I clean, you clean, we all clean so I don't scream.
Title: House Rules
Rating: PG (for some swearing)
Fandom: K-pop (2PM)! :O!
Pairings: None
Summary: No, really. He's going to get the apartment clean, or his name isn't Park Jaebeom.
Words: ~10,000, hopefully some of them are humourous to read! ;A;
Notes: A few things -- 1. UGH I AM SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS! *gnaws on nails* 2. I finished writing this before Chansung’s “scandal” (lol) with the littering came out, so please don't think I'm making fun of him for that. I mean I am practically in love with the guy okay. 3. Thank you to the lovely aeslis for beta-ing, even though she didn't have to. ♥
House Rules
You know what, Jay doesn't care what anybody thinks. Minjae hyung tells them what to do and when to do it, fine, but that's because he's the only one who's masochistic enough to keep track of all seven of their schedules at the same time and get paid peanuts for it. Sure he's 2PM's manager, but he's not their leader. He's not the boss of them. That title belongs to the one and only Park Jaebeom, and no one in the group would ever argue against it. Of course, no one in the group would ever respect him for it either, but Jay's working on that part. Wait, Jinyoung hyung is technically their boss. Hm. Well, he's halfway across the world in America shoving the Wonder Girls at the Blownas Brothers so his vote in group-related affairs is invalid. Maybe not one hundred percent invalid, since they still have to check in with him weekly, but it's invalid enough. Especially concerning matters of the household.
Matters such as the household's current resemblance to a city dump.
The thing is that everyone in this apartment is a filthy slob except for Jay and Wooyoung, but Wooyoung only cares enough to clean up things that are in his direct line of sight or within arm’s reach. While that kept half the living room, a third of the left washroom, and his seat at the dinner table spotless at all times, not many other parts of the dorm could boast the same level of cleanliness. That is to say, the other parts of the dorm were a fucking sty. Frankly, it had annoyed the shit out of Jay the first week he spent adjusting to seven other people living in a space most definitely not suited for that many, and it's still annoying the shit out of Jay now, almost a full year later. Unfortunately, due to a good diet or daily exercise or maybe some hidden drugs in their water, all of the members of their group to this day remain adequately energetic and healthy, and while Jay's a big fan of everyone staying alive, he can honestly say that had one of the members died for whatever reason (whatever reason, mind you), the extra space would've been really appreciated.
And it's not like Jay's some spoiled American brat, used to mansions and limousines and chandeliers dangling over his spiral staircases, O.C. style. Jay grew up in a tiny little apartment on the ninth floor of a rundown building where the wooden stairs made sounds like a dying cat and they still used radiators for heat: Goddamn pipes that were so rusted over it looked like they were growing bright brown fur. Their place had been tiny too, but Jay's mom did the best she could to keep everything neat and ordered so the rooms didn't seem so small. Every little bit of space counted, and his mom had hated clutter. Clothes in the closet, books on the shelf, bowls in the cupboards, etcetera etcetera. Keep it neat, or suffer the consequences. Eighteen years of life with his mom later, her clean-living habits had become ingrained in Jay's freaking soul.
Which is why it's driving him crazy to find life in Korea so messy, where there's even less room to afford to be. Here the clothes are thrown on every available surface, the underwear is hung on the towel racks (sometimes next to the cloth that Jay uses to wash his fucking face, no less), bowls are piled in the sink like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and one time Jay had gone to the fridge to get some juice and had returned to his breakfast to find a rolled up sock in his oatmeal cereal.
The straw that breaks Jay’s back comes in the form of a pile of clothes by (and half-under) Junho’s bed: Jay kicks it out of frustration only to find that there are a pair of ten kilogram dumbbells hidden underneath (Jay’s 10kg dumbbells, actually, he’d been wondering where they had gone), with the toes on his right foot making a very abrupt and unhappy acquaintance with them. Jay limps to the washroom to find a band-aid, but after fifteen fruitless minutes of sifting through all the junk in the drawers and medicine cabinet, gives up the search. On the way out he slips on a patch of water on the linoleum and nearly bashes his head against the door frame.
Little things like that happen to Jay way more than can possibly be normal. The fact that all three instances of bad luck occurred in rapid succession must be a sign that there needs to be changes implemented in household infrastructure, and fast. Jay doesn't know about the others, but he isn't too keen on getting sent to the hospital for stitches in a cliché soap-bar-in-the-bathtub related incident. That’d be humiliating. Think of what all the hot girl idols would say.
H to the U to the Miliating. Something has to be done.
That evening, Jay makes a list.
~
"What's this, Jay?" Nichkhun asks, hovering over Jay's shoulder as Jay smiley-face-magnets his magnum opus onto the refrigerator door.
"This," Jay announces proudly, tapping the paper, "is going to seriously up the craptastic standard of living we've been wallowing in around here." He stands back to allow Nichkhun to read the paper, taking advance satisfaction in what is sure to be an appreciative response from Khun.
Khun's eyes skim the whole list twice before he says something. He says, “Wow, um.”
“What,” Jay says, narrowing his eyes. “Just say it.”
Nichkhun smiles reassuringly. “I was just a little surprised, that’s all. But they’re fine. I think. Why are the rules so... detailed?”
“You think that if I write ‘put the garbage in the garbage can,’ people are going to listen to me? It’s already obvious that the garbage goes into the garbage can. That’s what it’s for. But sometimes you guys still forget to use it. So I need to take another approach.”
“With threats,” Nichkhun says slowly.
“They aren’t threats,” Jay clarifies. “More like appropriate and fair consequences for breaking the rules.”
“You don’t think the punishments are too harsh?”
“It’s only to get the message across.”
Nichkhun still doesn’t look impressed. “Do you know the saying ‘you can catch more flies with honey?’”
“Good thing I’m not catching flies,” Jay says firmly. “I’m cleaning house.”
Nichkhun taps the paper gently. “If you’re sure you know what you’re doing, then I guess we can try them out.”
“Great,” Jay says. “That’s the kind of optimism I want. I’m sure they’ll work. Don’t worry your tiny little head about it.”
