why?" Junjin protested with a pout. "We'll prank him a couple of times; he'll think that it's the mirror working its powers, but then we just tell him that it was our doing."

"And then he'll realize it's not actually the mirror giving him bad luck," Eric said, a smirk coming over his face. "That's great, Jinnie."

"What?" Hyesung snapped, glaring toward Eric. "You can't possibly be agreeing to this!"

"Well, what do you propose we do?" Dongwan questioned.

Hyesung sat back on his heels and grumbled to himself before voicing, "I just don't think it'll turn out well. He'll be really upset and you know how Andy is when he's pissed."

"Oh, please," Minwoo said. He clamped a piece of glass between his fingers and watched as the light glinted off its surface. "He'll be thanking us instead."

--

Junjin blearily opened his eyes, foggily directing his pupils at the ceiling. He briefly pondered why he was awake before turning onto his side, all too prepared to return to sleeping, and then his ears gradually became tuned to the loud pounding noise that sounded like construction work. Only it was coming from his door.

He somehow managed to drag himself up and to the door, and barely unlocked it when it flew open, slamming into his forehead.

"Who did it?" came an aggravated voice immediately after. Junjin couldn't be bothered to answer it as pain and sleepiness simultaneously clouded his judgment.

"What?" he answered dumbly, only then recognizing a rather upset Andy.

"You heard me!" Andy snapped. His face was of no-nonsense, and he seemed as if he was desperately holding back a series of insults to spit in Junjin's face. "Who did it? Or was it all of you?"

Junjin tilted his head in confusion as he stared at his groupmate, who was doused in water and smelled like...kiwi. "What happened to you?" he asked.

"Stop playing stup-"

"To be frank, Andy, it's about five in the morning and I need my beauty sleep," Junjin interrupted, rubbing the corner of his eye.

"You'll be lucky to ever have beauty sleep again after I'm done," Andy spat. He threw his arms to his side, sagging with water as if he never dried off from the exploding faucet incident. "Look at me! I opened the door to my room and this kiwi water came flying down on me in a bucket! I mean, can you guys be any less creative? A bucket of water on top of a door; really?"

Junjin shrugged, ruffling his hair and smacking his lips a few times. "Well, it worked." Not noticing Andy's darkening face, he continued, "I'm surprised you assumed it was us so quickly. I thought you would've blamed it on that mirror for conjuring up a bucket spirit to curse you."

"I'm superstitious, not stupid!"

"Okay, okay," Junjin appeased, barely even hearing the words. "Anyway, it could've been worse. I told them all that we should've stuck scary-looking crop circle marks in red paint all around your apartment. Lucky for you, Hyesung wouldn't allow it and you got away with kiwi water in the face."

"So all five of you decided that you would slip me a couple of sleeping pills and then rig my house while I was knocked out?" Andy said angrily. "I could sue you for assault!"

"But you won't," Junjin replied. "Listen, all we wanted to do was get you to lighten up a little."

"This, coming from the person who wanted to draw on my walls with red paint," Andy scoffed. He crossed his arms. "Yeah, I totally believe you."

"We just wanted you to realize that unfortunate things don't happen to you because you broke a mirror...they happen just because you're living."

"Oh, okay," Andy answered, a strangely calm expression drawing across his face. "I see. Yes. That makes sense."

Junjin nodded, pleased with himself for being able to convince Andy so easily. "Exactly."

"And I guess I should do the same for all of you, then. What goes around comes around, after all."

"What?"

Junjin blinked, clearing his dreary vision to see Andy with an incredibly serene smile. A wave of anxiety swept through Junjin's nerves. "Uh, Andy -"

"I don't think you've all learned after so many years that nothing acted upon another member will go unpunished," Andy said. "Oh, yes. And not only do you decide to dump water on me in the middle of the coldest of nights, but it has to be kiwi water. Do you think I have gotten over the issues of that kiwi prince commercial, Junjin-ssi?"

