August 8th 2014

It was the 5th day of promotions for Today is the Day, and every member of Acid Teochii were high energy despite the bundle of nerves while waiting backstage. It was their first comeback after all, and so far, they were doing well. No-one had messed up on stage yet, no words had been forgotten mid performance and the members seemed to all be getting on for once.

Whether that was because they were all just too exhausted to argue was another matter entirely, and not at all the point.

Myung, however, was hovering at the edge of insanity. The comeback had been much more stressful than their debut had been, because this was their chance to prove themselves. Their debut had been introducing the group to the world, but their first comeback was their chance to prove that they deserved a place in that world, a chance to show what they were made of. Myung had spent the past 5 days constantly in a state of panic and tension, making sure none of s did anything that could contribute to a scandal, making sure everyone looked presentable while travelling from place to place, making sure Yuuki didn’t mouth off to the wrong person… and now, 5 days into promotions, he couldn’t wait for it to end. He tried not to think about the fact they still had weeks upon weeks of promotions to go.

 However, standing backstage on Music Core, Myung tried to forget about his exhaustion. He could hear their fans chanting their name in the crowds as the group fixed their outfits and secured their mics, doing last minute adjustments before their performance. They were going to be singing live after all, even if the show itself wasn’t airing on the television, or the internet, live.

The announcer’s voice echoed backstage, pulling each of the 11 members from their nervous ramblings.

“And now, coming back for the first time since their debut, Acid Teochii with Today is the Day!”

The studio burst into excited screams and cheers from fans as the group made their way onto the stage and into their positions. As the music began, Myung quickly looked around the stage, making sure that everyone was in position correctly. Hyo was slightly off centre, but not enough to where anyone who didn’t know the choreography like the back of their hand would be able to notice. Everyone else appeared to be perfect.

The song began, Cho taking the first lines of their new song. The crowd still chanted in front of them from a sea of acid green glow sticks, hundreds of faces watching their every move as they made their way through the happy, inspirational song.

It was when Myung’s English rap came up that the coil of dread tightened in his stomach, his gaze focusing on a hooded figure towards the centre of the crowd, their hands deep in the pockets of their hoodie. Something about the figure sparked worry inside of Myung, something just didn’t feel right about them, but he couldn’t put his finger on what exactly that thing was.

When the hooded figure pulled a gun from their pocket and pointed it at the stage, finger tightening on the trigger almost instantly, the source of Myung’s paranoia became apparent.

Myung saw the damage before he felt it, his voice cutting off from his rap with a small choke in the back of his throat, his body stumbling backwards as the wind was knocked out of him. He heard people start to scream from the crowd as his gaze slowly drifted down, focusing on the reddening patch of his previously white shirt around his stomach.

His legs gave out below him as the world travelled in slow motion drifting in and out of focus as he collapsed against the hard stage, a large hand grabbing his shoulders before his face collided with it. He could hear panicked voices, but none of what they were saying was making sense, it sounded like gibberish through the blood rushing through Myung’s ears as he was rolled onto his back.

He could hardly focus on the world spinning around him as he faded to and from consciousness.

------

While Vann proceeded through the choreography, he could tell Myung was distracted. Their young leader had been stressed recently; he hadn’t been as happy and excitable as normal. More than once, Vann had left their room to get a drink of water to find Myung slumped over on the kitchen table, having fallen asleep going through set lists, lyrics, music sheets and other pieces of paper that Vann didn’t care enough to check.

He’d had to carry the younger boy to his actual bed on more than one account, because Myung had been so exhausted that Vann had struggled to wake him to get him to move himself.

It was times like this where Vann was torn between being thankful he’d turned down the leader role, so it wasn’t him going through the pressure and stress, to wishing he had, just so the pressure and stress wasn’t piling on top of Myung. He’d grown close to the leader in the past 3 months of them sharing a bedroom, along with their band mate Yuuki, and it hurt to see his personality deteriorate from their happy, jumpy, excitable leader to someone who looked like they were going to burst into tears at the slightest mistake.

It was only the first week of promotions.

