"You didn't plan this out very far you know." Yuki grumbled lightly as she adjusted a string to her electric guitar, glaring lightly at the instrument.

"No, but you have to admit, freedom tastes delicious."

The younger male was currently sprawled out on another bed, less than a meter away from his noona who glowered at his ridiculous statement. "If it wouldn't hurt my precious guitar I'd beat you over the head with it. There's only so long that we can live in a hostel before we can't pay for it anymore. The last thing I'm willing to do is to be bed-less again."

"Aish I know I know, but trust me. I got this covered, I've even got a job in mind!"

"You better! Just because you're my saeng don't even think I'll pay your meals at this rate!"

"Just trust me noona." And how could she not trust the ridiculous grin on her saeng's face? Because that was Travis, the idiot who could take being punched in the face for being too loud and still wanted to be friends.

"I hate you. I hope you know that real well, you idiot carrot-kid dongsaenggie."



The next day, that ridiculous grin was now watching a familiar face doing dance battle in the distance. It took him quite the effort, but he had gotten in contact with one of his old roommates, who reluctantly helped him garner enough information in the company to find the whereabouts of the dance competition they were holding to advertise their trainees. It was mostly luck that Travis had somehow remembered the competition; he hadn't any plans to join while he was training, but he knew a certain hyung did.

That certain hyung usually kept a low profile -- he wasn't unsociable, no, but he didn't have any need to go about spreading information about himself. His talent didn't go unnoticed though, particularly from the young misfit who had easily picked out the dancer from amidst the fray of trainees in sweats.

The competition ended with a roar of applause, and all the trainees lined up to take a bow. Out of the crowd, one name in particular stood out loudest.

"Taejun-hyung!!"

Said male blinked as he lifted his head, wondering how even through this crowd, someone could cheer loud enough to pierce the thick audience. Then he laughed when it became obvious just why his name had been so distinct. Everyone knew Travis could wake the dead with his voice, Taejun was no different. He made eye contact with the weird cheery fellow in the crowd, and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck. The crowd was staring a little at the wild male who was still shouting Taejun's name, and he was beginning to experience the phenomenon of secondhand embarrassment from it.

As the trainees went backstage, Taejun followed and immediately took a swig from his bottle of water, before preparing himself. "Thirty seconds." He mumbled quietly, capping the bottle and wiping off the sweat that had accumulated. By the time he was dry and clean enough to be satisfied with himself, he swiftly danced and dodged to the left to avoid a Travis who almost barreled him over.

"Taejun-hyung!" The boy beamed up at the older male, laughing as he sat on the table beside Taejun's bag.

"I'm not going to even ask how you got past security. What are you doing here?"

Taejun smiled a little, leaning against the table himself as Travis swung his legs and gave him a grin. "I came to ask you two things. Both important. Lend a ear?"

"You ask me to lend a ear as if I had a choice."

"Good point." And Travis was snickering again. "You work at that cute little cafe right by the company right? As a barista?" Taejun nodded, his brow raising a bit in curiosity. Since when did this lazy brat show interest in part-time work? "Yea. What of it?"

"I want to work with you. Get me a job, hyung?" Taejun almost spit out the water he had started to drink again as Travis gave him the most ridiculous aegyo puppy eyes. "Aish stop that, it's disgusting." Travis only laughed as Taejun shook his head and tried to get the image of the kid looking at him like that out of mind.

"Since when did you want to work? Don't you spend all your time at practice anyway?"

"About that. Point dos~" And Taejun stared a little as the two walked together out toward the parking lot, with Travis babbling on and on about his idea and this supposed project 'debut' thing he was doing with his close noona-friend.

"You're insane."

"Batshot insane, I've been told. So will you do it?"

"Do what? Get you the job, or join your ridiculous idea?"

"Both." Taejun stared a little at the shorter male, skeptism in his eyes. Sure, training at SM was hell and back, but quitting out of nowhere and joining this kind of spur-of-the-moment idea.. Taejun shook his head. "I can get you the job, but I'm gonna have to think about the offer."

Travis made a face somewhere between satisfied and disappointed. Or a weird mix of both. Either way he sighed but brightened up almost immediately. "I'll take it. Thanks hyung! You've got my number right? Just gimme a text whenever I can drop by for the hiring interview or whatever the stuff you working people do." Taejun rolled his eyes at the dumb exposition, but nodded a bit anyway.