~
"MEETING TIME," Jay bellows, sticking his head into Junsu and Taecyeon's room.
No one even twitches in response. Jay tries to kill everyone with the power of his glare. It doesn't work.
"I SAID," Jay starts again.
"We heard you the first time," Taec interrupts. He doesn't bother to look up from his laptop.
"Well?" Jay waits, but neither Junsu nor Taecyeon move the slightest inch from their beds. Wooyoung is flopped face down on the floor in only his t-panties and Jay gives him a swift kick in the butt.
"Mrrrrmggh," Wooyoung groans, wriggling slightly. He looks like a fish on land, giving in to its eventual death.
"What is the matter with you?" Jay asks. "Didn't we say you weren't allowed to wear those anymore?"
"It's hot," Wooyoung says. "I'm hot and sticky and I'm about to die. And I have nothing else to wear because no one did the laundry."
"That's what this meeting was supposed to be about," Jay says. "Getting laundry done, stuff like that. Uh, cleanlinass." That was the right pronunciation, wasn't it?
“Cleanliness,” Taec corrects.
“That’s what I said, yeah. Anyway. It's going to be important." Jay frowns at Wooyoung. "It's not that hot. Taec's got a freaking laptop on his chest and he's not even sweating."
"I'm delicate," Wooyoung says, rolling onto his back. "I have baby skin. It's sensitive to fast fluctuations of temperature. The makeup noonas always tell me that."
"Yo," Junsu says, throwing Wooyoung a pillow at him from his top bunk. "Cover up, please." Wooyoung picks it up and instead of using it to hide his immodest choice of underwear, slides it under his head with an obnoxiously loud sigh.
"Whose turn is it to do the laundry this week anyway?" Junsu asks Jay, chucking another pillow at Wooyoung's head.
"I think it's mine," Taec answers, still finger-typing away on his keyboard.
"Are you going to do it man?"
"Not yet," Taec grins. "I made a bet with Chansung involving Panty-Express over here and his clothes."
"You what?" Wooyoung squawks, pushing himself up to knees, making his underwear ride up very--
"WE'RE HAVING A MEETING RIGHT NOW," Jay yells, and slams the door on his way out.
~
"Hey nerds," Jay calls, walking into Junho and Chansung's living room study session. Their textbooks and papers have basically made a new layer of carpeting on the hardwood floor around them and Jay twitches, resisting the urge to just kick everything out of his way and send the sheets flying. "Take a break for a few minutes, okay? I'm calling an emergency meeting."
"We heard you the first time," Chansung mutters around his almost chewed through pencil, though he's clearly lying because he's wearing his headphones and no way Jay's voice had been that loud, right?
"And I've decided that Chansung's not allowed to talk until he calls off that whatever bet with Taec and makes him do the laundry," Jay says.
"Hyung, you should be studying, not calling random meetings," Junho scolds. "It's not often we get a break like this. Don't you have a midterm next week too? Taecyeon hyung was complaining about it this morning."
Jay in fact does have a midterm next week. On macroeconomics. Jay has attended approximately two and three-quarter classes for this course (what can he say, he's a busy guy) and still isn't quite sure what macroeconomics are exactly, much less how he's going to do calculations for/with/about them. But, see, he'd tried to study last night, and it hadn't worked at all because the many unpaired socks littered around his desk had been too distracting. They had been jeering at him, mocking him for his inability to win the fight against The Mess. Jay had ended up kicking them all into the pile of clothes by Junho’s bed, which was when he’d stubbed his toes.
"It's not random," Jay argues. "I'm just damn sick of how disorganized this place is. It's you guys who are forcing me to take action, with all your gross habits. I'm not going to be known as the leader of the group that can't learn to pick up after themselves."
"I'm pretty sure we don't go around to schedules leaving a trail of garbage in our wake," Junho says flatly.
"I think you're rolling your eyes at me, but it's so hard to tell," Jay snipes back.
Chansung slaps his textbook closed. "Are we allowed to eat during the meeting, or is that still banned?" he asks.
Jay makes a face. "Fine, you can eat, but no loud chewing. And if you start leaving crumbs all over the table I'll--"
Chansung darts up and runs to the kitchen table, landing heavily in Wooyoung's usual seat. "There," he says. Nichkhun, already sitting at the table, blinks with surprise as the sandwich he's eating disappears out of his hands and into Chansung's mouth with frightening speed.
"I guess the meeting's started?" Nichkhun says.
~
Minjae hyung's off doing whatever it is slave-driver managers do at the JYP office for the afternoon (no doubt searching for new and creative ways to rape their dignity), but that works out well for Jay: now there's no one here who can supercede his authority. Not that Jay thinks that Minjae hyung would have problems with Jay exerting his executive power for matters like these, because it's not like Jay is being unreasonable here. It can't be too much to ask to be able to use the washroom without having unpleasant interactions with old toenail clippings on the floor and knotted up hair in the drains and dried toothpaste gunked all over the sink. It's during instances like those when Jay has debated, not for the first time, asking Jinyoung hyung to hire a maid for their dorm. But, not for the first time, Jay ends up reasoning that it's much safer without one. He's heard some horror stories from idols who did have maids; crazy Korean fans come in all sizes and professions and Jay really does not want to lose track of a few pairs of boxers only to find them on some sketchy online auction site, going for 50,000 won, shipping included. (Maybe even up to 100,000? That would be pretty cool. But creepy, yes, also creepy.)
Everyone has sat down now so Jay calls for attention and slaps his precious list onto the center of the table.
"2PM... house rules?" Junho reads.
"You've got to be kidding me," Taec says, eyebrows rising. "We don't need this."