And so, when Myung looked confused and unfocused halfway through his English rap in the song, Vann was automatically on guard, watching the person he was beginning to view as a younger brother like a hawk.

A loud bang, like a gunshot, echoed through the air. Vann watched the colour drain from Myung’s face as the blue haired boy stumbled backwards before his knees gave out. At that point, Vann couldn’t give two s about the rest of the song as he darted forward, grabbing Myung by the shoulders to stop his face smashing into the hard stage and gently turning him onto his back just as his eyes closed.

“Myung? Myung are you okay? Holy crap..!”

The crowd watching them had begun screaming as a figure pushed its way through, large security guards chasing them, but Vann was too focused on the growing red stain covering Myung’s abdomen.

“Someone call an ambulance! Myung’s been shot!”

By this point, the other 9 members of the group had crowded around Vann, who still held Myung tightly, a hand clamped down on the wound that was still steadily pooling blood onto the stage.

“You’re going to be okay, Myung, alright? You’re going to be fine, it’s just a scratch.” Myung gave him a weak, half conscious whimper in response.  “It’s just a scratch, it’s nothing. You’ll be fine.”

But the wound clamped under Vann’s hand wasn’t a scratch, and the bleeding wasn’t letting up.

Vann could vaguely hear Cho sobbing beside him, could see her trembling as she gripped one of Myung’s hands. Namjoon sat at Myung’s head, through his hair worriedly as he spoke on the phone. Sherlock was frantically asking questions, confused as to what exactly was going on, the screams and sobs of the crowd drowning out anything he was trying to focus his hearing on. Hope was holding onto Cho, trying to pull her away from Myung as paramedics rushed onto the stage.

Vann just continued muttering comforting words to Myung, trying to convince him that he’d be okay.

------

The slow beeping of the heart monitor in Myung’s room was beginning to drive Vann insane.

He’d been sat there for 3 hours now, just watching his friend sleep, listening to the infernal beeping that felt like it was slowly drilling a hole into his brain. The other 9 members had gone home after Namjoon’s insistence, but Vann doubted they would get any sleep until they got news that Myung had woken and they’d heard his voice.

But now, it was just Myung, Namjoon and Vann himself in the room. Their manager was trying to look calm as he scrolled through his phone and took the odd phone call from his higher ups, but the way his leg bounced up and down gave away his stress and nerves.

Myung had lost a lot of blood, but they’d been told that, with time, he was going to be okay. The bullet hadn’t hit anything vital, so they’d just taken him into surgery, stitched the wound up and had put him into a room to recover.

The shrill ring of Namjoon’s phone caused Vann to look up from where he was playing with Myung’s hand between his two larger ones.

“Namjoon speaking… What? They got him?” Vann perked up at this. “Are they sure it’s him?...Right, thank you for letting me know. How is it going on the internet side of things?” Namjoon let out a short, stressed sigh at the response he got. “I feared as such. Is there anything we can do about it?... I see. Have you talked to Music Bank? I hope they will not be showing Acid Teochii’s performance… good. Keep me updated.” Namjoon let out another sigh as he hung up the call, running his hands through his hair for what might have been the hundredth time in 3 hours.  “They got him, Vann, the guy who shot Myung. He’s in custody being questioned right now… however; our main problem is that there were a lot of fans, both of you guys and other performers, at the show. Myung being shot is all over the internet, complete with fan cams. There’s no way we’re going to hide this.”

Vann gave a small nod before clearing his throat. “I guessed that would happen. Do they have any idea why he’d shoot Myung…?”

Namjoon seemed to look anywhere but at Vann. “They think it might have been a homophobic attack due to the concept of your debut single, but we don’t know for certain.”

“If it was a homophobic attack, it must be because of the single… not many people know about him being gay after all.”

Namjoon physically flinched. “You’re not supposed to know about that either, Dong-sun. Myung was told not to tell anyone in order to keep tensions low.”

“He didn’t tell me, I figured it out.” Vann confessed. “I don’t really care either way. Doesn’t exactly change the person he is. He’s still doing all he can to look after us all.”

