"Thank you to..everyone, who supported us on this journey. Although it was hard and we spent most of our free time on this, it was so worth it. I hope all of you enjoyed our showing!" Leon spoke into the microphone that was held into his face on the big stage of the K-POP World Festival's Finale in Vienna.
They had just won first place in their first official competition as a group and the moment couldn't be sweeter. Some of the boys almost cried, some actually did and without naming any names, it was Leon and Raffy who did cry. Their first performance as a group went amazingly well and they spent their evening with a big celebration, partying into the night.
A few days later
TL;DR Group Chat
"Guys, meet up at Thai's place tonight, it's important." ~ L
"On a scale from 1-10 how important is it actually?" ~ R
"It's no joke an actual 10" ~ L
"When did I agree to this being at my place?" ~ T
*Dejan sent an audio of a new song he's been working on*
"I missed the messages about the important thing where are we meeting?" ~ D
And so the three boys went on their way to Thai's place and with Leon telling them they had some important matters to discuss, their excitement slowly built up.
On the same day
Thai's Place
Leon, Raffy and Dejan arrived in short intervals and slowly made their way down to the basement of Thai's house that they had now somehow made their base for anything and everything relating their group.
"Okay guys.." Leon said, taking a seat on the couch. "..check this out." He slyly expressed, clicking through a few web pages on his laptop while the other three were cautiously listening.
Leon cleared his throat and began reading what seemed like an email.
"Dear TL;DR K-POP World Festival finalists,
we over in Korea have carefully inspected multiple competitors from all across the world and came to the conclusion that you are one of the groups that we would like to feature on our international stage on SBS Television."
The other's eyes widened. 'What did he just say?' went through all of their heads as the words bounced around their minds. "Wait, are you actually serious? Stop playing.." Dejan uttered nervously.
Leon looked up to Dejan with a nod, indicating that he was indeed serious.
"It's not over yet. That was the good news." Leon dropped into the conversation, making the other three boys tense up.
"For this to happen, we only need one additional video of your group performing the song you won your respective Festival with, along with live singing." He finished up his speech and looked up with his lips buried in each other as to indicate that they're in a bit of a pickle.
The boys all took the mail a little differently.
Thai seemed unaffected and shrugged it off, not thinking it was too big of a task to pull off. But considering him and Leon used to upload auto-tuned singing covers to YouTube, he was a little more confident in his abilities.
Dejan buried his head in his hands. "WHILE we're singing..? Lord spare my soul.." He muttered under his breath.
Raffy had the exact polar opposite reaction to Dejan; instead of hanging his head low and doubting, he was more than up for the task. "When do we begin practicing our singing?" he asked fiercely.
"Well.." Leon stood up, bringing out a pile of paper, a pen and turning on the beamer which projected a lyrics video of 'Do It Like This' on the wall.
"Now."
With those words, the boys got to work. Learning the lyrics and changing some parts to fit their voices more was clear from the beginning, but becoming confident in their abilities was hard for most of them.
After a long long night of practice on their vocals and rehearsing the dance, they went to bed.
When they woke up in the basement, they got ready and immediately stood in front of a camera. They were now ready to perform their song, along with vocals. They now no longer had to fear that their dancing was off, due to them being confident enough by winning the Festival. Their worries were now more on the singing side of things. But one finished video later and one look and listen to the finished product made them grin bright. It was great.
Our boys made their way back to the basement where they finished up the sending process and spent the rest of that day again relaxing and spending time at Thai's place. One more night wouldn't hurt they thought and so they partied and had fun till the sun went down.
Leon was the first to awake the next day sometime around 11am. He was on the couch, next to Thai while Raffy and Dejan were sleeping on mattresses on the floor. He carefully and silently picked up his laptop which had been very carefully thrown on one of the mattresses the night before and he started to go through his emails.
He refreshed his mail provider and suddenly awoke everyone with a gasp of absolute surprise and shock. The other three boys looked annoyed at first but the sight of what Leon had to show them made everyone change their course in a matter of seconds.
"Dear TL;DR K-POP World Festival finalists,
we are proud and happy to announce that we took a liking to the video you sent us yesterday and as a result of that will be flying you out to Changwon, South Korea this following week, for you to perform on the possibly biggest stage of your life, the finals of the K-POP World Festival."
In the attachments were four files, each of them being one PDF File for every one of the members. These files included plane tickets to Gimhae and back, their full names and what Hotel they would be staying at.
"How do they know all of our personal information so well?" Dejan asked.
"Again, Fanfiction writer Leon isn't too concerned about plot holes." Thai answered.
"Huh," Dejan took a look around. "Alright."
The four were now borderline panicking. They had a few days left to pack their bags before going on to represent their whole country in an event that would be broadcasted live across an entire country and all of the internet. No pressure in that situation at all.