"Wrong," Jay counters immediately. "Don't you know it makes us look bad when our apartment gets filmed and the place looks like a dump? We're getting a bad rep. I've seen people online comparing us to how neat and tidy SHINee's dorms are." This is true. Jay had been doing his nightly compliment count on 2PM fansites when he’d come across a comparison chart, complete with pictures: 2PM vs SHINee. Rumour had it that the member with the blindingly orange-yellow hair -- what was his name again? Kim? Kee? The gay one, anyway -- enforced a zero tolerance rule for dust, dirt, and litter of any kind, which kept their place spotless all hours of the day. Jay really doesn't care one way or another about SHINee (except when they keep winning all the music awards, those girly, malnourished, too-talented punks) but the next time he sees yellow-hair-guy, he's going to have to ask for tips and tricks for how to keep his members in line. Rule with an iron fist. Jay likes the sound of that.
"SHINee?" Nichkhun's perked up. Jay ignores him.
"With this regime, all your slobbish tendencies are going to be wiped off from the face of the earth, hear me? So, yeah. Read the rules, and follow them. Or I'll hurt you."
"Hyung," Wooyoung grabs the list, face rapturous. "This is amazing!"
"Yes," Jay agrees, grinning. He knew he could count on Wooyoung. "I put a lot of work into it."
"I can see that! Your spelling's really good here!"
"Thanks." Honestly, it had been hell using the dictionary to search up every word he wasn't sure how to write, but Jay had known that he was going to have a hard enough time getting the other members to take his rules seriously without rampant spelling errors everywhere. The last time he'd shown off something he'd written (a short essay response for his ethics class), Junsu and Junho had each taken a coloured pen and edited the living daylights out of that sucker. The paper had turned out looking like a black, red and blue scribblefest and Taec taped the finished product on the wall over his desk to cheer him up whenever he got bad grades, which was all the time.
"I really like these rules," Wooyoung continues. "I think we should definitely do this, guys. The place will be so much cleaner!"
Chansung puts his head down on the table. "Stupid Woodong. Now I'm going to be nagged at even more," he mopes. Junho pats him on the back.
"Oh I'm sorry," Wooyoung says, "do you enjoy living in your own filth?"
"It's not that bad," Chansung mutters, "it's at a comfortable level."
"You're not the only one who sleeps in the living room, you know. I'm in a state of constant fear that I'll accidentally slip on one of your dirty socks and crack my skull open. Blood on the hardwood floor. My blood, Chansung ah."
Chansung shrugs.
Junsu snatches the list out of Wooyoung's hands. "So, this is like, going to change a lot of things around here." He doesn't sound too pleased, but that's probably because he's one of the worst dirt-petrators here so he's going to have to expend a lot of effort to be tidy. Jay would feel sympathy for him, only -- actually, there's no only. Jay doesn't feel sympathy for him.
"Change for the better," Jay emphasizes. "Those one hundred fangirls who switched favourites from you because your feet stink too much? They're gonna come crawling back. You'll see. You'll thank me later."
"Hey, watch it," Junsu points a finger at Jay. "It was only fifty-seven."
"Whatever. Think of this as improvement training, or, no, yeah. That."
"And what," Taec says, "you're going to be the one making sure we follow all these ridiculous rules?"
"I'm leader," Jay states simply. "As 2PM members, you have to obey me."
He realizes that he shouldn't have said that as soon as he finishes the sentence, but by then it's already too late to take the words back. The six other people sitting around the table all stare at him in disbelief for two long seconds, and then everyone's suddenly on their feet and reaching for Jay. Jay bolts.
Rule no. 1: Put your dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. Clothes not in the laundry hamper will not be washed. Laundry will be done every Sunday evening, or whenever the hamper is full. Laundry-calls are no longer permitted.
Everyone forgets to use the laundry hamper except for Wooyoung and Jay. But they're a group of seven boys who basically do nothing but eat and sweat, so predictably, there are a lot of clothes to wash. What sometimes happens is that someone will walk around the apartment and pick up all the clothing randomly decorating the floor, furniture, appliances - in short, everything - and let everyone else know that he was going for a laundry run. That was the laundry-call. Within the time that the person spent picking up scattered clothes, the other members had a few desperate minutes to sort through their own rooms for anything else that needed washing, and get it to the caller before he left for the laundry room in the basement of the building.
But no one likes picking up anyone else's stained, smelly clothes (especially underwear and especially socks), so predictably, laundry rarely gets done in their dorm. Minjae hyung made an alternating schedule for it, but it's over three months backed up so everyone’s always trying to trade spots with someone else. Basically, their laundry only gets done when someone runs out of clothes and is desperate enough to do it.
The solution is simple, Jay thinks. If you're too lazy to put your clothes in the hamper, then tough, they're not going to be collected for you. They'll stay dirty until you do your own laundry. Running out of clothes to wear is one of the worst situations imaginable to an idol, so Jay predicts that by the end of the week, everyone's going to be running to the hamper as often as they run to the fridge.
Jay ends up being right about this, but that's the problem.
On Saturday, three days after Jay's implemented his new household rules, Wooyoung pokes his head into his room while Jay's exercising. "Hyung," he says, "the hamper's full."
"Already?" In three days? Did they have that many clothes? "Well, go empty it then," Jay says. God, Wooyoung was so dumb sometimes.
"It's not my turn this week. It's Taecyeon hyung's."
"So go tell him to do it."
"I did. He said that he did his turn on Wednesday."
"Then get the next person on the list."
"That's you."
"What?" Jay says. "I did it last week!"
"Yeah, but you were doing it during Junsu hyung's turn."
"So tell Junsu to take my turn."
"Um. Okay," and Wooyoung shuffles away. Jay goes back to his push ups.
A few minutes later, Wooyoung returns. "He said it's not his turn because he made up for Chansung's turn last last week. So I went to Chansung but he said that he definitely did the laundry last last week. So I asked Junho and he said that Junsu and Chansung both did separate loads at different times of the day, but he can’t do it either because he’s cramming for his midterm. Do you--"
"Holy fuck, fine, I'll do it," Jay says. He's in a group with a bunch of preschoolers.
So Jay heads downstairs with the laundry basket and the detergent (one day, Jay vows to himself, one day they will be able to afford fabric softener). He's in the middle of sorting out the whites into the washing machine when Nichkhun dashes into the laundry room, carrying a bundle of shirts.
"Ah! Ah ah ah!" Jay says, quickly lowering the lid of the machine before Nichkhun can throw his clothes in. "Your stuff wasn't in the hamper; they don't get washed."
