“If you could all just take your seats quickly and stow your baggage either in the overhead lockers or under the seats in front of you,” the flight attendant’s bored voice repeats the instructions for the fifty-somethingth time that day. Geng, Heechul and Leeteuk hurry to their seats.

Heechul squeezes into the seat by the window, Geng following him to sit in the middle. Leeteuk takes the aisle seat for ease of supervising their other band mates.

“Are you okay, Geng?” he checks with the Chinese man who is sitting very rigidly in his seat.

“I’m fine,” Geng grits out, his hands gripping the arm rests white-knuckled.

Leeteuk shoots him a doubtful look, but Heechul is next to him. Hopefully the other man will be able to calm Geng down. He doesn’t want to have to deal with any… incidents… today. They’d already had an episode with Donghae this morning turning his seat in the van into a carrot.

“I was just really hungry, Hyung!” The accompanying puppy-dog eyes made Leeteuk feel like a monster when he snapped back.

“Not really a good enough excuse to destroy the company’s vehicle, Donghae.” Donghae looked like a kicked puppy. He started to sniffle. Eunhyuk joined in and the ensuing sob fest took three other members and fifteen minutes to dispel. So at this point, Leeteuk is kinda on the end of his tether.

He checks briefly, and it appears all the members are seated. He does a head count. And then freezes. Only twelve? But there should be thirteen of them? Leeteuk looks around wildly, searching desperately for the missing member. Who is it? He runs through a list of members in his head. He’s even counted himself. Who is the thirteenth member?

A hand tugs at his sleeve, and he looks over to see Kibum staring at him.

Oh. Kibum.

“I’m right here, Hyung,” Kibum tells him, shaking his head as he wanders back to his seat.

Leeteuk heaves a sigh of relief, sinking down into his seat gratefully.

The flight attendants walk around to perform last checks. Leeteuk looks over, and both Heechul and Geng are strapped in tight. The flight attendant moves on. The cabin announcements are made, and they start the safety briefing.

Then, somehow, about halfway through, just when they’re getting to the emergency evacuation procedures, Geng swears, and Leeteuk turns to him in alarm, to be confronted by a tiny poof of yellow smoke, which clears to reveal, of course, a ripe pineapple, sitting in Geng’s seat.

“.”

“Leader!” Donghae whispers scandalously from his seat across the aisle. Leeteuk doesn’t have time to worry about his language. He is in full on panic mode, desperately wracking his mind for what to do.

The flight attendant, noticing the puff of smoke frowns, and when she finishes her presentation, she makes her way speedily towards them.

“Is anything the matter over- oh my God!” She cuts off half-way through the sentence. “Why is there a pineapple here? Where is the passenger that was here earlier?” At this point, Heechul who is softly whispering to the pineapple and its leaves fondly, shoots her a glare.

“Leave Hannie alone!” he snaps at her. “He’s very stressed at the moment. You’re just making it worse.”

“What the… the pineapple has a name?” she wonders aloud, a frown creasing her forehead. She signals silently for help, and two other flight attendants hurry over. Leeteuk can feel the tension headache coming on already.

“Hi,” he introduces himself, “My name is Leeteuk. You may have heard of the band Super Junior? The band of mutants?”

The woman is staring at him like he’s grown an extra head. Not a fan then. .

Leeteuk turns to the two new arrivals.

“Either of you ever heard of Super Junior?” he’s met with confused looks and shaking heads. He sighs, running his hand through his hair in exasperation. He stands up.

“Does anybody on this plane know of a band called Super Junior?”

“Isn’t that the band with like, forty eight members or something?”

“No that’s that Japanese girl group.”

“Is it the one with G-Dragon in it?”

“Mavis, shut up, that’s Big Bang. How many times do we have to go over this?”

“Ooooh, is it the one that just released that new single, what was it called again…”

“Sorry Sorry?” Leeteuk prompts hopefully. Donghae stands up excitedly and starts miming the dance, and Eunhyuk joins him, but Leeteuk shoots them a look, and they sit back down quickly.

“No, no, something different. Oh! Growl! Is that you?”

Leeteuk drops his face in his hands. This is going to be a long flight.

“No, that’s EXO,” he tells the woman, who frowns thoughtfully.

“Oh.”

“I guess that’s a no to my question then,” Leeteuk sighs.  How is it that they are one of the most popular and well known bands in Korea, and still they don’t have a single fan on this plane? How is this happening right now?

“I guess it’s not that important,” he tries. “The point is; we’re a band of mutants. That pineapple is one of our members.”

“You have a pineapple for a member?” The flight attendant asks doubtfully.

“He’s not usually a pineapple,” Donghae pipes up helpfully. “He’s actually a man sometimes too!”

All three flight attendants are looking increasingly perplexed. Leeteuk would like to cry and also disappear into the floor right now.

Fortunately, just that second, the pineapple disappears in another puff of smoke, and Geng is left sitting in the seat again.

The flight attendant shrieks in surprise.

“Sorry?” Geng offers.

She faints.

Leeteuk sighs.

It’s going to be a long flight.