"Uh-"

"Don't close your eyes today, not even to blink," Andy said, stepping backward and back through the door. His eyes didn't move from Junjin's form. "Because in that one moment, I'll make sure you'll regret that stupid bucket you put in my room."

--

The sound of Eric laughing bustled through the practice room, startling all the other members present.

"He said that?" Eric said between his chortles, unable to stop shaking.

"This isn't funny," Junjin said, between nervous and grave. "You know how Andy is. When he's dead set on something, chances are that he won't back off." He whirled his head around, eyeing every single nook of the room. "He might've already been here and did something to the place."

All of the members, excluding Andy, were present. Junjin had frantically called all of them in order to inform them of how Andy had behaved on his doorstep hours earlier. Now everyone - save Eric - had been infected by his anxiety.

"Why isn't he happy that we did this to him?" Minwoo said, sounding geniunely confused. "I mean, you even told him about the paint idea, right? And how we decided not to do it? Shouldn't he be dropping to the ground at our feet and praising us?"

"This is why I told you not to do anything!" Hyesung snapped. "I knew this was going to happen! You've just made it all worse!"

"Maybe he'll be nice and let it go?" Dongwan squeaked hopelessly.

"Well, if he's going to mess with us, he obviously can't be that down in spirits," Eric said, much too happy for the others' liking.

"Are you serious right now?" Minwoo asked. "He's going to kill us! Aren't you worried about your own wellbeing?"

"Listen, Andy's still only one guy," Eric reasoned as he got to his feet and roamed toward the bathroom. "If all five of us together could only pull off a water-filled bucket overnight, what could he possibly do within a few hou - oh my God!"

He opened the door, only to find that the entire box of a bathroom had been covered in wrapping paper. Not just any wrapping paper either; wrapping paper dotted with a kiwi pattern.

"What on earth," Minwoo said dully while Hyesung cradled his head.

"Okay, this is a little cruel," Eric said as he stepped inside, marveling at the perfect job of smothering every single inch of the bathroom in wrapping paper. He tried to pry up the lid of the toilet, only to find that the paper was draped over it so that it couldn't be lifted. "We can't even go to the toilet."

"Is he a machine?" Junjin demanded upon seeing their newly renovated bathroom. "How did he do this?"

Dongwan started, "Well, Andy has always been incredibly efficient and -"

"I think he put glue over the entire floor," Eric said bluntly. He lifted a foot, tearing the wrapping paper as a part of it stuck to his shoe, and revealed a patch of tiling underneath. "Do you think it's superglue?"

"Where could he possibly get that much superglue from?" Hyesung inquired in disbelief as Eric waddled out of the bathroom, bright green clinging to the soles of his feet.

"I wouldn't question his methods," Minwoo replied dryly.

"These are my favorite sneakers; you're kidding!" Eric lamented, prying the paper off. Most of it still stuck persistently, or ripped in unfortunate seams that left his shoes completely ruined. "Damn it, Andy, I'm going to..."

"Can we try to be optimstic?" Dongwan asked. "Like Eric said before. If he's even pranking us, he must be in a better mood."

"Yeah, but I sure won't be okay after this," Hyesung mumbled. "I mean, who thought this was going to work -"

A knocking at the practice room door cut him off in the middle of his statement. The five of them exchanged uneasy glances, silently urging everyone else but themselves to go and answer the door.

"Go, Eric," Minwoo finally hissed, shoving Eric's shoulder toward the entrance. "You're the leader here; be responsible and open the door."

"No way!" Eric snapped, resisting with all his body strength. He pointed at his shoes. "You want me to greet a complete stranger while I have neon soles?"

"Ugh, fine," Minwoo said, clambering to his feet and then going toward the door. He made his steps big and bold to give off the aura of nonchalant confidence, but truthfully he was pondering whether or not he should immediately make a run for it after opening the door.

"Who is it?" he asked, hoping he didn't sound too squeaky as he pulled on the handle of the door. Standing in front of him was a teenager donned in a red cap, red vest, and jeans while holding a flat white box.