"But I'm here now!" Nichkhun protests. "And you haven't started the load yet. I can just put them in!"
"No! It's against the rules! If I don't do this you'll never learn to use the hamper!"
"I promise I'll use the hamper from now on. Jay, please?"
Usually, Nichkhun's kicked puppy expression would have worked wonders to get him whatever he wanted, but Jay can't give in this time: he can't afford to be lax with his own rules. If Jay makes an exception here then everyone will call him out for being Khun-biased (which, by the way, is one of the most unfair terms ever because everyone is Khun-biased, even Jay's mom, and this is when Jay does nothing but trash talk Khun to her on the phone -- mostly lies, but like she'd ever find out), and his rules will lose credibility. Use your iron fist, Jay reminds himself. It's about showing who's boss around here, and it's for their own good, anyway.
"No," Jay says resolutely.
"Come on, that's not fair," Nichkhun says, huge eyebrows furrowing. "I was in Thailand; you can't say that's my fault."
"You should've emptied your suitcase as soon as you got back this morning," Jay says. "You knew the rules."
"I didn't know you were going to do the laundry today! It's Saturday, not Sunday."
"The hamper was full."
"It wasn't this morning."
"You could've checked again afterwards," Jay says, holding firm. "Just get another machine and do it yourself."
"But you're right here. And you haven't started washing yet."
Jay turns two dials and presses the on button; the water whirs. "Yes I have."
Nichkhun's mouth drops opens like he can't believe Jay just did that. "Fine, be mean." He purses his lips. "Just to tell you though, I bought everyone packs of dang mo pan candy and now you can't have one."
"What!" Jay yells. He loves those stupidly delicious things. They're one of the only reasons Jay ever cares when Nichkhun goes to Thailand. "You can't deprive me just because I'm upholding the rules."
"I can deprive you because you're being an ass," Nichkhun says, and goes to find another empty washing machine.
When Jay gets back upstairs, he's bombarded by dirty clothes as soon as he opens the door. He sputters as some of them land on his head.
"Junsu hyung and Taec hyung cleaned their room," Chansung explains as he walks by, popping a handful of Nichkhun's candy into his mouth.
Jay pulls a still damp wife-beater off his face and hates life.
Rule no. 2: Disposables must be put into the trash can. Disposables not put into the trash will be relocated to their owner's bed. The last person to fill the trash can is responsible for taking it out.
Jay wakes up to the sound of heavy footsteps. He gropes under his pillow for his cell phone to check the time; it's almost three a.m. Taec must be back from his recording. Jay closes his eyes. Sleep... sleep... sle--
"Wh-what are you doing?!" Chansung's voice rings out from the living room.
"I should ask you the same thing!" Taec's voice shouts back.
"I wasn't doing anything! I was sleeping!"
"You left all this crap on my bed!"
"These? I didn't do that!"
"You're telling me it wasn't you who ate all my dried mangoes?"
There's a pause.
"But I didn't put the bags on your bed!" Chansung says. "I left them... uh. Oh."
"See!" Taecyeon's tone is accusatory. "It's totally your fault!"
"I forgot the rule, okay. Geez, sorry. ...But it doesn't mean you have to dump all this stuff on me while I'm asleep!"
"Oh, and I suppose it's so much better to come home after three hours of recording to find your snacks eaten and sticky preservative powder spilled all over your blankets?"
Jay can dimly hear Wooyoung's voice whining something about sleep and can it wait and this is so lame you guys, who caaaares about the stupid bags, just go throw them out already. Then, increasing in volume, "Ow, hold on, not the face! Don't-- ah, AH, NO BITING, NO BITING!!"
"Hyung," Junho mutters from his bed, voice muffled by his pillows. "You have to go talk to them." He pulls his covers up to hide his head.
"Me?" Jay gapes. "Why me? Why not Minjae hyung? Or you? They like you. You go do it."
"You're the leader," Junho says, sounding annoyed.
"Their fight is their own business."
"They're arguing about your rules right now, aren't they?" Junho sighs, covering his ears when Taecyeon lets out a particularly loud shriek. "Hurry up, before Wooyoung starts fake crying. Then you'll get Khun hyung upset."
"Ugh, fine," Jay snaps, throwing off his covers. "Bunch of pussies, waking up the whole damn house, can't believe they can't just man up and grow a pair. That includes you, by the way," he says, slapping Junho's ass as he walks out of the room.
Okay, so presumably the guys are in a bad mood right now. But how hard can it be to tell them to shut up and sit the fuck down? Jay's done it plenty of times before. It hasn't always worked, but at least he's done it before. Maybe if Jay just tells Taecyeon that it was him who put the bags on Taec's bed, and then pretends to apologize or something. It was actually Wooyoung, but it was Jay who told him to do it. Whatever, Chansung shouldn't have left the packages just lying there on the sofa; how was Jay supposed to know that it wasn't Taec who'd finished them? The point of the rule was to teach the litterer to not litter, and honestly, Jay hadn't expected playground-level fisticuffs to emerge from such a freaking simple concept. Damn, but who was he kidding, this was 2PM -- their collective maturity quotient would maybe hit high-schooler on a good day. Maybe he should have imposed a monetary fine for littering instead, like those highway signs. On second thought, no: 2PM members don't earn a lot and Jay's not that cruel.
In the living room, Taec has Chansung's neck caught under his armpit and Wooyoung on his back. Chansung's trying to bite Taecyeon's wrist but he can't quite reach because Wooyoung is pulling his head backwards by his hair. They all freeze when they see Jay.
"Go to bed," Jay orders. "Now."
Taec tsks and lets Chansung out of the headlock. Wooyoung slides off Taec's back, ducking his face sheepishly and lying back onto his futon. Chansung stretches his neck and his jaw a few times before flopping down onto the couch like a sack of potatoes.
"The bags--" Taec starts.
"Belong in the garbage can," Jay says snidely. He picks the plastic packages off the floor and stomps off to the kitchen. "I mean, are you two so stupid that you can't just put the--" Jay stops.
