“Okay so you hold it like this, clamp it, and then slowly pull down,” Sungyeol demonstrated.

They were in her bathroom; Sungyeol, the master, was teaching his young padawan the ways of the straightener. He was about to do the rest of her hair when she stopped him and asked to do it herself. Surprised but happy at her eagerness, he handed her the tool without hesitation.

Soo Min immediately clamped his index finger.

“AAH! What’d you do that for?!”

 “I was curious.”

Ignoring his dramatic cries of pain—a pain which had already disappeared a couple of seconds ago—Soo Min returned to her task and mimicked his previous actions with the straightener. After a couple of sections, Sungyeol decided that she was doing fine on her own and left.

She counted to ten before quickly sneaking into the hallway, heading straight for the closet. She grabbed two 150’ extensions cords—you never know where you’ll need to watch TV—looked all around her before running back to the bathroom.

With a devious smile, she connected the straightener to the extension cords.

“Hehehehehehe.”

----------

“We should get her clothes ready for her. Hoya, find me the purple shirt. Sungjong, get the grey pants,” Sunggyu ordered.

“Geez, not even a ‘please’,” the maknae grumbled.

Sunggyu suddenly him. “What was that?”

“Nothing… hyung.”

The leader narrowed his eyes. He intently watched as Sungjong walked around, looking for the item, normal and unfazed.

I could’ve sworn this brat was about to act up again.

When he could not detect any other signs of strange behavior, Sunggyu left the room, heading downstairs to join the rest of the members.

Right after the door closed, Sungjong started stomping around. He slammed the wardrobe shut, stomped around some more, kicked a chair, and then T-Rex walked over to the other uninspected side of the room only to continue angrily rummaging. Wherever he went, he was surrounded in a black bleary aura of fury and hatred.

Hoya stood near her bed, going through the pile of shirts, occasionally glancing amusedly at the raging maknae.

“Stupid Sunggyu. Just because he’s the oldest, he thinks he can boss everyone around. He doesn’t even do anything except nag, nag, and nag some more. I’m Sunggyu and I’m a dumb nagging grandpa. Sungjong, do this. Sungjong, do that and I’m not even going to say ‘please’ because I’m your hyung and you have to do everything I say anyways. Well, you know what I say? ARGHHH!!!” he started to furiously slap a pillow, which soon escalated to him throwing it to the ground, body slamming it and then stomping on it repeatedly.

----------

Soo Min watched quietly behind the bathroom door as Sunggyu walked downstairs. She listened for his voice before soundlessly running downstairs and hiding in the office.  She spotted Myungsoo and Dongwoo walking back upstairs and heard them laughing as they witnessed another of Sungjong’s rebellious episodes.

That leaves her with the three people she wanted to see the most.

Sungyeol, Woohyun, and Sunggyu were standing around, playing with a hacky sack, when they noticed a fourth presence.

“Oh hey, Soo Min, come play with us!” Sunggyu and Woohyun waved her over.

Sungyeol, however, noticed the object that was in her hand and without a word, ran out of the room, looking for the other members. Safety in numbers, safety in numbers… safety in Dongwoo, safety in Sungjong...

“Sungyeol! Where are you going?” Woohyun asked.

“Yeah! Why do you look so scared?” Sunggyu laughed. “What could she possibly do with a straighten— OWW!”

Soo Min clamped his finger and smiled. She whipped her head towards Woohyun, who stood there with one eyebrow raised, almost challenging her. He didn’t move as she continued to step closer to him.

“Soo Min, don’t be ridic—YAHH!” He could feel a burning sensation on his nose.

“Oh, your nose is real.”

“Of course it’s real!”

“I always thought most celebrities got nose jobs.”

“What the hell? Why would—OWW! Would you stop that?”

“Oh, your ears are real too.”

“OW!”

“Hehehehe.”

“OW!”

“Hehehehe.”

“OW! My whole body is real! Now stop checking to— OW!”

“Hehehehe. The pinky is fun... Again! Again!”

“No… no more! Stay aw—OW!”

“AGAIN!”

“OW!!”

Sunggyu had been slowly sliding backwards throughout the entire ordeal and once his was out of the room, he ran for his life back up the stairs. He slammed the bedroom door shut behind him.

“SUNGYEOL! Why did you leave us alone with her?!”

“Are you kidding? That thing hurts like a !”

“Argh! What person in their right mind leaves her with the straightener unattended? And watch your damn language!”

“Hyung! You watch your da—,” Sungyeol could see the other members watching them, “—ng language first! Besides, I didn’t know she was going to turn into some psycho serial… straightiller? No, that’s odd. Straightassin? That just sounds wrong. No, I got it! Straighturderer. Yup, that’s the winner.”

“Sounds like a mutant cow part.” Dongwoo commented.

“My point is… it’s just a freaking hair tool!”

At the thought of it again, Sungyeol and Sunggyu both put their heads in their hands, groaning in frustration. The other members looked on pityingly, except for Sungjong who was mentally hugging Soo Min in gratitude.

In the silence, they could the voices from below.

“YAH! You already did it there!”