"Right. Now are we finished? I'm keeping the bus waiting." And Taejun hated keeping things waiting.

"Finished! Go on, I know how time-savvy you try to be hyung. I'll be expecting a text!" The orange-headed boy waved as he began to jog toward the road. Taejun blinked a few times in surprise, before noticing for the first time Travis' clothes. He had been tired after the competition, and the other boy had a way of talking that distracted even someone like Taejun, but now he got a second to get a good look at the other male.

Travis was wearing the same shoes he always wore to practice -- but they looked even more worn than before. It had only been a few days since Travis quit. so it crossed Taejun's mind to wonder what the kid had been doing to wear them down even worse than before. The jogging figure fading into the distance gave him a plausible deduction though. Taejun shook his head and quickly got his way onto the bus. As they got to the road, Taejun watched the younger jogging along the sidewalk, headphones in and seemingly singing to himself from the weird stares that passerbys were giving him. The bus passed the boy, and he soon disappeared behind the winding streets.

It took twenty minutes to drive from the competition venue back to the company dorms. According to what Travis had told him, the place he had moved to was another ten minutes down the road by foot. The older male sighed a little and walked back into his dorm, looking down at his own shoes as he shucked them off. He had gone through three pairs since he joined SM, one for each year of training. This last pair gave him bad memories -- very bad memories, of when he fainted during practice from dehydration and exhaustion. He could understand why Travis and his friend had quit; trainee life was more than horrible. It was hell. There was no one who was concerned for your health -- you bucked up and took care of yourself, and everyone is a rival and a foe. The dance floor is a battlefield, and your body is a weapon for cutting down other people's dreams, just so you could have yours.

Taejun slowly made his way to the kitchens after putting away his things, beginning his preparation for dinner. His thoughts were for once, cloudy and erratic. Perhaps the kid's idea wasn't as ridiculous as it first sounded.

But then thinking again, he remembered the other sheepishly mentioning he was being housed in a hostel for the time being. Taejun sighed and shook his head. He'd first make dinner before anything. Right now, he needed to find the chicken s.



Travis panted as he plopped himself onto his bed, running an arm over his sweaty brow, while Yuki was packing her things, preparing for her own work. "So how'd it go, stalking your hyung?"

"I wasn't stalking him, I was supporting his dance competition."

"By asking him to quit right after." Travis pouted a little at the noona who was smirking at him. "Well he doesn't like sugarcoating shot. I may as well just out and say what I got to say before he gets grumpy."

"Of course. Well anyway, what about the job?"

"He said he'll get me in." The orange-headed male was grinning again, and Yuki laughed a little at the bright expression. "Good, that means you can stop mooching soon." And his expression dropped, and the younger boy whined to Yuki until she was all the way out the door, ignoring his pouting figure laid out on his bed. The male glowered a bit, before smirking and sliding halfway off his bed to reach under Yuki's, pulling out her bag of bathroom essentials.

A vengeful glint went through the boy's eyes, and he reached into his pocket to pull out a small, ominous looking green bottle.

a/n :: And we have Taejun, DontPanicYet's character! Whoo, this chapter took a bit. For the most part, I'll be keeping the stories you guys gave me for how they got into the project, with just some minor edits to follow the storyline better and lead into future chapters. I hope it's still interesting, even though I'm doing only one character introduction at a time -- I thought it would be nice for everyone to have their own introductory chapter, like their own feature. Can you guys guess who's next ;D? Technically one of you got it right this round haha, just don't second guess! As an extra note, Travis censors 'sh!t' with the word 'shot', so 'batshot' and 'sugarcoating shot' was intentional lol.

Anyway, I think I've kept the dynamic between Travis and Taejun consistent with the teaser. Chronologically, teaser 01 would be right after this chapter. Outside this chapter, I think this story is actually really improving my writing. I've started to really get down to the nitty gritty of character development and plot development. I'm excited to see what I'll be able to do here! Wish me luck, and thank you all for your continued support of this fic! It really warms my heart to see you all commenting ; u; Kae feels loved! <3 Thank you all for making this story possible. Shout out to my readers!