"Can's full." Taec sounds entirely too smug about this, that bastard. "You know the rules, hyung. Go take out the trash."
"Boy would I like to," Jay mutters, glaring at Taecyeon. He has never wanted to slap the huge idiotic grin right off of Taec's idiotic face so badly.
"Be quiet when you're leaving the apartment, if you please," Taecyeon adds, wiggling his eyebrows. "Everyone's trying to sleep." He scurries away before Jay can throw something at him.
Rule no. 3: Once a month, the apartment must be thoroughly cleaned. All members are expected to help out equally, with the exception of a huge mess created solely by specific members only -- then they alone are responsible for cleaning it up. A member who is found to be not doing their fair share of the work will be made the target of ridicule on 2PM's next variety show.
"We're drawing straws," Jay says.
"Rigged," Taec counters immediately.
"We're drawing straws," Jay says again.
"Can't we -- we should play a game or something instead," Chansung suggests. "Like arm wrestling, or just wrestling."
"We're drawing straws," Jay says, and motions to Khun to hurry the hell up with them already.
"Okay, here," Nichkhun smiles, holding up seven popsicle sticks in his fist. "Whatever your stick says, that's your job for today."
"Will this be okay?" Junsu asks. "You can't even spell."
"Sure I can. Anyway, it's legible."
"I'm skeptical."
"Wooyoung wrote half of them."
"But he's even worse than you."
"I'm what!"
"Can you fucking retards shut the hell up and pick a damn stick," Jay snarls.
So they each grab a popsicle stick. Jay ends up with one that reads watshing the windows. Not bad, Jay thinks. He'll have to climb on something to reach the high parts but he doesn't mind that. As long as he's not delegated to bathroom duty, then Jay is a happy man.
"Explain to me again why Min hyung isn't helping out?" Taecyeon asks. He's squinting at his stick, which Jay glances at: swaepping the flour.
"He cleans up after us enough of the time the rest of the month," Junho sighs. "He deserves his afternoon off."
"And we don't? We've been working hard too."
"Splitting the chores seven ways is going to make it go fast," Jay says. "So suck it up, ladies."
"This penmanship is terrible. I can't read it at all," Wooyoung says, moving his popsicle stick closer and farther from his eyes.
"You wrote it," Nichkhun says, taking it. "It says bathrooms." Then, seeing Wooyoung's expression, he adds, "I don't want to switch."
"No one wants to switch with you, Wooyoung," Junho says preemptively, heading towards the closet by the front door. He pushes it open, revealing the various types of cleaning equipment inside. "Grab your weapons, soldiers."
There's a brief scuffle between Chansung and Taec for the only pair of size large rubber gloves (Chansung wins when he reaches out and twists one of Taecyeon's nipples), but pretty soon all seven of them are busy at work, for once concentrating on getting the apartment clean instead of dirtying it up. Jay seriously considers hiring a TV crew to record this blessed moment for prosperity, but he's afraid that it'll give the impression that this is a special occasion (which it is, sort of), and that's no good. Jay wants this to be a regular occasion, or even better, a habit. If Jay weren't a hot-blooded man, he'd totally be making a page for this day in his scrapbook.
Though of course, since they’re 2PM, their serious work vibe doesn't manage to last for very long. Jay's peacefully wiping bird shit off of his window ledge, humming cartoon theme songs to himself, when he hears someone holler. Junsu? And then something crashes. Jay perks up. That sounded expensive.
"Oh dude," Taecyeon shouts. Jay turns around to see him rushing down the hall towards Khun's room.
"Yo, it was an accident!" It's Junsu's voice, sounding anxious.
Everyone hurries to the scene of the crime to see Junsu standing in the middle of the room with a feather duster in one hand, a damp cloth in the other, and shards of glass at his feet. It’s a broken picture frame. Oh, oh, it's Khun's picture. The one that his fans made him: a collage of his face made composed of hundreds of his smaller faces. Khun's favourite fan gift. And Junsu had broken it.
"Yikes," Wooyoung says, squeezing in between Jay and Junho to get a better look. He'd tied a bandana around his head, like Jay's grandmother did when she went grocery shopping. Behind Wooyoung, is Nichkhun, who's as pale as Jay has ever seen him, and that's saying something.
Nichkhun blinks once, twice, and purses his lips unhappily. Everyone watches silently as he bends down to pick up what's left of the portrait.
"Hey, listen man," Junsu says, "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to, really. I was dusting the top of your bookshelf, right? And I jabbed out my elbow too far and it just pushed the frame over the edge, so, uh. Yeah. Sorry."
Nichkhun sighs. "It was an accident," he says softly. "The picture's a bit ripped here, but I can tape it back together. And I can buy a new frame." He puts a hand on Junsu's shoulder, looking concerned. "Did you get any glass on you?"
Good fucking grief, Jay thinks. Khun is so fucking nice sometimes it makes Jay want to kick a puppy out of spite.
"Uh," Junsu mutters. "Uh, no, no. I'm good."
"Okay. We should get this mess swept away though, before someone gets hurt."
"Taecyeon's job," Junho says. "He's the sweeper."
"Doesn't this count under a 'mess created solely by a specific member'?" Taecyeon asks. "Shouldn't Junsu clean it up?"
"Just do it," Jay tells him. "Why didn't you offer to help Junsu clean the top shelf? You're tallest."
"I was in my room! What, you expect me to see through walls?"
"Wait, wait," Junsu says. "Since Taecyeon is tallest, then shouldn't he be given all the tall-chores by default? It's easiest for him."
"Hey, so Jaebeom hyung should get all the short chores, right?" Wooyoung interjects, face hopeful. "Like, scrubbing the toilet, right?"
"No, no. Sweeping would be the short chore," Jay says.
"No, sweeping would be the medium-height chore, since you get the broom," Junsu corrects.
Junho crosses his arms. "Half of us are the same height anyway, and we can't all do the same chore."
Taecyeon frowns. "Wait, so Chansung and I have to do all the tall chores? Why the height discrimination? You can just use a chair or something. Just because Junsu hyung's stiff and clumsy, we have to do his job for him?"