“How did you figure it out?” Namjoon asked, frowning. If Vann had figured it out, it was possible the others had too.

“I figured out he liked someone, then everything sort of fell into place from there. I confronted him about it, and he confirmed it.”

“He likes someone? Who?”

“I’m sorry, Manager-hyung, that’s not my secret to tell.”

“Dong-sun.”

“No. I’m not betraying his trust while he lies unconscious in a hospital bed with a hole in his stomach.”

“Alright, alright. I’m sorry, Vann.”

Vann sighed in response, tightening his grip on Myung’s hand. “I know, sorry, I’m just a little bit on edge right now.”

“The doctor says he’ll be fine, he’ll wake up soon. It wasn’t any serious damage, but he’ll be out of commission for a while. Their biggest concern is the blood loss; he’ll be tired and weak for a while.”

Myung groaned slightly from the bed. “Don’t talk about me like I’m not here…” He slurred out, slowly opening his eyes and giving a shocked Vann a small smile.

Namjoon hurried out to get a nurse while Vann gave a small, choked laugh. “Hey there, Myung. How’re you feeling?” He asked in English while grabbing Myung’s glasses from the bed side table, sliding them onto his face.

“High as a kite if I’m being honest,” He smiled, before trying to sit up.

“No.” Was all Vann had to say before he was pushing Myung back down into the pillows. “Stay there, don’t move. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“I’m fine, Vann…”

“You were shot in the stomach.”

Myung paled. “What?” He asked, before pulling the blankets up and looking at the bandages surrounding his stomach.

“It looks like a homophobic attack, but the guy who did it is in custody now, he was caught, so you don’t need to worry too much. The doctor says you’ll be fine.”

“But… promotions. Vann we’ve only just started promotions for this comeback!”

“I know, Myung. But there’s nothing we can do about it. Namjoon says you’re probably going to be out of commission for a while.”

“You guys better not stop promoting.”

“Myung, you’re our leader, we’re not doing it without you.”

“You damn well are.”

“Myung.”

“Vann.”

“We’re not doing it without you.”

“Yes you are! We’ve put a lot of time and energy into this comeback, if we stop promotions now; people are going to forget we exist and it’s going to get even harder to be known! You guys aren’t stopping, I’ll still be there, just more… behind the scenes until I’m healed.”

Vann sighed, knowing he wasn’t going to win this argument against the younger boy.

“The others won’t be happy performing without you.”

“They won’t be happy if our dream crumbles to dust either.”

Namjoon interrupted them. “It’s times like these I wish I spoke English.” He laughed slightly from doorway while he nurse hurried into the room, checking Myung over.

“Sorry, Manager-hyung,” Myung smiled over, back to talking in Korean.

“You seem to be doing well, Mr Paul,” The Nurse smiled at him, raising the bed a little and making sure he’s comfortable. “Are you in any pain?”

“Not right now, just a dull ache.”

“Let us know if you begin feeling pain, we have you on quite a high dose of painkillers right now, but in time you should be okay. However, the doctor has said he doesn’t want you performing for quite a while.”

Myung nodded slightly. He’d already been told this after all. “I understand, but my band mates will be going on without me, so everything will be fine.”

The nurse smiled again before leaving the three boys to themselves.

Namjoon frowned. “Are you sure, Myung? You want promotions to continue?”

“Of course, like I said to Vann, if we stop promotions now, people are going to forget about us and I refuse to let that happen. We’ve worked too hard.”

“If you’re sure, Myung. Now get some sleep. Vann, we need to talk to the others about continuing promotions.”

Vann stood and followed Namjoon out of the room to call the other members.

Needless to say, they weren’t happy.

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Heyyyy guys... :'3 Lots of Myung and Vann in this chapter, not so much of everyone else...
This chapter has been planned since before the first chapter even was! I'm happy to get this out of the way. I knew as soon as I decided on the theme of the debut track that I wanted some sort of scandal to stem from it, and it just so happened that Myung ended up on the recieving end of my evil thoughts... however, he will be okay! Or will he...?

Goodbye until next chapter, everyone!