A/n: Just a small intro chapter. After this, each chapter will be a level (and far longer than 2000 words). I was requested 15 levels, but I think I'm doing 12 since that is Exo's (not-so) lucky number. Hopefully this will be enjoyed~

The theme is supposed to be, each level represents a genre (e.g., fluff, action, crack, etc) so every chapter will be a different genre that they have to complete. And all the members will show up - each getting their own level. I won't say anything more about it than that~ Happy reading~

“Baekhyun! Chanyeol!”

Baekhyun glanced around, wondering where he was needed now. In their hectic dressing room that was filled with endless voices, it was hard to know who was calling, from where, and for what purpose. And Baekhyun was already ready for the stage – makeup done, hair styled, clothed in his stage outfit; he was just waiting around for his other team members – so who was calling for him?

To his surprise, he saw Lee Donghae making his way into the change room, closely followed by his bandmate, Eunhyuk. Baekhyun stood up quickly as they came over to him, bowing and then seeing his own best friend – Chanyeol – out of the corner of his eye, hurrying over and bowing as well.

“Hyukjae hyung, Donghae hyung,” Baekhyun greeted. “What’s up?”

“That’s sunbae to you, Byun Baekhyun,” Eunhyuk teased playfully. Baekhyun bowed his head again, coming back up with the smallest of grins. Then Chanyeol was asking in the most formal manner what honour they had to receive such wonderful seniors at this moment, and Eunhyuk laughed at him.

Donghae grinned, but without further ado announced, “We have something for you.”

“Totally inconvenient timing, but we’re literally right across the hall and we figured it’d be easier to just give it to you now,” Eunhyuk added.

Donghae rolled his eyes and put in quietly, “Meaning, he’s too lazy to go all the way down to your dorm when you aren’t busy.” The other nodded quickly, breaking into a grin.

“He knows me well,” Eunhyuk agreed, and Chanyeol laughed beside Baekhyun, nudging him lightly. Just like us. Baekhyun could practically read his best friend’s mind. “Anyway, there’s a reason he knows me so well.”

“Because you live together?” Baekhyun pointed out.

“Or because you spend basically the whole year together?” Chanyeol added.

“Shush you two,” Eunhyuk said with a pout.

“Well, they aren’t wrong,” Donghae noted, patting Eunhyuk’s arm comfortingly. “But it’s actually something more than that.”

“Which is why we’re here.” And with that, Eunhyuk flourished a thin, rectangular package and passed it to Baekhyun, who accepted it curiously. It was surprisingly light, and gave no hints of sound when Baekhyun shook it (but then, maybe it was too loud in the room to hear anything anyway). “That right there is the key to unlocking the greatest friendships.”

“But only very special types of friends can go through it,” Donghae explained. “So make sure you look at it soon.”

“Not right now, though,” Eunhyuk told them as Chanyeol eyed it with interest. “Wait until you get home. And everyone else is asleep.”

Baekhyun threw the pair a suspicious look. “What exactly is this?” He was starting to feel like it was some sort of prank, like they would open it and find a well-wrapped or something. That certainly required a special kind of friendship (which, by the way, Baekhyun and Chanyeol did not have). Donghae winked Baekhyun’s way, and Baekhyun took it as confirmation.

It was fairly well known around SM – at least amongst the debuted artists – that Baekhyun was gay. Yes, he had adopted a fake girlfriend (which had mostly been to get SM off his back, and it had definitely worked, cementing the idea that he was straight into the eyes of the rest of the world, anyway) but in reality he had admitted his uality to his fellow artists a while back, with a great deal of shame. He was happy to find his bandmates had taken it very well, although they occasionally seemed a little uncomfortable around him – like when they were changing and whatnot. (On a brighter note, some of them didn’t seem to care at all; Jongin still liked to walk around whether Baekhyun was there or not, and he never even spared the older a second glance to check if Baekhyun was looking places he shouldn’t or not – which he wasn’t. That, at least, was appreciated.) But he had made it very clear that he had no interest in his fellow bandmates, and for the most part things had gone back to normal with them.

Then it spread. Somehow, Shinee found out (and Baekhyun assumed it was Jongin because he spent the most time with the older group), but they had been really positive about it. Especially Jonghyun; he’d even gone public with his support of gays, which had been really comforting. And then the girls had found out, and Super Junior, and just everyone apparently, and then it just sort of… didn’t matter. No one mentioned it or anything; it was kind of really wonderful (seeing as Baekhyun had been half-expecting the worst, honestly). It was only when the people above them found out – management and CEOs and so on – that it was suddenly an issue, but then Taeyeon (who he wasn’t particularly close to but he considered a friend and respected sunbae) had come to the rescue and suggested they “reveal” their relationship to the world. Which was fine, and kept Baekhyun’s desire for the same undercover.

(Not that Baekhyun considered himself to be one-hundred percent straight. But… maybe ninety-eight percent, anyway.)

Still, sometimes their sunbaes – especially the more playful ones – liked to joke around with him about this, and it wouldn’t be the first time these two in particular had. As for why Chanyeol was involved – well, Chanyeol was his best friend, and lord knows he had probably pulled pranks on them before. Baekhyun was probably the more innocent one here.

“You’ll see when you open it,” Eunhyuk sing-songed. “Tonight. When everyone else has gone to bed.”

“It’s nothing too terrible,” Donghae promised, and Baekhyun felt only slightly reassured.

“Just the greatest necessity for best friends to really understand each other,” Eunhyuk said mysteriously. With that, Donghae was pulling his bandmate away, and Eunhyuk called after them to Enjoy!