"Stiff? Stiff and clumsy?" Junsu repeats, punching Taecyeon. He shouldn't have, in retrospect. Despite Taec's height, he's easy to push over, and since he was trying to avoid getting a foot full of glass shards, Taec grabs onto Chansung, who loses his balance and topples into Junho, whose hand flails up to smack Wooyoung in the face, who takes a step back and bumps hard into Jay. Jay bumps into Nichkhun's desk, where Nichkhun had recently placed a vase of flowers delivered to him from an older fan (for no occasion whatsoever actually... not that Jay was jealous or anything), and the vase wobbles, tips, and, well.
Crash, goes the porcelain. Splash, goes the water.
"My flowers!" Nichkhun cries.
"Your mess!" everyone says, simultaneously pointing at Jay.
So Jay ends up cleaning up the water, the flowers, the vase, and the picture frame, and the incident is brought up on their next radio interview because everyone in his group is an immature shithead who purposely ignores their leader when he's making the ix-nay-on-the-ase-vay-since-I-didn't-break-the-third-ule-ray signal. (The interviewers ask Jay if he's feeling unwell today, because what is that face he's making?) Jay's UFO page gets spammed with hundreds of messages that afternoon, all from rabid Khun fans devastated that Jay had broken Nichkhun's precious painting and delicate flower vase. Jay has no idea how his name also got attached to something Junsu obviously did, but apparently that's how the rumour mill works: against Jay. In the following few days, Khun gets sent a total of seventeen bouquets of flowers through the fanclub (including one from their PD noona - kind of heartbreaking, since Jay had always thought that he was her favourite 2PM member), runs out of space on his desk, and so relocates some of them to Junho and Jay's room.
At night, Jay can hear the flowers laughing at him.
Oh, shit.
Jay gets it now. He sees this for what it is. How could he have failed to notice it before?
Conspiracy.
Rule no. 4: Use proper bathroom etiquette. Examples include but are not limited to: trying to keep bottles, combs, razors, etc, from taking up too much space on the counter, wiping up water around the sink, unclogging whatever you clog up. Members who are found to be making other members' bathroom experiences needlessly unpleasant will be responsible for bathroom scrubbing the following week.
Jay's going to tread carefully from now on. Sharp and watchful are going to be his middle names, as well as cautious, stealthy, and able-to-see-through-whatever-is-there-to-be-seen-through. Now that Jay knows that the rest of them are conspiring against him, he refuses to leave himself open for any kind of attack. No vulnerability in the midst of the battlefield. Wait. Maybe battlefield isn't the right word. Or maybe it is. Something explosive seems to happening today, at any rate.
"Oh my God," Wooyoung is bleating from the washroom, voice faint. "Oh my God oh my God oh my God."
"Wooyoungie, come on," Nichkhun pleads, twisting the doorknob to no avail. "We can help, just open up."
"Hyung," Chansung calls, pressing his ear to door of the other washroom, opposite Wooyoung's, "are you going to come out?"
"NO," Junho's voice answers. "I am most definitely not. Where's Minjae hyung? HYUNG, CAN YOU GO BUY THREE BOTTLES OF CONCEALER?"
"He went to do the laundry," Chansung says.
After a beat, Junho yells, "He must have left on purpose! He knew about this!!"
"About what?" Nichkhun yells back at Junho's door, sounding desperate. "What's going on?"
"MY HAIR," Wooyoung wails.
Jay, standing at the end of the hall, takes in the scene with wide eyes. He has no idea what is happening. They'd just come home from their last performance, everything was fine, they were planning to wash off their makeup before heading down to dance practice: the usual routine. Junho and Wooyoung had won rock-paper-scissors, so they got to use the washrooms first. Jay was just lounging in the living room, staring at nothing, when he first heard Junho's scream, closely followed by Wooyoung's. So they'd rushed over, but the others had refused to unlock the doors. And now Junho's telling Chansung to call Minjae hyung right this instant, and Nichkhun is trying to persuade Wooyoung not to use the scissors without supervision, and Jay is more than a little bewildered and at a loss for what to do -- when he hears someone snickering behind him. Jay whips around to see Taecyeon and Junsu, sprawled on the couch, muffling their faces with the throw pillows to hide their laughter.
"You guys did this, eh?" Jay hisses, marching over to them and punching Taecyeon in the back.
"AH," Taecyeon shrieks, but he's still grinning. Junsu holds up his hand and they slap each other a high-five before dissolving into more laughter.
"Huh," Jay says. Suddenly things are making a lot more sense.
Yesterday, Minjae hyung had ordered a massive cleanup of the washrooms. Empty bottles, out. Makeup and skin care, hidden away. Any lingering hairs, gone. They couldn't leave any trace of the products they used to become the hot idols they were supposed to be, because a filming crew was scheduled to stop by the apartment to expose every nook and cranny that had not been exposed enough on their previous Let's Sleep Here Tonight episode or Wild Bunny. Personally, Jay didn't understand why anyone cared so much about what their rooms looked like, but the netizens hath spoken; they needed to know what they needed to know, and apparently they were overcome with burning questions like what colour 2PM's towels were, if they had individual shower caps, and whether they used electric or normal toothbrushes. It was just another note in an ever-growing mental list Jay had labelled "Korean fans, get used to it."
Jay hadn't known which show the film crew belonged to, but since it gave a good excuse to purge the washrooms of all its excess clutter, Jay hadn't bothered to ask. As far as he knew, their job was to clean the house and then go off on their regular schedule while the filming went on, and everyone would be gone by the time they got home. It's only now that Jay realizes that filming hadn't finished at all. In fact, it had only just begun.
So that's why Taec and Junsu hadn't been with them for most of the morning. And that's why Minjae hyung had been stuttering non-stop for the whole day. Jay should have known. They were in on the whole thing.
Pranking via toiletries.
Wow, had Jay ever dodged a bullet today. He'd nearly won that game of rock-paper-scissors.
