March 15th 2015

Yuuki didn’t like not understanding things… so being thrown into a country where he didn’t know the language was a big thing for him. He was uncomfortable, out of his comfort zone, and thoroughly shaken up. It was the day of their Japanese debut with their title track, Ice Princess, and Yuuki just couldn’t seem to stop trembling.

What if he messed up on his pronunciation while performing the song? What if he tripped and fell while doing the dance? What if something went wrong with the technology? What if he had a wardrobe malfunction? What if someone got shot on stage again? And the most terrifying thought… what if he’d forgotten the lipstick that matched his stage outfit?

It didn’t help matters that Ae-Cha had been acting weird lately. The bratty yet sweet girl who had come to be his best friend seemed to have disappeared over the past 2 weeks since she was made into the temporary leader, she’d turned snobby and stuck up, ing about people behind their backs and acting as though she deserved to rule the world… Yuuki knew she could be bratty, so could he, it was the reason they’d bonded… but the brattiness had turned into pure, unrefined iness, and Yuuki didn’t like it.

Ae-Cha was the girl he often confided in, the one who he trusted to listen to him when the thought of eating and having to keep the food down was too much to handle, the one he could trust with how self conscious he was of his looks… now he was afraid to look at her the wrong way for the fear of being ed at for being disrespectful.

Yuuki knew it wasn’t right, that the change in her was wrong, but there was nothing he could do while trapped in Japan sharing a room with her when their manager hardly spoke any Korean.

Of course, Sherlock was fluent in Japanese, having grown up there, but Yuuki didn’t trust Sherlock like he trusted Namjoon and Ae-Cha.

It was safe to say that Yuuki just didn’t know what to do.

And Yuuki hated not knowing things.

So he was currently locked in the room he was sharing with Ae-Cha, looking over the lyrics for Ice Princess and trying to memorize the unfamiliar shapes and sounds his lips would have to make. Ice Princess was good enough for a title track, but it wasn’t Yuuki’s favourite track on the album. The song was about a girl who wasn’t able to do what she wanted in life, so she began rebelling to make a point, and Yuuki felt as though it held a strong message for kids that sometimes you don’t get your own way, but rebelling isn’t the way to go.

No, his favourite song on the mini album was a song called VooDoo. It was the last song on the album of 6 and had a similar theme to their title track. Once again, it was about someone who couldn’t do what they wanted in life… but this person didn’t rebel, they let what other people wanted them to do consume them, they became everyone’s puppet, only living to please people who didn’t really matter and never doing anything for themselves. Being poked and prodded in all directs, being controlled… almost like a voodoo doll.

Yuuki held a lot of respect for the song and the person who had written it, he knew what it was like to be used and controlled all the time, to have people use you for their pleasure and not allow you to be your own person. Yuuki half wished Jin was in their sub unit so he could sing it too, especially with what happened with his father almost kidnapping him.

The boy sighed, falling backwards onto his bed sheets. He didn’t like how much Ae-Cha had changed, he’d just escaped a controlling environment from back home, finally came somewhere to where he could be himself… he didn’t want to be trapped in another controlling environment, he wouldn’t have been able to take it.

The door of the hotel room slid open, Ae-Cha walking in now fully stressed in her stage clothes. “Yuuki-oppa,” She started. “Let’s go get breakfast, okay? We need to eat before we leave. Sherlock says we’re going at 7. I don’t see why we got woken up at 6am if we weren’t leaving until 7, it just gave everyone more time to mess around. If I were leader of the group, we wouldn’t be getting up until now, then we’d have half an hour to get ready and leave. There would be no messing around or loitering around, we’d be gone in a flash.”

“Yes, well,” Yuuki started with a sigh. “You’re not the leader, are you?”

Ae-Cha gasped slightly, stepping towards the man ahead of her. “What is that supposed to mean?” She snapped at him. “That’s unfair, how could you say something like that?”

“What, tell you the truth? You’re not the leader of Viral Teochii, you know. You’re not even the permanent leader of Acid Teochii. You need to get off your high horse and come back down to earth, it’s nice down here you know. People are beginning to hate you, they’re going to rebel against you. Do you really want that? Everyone hating you for being a ?”

“I am not being a , Yuuki!”

“You are too being a ! You need to cut it out before you lose all of your friends! Because if you don’t stop trying to boss everyone around, I won’t stick up for you!” Yuuki was panting slightly from the anger pumping through his veins.

“Yuuki, I-”

“No! Just shut up! I confessed everything to you! I tell you everything that goes through my head, and recently, I don’t want to talk to you! I don’t want to confess anything to you anymore! I don’t even want to be in the same room as you half the time! You’re changing, Ae-Cha, and not for the better. You’re not my best friend anymore! You’re not even acting like a friend anymore and I hate it!  I had so much controlling when I was at home, and you know it! I wasn’t allowed to do anything I wanted, I wasn’t allowed to even go to the bathroom in my own home without asking for permission from my parents! When we moved into the dorm, I was finally able to be myself, and now you, my own apparent best friend, is trying to take that away from me! I just d-”

Ae-Cha cut him off by placing her lips harshly against his, crashing them together and forcing Yuuki to swallow his words. Her face was damp with tears, her breaths hiccupping as she tried to control her growing sobs.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” She hiccupped into the kiss, clutching hold of Yuuki’s shirt. “I didn’t mean to be, I was just taken by surprise, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know I was going to be leader and I panicked so I over compensated I know, I’m so so sorry, please don’t hate me, please.”

