Joonmyun is in the wrong place. He has to be. He's sure this has to be a mistake, yet another look at the screen of his phone confirms that this is really the address Yixing texted him. That still doesn't stop the sudden sensation of fear from welling up in Joonmyun's chest. This time he's not so much scared because he hasn't been to this part of town before. Rather than worrying about getting lost in an unknown place, he worries about getting stabbed.

There are half a hundred people waiting in front of the venue, and Joonmyun has never in his life felt like such an outcast. He's used to fitting in with the common crowd, but as he passes the throng of people to get to the back of the line, fresh out of work in his usual suit and tie, most of them look at him as if he's something nasty they've scraped off the sole of their studded combat boots. With each step he takes, he feels more and more compelled to turn around and walk right back in the direction he came from.

“Hey you!” someone calls out all of a sudden. Joonmyun freezes on the spot. Slowly, he turns around, heart pounding against his ribcage, and when he sees the doorman is waving him over, Joonmyun gulps and starts making his way towards him on unsteady legs.

He didn't get a good look at the doorman when he walked past him before, opting to keep his eyes fastened on the ground before him rather than making eye contact with anyone at all, but now Joonmyun sees plenty. He sees rings lining the shells of both of the doorman's ears, another ring hanging from his nose, dark, black-rimmed eyes looking right at Joonmyun, and Joonmyun is sure he's going to get murdered. “Y-yes?” he manages to squeak nonetheless.

“Are you Kim Joonmyun?” the doorman asks while staring at Joonmyun's... tie? His voice is astonishingly soft for someone who looks like he could kick a two-hundred pound man well into next week and there is a bit of a lingering accent to his words that Joonmyun finds familiar. Then it occurs to him that this person just said his name. Anxiety takes a hold of him again and all he can do is nod, preparing himself for the worst.

Much to Joonmyun's surprise, however, the doorman just removes one of the ropes that provide a barrier, and he steps aside. Joonmyun recoils. “What...?”

“You're on the guest list,” the doorman explains. “You can go right in.” It's probably confusion more than anything else that leads Joonmyun to enter without asking any further questions.

The inside is not a lot less scary than the outside, but the people here seem more focused on dancing and drinking than glaring at Joonmyun so at least there's that. Not knowing what else to do, Joonmyun halfway stumbles towards the bar where he lets himself drop onto one of the tall chairs. His eyes search the floor in hopes of catching a glimpse of a familiar face. He comes out empty-handed and he's starting to fear that this was all some kind of prank from Yixing's side.

“Can I get you anything?” Joonmyun turns in his chair and comes face to face with the person he had seen handing out beers to a person with a mohawk as tall as Joonmyun's torso just a few moments prior. The bartender, he assumes. He's a small guy with a bright smile, a nose ring and a trail of tiny stars dotting his neck starting from below his ear and disappearing into the wide opening of his shirt. “A beer? A shot? A fruity cocktail?”

“No thanks, I'm fine,” Joonmyun mutters.

With his forearms braced on the bar, the bartender leans towards Joonmyun. “This isn't really your setting, is it?” he asks. “Not to sound rude or anything, but you seem very out of your element.”

Joonmyun chuckles wryly. “I guess you can say that.”

“Mhm, I can tell.” A hand is extended towards Joonmyun, a skull grinning up at him from the skin on the back of it. “I'm Baekhyun.”

“Kim Joonmyun,” Joonmyun introduces himself as he takes the offered hand.

Baekhyun's eyes drop as soon as Joonmyun has said his name. “Ah.” His smile grows ever so slightly. “Paisley.” Joonmyun's heart stutters and he opens his mouth to ask one of the thousand questions swirling around in his head, but Baekhyun interrupts him before he can speak. “I'm Yixing's friend. I've heard a lot about you.” Joonmyun can't even say anything. He's too busy trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Yixing would tell his friends about him. Nickname and all. “Don't worry I'll take good care of you.”

It could sound foreboding, but there is something about Baekhyun's smile that makes Joonmyun feel more at ease, even if it's just a little. “Thanks,” he mutters with a smile of his own.

The sound of screaming makes Joonmyun snap his attention towards the small stage, a platform raised about three feet off the ground in the other end of the room, and he sees what he guesses are the band members entering. The first one is tall with auburn hair gathered in a sloppy ponytail, colorful tattoos covering both of his arms from shoulder to wrist and multiple piercings in both his upper and lower lip. He's twirling a drumstick in each hand. “That's Chanyeol,” Baekhyun explains. “In case it isn't obvious, he's the drummer.”

“He looks like he belongs in a room with padded walls,” Joonmyun comments offhandedly as he watches Chanyeol shoot deranged-looking smiles at some of the people standing near the stage.

Baekhyun laughs so hard he has to grab the bar to hold himself up. “Oh God, that is the best thing I have heard in my entire life,” he gasps. “I'll make sure to tell him that.”

Joonmyun flushes at his own carelessness. He didn't mean to say it out loud. “Who's that, then?” he asks in an attempt to distract Baekhyun. A skinny, pale kid with hair dyed what seems to be pretty much every color known to man has walked onto the stage. Unlike Chanyeol, he barely spares the crowd a glance, grabbing a bass guitar that probably weighs more than he does and slinging the strap over his shoulder.

“Sehun, the bassist,” Baekhyun says, still a little out of breath from laughing. “Word of advice; he just had his tongue pierced recently so he talks kind of funny, but don't say that to his face or his boyfriend is most likely going to break your face.”

“Got it,” Joonmyun mutters.

