March 14th 2015

Hope wasn’t cut out to be a leader. He just wasn’t ready in the slightest. The thought of being in charge of a group of people was terrifying to the poor young adult, his heart jumping slightly every time the thought crossed his mind.

He didn’t understand why they had insisted he’d be good at it, didn’t understand why they’d convinced him to accept the position, especially since Ae-Cha was now the overall leader of Acid Teochii, at least for a while, and she was in the sub unit she was leading.

“Are you sure I can do this?” Hope asked, unable to meet Namjoon’s gaze as he looked at the floor of the airport, clutching his hand luggage to his chest for comfort.

“You’ll do brilliantly, Hope,” Namjoon encouraged, ruffling the boy’s hair. “Don’t worry about it, okay? Your Japanese manager will look after you all in Japan. It’s only a short promotion period, only one or two weeks at most, so you have nothing to worry about. Everything will go by fine and you’ll have a successful debut in Japan.”

Hope pouted, looking up at the group’s older brother figure. “Why can’t you come with us instead?”

Namjoon laughed slightly. “Because, Hope, I’m not Superman. I can’t be in Japan with you guys, China with Antidote and in Korea for the rest of Ace Entertainment at the same time, it’s just not possible. Don’t worry, when you all return from your various promotions, we’ll be Acid Teochii as a group again and I’ll go back to being your manager.”

“What will you be doing while we’re away?” Hope questioned, still unable to wipe the pout from his face.

“I’ll be most like looking after Myung since he’ll be in the dorm alone and getting paper work done, trust me, you’ll be having much more fun that I will be, I can promise you that.”

“Fun? Manager-hyung, Ae-Cha and Yuuki are coming, they’re constantly going to be arguing and I’m worried that Ae-Cha isn’t going to accept me as leader of the group now that she’s leader of Acid, I mean, I wouldn’t accept me as the leader and I’m me!”

“You’re too hard on yourself though, Mal-Chin. Don’t worry, everything’s going to work out just fine. You’ll have Vann and Sherlock with you, they’ll keep Ae-Cha and Yuuki in check, I promise you. Come on, we have to be paying attention to your flights being called.”

Hope nodded slightly, walking back to sit with the rest of the group. Placing himself down next to Jin, the other quiet member who he wasn’t going to see for 2 weeks.

“Are you nervous?” Hope asked the older, wringing his hands together nervously.

“Hm?” Jin questioned, turning to him. “No, not really. I grew up in China, spent most of my life there… I’ll be able to go see my mom and my sister. China is really nothing new for me… have you been to Japan before?”

Hope shook his head.

“So, you’re in a new place where you know nothing and you are having to be a leader… I can see why you’d be nervous.”

Hope laughed a little bit, shaking his head. “I don’t think nervous is the correct word for how I’m feeling right now if I’m being honest, Jin-hyung…I think terrified is a more appropriate word…”

Jin laughed. “You’ll be fine, don’t worry, Mal-Chin-ah.”

“If he’s so worried,” Ae-Cha cut in, sitting down beside the two. “Then they should have made me leader of Viral instead. At least I actually speak Japanese.”

“You know 3 words and you only learnt them from watching Anime.” Jin deadpanned

“Not the point. Anyway, why don’t you go talk to Namjoon about me taking over the leader position?”

Hope frowned a little bit. “Isn’t being leader of Acid Teochii enough for you?”

“Yeah, don’t get greedy and power hungry, Ae-Cha, it isn’t a good look on you.” Jin scoffed slightly, rubbing at the scar on his forehead. Ae-Cha looked offended.

“I am not getting power hungry! I was just trying to make it easier on Hope-oppa!”

“I don’t think so, it’s sounded more like you were trying to discourage him more from being a leader so you could snatch the position for yourself.” Jin glared at the younger girl, feeling the anger heat up in the pit of his stomach.

“How dare you!”

Hope shrunk back, watching as Ae-Cha stood up and stepped in front of Jin, glaring down at where the older boy was stood. “How dare you talk to me like that, oppa! You may be older than me, but I am still your leader! You can’t treat me with such blatant disrespect!”

“You’ll have my respect when you earn it, Choi Ae-Cha!”

“ you!” Ae-Cha turned, storming away from the two over to where she left her bags with Yuuki.

Jin sighed slightly. “Sorry, I probably just made these next few weeks a whole lot harder for you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Hope smiled weakly. “Thank you for standing up for me.”

“Don’t mention it.”

-----

The flight was probably one of the worst experiences of Hope’s idol life. Because of the way the tickets had been booked, all 5 members of Viral Teochii who were on their way to Japan, Vann, Ae-Cha, Yuuki, Sherlock and Hope himself, had been sat next to each other.

Hope was unfortunate enough to be sitting between Ae-Cha and Yuuki. Vann had the window seat, and Sherlock was sitting in the aisle just in case he started feeling sick. The poor blind boy didn’t do well on planes, he often got motion sickness from them. Ae-Cha was next to Sherlock, ready to help him if need be, and Yuuki was next to Vann, wanting to peer over his shoulder at the clouds.

That left poor Hope in between the two.

Thankfully, the flight from South Korea to Tokyo wasn’t a horribly long one, so he didn’t have to sit through too much of Ae-Cha’s passive comments about how much she hated Jin at the moment, or how much she was ‘just trying to help’ Hope. Hope was glad they were on a short flight, because the quiet boy wasn’t sure he would have been able to hold his temper for too much longer.