She continued to sob into Yuuki’s shirt, pulling herself closer into the fabric as he just watched her in shock, slowly touching his still slightly damp lips where she’d kissed him.

“Calm down…” He finally started, rubbing his hand up and down her back soothingly “Just calm down, it’s okay…”

“It’s not okay..! I’ve been terrible to everyone and I didn’t even realise it..! I was trying to seem more mature, older and more in control like a leader should be, but I was too much… I’m so sorry…!”

“Calm down,” He repeated, sighing and resting his chin on her head. “It’s fine, I forgive you. You just need to apologise to the others too… you need to stop treating us all like utter crap, like we’re your pawns that you get to control and complain about all you want... we’re you’re friends and you have to treat us like it again, okay? Hope is the leader of this sub unit, and although you don’t like it, you have to accept it and give him a chance…”

She hiccupped again, trying to swallow back the sobs in . “I’m sorry… He was just so nervous and scared over having to be a leader here, I thought I’d try and take the burden off him. I was just trying to help, I swear…”

“I know, but no-one saw it that way, all we saw was you trying to take control and take away the role that Hope had been given. He doesn’t blame you for it, from what I’ve spoken to Vann and Sherlock, they’re more upset over how you treated him than Hope himself is…” Yuuki pulled back, taking a deep breath.

“How can I make it up to them…?” She asked tearfully, looking up at Yuuki.

“All you can do is apologise and hope for the best. Come on,” He took her arm, walking out of the room to the one opposite and knocking on it.

“Wait, aren’t you going to eat?” Ae-Cha asked with a frown while they waited for the door to be answered.

“Not hungry,” Was Yuuki’s only reply as the door swung open, revealing Sherlock, still in his sleeping pants and shirtless, looking exhausted.

“Yes?” He asked through a yawn.

“It’s us,” Yuuki sighed. “Can we come in?”

Sherlock nodded a little, stepping aside to let the two in to the room. “Go ahead.”

Hope still lay on the floor between the two beds, practically dead to the world, whereas Vann was dressed and ready to go.

Ae-Cha frowned at the scene. “Why is Hope-oppa sleeping on the floor?” She asked.

“He was determined that he’d be the one to sleep on the floor so as he was the one who got the back or neck pain, not us. He told us it’s his job to make sure the rest of us are feeling our best, so he let himself get the uncomfortable place to sleep.”

“Why would he do that…?”

“Because he was looking out for us, like a leader should.”

Ae-Cha flinched a little at the tone in Vann’s voice before kneeling down next to Hope, gently shaking him.

“Hope? Hope-oppa? Mal-Chin-oppa, it’s time to get up.”

Hope groaned slightly, rolling on to his back and slowly cracking his eyes open, flinching at the light that was switched on above him. Ae-Cha smiled slightly at the tired leader. “Hey, Oppa.”

“Ae-Cha?” Hope asked with a yawn before sitting up, rubbing at his eyes. “What’re you doing here?”

“We have to leave in half an hour, you were due to get up half an hour ago.”

“What?!” Hope quickly jumped to his feet, flinching at his back spasmed in pain from the awkward position he’d slept in previously. “Why did no-one wake me up earlier?!”

“We thought we’d let you sleep in as much as possible,” Sherlock spoke, now looking a little more alive and dressed than he had done when Yuuki and Ae-Cha had first knocked on the door.

“You shouldn’t have done that, I might cause us to be late!” He panicked, before running around and trying to get ready.

“Oppa…” Ae-Cha started, only to get ignored by the frantic man. “Oppa, please…” Still nothing. “Hope-oppa!”

Finally, Hope stopped rushing around the room, turning to look at her with a toothbrush hanging out of his mouth and a comb stuck in his hair. “Hm?”

“I just wanted to say… I’m sorry, to all of you. I’ve been a recently, I know, and I didn’t mean to be…” She took a shaking breath, trying to make sure she didn’t burst into tears again. “I was taken by surprise and it changed me, I let the fact I was a leader go to my head and it changed the way I usually act. I only realised how I was acting when I’d affected Yuuki-oppa…” She bowed low as a sign of respect. “Please forgive me, I didn’t mean to act in such a way.”

Hope smiled slightly. “Don’t worry about it, Ae-Cha, I knew it wasn’t you acting in such a way…but maybe you should talk to Namjoon-hyung when we get home, because I think they’re second guessing letting you be a temporary leader because of how you were acting…”

Ae-Cha sighed slightly, nodding and looking towards the ground. “Yeah, I guessed as such… I’m really sorry.”

Vann laughed a little. “Don’t worry about it, like Hope said. Just…don’t do it again, you were really starting to annoy us.”

The young girl smiled up at him. “Alright, I’ll be sure to control myself. Oh, and Hope?”

“Hm?”

“You’ll make an amazing leader.”