Chansung screams when Junho finally emerges from the washroom. Junho’s cheeks and eyes are streaked in a dark purple and the shadowing makes the scowl on his face look ten times scarier than usual. Wooyoung comes out next, and Jay breathes a sigh of relief to see that his face is fine. But then Wooyoung turns his head and everyone can see: behind his right ear, there's an area about the width of three fingers where the hair has been noticeably thinned out.
Taecyeon howls with laughter. Junsu is covering his face with his arm and slapping the sofa, his shoulders shaking.
"There was some sort of gel on my brush," Wooyoung explains, "and I didn't see it. It left this big streak of yellow on my hair and when I tried to wash it out, all this hair came off. Like. Right off." He pulls out a few more strands. "Look! What is this!"
"Some kind of bleach?" Nichkhun says, patting the tender area.
"I don't know!"
"Ask those two," Junho nods his head towards Taecyeon and Junsu. "Seems like they're not very surprised by any of this."
"Oi! Yours'll wash off!" Junsu calls. "Just let it dry first."
"Did you dump out all of my face wash to replace it with this dye?" Junho glares.
"The show's producers said they'll buy you a new bottle," Taec says, still giggling.
Nichkhun frowns. "Did we only clean up the washrooms so it'd be easier for them to sabotage our stuff?"
"And to make it easier for them to put in hidden cameras," Taecyeon adds.
"HIDDEN CAMERAS?" Junho says, stalking over to him. "IN THE WASHROOM??"
"Not filming the toilet or anything! And there's no sound wired up, so - hey, OW, OW!"
Jay has a bad feeling that the show's not over yet. He flits his eyes up to the corners of the apartment walls. The cameras leftover from Wild Bunny had been turned back on, red lights blinking. Jay hadn't noticed, damn. "What else did you guys do?" he demands.
Junsu licks his lips. "That's it for us. Maybe there's some other stuff that Minjae hyung arranged? I'm not sure. Really not sure."
"He's doing the laundry," Chansung mentions again.
"He won't, like... dye all our clothes purple, will he?" Wooyoung asks.
Junsu's mouth drops open. "He wouldn't do th-- he can't." He jumps to his feet and dashes out of the apartment.
Nichkhun wraps a comforting arm around Wooyoung's shoulders and narrows his eyes at Jay. "Hyung, I hope you know you started all of this."
"Me!" Jay yelps. "What did I do?!"
The answer is nothing. Jay did nothing, but apparently he was supposed to have done something. What kind of crappy reasoning is that, Jay wonders, and he’s about to say something back when Junsu returns in defeat, carrying an armload of bright pink clothes. Nichkhun takes this as adequate grounds to make Jay the bathroom maid for following week. (Jay argues that since he's the one who had written the rules, he's logically the only one who can dish out the penalties, but they take a vote and those bastards outnumber Jay six to one.)
"This is a conspiracy," Jay says, as the other members sort through the wreckage that is their laundry basket (only Jay's clothes are safe, since they were all pink to begin with). "Don't think I haven't caught on. I have. And it's a conspiracy."
"You're paranoid," Junsu says.
"Of course you'd say that," Jay snaps. "You're an instigator."
The only bright side of the whole thing is that the show ends up getting huge ratings and nothing particularly embarrassing happened to Jay for it. That is, until the crew decides to come back for a sequel.
Rule no. 5: If the food is take-out, every member is responsible for cleaning up their own mess. If the food is home-cooked, the members who did not cook are responsible for the clean-up, with the exception of any microwave/oven/stove-top explosions caused by negligence or sheer stupidity of the cooks -- then the cook(s) must clean up that mess himself. Unwashed dishes cannot be left in the sink for longer than 48 hours.
Okay, enough of this bullshit.
Jay's done with cleaning up other people's messes. Alright, so as leadja he does have a certain responsibility to make sure that his team is happy and healthy, and if sometimes that means he has to pick up the slack for others, then Jay's happy to do it. He's pretty sure it's even written in his contract somewhere (and considering the length of that damn thing, was it Jay's fault that he skipped a few pages here and there?) that if Nichkhun ever embarrasses himself in public in some way that needs immediate action, Jay is legally required to take the rap for him to save Nichkhun's image. But nowhere does it state in his contract, nor in any moral sense is Jay obligated, to be continually be the brunt of some cruel joke where his own rules of the household are being turned against him. That is just not on. Jay has to assert his dominance or they’re never going to listen to anything he says ever again.
It's Park Jaebeom versus the Rest, and Jay's determined to come out the victor. He has the right. They're his freaking rules. He's lost the battle with the first four rules, but he's not going to lose the war. Damned if Jay is going to pick up another speck that he doesn't have to.
Which is why he decided to cook dinner for everyone today. It's a tactical move on his part: according to the new rules, if Jay cooks the meal, then he's exempt from having to clean it up. As long as he doesn't make a huge idiotic mess while he's cooking. And of course he's not going to. Just because Jay's dishes taste like a cat's litter box (Wooyoung's words, not Jay's) doesn't mean he's an oaf in the kitchen. He knows things. Oil is flammable, no shiny metals in the microwave, and utensils that touch raw meat should not touch anything else. See. No sweat.
"You're cooking?" Junsu says, walking into the kitchen. "Who's getting punished?"
"Uh, shut the hell up," Jay answers. "And hand me the salt."
"Why aren't we getting take-out?" Junsu asks, handing him the salt.
"It's good to have a home-cooked meal every now and then, isn't it?" Jay smiles, in a way that hopefully looks innocent. "Now go away and wait for your food like a good little boy."
Junsu raises an eyebrow at him, but dutifully leaves the room, muttering something about giving poison control advance notice. Jay pretends not to hear. It's not like Junsu can talk anyway. Jay never sees him volunteer to make everyone something to eat when they trudge home tired and starving at 3 a.m. in the morning and all the restaurants nearby are closed for the night. It's usually Minjae hyung, Nichkhun, Junho, or Taecyeon who does it. Taecyeon's the best cook out of all of them because he can make simple things like rice and pasta pretty okay (as opposed to like, burning the water, as Jay's done before) but the trouble is that Taecyeon often likes to go "gourmet," and his gourmet style is like his clothing style: loud, garish, and prone to nightmarish combinations. Still, there's something to be said for edibility, and Taec's skill in that is something Jay has not yet managed to match.
