The deafening ring from a phone at 2 in the dawn startled the leader. He stirred on his bed and letting out an annoyed groan before pushing himself to wake up. Ruffling his blond hair, he stretched one of his arm to fetch the phone beside the pillow with his eyes closed. Squinting his eyes, he pressed the home button and shut down the alarm. He was five minutes late. He tossed his phone to the side after that and sat there with eyebrows furrowed.

Slowly, he shut his eyes again. He sat there with mouth opened and his eyes shut, his back bent and arms laid weak on his thighs. His mind started to drew in the data of his band’s schedules that week. He thought it was amazing that he could still remember SOU’s schedule even though he had three hours sleep.

SOU was the name of the South Korean group that stood for Story of Us. It could be pronounced as S.O.U or sou 奏 in Japanese which meant ‘to play music’. Summing up the meaning of the group’s name, it meant they played music; to rap and to sing the stories with morals and motivational messages. Their music came with various genres and messages’ focuses – be them about the youths’ struggles, love, heartbreaks or friendships – and their songs were loved by most people.

SoWithUs was the name of their fandom. S.W.U was the acronym of the fandom and often pronounced as swoo. Their motto was ‘so with us, we will move forward together.’

Anything that related to arts had been this seven-membered band passion and SWU had been their inspirations and motivations. Writing music that would bring good influences to their fans are one of their goal, such as positivity, meaningful messages and happiness.

The leader of the band almost went back to his dreamland when he heard a loud “Kang Taehan!”

Taehan (or, with the stage name ‘Han’) jumped. He sighed, furrowing his eyebrows and opened an eye to look at his manager. Groggily, he asked, “yeah, what?”

“Get up, quick! Help me wake other members up. You boys have to leave at three-thirty.”

Han sleepily hummed. Later, the door was heard shut. Another sigh left his nose. Still, he forced his eyes to open. His eyes directed to the bed beside him after that. Lips pursed tight, he was questioning how did his roommate manage to sleep like a log despite their manager’s loud voice and the alarm from his phone.

Sohn Hyunsik – or better being known as Hyun – comfortably hugging his fan-gifted pillow on his bed. Han had a moment of contemplating whether to wake him up or not. But thinking that they had been having schedule three days straight and only had two hours of sleeping, he decided to wake him up later.

Han went out of his room, making his way to the first and second oldest members’ room. While on his way there, he heard a loud “get up! Hey boy, get up! Oh boy…” from a room. He did not need to know who the group’s manager was trying to wake up. Joon Seowoo (or with his stage name ‘Joonwoo’), the youngest member of the group, always give everyone a hard time when it came to waking him up.

Han carefully opened the door and walked toward the oldest member’s bed. The oldest member was sleeping on his side, so Han shook his broad shoulder lightly as he said, “Chanwook hyung*.”

Lee Chanwook fluttered his eyes open, he then turned his head to see the culprit of shattering his sweet dream. Han’s voice was deep that Chanwook almost got startled. But it was just for a moment, he did not remember what his dream was about. The thought to scold the young leader vanished as he swiftly sat down on his bed. He took a moment to stretch his body and then dug his fingers through his dark brown hair to scratch his scalp.

Chanwook monotonously asked, “what time is it now?”

“Two-ten,” Han answered.

Before Han could proceed to the second eldest, he was already woken up by their voices. The red hair stood out that he didn’t need to make a second glance to see if he was awake. With an eye open, Yeom Haneul – or known as ‘Sky’ – tried to register the sight around him. While mentally complaining about their tight schedule, Sky remembered that they were going to shoot a reel for their next album. Each member was given different storylines and he knew the location they were going to film had something to do with each characters’ pasts.

‘Interesting,’ he thought. He was excited. But the problem was, in an abandoned school? He did not like that. It was not that he was a coward, but there were too many stories happened in abandoned schools, and none of them were pleasant.

The more he thought, the likely he remembered the two most cowards of the group.

In Dongmin and Ji Sangwook (or Jisung was his stage name).

Sky quickly shrugged off the thought. He did not want to jinx the day.

When Han went to Dongmin and Jisung’s room, he found them already awake. But Jisung, the number 1 coward of them all, did not appear to look good even if he had dyed his hair burgundy the day before. Dark circles around his eyes, eyes wide opened and when he saw Han was standing at the door, he slowly turned his head to look at him. He curved an awkward smile and greeted, “g-good morning, Han.”

Han blinked his eyes multiple times as he scratched his head. He said, “you’re up early.”

“I… I can’t sleep.”

“Is something wrong?”

Jisung let out an uneasy laugh. “After finding out we will shoot our reels at an abandoned school, I had a nightmare. I only had thirty minutes of sleeping, man.”

“At least you slept.”

“But I can’t rub off the nightmare from my mind!”

Han chuckled. “Chill, Jisung. You aren’t going there alone.”

Jisung hissed, “sheesh.”

“Make sure to take nap in the car later, okay bro? You need energy for the shoot.”

“Right, I don’t want SWU to get worried when they see me.”

Right after that, Dongmin was seen leaving the bathroom with casual clothing already on his body. No one asked, but he told, “I’ll make breakfast today.”

Han nodded his head. “Make sure to not burn the kitchen. Chanwook hyung got up late, so we aren’t sure if he would be helping.”

“Yes, hyung!”

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keywords :

hyung* - a word used by Korean males to address another male older than them who they are close to. Hyung literally mean older brother.