#studio j

Finally, it had arrived! At the top of the house, Lee Jooyeon ran into his bedroom, the door flying shut behind him. In his hands he clutched his very own copy of his favourite band’s brand new album, ‘Heroes’. He’d barely managed to keep himself ignorant to the contents of the album, every day since its release having to fight with himself to not listen to a digital copy on his computer. But at long last, the day had come that Jooyeon could indulge himself in brand new music, and he had no doubts that it wouldn’t be full of amazing songs after amazing songs. Jooyeon slowly unpackaged the album, careful not to drop it in his excitement, and took the disk from its case. It was pastel pink, and was printed with the band’s logo, an image not unfamiliar to Jooyeon. He placed it into his CD player. Jooyeon always thought it best to listen to new music for the first time through headphones at full volume, that way the ‘essence’ of the music could really be captured. He slipped his headset over his head and hit play. As the first song began, Jooyeon couldn’t help but move to the music. Not usually one for dancing, this meant that all he could really do was bounce in place, mimicking the guitar chords in the air. As the song played on, his movements got bigger, matching his excitement and his enjoyment. 

Before Jooyeon knew it, he was jumping and dancing around as much as he could whilst still bound to his CD player by the headset wire. But the more he moved, the more it threatened to fall out – and it did. The cord pulled with the force of Jooyeon’s movements and yanked the CD player along with it, but the state of the player was saved by the aux plug slipping from the input. With his music now blaring and his restraint gone, Jooyeon was free to dance and jump around as much as he wanted. Throwing his headphones to the corner of his room, his first stop was the mirror, to watch himself headbang and play the air guitar. 

Directly underneath Jooyeon’s bedroom was a completely different atmosphere. Han Hyeongjun had been working on modelling his new city kit. His room was silent, and focus and patience were all he had in mind. He’d gotten started on it earlier in the week and it was already threatening to take up all of the space in his bedroom, but Hyeongjun didn’t care. It was a limited edition set and the size and time it takes to build is worth it for the feeling of accomplishment he knew would come with finishing it. He wanted to spend the entirety of the day working on it, not expecting the disruptions about to come from the storey above.

As soon as the aux cord slipped out of the jack, the sound spread around the house. The sudden noise made Hyeongjun jump, dropping the figurine of a man he held so carefully in a pair of tweezers. His eyes darted to the ceiling above, as though he could see Jooyeon jumping right over his head. Hyeongjun shook his head, shook away the distraction and tried to continue. He picked up the figurine again with his tool and began to place it in its assigned position. Slowly, his hand edged towards the space on the pavement, about to unite the man with the rest of his family but he was disrupted again when Jooyeon jumped from his bed to the floor and made the house shake. Hyeongjun’s figure fell from his grip again, along with a few other figurines already placed in their spots. United with his family, the man was, but not as Hyeongjun had hoped. He looked up at the ceiling again, cursing Jooyeon with his eyes. The shake had made a car piece fall from Hyeongjun’s desk and go rolling around his room. Hyeongjun hopped out of his seat to chase the runaway car, stopping it with his foot and bending down to pick it up. Not one for confrontation, Hyeongjun silently hoped that Jooyeon would calm down soon, so that Hyeongjun could continue on with his modelling. 

Next door to Hyeongjun, another house resident’s afternoon was disturbed by Jooyeon’s inconsiderate behaviour. The oldest in the house, Goo Gunil had been napping, peaceful and unbothered. The sudden guitar chord ringing around the house when the aux fell from the input had jolted Gunil from his sleep and he was not happy about it. Having to quickly come to his senses, he soon suspected Jooyeon as the noisy culprit. Gunil looked around his room for any means to express his disapproval of the volume of Jooyeon’s music. Gunil spotted a plunger. With no time to question why such an item was in his room in the first place, Gunil grabbed it with intentions of using it to bang on the ceiling. However, standing at only 169 centimetres tall, Gunil knew that he would need some sort of assistance in reaching the ceiling to make his point. 