When they were out of sight, Baekhyun shot Chanyeol a questioning look. Chanyeol was looking right back down at him, expression mirroring his own. “Are you at all concerned about this?” Baekhyun asked him slowly.

“Just a little,” Chanyeol returned with a laugh, shaking his head slightly. “Whatever, we’ll worry about it later.” Baekhyun gave a nod, throwing the package down with his phone. “Hey Baek?” He looked around, and Chanyeol was staring at him sternly. “You know those two – that’s gonna be us in a few years, right?”

Baekhyun snorted. “Unfortunately.” And then Chanyeol broke into a grin before heading off to have his hair styled (because he could not go on stage with the flop of messy disaster that was on his head right now, whether Baekhyun found it endearing or not).

For the rest of the day, Baekhyun mostly forgot about his present and didn’t think about it again until he was reminded of it far later. As their members slowly tapered off to bed, Baekhyun ended up going to his own room – shared with Chanyeol and Kyungsoo, though most nights the latter went elsewhere (Baekhyun wasn’t actually sure where, he just knew Kyungsoo rarely was in his own bed when Baekhyun was there, nor was he there when Baekhyun woke up). Not long after, he was briefly joined by Kyungsoo who grabbed a pile of clothes and excused himself to shower; then Chanyeol slipped into the room and the pair were left alone. No doubt Kyungsoo wouldn’t be back for the night, since he’d taken an outfit for himself for the morning.

As Baekhyun crawled into his own bed sleepily, he heard Chanyeol whisper across the room, “Baek?”

At this, Baekhyun remembered the package and what Eunhyuk had told them about opening it. Tonight. He vaguely wondered how much Chanyeol had been thinking about it.

“Should we open it now?” Chanyeol wondered softly, voice piqued with curiousity. Regardless of what it was, Chanyeol would want to open it right away. He had never been a very patient one, Baekhyun knew (but then, Baekhyun wasn’t much better himself).

“I guess,” he laughed back quietly, sitting up and flashing his phone around the room. In seconds, the light landed on their mystery gift, and he dragged himself back out of bed to grab it before making his way to Chanyeol’s bed. Pushing the younger’s legs out of the way, Baekhyun sat in the middle comfortably as Chanyeol grumbled playfully. In return, Chanyeol switched on his flashlight app on his phone and shone it directly in Baekhyun’s face, making him wince. “Ugh!” Baekhyun whined defencelessly, feeling the package being pulled out of his hand.

Chanyeol wasted no time tearing it open enthusiastically, even though Baekhyun was feeling a little nervous (because what if it was a ? That would be really awkward, what with Baekhyun being gay and Chanyeol – well, Chanyeol was cool about it but it’d still be really weird if their sunbaes had given them a like that wasn’t even a subtle way of saying get it on. Did he and Chanyeol really have that much ? Their fans obviously thought so, but that’s how fans were. And sure, Baekhyun thought Chanyeol was rather attractive – but then, who didn’t? – but Chanyeol was still straight as far as Baekhyun knew and just, oh, it was so terrible to think about. Chanyeol would probably never be comfortable being in the same room anymore. Baekhyun prayed it wasn’t a or something equally suggestive). However, inside the wrapping revealed a – DVD case? It was coverless, no writing or anything on it to tip them off as to what might be inside, and when Chanyeol cracked the case open they found a plain, white disc. Baekhyun frowned.

“What do you think it is? ?” He hoped not. That wasn’t much better than a , really.

Chanyeol snorted. “They would, wouldn’t they?” He took the disc out, keeping the light on it and looking it over curiously. As the light hit it at a certain angle, Baekhyun gasped.

“Hey, look!” He scrambled beside Chanyeol and tilted the disc until he could repeat the affect. After a moment, words popped out in the light beams. Play me. Baekhyun looked up at Chanyeol, eyes wide in fascination.

“Kinda Wonderland-ish, huh?” Chanyeol murmured, raising an eyebrow at the older before looking back over the loopy script. “I’m glad it doesn’t say eat me.”

Baekhyun rolled his eyes. “You’re killing it, ‘Yeol.” Chanyeol merely offered him a wink. “So what now?”

“I dunno,” Chanyeol shrugged. “Put it in the TV, hit play, see what happens.” Baekhyun nodded, and the two crept out of the room into the living room. Flicking on the television, they switched it to their DVD input and – as a precaution – turned the volume down (because the possibility of it being some loud o was still very possible, and that would be a really embarrassing situation). Then Chanyeol was sticking the disc into their DVD player.

The moment the disc disappeared into the player, the TV flickered off. “What the-” And before Baekhyun had time to react, Chanyeol was hitting the TV’s power button again. A visible shot of electricity went through Chanyeol in under a second, but rather than dropping to the floor in shock, he vanished completely. Baekhyun couldn’t even scream, gaping as he stared at the place where his best friend had been just a single blink before.

To his great shock, the TV screen lit up again, and it now featured Chanyeol, standing there and looking around. Above him read Player 1: Park Chanyeol, and below him, in bold red font said, READY. On the other half of the screen there was a blank space where it said Select Player 2. Baekhyun was stunned. Half-convinced he was lucid dreaming (or had just lost his mind completely), he mindlessly hit the power button again. Rather than the screen disappearing, it was Baekhyun who – in the same fashion as Chanyeol had – vaporized.

If anyone had been there, they would have seen Baekhyun reappear on the screen, in the Player 2 section beside Chanyeol. But no one was there to see as a message flashed across the screen, and then the television faded to black.

BEGIN.

A/n: It will be more exciting after this. This is just the intro to give context. Prepare for level 1, hopefully coming soon!