Getting off at the airport, Hope couldn’t help but smile at the crowds that seemed to wait for them. Their group wasn’t hugely popular, nothing like the fame EXO had grabbed after debut, and they’d only been around a year, but the airport in Japan was crowded with fans waiting for them to arrive. People screamed and cheered as they entered the airport, trying to hand the group pieces of paper for autographs. The group of 5 signed as many as they could as they went through the airport, but they were soon dragged away by their Japanese manager, Masato Hikaru, towards the hotel they would be staying at.

Their driver took the long way around towards the hotel, being sure to lose any reporters and fans that were trying to follow them, thankfully, not too many, and pulled up at the hotel car park.

“Alright,” Hikaru turned towards them. He was a gruff man, and his Korean skills were somewhat lacking. “Two rooms, figure out who shares with who, no arguments, 6am wake up.” He nodded at them.

Sherlock smiled a little at the to the point commands, beginning to talk to the manager in fluent Japanese. “I speak Japanese, don’t worry. The others’ Japanese skills are somewhat lacking, but I’m fluent so I can translate for you.”

Hikaru visibly relaxed. “Thank you, I’ve never been able to pick up Korean too well. You guys have two rooms booked, you’ll have to decide between the 5 of you who gets what room, but I don’t want any funny business going on.”

Sherlock laughed slightly. “In that case,” He began, finding the other’s confused grunts and moans hilarious as they could only pick up on the odd word or two. “We better split Yuuki and Ae-Cha up into different rooms, who knows what they’d get up to if they were in the same room to sleep.”

Hikaru gave Sherlock as small smile. “I see. Well, you guys can figure that out between you.” He handed the blind boy the keys before turning away. “Order food in and then get some sleep, tomorrow is going to be a very long day for you all. 6am wake up call, if you’re still tired, you won’t get any sympathy.”

“Understood,” Sherlock sighed, watching as their new manager walked away. He missed Namjoon already. Turning towards where he knew Hope was, he outstretched his hand with the keys in, switching to Korean to talk once more. “We only have two rooms and we have to get a lot of sleep tonight, he’ll be getting us up at 6am in the morning. We need to decide between us who is taking what room. As far as I know, they’re both only doubles, so they’ll be 2 beds in each. Someone will have to compromise.”

“I’ll stay with Yuuki, then you three can share the other.” Ae-Cha grinned, clinging onto Yuuki’s arm as she jumped happily.

“Is that such a great idea?” Vann deadpanned. “Who knows what you two will get up to in there alone?”

“That’s what I said!” Sherlock exclaimed, laughing slightly.

Ae-Cha huffed. “I’m staying with Yuuki and that’s final, okay? You three can share the other room.”

Vann sighed, nodding a little. “Fine, fine, just try to keep the noise down. I really don’t need to hear you two going at it.”

At least Ae-Cha and Yuuki had the decency to blush from embarrassment.

It wasn’t long before the trio had gotten to their room and begun unpacking, while Ae-Cha and Yuuki were doing the same in the room across the hall. Looking around the area that surrounded him, Hope couldn’t help but miss the dorm. Their dorm room was colourful and happy, but muted enough to the fact I wasn’t distracting when they tried to sleep. Having 11 members in the dorm as a whole meant it was full of life, but the dingy hotel room they were sharing was just a pale beige colour with white sheets on the bed.

“Right,” Vann sighed, turning towards Sherlock and Hope while putting his bag down on the floor. “First thing is first, sleeping arrangements.”

“You two take the bed.” Hope instantly said, leaving no room for arguments.

Sherlock frowned towards the boy. “You actually want to sleep on the floor? Are you sure?”

Hope shook his head, smiling slightly at the two. “No, not exactly… but being a leader is about making sacrifices and looking after the other members… if one of you two slept on the floor, you could wake up with a bad neck or back, or bruises… you might not be able to sleep well and you might wake up exhausted. It’s my job to prevent this, so I’ll take the floor.”

The room stayed in silence for several minutes before Vann smiled. “Who have you been taking tips from?”

Sherlock scoffed. “Not Ae-Cha, I can tell you that much.”

Hope frowned. “Don’t be mean, Sherlock…”

“Why not? She’s been a complete to you for the past few days! She keeps complaining that you’re going to be a terrible leader and that she should be leader instead. Honestly, she used to be so nice!”

“Yeah,” Vann agreed. “She hasn’t been very nice recently at all, she started changing once CEO Lee made her Temporary Leader. I think she’s letting it get to her head and now she wants to boss everyone around.”

“Yeah well, I’m not taking it.” Sherlock crossed his arms in defiance. “Hope was made leader for a reason, and he’s just proven that he’s going to be a great one, so I think she should back off and allow him to do what he has to do. I bet she wouldn’t sleep on the floor for us.”

“Sherlock-ah, really, calm down…” He smiled slightly at the boy. “It’s fine, really. I don’t mind.”

“You should mind though,” Vann sighed, rubbing at his face. “She’s not your boss, she can’t treat you like that. You’re older than her and her leader while we’re split into sub units, so she has to treat you with respect. Hell, I didn’t even grow up in a Korean cultured household and I know when to be respectful to your elders.”

Hope sighed, pulling out a pillow from his suitcase, one in which the pillowcase was inscribed with ‘To my darling Mal-Chin’ and placed it between the two beds, mapping out where he was going to sleep that night. “I know… but I can deal with it.” He lifted his head, smiling at the two. “Now, what do you guys want to eat?”

“Sushi!”