Next is a guy with hair sticking in every direction, tattoos covering every visible square inch of skin from the neck down and more steel in the face than Joonmyun thought possible in one person. “Minseok is the lead singer,” Baekhyun says. “He looks pretty terrifying and he probably wants you to think that he is, but he's one of the sweetest people I know.” Joonmyun finds that hard to believe, but knows better than to judge a book by its cover.

The last person to walk on stage is someone Joonmyun feels he's very familiar with. “Yixing,” he says before Baekhyun can say anything at all. Yixing is happily chatting with his band mates and some of the fans and he looks so excited to be there. Joonmyun can't keep the smile from spreading on his face at the sight of him.

“He probably doesn't need much introduction,” Baekhyun says in a teasing tone, but Joonmyun barely registers it. Because Yixing is pulling his sweatshirt over his head and Joonmyun feels his mouth go dry, not because of the amount of skin on display now that Yixing is wearing just a tanktop, but because said skin is, much like his bandmates', covered in tattoos. Starting from just below the elbow and going upwards, everything is decorated with ink. There's even some on his collarbones as well, peeking over the swooping neckline of his tanktop. Joonmyun wonders how he never noticed any of these tattoos before, but comes to realize that Yixing has always been wearing long sleeves around him. He's always been covered up.

Minseok taps the microphone a few times to make sure it's working. “What's up, people?” he calls out, backed up by the sound of the band revving up their instruments; deep notes from the bass, higher strums from the electric guitar, solid pounds from the kick drum. Minseok is met with enthusiastic yells from the crowd and he grins at a gaggle of tittering girls. “How're ya feeling tonight? Thank you all for coming to see us play. We're Switchblade Granola, and we're here to make you shout.” The last word is screamed in a hoarse roar and with four clacks of Chanyeol's drumsticks and a screech of Yixing's guitar, the first song begins.

It's fast-paced and energetic with an anthemic chorus and lyrics about someone's ex being 'a ratchet '. Minseok is jumping around on stage, throwing himself on his knees, gripping his microphone tightly while singing his lungs out with a passion. Chanyeol is a ball of energy bouncing in his seat, shouting along and encouraging the crowd to do the same. Sehun is mouthing the words as he plays and he even flashes a smile or two whenever Minseok struts over to grind against him to the sounds of fangirls shrieking their eager approval.

More than anything, though, Joonmyun is having trouble tearing his eyes away from Yixing. Of course he has seen him play guitar before, just never like this. It's like Yixing is an entirely different person here. He's dancing as he plays, and there's a look on his face unlike anything Joonmyun has ever experienced from him prior to this moment. The best way to describe it is sensual. Every single move he makes is sensual. He's glowing under the bright stage lights, igniting a slow simmer in Joonmyun's body, and now he's the one who has to clutch the bar for balance.

The band plays for an hour and a half including a couple of water breaks. Their set consists of a mix of fast and slower songs, originals about love and and partying with a few covers of apparently well-known (to anyone other than Joonmyun) tracks sprinkled in between. By the time it's over and the band is leaving the stage despite the audience's protests, Joonmyun feels out of breath. He looks at Baekhyun, who's watching him with a knowing expression. “Good, right?”

“Yeah,” Joonmyun agrees absently. “Yeah, they-they're great, I, uhm... I think I would like that drink now.” Baekhyun laughs and gets him a beer, and Joonmyun immediately takes a long swig. His mouth is still dry afterwards.

Joonmyun is barely halfway through his beer when someone taps him on the shoulder, and he turns around. The first thing he sees is a wide chest, but then he leans his head back and looks up into the face of a guy with huge everything. He has countless ear piercings, a scorpion tattoo on one arm and a dragon tattoo on the other taking up most of his biceps and shoulder. “Are you Kim Joonmyun?” the guy asks in a voice that is as stony as his expression, and once more Joonmyun is taken aback by how everyone here seems to know his name.

“Yes?” he gets out through his clenching throat.

“Come with me.”

Joonmyun is afraid to disobey so he gets off his chair (the huge man is a good head and a half taller than him when they're standing, oh God). He shoots a pleading glance at Baekhyun, who rolls his eyes. “Stop being so scary, Kris,” he sighs. “Look at him, he's terrified.”

“Sorry,” the guy, Kris, mumbles. He sounds almost sheepish. “Uh, will you please come with me?”

“Go on, honey, it's okay,” Baekhyun says with an encouraging hand gesture. And as Joonmyun follows Kris to somewhere behind the stage, he desperately hopes that it's alright for him to trust Baekhyun. He would very much like to leave this place in one piece.

~*~

A/N: bruh. bruh. do you even understand how I feel about piercings?? tattoos??? hhhhhhhhhh. the tattoo idea is like 90% why this fic even came into existence in the first place because tatted!yixing/businessman!joonmyun, uhhhhh, heck yes????? and it certainly didn't help that I kept browsing through this tumblr because uggghhhhh the paiN!!

so yeah. there it is, the big secret. yixing has tattoos and lots of them. \o/ if anyone was wondering what the dark mark on yixing's arm in the last chapter was, this is it (some of you guys guessed it... good job 8D). this chapter was more eventful and I introduced like six new people (idk if that's the right number, I'm too lazy to count). like I said, these are some of my favorite characters even though you guys haven't really had a chance to see why yet. it's coming, it's coming. also, yes, switchblade granola. there is an explanation for that as well. all will be explained.

I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter, and I hope you like the new characters as much as I do. today, I am just going to leave with a baekhyun gif because this look is 99% the inspiration for the neck tattoo I described:

bye! ♥