A little bit of interior redecorating is what it took for Gunil to be able to reach. He pushed the little sofa he had out to the centre of his room and was using it as leverage to jump and reach the ceiling with the plunger. Hitting on the ceiling was proving useless as Jooyeon’s music was too loud, Gunil wasn’t hitting hard enough, or the troublemaker Jooyeon was just outright ignoring the noise. Gunil couldn’t tell which but he had an inkling it was the latter. Putting all of his strength into one last jump, Gunil flung the plunger at the ceiling but it was to no avail. The suction cup end stuck to the ceiling and Gunil came back down from his jump with just a wooden stick. He sighed and shook his head. If he wanted Jooyeon to quiet down a little bit he would have to tell him face to face. 

Gunil took himself up the stairs to Jooyeon’s attic bedroom, the album getting even louder as he approached. Gunil winced at the noise, wondering how someone could actually enjoy music so loud. As he pounded on Jooyeon’s door, he wondered if he’d even hear it. Inside the room, Jooyeon, purposely ignoring the banging that had come from below but not rude enough to ignore the banging on his bedroom door, jumped down from his bed as the song died down and the next one started up. He played a game with himself to guess who was at his door, speculating it would be either his friend Seungmin, or one of the oldest boys. Jooyeon pulled open his bedroom door, revealing Gunil with an unimpressed look on his face. The older boy raised his eyebrow at Jooyeon, a gesture with obvious meaning. Jooyeon shrugged his shoulders and smiled cheekily, beginning to shut his door in Gunil’s face. “Don’t you dare,” Gunil began, stopping Jooyeon with his hand, “Turn it down, Jooyeon.” Jooyeon whined in response, “But I’m enjoying myself.”

The younger boy pouted, hoping he could get Gunil to leave him if he showed some of his cutes. Gunil shook his head, unwavering. He continued to look at Jooyeon with a serious expression, Gunil was usually lenient and let the youngsters in the house do what they wanted, but this situation activated his inner responsibility. He knew that others in the house like Hyeongjun and Jungsu might appreciate a bit more quiet, and took it upon himself to achieve that for them. “Fight me for it,” Jooyeon stepped back, pointing to the pillows on his bed, “If you win I’ll turn it down. Deal?” Gunil knew there would be no way to win this debate other than to take part in Jooyeon’s pillow fight. Jooyeon led Gunil into his room, and allowed the older boy to take his pillow of choice. Jooyeon smirked, he had no intentions of going easy, he was going to fight to win. 

On the ground floor of the house, sneaking around underneath the guise of the ruckus upstairs, Kwak Jiseok crept around the kitchen, followed by another boy, Seungmin. Somehow, Jiseok had managed to convince the usually well behaved Oh Seungmin to take part in his antics. Their shared goal was the fridge. Inside was the cake Hyeongjun had baked in the morning as a surprise for Jungsu. The pair wanted to taste it, but waiting until after dinner this evening was proving to be too much for them. Jiseok had decided that now was the perfect time to commit the crime of stealing the cake, he knew that Hyeongjun had gone upstairs to work on his modelling, Jooyeon was occupied with his album (although Jiseok would’ve loved to have his best friend partake in the tasting of the cake), Gunil was supposedly taking a nap, and Jungsu didn’t even know there was a cake. 

Jiseok and Seungmin had planned their crime not long before putting it into action. Jiseok would sneak the cake from the box and Seungmin would grab utensils to cut and taste it with. How much the two would eat between them was to be determined by the taste of the cake itself, and their levels of self-control.

