May 27th 2014

Ding Dong

“Gah!” Hanni jumped from the kitchen, his hands encased in oven mitts. “They’re early! Oh no!”

“Hanni-ah, it’s just some label members, not the Queen of England.” Yuuki sighed from the couch, running a pale hand through his dark hair in frustration. Hanni had been running around the kitchen for the better part of two hours preparing food.

“They’re our Hoobaenims, Yuuki! We have to make a good first impression!”

“We’ve met them before.”

“But-”

“Several times.”

“Yeah bu-”

“They literally live a few blocks away.”

“Okay b-”

“No.”

Hanni huffed as Yuuki continued cutting him off, turning back to the over and kneeling down to stare at the rising cake.

Ding Dong

“Gah! Will someone answer that please?!” Hanni called again, almost tearing his hair out from frustration.

Ae-Cha sighed from her place on the couch before climbing to her feet. “Fine fine, don’t get your in a twist. I’ll get it.” Her multitoned hair was held up in a single pony tail on the side of her head, since the other half was still shaven from debut. Her face was bare, makeupless, clad only in a purple tank top and bright blue ducky sleep shorts.  Ae-Cha walked to the door, pulling it open with a grin. “Min-Sun-oppa, Min-Jun-oppa, nice to see you both again! How have you been?” Ae-Cha bowed while moving aside so the two Symphon-EE members could enter their dorm.

Min-Sun smiled at her, wearing a long-sleeved, baggy, white t-shirt and sleep pants, bright pink fluffy slippers to complete his bedtime look, whereas Min-Jun was wearing a black tank top and sleep pants, his sneakers on instead of slippers.
 

“We’ve been fine, Ae-Cha-ah!” Min-Sun smiled. “Busy busy right now though, preparing for debut!”

“Speaking of debut, how are your debut shows going?” Min-Jun asked while making his way over to the couch.

“Eh, so-so. Manager-hyung keeps telling us we’re doing well but I feel as though we can be better.” Hyo piped up.

Min-Sun jumped, turning towards the couch. He hadn’t even seen the 9 other members sat on the large, L shaped couch, all wearing pyjamas, curled around each other in little puppy piles.

“Oh…um…hi, everyone.” He waved nervously, giving a little chuckle as 9 pairs of eyes fell on him, giving a muttered reply before turning back to the television in front of them.

“Guys! Respect for our Hoobaenims, please? Sorry about that, Oppa, we’re all quite tired…”

“Don’t worry about it,” Min-Sun grinned, his eyes scrunching at the corners. “We understand, right Min-Jun?”

The quieter boy nodded.

“So what are we doing tonight then? Myung mentioned something about a bonding exercise?”

Myung rubbed his eyes sleepily behind his glasses, lifting his head a little at the sound of his name. “Hm?”

“Yeah, something like that. Manager-hyung doesn’t feel like we’re close enough as a group so he wants us to have a pyjama night and bond. Hanni thought it’d be a good idea to invite you guys since you’re so busy with promotions, you could use a break too.”

“Yeah.” Min-Jun smiled. “The others couldn’t come. Su-Ji isn’t feeling too well and Andy and Yu-Jin are out, so… I guess you’re stuck with Min-Sun-hyung and I.”

“Not that that’s a bad thing, of course!” Cho smiled from the couch. She was curled up in a ball, her head on Sherlock’s shoulder with deep bags under her eyes. The entirety of Acid Teochii looked exhausted.

“Right, I’m ready!” Hanni exclaimed as he hurried in from the kitchen area, an apron on over his pyjamas and over mitts still on as he held a steaming pot of food. “My famous Soondebu Jiggae! I made enough for everyone! There’s also rice, Kimchi and other sides still in the kitchen if anyone wants them…”

“Thank you umma!” The group said in unity, stunning the two Symphon-EE members. Apparently, that was said so often it was in complete synchronisation without them even having to look at each other. Hanni smiled, placing the pot down on the coffee table and handing out small bowls and chopsticks to all the members, before hurrying back into the kitchen for the side dishes.

“So!” Yuuki exclaimed once Hanni had left, sitting bolt upright. “I know what we should do.”

“Hm?” Ae-Cha asked, turning to look at him distrustfully, eyes narrowed a little.

“Horror movie.”

“Yuuki, you know Hanni hates horror movies.”

“Exactly.”

“You’re evil. Let’s do it.”

Yuuki grinned, jumping from his seat to go and grab a movie from his room. Jin quickly got from the floor into the now vacant seat. There just wasn’t enough room for 13 of them on the couch.

Hanni came back into the room with all the side dishes on a tray just as Yuuki placed the DVD in the player, Min-Sun and Min-Jun looking over at each other with unease.

It didn’t take long for the movie to begin and for Hanni to realise what was going on.