"Did one of you order pizza?" he asked dully.

"Huh?" Minwoo blurted out.

"Not me!" Junjin called from behind them.

"Not me either," Hyesung replied.

"None of us did," Dongwan said.

A perplexed expression came over the delivery boy's face. He lifted his eyes to the number that was nailed above the door. "I've definitely got the right place," he said, pointing a naive finger up at the address. "Are you sure?"

"If I ordered food, I would remember," Minwoo said in completely honesty.

"Well, can you take it?" the teenager said, practically shoving the box at Minwoo, who fumbled with his arms to catch it. "It's already been paid for, so you can just eat it, I guess."

Stunned, Minwoo watched as the boy simply turned around and left the way he came.

"That was weird," Hyesung said bluntly.

"Well, I'm not going to refuse free pizza," Minwoo said, kicking the door shut and then moving to lift the lid of the box. "I mean, food is food. No use being picky about -"

He stopped talking upon opening the box and finding that it wasn't any ordinary pizza sitting inside. Eventually, his silence cued the other members curiously coming over to see what he was looking at. Scrawled across the pizza in red ketchup was the phrase "watch your back".

"Definitely Andy," Junjin said, speaking what everyone else was thinking.

"Did he think he was being discreet?" Minwoo asked. He slapped the edge of the box with an irritated index finger. "Other than him, who would send us something like this?"

"Good thing he chose something edible to make up for what he's done to my shoes," Eric grunted, reaching for a slice.

"Wait a second!" Junjin said, slapping Eric's arm. "How do you know that thing's not drugged?"

"Andy wouldn't kill us," Eric said, doubt flashing across his irises.

"Not that kind of drug," Junjin replied, rolling his eyes. "He might've put something there to make you sleepy. Or drunk. Or just outright embarrassing."

The door opened as soon as Junjin finished his statement and the five watched as Andy stepped inside, leaning a palm against the wall as he slipped his shoes off. He turned around to find all s staring at him, crowded around a pizza box with eyes glinting with suspicion.

"What's up?" Andy asked coldly, only breaking into a smile when he spotted what had occurred to Eric's shoes. "Did you like my present?"

"Haha, very funny," Eric snapped, sneering. "Do you know how much I love these shoes?"

"That's why I did it."

Before Eric could reply, Minwoo asked, "What's with the pizza, then? It's a little creepy, even for you, Andy."

Confusion caused Andy to quietly blink. "Pizza? Creepy?"

"Don't play dumb," Hyesung said, fully immersed in his scolding mother role. He snatched the box from Minwoo and revealed its innards to Andy. "You told the pizza service to write this scary thing on it and send it to the practice room to scare us. We know it was you."

"Wait, wait," Andy said, holding up his hands. "I'll admit, I did the thing with the wallpaper in the bathroom, but I never ordered any pizza for anyone today. That wasn't me."

"Come on, Andy," Junjin said nervously, working his palm and fingers against his other hand's knuckles in nervousness. "We're not really upset. We did kind of do something mean, so we know you're angry."

"Look, I was happy just doing the bathroom thing to you," Andy said gravely. "But I didn't do weird things with pizza to anyone. Seriously."

The group looked at one another before uneasily staring at the pizza in Hyesung's arms. Hyesung, feeling queasy in the stomach, set the box down on the floor, as if an invisible fuse would light and cause the box to explode.

"It's an antifan," Minwoo reasoned, himself not sounding persuaded. "It has to be. Right?"

"Getting out of hand, those people," Andy said as he headed off to peer at his own handiwork in the bathroom. "Wow. It looks even better than it did this morning."

"Andy, that's not the issue here!" Dongwan cried. "Someone's sending us threats! On food! Aren't you worried?"

"Oh, please," Andy said, his back still toward them. "It's not a big deal."

As he let his eyes take in the kiwi pattern of the wallpaper, a smirk spread along his lips. Deliciously eerie food wouldn't be the only thing going their way.

*** THE END ***

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