One Shot to Success (B.A.P)

***JiHae’s P.O.V***

The bright smile had still not been wiped off of his face as I struggled and mentally destroyed my brother. If only he had been quiet, I wouldn’t have anything complicated to decide. I don’t think I have any choice but to say the truth though, because SOMEONE spilled pretty much the whole secret. Quick, JiHae! Think of a good random excuse!

“I used to be quite chubby before and hyung always mocked me of being a girl and decided to take advantage of my breast-looking-chest.” What the heck was that?! He won’t believe it and I’ll be discovered! And then the group will hate me, the CEO will kick me out, my parents will make fun of me for eternity and- and- Ugh! Well, let’s look at the bright side. I won’t ever see my trainer, the cameraman/director, the flirty woman at the front desk…

Jongup didn’t make any move whatsoever, and stared at me and seemed to be deep in thought, while I, on the other hand, was freaking out on the inside.

“Ok,” he said and just continued smiling at me. No wonder they call him the Smiling Angel. I let out a quiet sigh of relief and headed back towards our main destination. And so, we got inside the small dorm where MinSeok and some other person were living, though the person with whom he was sharing the dorm hasn’t been at the dorm ever since he arrived this morning.

The room was a complete mess. Cardboard boxes were piled on top of each other across the living room messily and the kitchen sink had a mountain of dirty dishes waiting for someone to clean them. Wrappers from snacks and instant food were scattered on the floor and furniture, not letting us see much of the interior decor of the room. Not only was this a disturbance for our eyes, but our noses too were suffering. The odor the place emitted was terrible. The disgusting smell of dirty old socks and rotting food was more powerful than anything I’ve ever experienced. Whoever MinSeok is living with sure is not clean, and I doubt anyone could live with this strong stench floating around, so the person in question must ditch the place pretty often.

“Well, let’s start unpacking the smaller boxes. They’re already inside my new room.” Jongup and me were lead into the hallway and into a room on the left. The walls and ceiling were completely white and there was nothing but boxes in view. Most of the boxes had what they contained written on the side in Sharpie, and those that weren’t marked had a receipt stuck to them meaning they were shipped here by post. MinSeok headed towards those who were sent and picked up a few and gave them to me. “The guys back in Canada wanted me to give you this.”

I set the packages aside and pushed my imaginary sleeves up and rubbed my hands together. I headed towards the first pile I saw and opened it quickly without any particular interest for whatever was in it. However, when I lifted the top off, I never imagined that there would be little foam packaging peanuts. Even less that the objects inside the box would be drowned in them. I let my hands explore the contents of the box as I searched for the articles inside. I could see the two others opening boxes and rummage through them like me in my peripheral view. In very little time, there were packaging peanuts all over the room and the boxes weren’t in neat piles anymore.

“I think we made more of a mess than anything,” remarked Jongup. My sibling and me nodded our heads in agreement. That is when I felt something squishy and small thrown against my back. I whipped my head towards the direction the projectile came from and I saw MinSeok with a little smirk on his face. It was my turn to smirk back at him and I grabbed a handful of the packaging material and threw them towards him. However, MinSeok somehow avoided them by ducking and I ended up hitting Jongup who froze in place as he felt the sting from my direct hit on the back of his head. Still having his back facing us, he bended down to put down the objects in his hands and struck quickly with another handful of peanuts.

Soon enough, the place was a packaging peanut battlefield. A few projectiles here, a few over there, they were literally everywhere. I couldn’t see my targets or surroundings very well because of the indoor storm. I stepped backwards slowly to try and escape the war, but on my way out, I tripped on a box and made a pile of boxes, full of packaging as well, land on me. The two boys continued fighting as if nothing happened while I was laying flat on my stomach under a pile of empty boxes, one of which was over my head. When I finally succeeded in trying to remove the cardboard from over my face, all I saw were legs before I felt a new weight fall over me.

“Umph!” Whoever fell over me is going to suffer… “These boxes sure are hard. I think I landed on something.” I felt all the patience get sucked out of my body as I felt the person above moving and struggling to stand back up, only making the boxes heavier. That wasn’t the end of it. The person who was still standing decided to help out the person above and by that, he stepped towards my face and ended up by shoving his foot in my face. I know this isn’t hygienic, but it’s my only chance. I bit the poor person’s foot, not hard enough to draw blood or for it to hurt a lot. A yelp was heard, as well as the sound of boxes moving around.

“JiHae? What are you doing down there?” asked the person who was on his feet, aka Jongup.

“I bumped into these boxes and they fell over me. And then, dumbo over there decided it would be fun to squish me as well,” I responded as I glared at the reason for my aching back. I got up and dusted off the imaginary dust from my body and headed towards MinSeok hyung, cracking my knuckles.

“Well what do you know! Look at the time! Well, I don’t know about you, but I gotta run. See you some other time! Bye!” my brother said in one breath and dashed out the door, not caring if there was still two guests over, left in a mess him and us made.

With a sigh, I walked out the door followed by Jongup and we went back to the dorm. Waiting for us there was Zelo munching on something, though I couldn’t quite see what.
“Zelo hyung! Whatcha eating?” I asked cutely as I leaned over his shoulder. Instead of answering me, both Jongup and Zelo stared at me as if they had seen a ghost. “What?” I asked innocently, cause honestly, I have no idea what I did wrong or if there was something on my face or another thing of the sort.

“S-since when do you act c-cute..?” Zelo asked, still eyeing me weirdly.

“Are you saying I’m not aloud to act cute?” I said, squinting my eyes a little, glaring at my group member playfully. “Then does that mean I can’t do this?” I puffed up my cheeks and quickly switched faces by pouting my lower lip. I made cute face after cute pose after cute action. At least, it’s my definition of cute and what’ I’ve ever seen others do. Both of the older boys didn’t move an inch and just stared at me with large eyes and gaping mouths. We didn’t even see the other members come in the room with a girl.

“Who is this cute thing?!” she squealed and zoomed across the room and immediately squashed my cheeks together. Hard. That’s all it took to lower my mood down to annoyed. “His face is so squishy! Where’d he come from? He’s so adorable!” she started squealing once more, clinging onto me as if I’d disappear any moment. She kept poking my face as if it were that fascinating.

“Jieun, don’t kill the maknae!” Himchan ran towards me as he shoved the girl off of me.

“Hey! You’re the one killing me now, hyung! Let me go!” I squirmed out of his grip and ran behind Yongguk for protection, knowing he’s one of the only people whom I can trust on protecting me from others. I tugged on the back of his shirt as another girl went up behind me and started staring at me and smiled. “Please do something, hyung! I’m surrounded!” I looked at him with puppy eyes, which I’m happy didn’t surprise him as much as the other two. But all he did was pat me on the back and said:

“You’re on your own with this one. These are our sunbae-nims and I think you should get to know them.” And with that, he left towards the couch and dived into the cushions of the mattress, ignoring the commotion around him.

A third girl came out from the side surprising me and mentioned something about them introducing themselves and count up three. “The start is SECRET! Hello, we are SECRET!" Wait, Secret? As in the group?!

Notes