Jiseok motioned for Seungmin to enter the kitchen past him. One could say he was taking this a little bit too seriously, but there’s no fun in simply taking a cake and eating it. Jiseok began tiptoeing extravagantly through the kitchen like a cartoon burglar, while Seungmin slid open the utensil drawer. “Do we need a plate?” Seungmin whispered, turning and spotting Jiseok bouncing around on his tiptoes, “Gaon, what are you doing?” Jiseok laughed then stopped abruptly, “This is serious, okay? Yes, we do need a plate.” Jiseok continued onwards towards the fridge, pulling it open. “Target located,” Seungmin joined Jiseok by the fridge, staring at the box Hyeongjun had put it in. Somehow it had been successfully disguised as a box of leftovers. The pair shared a look, before reaching into the fridge to pull the box out. Both of them were eager to see the cake, as Hyeongjun had baked it that morning, long before Jiseok had woken up and while Seungmin was busy elsewhere.

Seungmin and Jiseok placed the cake in the middle of the table, and the latter pulled the lid off of the box. The cake was covered with white icing and cream, topped with fresh blueberries and strawberry sauce. Seeing the dessert in its perfect condition instantly made Seungmin feel bad. He began to protest, reaching for the box lid, claiming that they should put it back. He was close with Jungsu and knew that Jungsu would never do something like this if he knew there was a surprise cake for one of the other boys. Jiseok shook his head and placed the cake lid out of Seungmin’s reach. Now that he’d seen how delicious the cake looked, he knew he wouldn’t be able to wait any longer to taste it. Jiseok ordered Seungmin to pass him the cake slicer so he could begin on the cake, to which Seungmin obeyed despite the guilty feeling developing in his stomach. 

As Jiseok defaced the perfect cake, his eyes grew wide. The piece he cut was close to being a quarter of the entire cake. He knew that it would taste amazing and a slim slice would not quell his growing greed. Seungmin began to protest again upon seeing the size of the slice, but was quickly silenced as Jiseok lifted the slice and a stream of bright red strawberry sauce flowed from the middle of the dessert. The sweet scent of strawberry and sugar filled the room. Seungmin felt himself begin to salivate, whatever aura this cake was emitting had captivated him along with Jiseok. The slice was placed on the centre of the small plate that Seungmin had brought over from the cupboards and neither Jiseok nor Seungmin could wait to indulge themselves in this dessert that appeared to be sent down from the heavens.

Between them, Seungmin and Jiseok finished the slice, and though one boy was satisfied, Jiseok felt as though the taste he’d had wasn’t enough. The strawberry smell of the dessert still had him under its influence and it didn’t seem like he wanted to be free. Jiseok’s eyes were still locked on the cake as he reached for the cake slicer a second time to serve himself again. “Haven’t you had enough?” Seungmin watched, concerned that Jiseok was being a bit too selfish, what they’d already done was bad enough. Jiseok didn’t reply, instead he shoved another fork full of cake and strawberry sauce into his face. Seungmin watched on, bothered by Jiseok’s behaviour but seemingly unable to do anything about it. 

It wasn’t long before Jiseok had single handedly devoured almost the whole cake along with the mysteriously alluring strawberry sauce and the quantity of sugar wasn’t doing well in his small body. He quickly began to react to the sugar high, trembling and shaking as he attempted another bite of the dessert. Seungmin finally found the ability to move and hit the fork from Jiseok’s hand, not that there was much cake left to save. Finally freed from eating the cake, Jiseok flew out of his seat, bumping into the table and knocking a few things onto the floor on his way up. Jooyeon’s music from upstairs was still flowing through the house, and Jiseok’s sugar-induced newfound energy, complimented by his pride for successfully stealing the cake, was causing his body to move. He danced for joy, for excitement, to the music, and to celebrate a mission success. His mannerisms mimicked that of a small child, running circles around the kitchen, pushing the chairs out of his way, using the counters to propel himself into the air as he jumped and cheered. Seungmin watched, a concoction of horror, guilt and distress spread across his face as his eyes darted back and forth, trying to keep up with Jiseok’s movements.

Eventually, Jiseok managed to expel his energy. So tired from what his body had just endured that he just collapsed face down onto the kitchen floor. Immediately going to crouch down beside him, Seungmin frantically tried to shake him awake, calling out his name. He rolled Jiseok over onto his back and swept the pink and blue strands of hair out of his face, smacking his cheeks and shaking him more and more. In a panic, Seungmin had no idea what to do other than ask someone for help, even if it meant getting in a lot of trouble.

