Upon the dining table was a variety of steaming hot dishes. I hadn’t seen such extravagant home-cooked food in so long that I unknowingly let out a quiet but impressed ‘Woah’. Sungjoo was kind enough to pull out the chair for me before I sat down. One by one, they gathered at the table.
‘Yixuan doesn’t usually cook nice food. It’s only because we have a guest that he wants to show-off.’ Seungyoun exclaimed cheerfully as he sat down.
‘Hey! I cook nice food for you guys all the time.’ Yixuan whacked his chopsticks on top of Seungyoun’s head. Yixuan turned to me and said ‘Help yourself, help yourself.’
All the members quickly gave gratitude for the food before digging in like beasts. It was as if they hadn’t seen food for weeks.
‘So I really didn’t want to ask this but what exactly do you guys do?’ It had to be asked.
They seemed to freeze up all  at once and then started exchanging glances at one another as if they were betting on who would reply to me.
‘We’re singers.’ Sungjoo replied.
‘The best singers!’ Seungyoun cried.
‘And dancers.’ Wenhan added before taking a bite of the meat.
‘The best dancers!’ Seungyoun cried even louder.
‘And rappers.’ Yixuan quickly added.
‘The best rappers!’ Seungyoun yelled as he stood up and waved his chopsticks in the air. Yibo, who sat next to him, grabbed Seungyoun’s sleeve and pulled him down into his seat. The whole table started laughing quietly.
‘I’ve never followed Korean music before. I mean I’ve heard of it but not really follow.’ I said. Seungyoun faked a gasp and pretended to faint onto Yibo’s shoulder. Without skipping a beat, Yibo shook him off and continued eating a spoonful of rice and meat.
‘Are you full Korean?’ Sungjoo asked.
‘Mmmmm, half-Korean, half-Chinese. My dad’s Korean and my mum is Chinese.’
‘So you’re like us then!’ Wenhan exclaimed in Mandarin.
‘What?’ I tilted my head over, puzzled over his strange statement.
‘We’re a Korean-Chinese group called UNIQ. Sungjoo and Seungyoun are Korean and Wenhan, Yibo and I are Chinese.’ Yixuan explained to me. ‘We all speak both languages because we promote in both countries.’ I nodded, impressed that such a group was able to be formed.

Throughout the dinner, we got to know each other more. They asked me where I was from and what I was doing in the penthouse and I explained that I was born in Seoul but I grew up in America, moving across various states and that I was back in Seoul due to family reasons. I did contemplate telling them that my father was the director of the hotel but decided against it. They explained that they had moved into the penthouse not too long ago and that it was a temporary situation until further notice from their company. The more we talked over dinner, the more comfortable I felt around them.

~

When we had all finished dinner, I offered to help out with the dishes but Yixuan strongly insisted against it. ‘I’m not letting a guest do the dishes!’ He told me. I gave up when Sungjoo came over and said I wasn’t going to win against Yixuan. I helped Sungjoo put on a pink apron by tying the back up for him and did the same for Yixuan who had a yellow apron. I left them at the sink to start washing and drying the dishes side by side when Wenhan invited me over to the living room. Yibo without saying a word offered me the controller but I strongly insisted against playing, knowing how bad I was at games. I was watching them play FIFA on their console when Seungyoun leaped over the couch from behind and sat cross-legged beside me.
‘Chi! Do you have KakaoTalk?’
‘I don’t.’ I shook my head. I had heard about it from Hana but it wasn’t extremely popular over in the US. 
‘Give me your phone pleeeease.’ I hesitantly handed my phone over to Seungyoun whose face lit up upon receiving it. He then proceeded to play with my phone for a while and typed a few things in.
‘Alright, I’ve installed Kakao on your phone with our numbers as well so you can chat with us now.’
I looked at the 5 new contact IDs on the list and started laughing at the names Seungyoun had entered.
‘Promise you won’t change the names.’ Seungyoun told me the names were as follows:

soccerfan96 (Seungyoun)
mamayx (Yixuan)
swagmasta (Yibo)
dazhuzi (Sungjoo)
wenhandsome (Wenhan)

I squinted my eyes at Seungyoun’s name. ’96...I’m older than you!?’ I exclaimed.
‘Really? When were you born?’
’95.’
‘Woah! But you’re so tiny.’ Seungyoun chuckled. ‘Yibo, Chi is our noona.’ Noona…I was still getting used to the Korean honorifics system which didn’t exist in the US.
‘Really?’ Yibo indifferently replied, too immersed in his game against Wenhan. Seungyoun looked back at me and said, ‘Yibo was born in 97.’ My eyes widened with disbelief. These guys were giants for their age.
‘But you can call the others oppa.’ Seungyoun winked at me. ‘Wenhan and Sungjoo are 94 and Yixuan is ancient. 90.’ Overhearing Seungyoun was Yixuan who happened to be passing by. He grabbed Seungyoun’s ear and pulled it upward for a second and let go before walking on. Seungyoun was rubbing his ear when he asked whether I had a snapchat or not.
‘I do but I don’t really use it.’ Seungyoun’s face lit up as if he had ignored everything I said after ‘I do’.
‘Add me, add me, add me!’ Seungyoun smiled. ‘Here, let me do it for you.’ He grabbed my phone quickly, tapped around a few times again and then returned it.
‘The others don’t want to use snapchat with me.’ Seungyoun frowned. I was going to tell him again that I didn’t really use it but I didn’t have the heart to after seeing him pout.

~

8:00AM
I was awoken by a unfamiliar notification sound my phone. I lazily rolled over to the other side of the bed and stretched my arm out to get my phone on the side table. Snapchat...? I hazily thought, adjusting my eyes to the bright screen.  I opened the app and saw a snap from Seungyoun. Did he unmute my notifications…?



I was too lazy to turn off the notifications and returned to sleep.

11:31AM
I was surfing the internet on my laptop when there was a notification and my phone started buzzing. I checked Snapchat to see possibly the most unexpected edit of the day.



I wondered if Yixuan knew of the edit.

2:24PM
The notification sound went off once again. This better not be a snapchat… I picked up the phone and was pleasantly proven correct.



I laughed out loud, imagining the lengths Seungyoun had to go through to take such a cute picture of Yibo. It wasn’t even close to a minute after Seungyoun had sent the previous snap that I received another one from him.



An evil smirk grew on my face and I sent him a reply.



~

Later that night, I received another strange notification sound that I didn’t recognize. It was KakaoTalk. I tried to navigate through the app and saw that Yibo had sent me a message.

swagmasta: did seungyoun send you a  snapchat of me…
You: maybeㅋㅋㅋ
swagmasta:
 

Next Chapter Preview:
‘So, what’s happening?’ I asked, already reaching for the gummy bears.
‘Movie night.’ Sungjoo replied. ‘We take turns picking movies every Friday and tonight is Seungyoun’s turn so we’re probably watching…’
‘Horror.’ Yibo finished off Sungjoo’s sentence. I could see the life slowly drain from Yibo’s face and heard Sungjoo chuckling at Yibo’s expense beside me.
 

Author's Note:
Really really really hate the whole ‘introducing characters to each other’ thing because I'm not very good at bridging that gap smoothly esp when there’s so many characters in one scene. I’m glad that’s over and done with! Don’t be surprised now if they act like they’re quite comfortable with each other in the following chapters hahahaha. Shoutout to the fab people who have already subscribed! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧ Will do my best to keep you entertained! And to those who haven’t, why not!? (;° ロ°) But really, thank you for checking my story out. ｡^‿^｡