“But it’s fun! See?”

“AAAHHHH!”

“Hehehe. I did it again!”

“You’re lucky I’m already—OW!—dead.”

Sunggyu could feel Sungyeol’s eyes on him. “Hyung… YOU LEFT HIM THERE?!”

“Why? You want to go rescue him? If we do, someone has to take his place.”

“Eh, he’ll be alright.”

----------

Sungjong eventually went down and confiscated the weapon from Soo Min. By that point, Woohyun’s whole body felt numb; if she had burned him with long intervals in between, he would have been fine… in pain, but fine. However, she went crazy and just did it continuously, leaving him no time to recover after each burn.

“Sungjong ah…”

“Yes?”

“Tell them… tell them that I… I love them…”

“Who are they?”

“The members. And tell them to just,” he coughed a couple of times. “go on without me. They mustn’t wait for me. I’ll be fine… they should just go on with their lives.” He coughed again.

“Uh, they have gone on without you. They left you here to do just that.”

Woohyun immediately dropped his dying act, grabbed the straightener from Sungjong’s hand and floated up through the ceiling. There was suddenly frantic running and cries for help.

And—almost forgot to mention—shouts of, “FEEL THE BURNNN!!”

“Woohyun’s a…”

“special one.” Soo Min finished.

“Yup, he’s a mean one.” Sungjong looked over, expecting to share a confidante kind of smile with her but he was taken aback by the look in her eyes. They were twinkling? Hmm… this was going to require some investigating.

----------

This time, Dongwoo had to step in and confiscate the straightener. He first tried asking nicely but that failed when Woohyun tried to clamp his teeth so he chose the easiest solution.

Dongwoo punched him.

“Wow… haven’t done that in awhile,” he said as he rubbed his knuckles.

The punch knocked some sense into Woohyun—and knocked him out temporarily—and everything was alright again.

Almost.

They only had ten minutes left before Soo Min had to leave for school and she was still in her pajamas. The best course of action was to divide up the duties: Sungjong and Hoya would continue to search for the missing clothes, Myungsoo would straighten her hair while Dongwoo and Sunggyu helped her with her makeup, and Sungyeol would help Woohyun make her lunch.

They all got started. Within a few minutes, everything was a disaster.

The clothes could not be found anywhere. Sungjong went through every corner of the room. (He did, however, find junk food wrappers and bags and reprimanded her for ruining her skin with such fatty foods. “Says the person that always carries around ramen with him,” Dongwoo laughed.) Even Hoya, with his ability to track down anything purple, failed to find the shirt.

The hair part of the plan went fine; however, because they were rushing, Dongwoo forgot about the long extension cord and tripped on it, spraying BB cream everywhere, which in turn caused Sunggyu to smear eyeliner all over her face.

Downstairs was no better. One thing Woohyun learned that day: Sungyeol can only make ramen and should only make ramen. The younger of the two had been instructed to sauté the meat with sesame oil and then add kimchi in preparation for the kimchi stew. Sungyeol thought that sautéing had something to do with adding salt. He stood there at first, just adding a minimal amount, a sprinkle at a time, and drizzling in sesame oil but when it didn’t look anywhere as close to what Woohyun said it should look like, he began to add teaspoons and teaspoons of a salt and sesame oil combination. Woohyun was chopping up the vegetables and the rest of the ingredients, too busy to notice Sungyeol’s antsy behavior.

He was just waiting for his hyung to find out about his mistake and then boy, would he really be in trouble. So he kept stirring and stirring, hoping that Woohyun would buy the façade. A sharp distinct smell started to fill the kitchen.

Woohyun lifted up his head into the air. “Do you smell that?”

“Smell what?”

“SMELLLLL. Sorry, couldn’t help myself. But seriously though, it’s like something’s burning.”

“Oh yeobo, you mean my love for you?”

Sungyeol laughed at his own greasiness and turned around, finally glancing down at his pot. He suddenly became horrified when he saw the charred meat, so black and broken that it had started to disintegrate.

“AAAAHHHHHHHHHH!”

Woohyun rushed over and grabbed the pot. He quickly brought it outside and ran it under the hose. Meanwhile, everyone had dashed downstairs in fear that one of them was somehow seriously injured or in danger.

Hoya grabbed the nearest person. “Sungyeol! What happened?”

“I sort of burned the food,” he rubbed the back of his head sheepishly.

Woohyun returned inside with the damaged pot and slumped down to the ground. “Now what do we do? There’s not enough time to start on anything else.”

Sungjong sat down next to him. “It’s alright, hyung. We couldn’t find her clothes anyways.”

Hoya and Sungyeol sat down together. “We can’t do anything right.”

Myungsoo and Dongwoo also gave up. “We already caused a mess too.”

Sunggyu followed suit. “It’s all my fault. I’m sorry for being such a horrible leader. And Sungjong, sorry for speaking to you so rudely earlier.”

Sungjong moved over to the leader and hugged him. “I forgive you. But just to let you know, I’m glad you’re my dumb nagging grandpa.”