“Guyssssss.” He whined from behind his phone, flicking through his timeline on instagram. “I hate you all.”

“I hate them too, Hanni-oppa, don’t worry.” Cho responded in a small voice as she tried to get into an even smaller ball. “What are you looking at anyway, oppa? Who is that girl? That looks like a debut teaser…” Cho asked while leaning over slightly to see Hanni’s phone.

The older instantly flushed red, closing the app and locking his phone. “Nobody, that was nobody.”

“Riiiiiighhtt..” Cho drawled, before turning back to the movie, despite how much she didn’t want to.

Min-Jun and Min-Sun flinched at every squirt of blood and gore on the screen, gripping each others’ shirts in an attempt to seek comfort but still stay manly. Vann and Myung were doing the same thing beside them, Myung hiding his face in the older man’s chest with a whimper as a small girl got beheaded.

“I don’t like this movie.” Myung told the rest of them in a small voice.

Sherlock didn’t seem fazed by the movie at all. Whether that had something to do with the fact he couldn’t see what was going on and could only hear the audio, or whether it was because he just wasn’t bothered by horror movies, they didn’t know. But he certainly seemed to be bored as he began dozing off on the sobbing Hanni’s shoulder. Jin seemed to scream at everything, much to Sherlock’s annoyance as he kept getting woken.

Cho was also sobbing in fear.

Ae-Cha and Yuuki, of course, found this hilarious. Shoving chopsticks full of rice and stew into their mouths while laughing at the idiocy of the movie and their co-workers reactions.

Hyo and Marco clung on to each other’s hands, their faces stoic, but cutting the blood circulation off in each other’s hands told the others another story of how they really felt about the movie.

Hope appeared to be completely invested in the movie, his eyes comically wide as he slowly put plain rice in his mouth as if it was popcorn, no reaction apart from the transfixed stare as he watched blood splatter onto the screen.

With a loud clap of thunder, the power in the entire dorm cut off in an instant. Everyone but Ae-Cha and the sleepy Sherlock let out a very feminine scream at the noise, Watson suddenly jumping up from his bed and barking wildly at the sense of danger that had filled the apartment.

Cho’s sobs halted for a minute, before increasing in severity, only for Vann to slowly shuffle along the couch and pull her into a hug.

“Hey, it’s okay, the storm just knocked the power out, that’s all. You’re fine.”

“This , now we can’t see a thing!” Ae-Cha complained loudly, huffing and crossing her arms as Yuuki laughed at her childish comment.

“Oh no,” Sherlock piped in with a bored drawl. “How awful that must be for you, being unable to see a thing. I’m truly sorry.”

“Shut up, Bonhwa.” Ae-Cha snapped back.

“N-now now,” Myung raised his hands, trying to diffuse the tension that had settled. “This was mean to be a bonding exercise. Let’s just sit and share stories until the power comes back, alright? No need to get at each other’s throats.”

“Oh!” Min-Sun suddenly exclaimed, jumping to his feet and rushing to the door, cursing loudly as he fell over the trashcan in his hurry, and began ruffling through his bag. “We have outages at the Symphon-EE dorm all the time, I always keep a torch on me just in case.”

“Oooohhh we can do ghost stories!” Yuuki said excitedly while reaching for the voice, grinning like a madman when Min-Sun the torch, pointing it in their direction.

“Do we have to?” Cho asked, sniffing lightly into Vann’s shirt.

“YES.” Yuuki responded while jumping to his feet, snatching the torch from his hoobaenim and sitting back down on the couch, putting the illuminated bulb below his chin, setting terrifying shadows over his face. His black lipstick did nothing to help ease the image.

Much to a lot of the members’ dismay, one by one, the torch was passed around, everyone telling creepy little stories they had heard or had claimed to know someone who it had happened to. After about an hour of this, Min-Sun and Min-Jun took their leave, promising to bring the other members next time.

Unfortunately, they also took the torch with them.

They sat in the dark, curled up around each other on the floor after pulling all the cushions from the couch. Despite their earlier snappings and horror stories, the group began to talk softly about the group, what lay in store for them, their thoughts, worries, fears…until one by one, they began to fall asleep. Hanni was first, his phone clutched in his hand with a small flashing light, indicating a missed text message. Then Jin, Sherlock and Cho…until Myung was the only one awake.

He wanted to go to bed, really, he did. He would have loved to just sleep and recover from the several performances he had had to do recently.

There was just one thing standing in his way.

“Guys?” He asked in a small, fearful voice, receiving no reply. “Will someone come to the bathroom with me? I’m scared.”

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Hey guys! This chapter has been edited a little bit since I decided to change what company Acid Teochii are from! Therefore, I changed the NU'EST character that were originally in this chapter to the twins from my best friend's group, Symphon-EE! You can find Min-Sun and Min-Jun here!