Completely naive to any of the endeavours going on in the various rooms of the house was Kim Jungsu, fully dressed in a costume, practising some lines in the bathroom mirror. He was an aspiring actor and he’d just landed his first real role as a pirate. He’d gone into the bathroom so that he could work on his facial expressions and recite his lines without using his script. The usually soft and sweet Jungsu felt as though he needed a lot of practise to master his role as the cool and charismatic pirate captain. He had everything he needed in the bathroom with him, his prop gun, his hook hand and a mirror for monitoring himself. Jungsu felt a little bit shy at the thought of some of the other boys seeing him rehearse which was why he’d locked himself into the bathroom, or so he thought. 

Midway through acting out one of his lines, the bathroom door flew open and in ran Seungmin, trying to explain what had happened to Jiseok. Unbothered as to whether Jungsu was in need of privacy or not. “Jiseok ate the cake and he- and then the sauce- and he fell and-” Startled but concerned by the words Jungsu managed to pick out, he tried to calm Seungmin, with the hopes of getting a clear telling of the story. Jungsu put both his hands on Seungmin’s shoulders and encouraged him to breathe slowly before talking. Listening to his older friend, Seungmin managed to slow down his speech and inform Jungsu of the stolen secret cake and the passed out Jiseok on the kitchen floor. 

Seungmin led Jungsu to the kitchen where Jiseok lay, passed out on the floor. He ordered Seungmin to bring some water to splash on Jiseok’s face, but it didn’t work. Jiseok remained on the floor unresponsive as though he was dead. Seungmin looked at Jungsu, panic in his eyes.  “We should take him to Gunil. Put him on your back,” Jungsu ordered. Seungmin whined disapproval, why should he have to be the one to carry the passed out Jiseok all the way upstairs? Jungsu didn’t hesitate to remind Seungmin that he was the one who accompanied Jiseok in stealing the cake and he was the one who allowed him to eat the majority of it. With a discontented sigh, Seungmin shuffled closer to Jiseok, trying to lift his entire weight onto his back, but the smaller boy just fell loosely back onto the floor. Seungmin tried again, this time with Jungsu helping to lift the passed out Jiseok onto Seungmin’s back. Success!

Jiseok was draped loosely onto Seungmin’s back, his head hung limply and swayed as Seungmin struggled to stand up and begin walking, legs trembling with each step as Jiseok flopped around with each of Seungmin’s movements, unevenly distributing his weight on his poor friend’s body. Jungsu did nothing to help stabilise the swaying Jiseok, just led the way as though Seungmin didn’t also live in the house and know the way to Gunil’s room. 

At the top of the stairs the three boys ran into Hyeongjun holding one of his model cars, who’d left his room after finally gathering up the courage to tell Jooyeon to be quiet. Hyeongjun usually just sat by and let the other boys play around, but this model kit was so important to him that he wanted to put his shyness aside and stand up for himself. No matter how hard he tried, the music was a huge distraction and he just couldn’t ignore it any longer. Hyeongjun informed the other boys that Gunil was upstairs with Jooyeon, believing that he had gone up there to join in with the mini party. “Disappointed but not surprised,” Hyeongjun shrugged his shoulders and looked down at the car in his hands. In a house of six men, it was a bit unreasonable to expect silence, but a bit of quiet isn’t too much… right?

The four boys made their way up to Jooyeon’s attic bedroom, Jungsu at the front and Hyeongjun at the back, holding Jiseok’s head steady as Seungmin carried him up the stairs. The inside of Jooyeon’s room was trashed, with pillow feathers and blankets strewn across the room. Gunil sat on the floor beside Jooyeon’s bed, out of breath and tired from the battle and an also tired Jooyeon laid spread out on his bed. He had lost the pillow fight and had to turn his music down, as per the deal. He turned his head as his bedroom door opened, his housemates on the other side looking all but happy.