Sunggyu ruffled his hair and laughed. “You brat. Even when you’re sweet, you’re still a brat.”

What was this strange feeling? Ever since she had met them, she was filled with all of these foreign feelings. This one, however, was a new one. It made her sick, it made her sad, it made her… feel guilty?

Aww man! Am I becoming… a human?

No matter what she tried to tell herself, the guilt just wouldn’t go away.

I’ve read about this. In order to get rid of it, I have to do the right thing. But that means being nice! AISH! Why so complicated? What if I just take them out instead? If I get rid of them, I’ll get rid of the source of the guilt!

No, you dumb girl! That’ll just make you feel even MORE guilty!

Who are you?

Your other conscience.

…I only have one conscience.

Well, I’m the good one.

Are you saying the one I have now is bad?

Technically, you have both now but essentially, yes. My name is Freddy.

…Okay, you’re the good one.

She sighed. This was Freddy. Freddy. And if he was telling her she had to do something, she had to do it.

Infinite continued to mope around on the floor but Soo Min hurried upstairs. She called upon the spirit of one of the shrunken heads to give her energy—a very unnecessary action but hey, whatever floats her boat—and then without a pause, she ran. She was a blur, moving from the bathroom to her room, then to her bathroom and back to her room again. She opened her window, pulled the hidden bag of clothes, which she had taped to the side of the house yesterday, and changed into the shirt and pants that Infinite had been looking for.

In only one minute and thirty four seconds, she was ready: clothes, makeup, hair and all.

She ran into the kitchen now and furiously chopped at the ingredients that were left untouched. She pulled out some firm tofu and quickly stir fried them until they were slightly brown. With her other hand, she was sautéing vegetables in another pan. Soo Min then combined what were in the two pans, added rice, kimchi, sauce, sesame oil and eggs and in a little more than two minutes, her fried rice was done.

Infinite sat there against the wall, gaping at her.

With only a minute left before she had to leave, she managed to pack everything up and was now just taking her time to put on her shoes. She stopped, with half of her left foot tucked inside a shoe, and walked back to Infinite. She stood before them, unsure of how to proceed.

A lightbulb in her head. She grabbed one of the larger knives and walked towards them.

“Whoa whoa whoa! Soo Min, put the knife down. Listen to oppa, okay? Just put—“

“I’m sorry.”

“Put down the—WHAT?”

“I’m sorry for troubling you.”

“It’s alright. Don’t worry about it. … But why are you holding that?”

She looked at them like they were idiots. “In the movies, that’s how they apologize.”

Woohyun took the knife away. “Remember those rules we told you a few days ago? New rule. Rule number three: never apologize while holding something dangerous or wielding anything in a threatening way.”

Soo Min nodded in understanding.

 “It’s okay. You didn’t even need us.” Sunggyu pouted.

In response, Soo Min grabbed a fortune cookie from the pantry, stared at it for awhile and then threw it at the leader’s head. Before anyone could register what had happened, she was off running again. Even if it didn’t matter, there wasn’t a single day when she had been late. Punctuality had always been important to her, ever since… his death. But that kind of sentimentality shall be saved for another chapter.

Sunggyu took the cookie out of the wrapper and cracked it open. Inside, the paper read:

If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader.

“What are the numbers? Let’s go buy a lottery ticket!” Hoya shouted.

Sunggyu turned the paper over. There were no numbers, only one word:

Hamster

With a smile, Sunggyu replied. “This is worth more than a lottery ticket.”

--------------------

A/N: Okay, so this was definitely longer than the previous chapter but the next one will not be like this. I have a midterm tomorrow (♫ tomorrow, tomorrow, why is it tomorrow, I’m only a day away… from failing ♫) so I’m procrastinating and trying to do everything BUT studying. ^^

Besides writing, I rewatched some old funny DBSK clips, went on Tumblr, watched an episode of Psych, ate a lot of unnecessary study snacks and drank a lot of coffee... and now I’m really starting to feel the pressure from the impending exam. WHY AM I SUCH A PROCRASTINATOR?!! T_T

But it’s good for you guys since I like to write when I’m trying to avoid school work. Well, I’ll stop rambling now.

But before I do… I love reading all of your comments btw! They make me smile like crazy! And some of you are so specific! I LOVE IT!

고맙습니다!
Gomapseumnida! <3

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Woohyun:Sungyeol, note to self: confiscate some of Soo Min’s more violent movies.

Sungyeol:It’s a note to self! You can’t give it to me!

Woohyun:Woohyun suddenly realized that he was alone in the world—

Sunggyu, Dongwoo, Hoya, Myungsoo, Sungjong: AHEM!

Woohyun: There must be rude dying nematodes in the room or something.

Dongwoo: Nematodes are worms.

Woohyun: Namstar suddenly realized that he was alone in the world with no one to help him with his future dreams, not even a choding.

Sungyeol:Stop talking about yourself in the third person.

Woohyun:Fine. I’ll just have to remember to confiscate her romantic comedies by myself later.

Sungyeol:You mean, you need to confiscate her horror movies.

Woohyun: Thanks, note to self.