Two days later
TL;DR Group Chat
"Everyone ready for tomorrow? We're meeting up at Schwechat really early. If we don't catch this plane we don't get to Korea at all 💀" ~ L
"Yeah yeah, I'm ready." ~ T
"I guess I am. Should I bring two or three pairs of extra underwear?" ~ R
"TMI Raffy.." ~ D
"Three it is." ~ R
Early morning
Schwechat International Airport
Dejan, Leon, Thai and Raffy peacefully waited by their gate, being super on time but super tired. They had already checked in and done all necessary safety procedures so all that was left to do was wait for boarding .
"You guys got your stuff ready?" Leon asked the other three.
"Yeah, my hygiene stuff, my clothes, my-" Raffy began before being interrupted by Dejan. "Three pairs of underwear?" This made Leon and Thai laugh out loud while Raffy rummaged in his bag.
"I actually brought four.." Raffy said, smiling.
Thai and Raffy left for a minute to go get a bottle of water while Dejan and Leon stayed at the gate, just waiting.
The two returned at the perfect time as the boarding had just begun. It all felt very surreal. Our four boys slowly but surely got on their nearly twelve hour long flight, sitting next to each other, with only Raffy sitting in the row next to them.
Leon took his nausea medicine, Dejan and Thai shared Thai's Bluetooth earphones and Raffy almost immediately drifted off to sleep.
The flight was nice, no major turbulence and nice weather. As they were flying during the day, the sun was up and shining bright.
With a bunch of boredom, sleeping, laughing and food, the next twelve hours passed slowly but surely. Our boys were all asleep at the end but awoke to the plane landing and just as they opened their eyes, they noticed the other passengers get off the plane. Thai, Leon, Dejan and Raffy's tired eyes quickly turned to excited and pumped ones. They were in Korea.
Like ten to twenty minutes later, they were now standing outside of the Gimhae airport, smoking. They were here because it was the nearest international airport close to Changwon and all that was left now was to take a bus to drive there. They got on the next bus and drove for about another hour until they finally arrived.
Our four boys wandered the streets with bright eyes. It was beautiful.
"So, Raffy.. how did your parents even allow you to come here alone with us?" Thai asked.
"Honestly, no idea. Probably..."
Thai and Raffy both looked at each other. "Fanfiction plot holes!" They both said in unison.
"Yo guys! There's our hotel." Leon yelled. The four now ran over to the big building and quickly checked in.
Leon threw his luggage to the side and threw himself onto one of the big beds. "THIS IS INCREDIBLE." Dejan exclaimed with a grin. "Oh my god, we're actually here."
It was about 4am where they were now, although they would've arrived at like 7pm European Time. It was all so surreal but the boys didn't really get to think about stuff like that really and with their stomachs still rumbling and their heads aching, they all immediately fell asleep.
The next day, or better said a few hours later, the four awoke to a loud alarm. "Goddamn.." Leon woke up and smashed down on the 'off' button. The other three also woke up to the commotion.
TL;DR woke up slowly, their bodies clearly jetlagged and sluggish, but still able to go about their day. And so they did. The four got ready and went out into the city to get some food. After a good 20 minutes of searching for a nice place to eat, they finally settled for a fancy looking K-BBQ spot. Our boys walked in and were able to get a place for four as it was not that much of a busy day. The restauraunt was pretty. Beautiful lights and decor, pretty seating and tables, and the grills on the tables themselves looked really cool aswell. There weren't many customers that day, but enough to make it look lively. TL;DR sat down at their table and thanked the waiter. They then ordered the food they wanted to cook, along with some drinks before again thanking their waiter and starting their wait. To pass the time, the four decided to look at their K-Pop World Festival performance to reminice on the experience. One thing no one expected was that the phone that they were watching the performance on's volume was turned all the way to the max. So that meant that the entire restauraunt got to hear the loud beginning of P1Harmony's 'Do It Like This'. "YO!" reverberated through the entire room, followed by the beat which the boys were quick to turn down as they hung their head down in their hands. No better way to start their time in Korea than to publically embarrass themselves.
It was an embarrassing moment for sure but the most that anyone did in that restauraunt was just to look over to the four in confusion. Soon enough, that moment had also passed and the four boys were already cooking and eating their food. It was a great time filled with fun and recovery from the extremely long journey they had taken there the day before. Their fun was interrupted for a second when someone tapped Thai on the shoulder from behind. "Excuse me." The voice rang out with a weirdly western accent. It was familiar to Thai but he wasn't really sure why. It wasn't someone he knew personally but a voice he had definitely heard before. Raffy, Leon and Dejan who saw who the person was had their mouths wide open. Thai turned around to face the person, just to notice that in front of him was standing no other than Yoon Kee Ho from P1Harmony.