Well, kill two birds with one stone, right? Jay can get practice in the kitchen and avoid clean-up duties. He should have thought of this years ago.
"Aaah," Taecyeon says, as Jay's carefully setting down the pot into the centre of the table. "Here it comes."
"Aaah," Junsu echoes.
"What is it?" Wooyoung asks, taking the lid off the pot.
"It's meatball stew," Jay says proudly. "My mom's American-Korean recipe.” He eyes the hat covering Wooyoung’s head. “Why are you wearing a beanie inside the house? We already know what your hair looks like.”
“My head is cold,” Wooyoung sniffs.
Junho takes the ladle and prods inside the soup. "Where are the meatballs?" he asks.
"They're at the bottom of the pot. I guess they're a bit heavy."
"I see," Junho says, tone flat.
Jay levels a pair of chopsticks at him. "Don't even start. They taste fine, okay? I just tried one; they're fine."
"I'm sure they're delicious," Nichkhun says kindly. "Everyone, let's thank Jaebeom hyung for the meal."
There's a vague chorus of "thank you for the food"s and Jay smiles as he serves everyone, feeling accomplished. He wonders if he should put some meatballs and pasta in a container to save for Minjae hyung. Wouldn't he be so pleased to come home from a long evening of meetings to find a delicious home-made dinner ready and waiting for him?
Okay, cut off that train of thought right there. Jay's not a freaking housewife. Minjae hyung can starve in a gutter for all Jay cares.
"This actually isn't that bad," Junsu voices, after everyone's had their first taste of the food.
"I sort of like this level of chewiness," Wooyoung adds, giving Jay a thumbs up. Jay beams.
Chansung picks up the ladle in the pot and pours a generous helping of the thick soup over his plate of pasta. "The sauce is good," he says. "It makes the noodles less hard."
"You see!" Jay grins. "I'm pretty much a master chef. And, because I've cooked such a delicious and nutritious meal for you all, you guys all have to pitch in to clean up, right? So, yeah. Don't forget later, or something."
Junho smiles weakly. "I'm sure you'll remind us."
Jay does.
~
"What the--" Junho says, surveying the kitchen. "When did a tornado pass through here?"
"What," Jay frowns. "It's not that bad."
It's not as bad as tornado wreckage, but maybe it's pretty close. Pots and pans everywhere, tomato sauce spilt all over the countertops, some stray noodles on the ground, the styrofoam containers that contained the ground beef tossed haphazardly into the sink... well! It wasn't like Jay purposely made as big of a mess as he could to get back at the others in a completely justifiable revenge. Jay just happened to use a lot of cooking utensils, a lot of ingredients, and a lot of space. So it's a big mess. That's the sacrifice that has to be made to prepare a great meal.
"It looks like that scene from a movie I saw," Chansung murmurs, pushing past Jay. "Like, after all the bad guys raided the house."
"And we're supposed to clean this up?" Junho continues. "Before we can sleep?"
"How long can it possibly take you?" Jay asks, curious.
Junho sighs. "I guess we'll see."
~
It takes them a while.
It's nearing 9 p.m. when Jay is abruptly woken up from his nap by the sound of arguing. At first he thinks that it's Taecyeon and Chansung getting into another fight about rule 2, but on a closer listen, he realizes that it's all of them talking at once. And no one sounds very happy.
"Wooyoung, I just wiped up that spot!"
"Oh, you did? Who could tell? There were still tomato sauce stains all over it."
"Where do these pots go?"
"In the left bottom cupboard -- left, Chansung ah. No, left."
"There's no room."
"Then put them somewhere else. Don't stuff them in there! WAIT--"
Crashing.
"Oh, lovely."
"For the love of-- Can't you guys do anything?"
"My mom always took care of this stuff for me."
"But we've been living together for a year! How have you managed to avoid helping out with this sort of thing for so long?"
"I... don't know."
"Hey, hey. Did any of you see a pile of salt in the corner? I thought I swept it up, but now it's gone--"
"Oh. Yeah. Whoops. I guess I stepped in it."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Bring it."
More crashing.
"PUT DOWN THE KNIFE, PUT DOWN THE KNIFE."
Jay decides to get out of bed.
Maybe it was a mistake to cram six tall boys into one tiny kitchen, because when Jay gets there, all he can see is calamity. They seem to have managed to tidy up all of Jay's cooking mess, but by creating an entirely new mess in the process: one made with cleaning supplies. Is it because there's too many of them trying to do everything at once? They didn't have any major problems when they cleaned the apartment together (although granted, for that, they had their tasks assigned to them, and the space was a lot bigger). If this weren't such a stupid situation, Jay might've been impressed with them.
Junsu hastily puts down his knife when he sees Jay standing at the doorway.
"What the fuck," Jay eloquently says.
"It's Taec's fault," Chansung says immediately.
Taecyeon isn't even in the room. "Where is he?"
"He got stabbed with a fork so he's in the bathroom crying over his boo-boo."
"He's been in there for almost twenty minutes," Junho says, checking his watch.
"Is he dead?"
"He's probably sleeping in the bathtub."
Junsu clicks his tongue. "That guy. He's clever, I'll give him that."
"He’s avoiding duties?" Wooyoung asks. "Shouldn't he get a punishment for that?"
"That's not part of rule 5," Nichkhun says, reading the list still posted on the fridge.
"I thought it was like an implied thing."
"No one said that," Taecyeon says, padding back into the kitchen. "If it's not stated explicitly, it's not a rule."
"What is this, a court room?" Wooyoung says peevishly.
"I wasn't avoiding duties, by the way. You tried to murder me." He holds up his right palm, which is covered with two band-aids. (Just where did he manage to find those, Jay wonders.)
"I said I was sorry!"
"I'm adding a rule to the list," Taecyeon says, ripping the paper from the fridge magnet. "All members who purposefully attempt bodily harm on another member have to be that member's slave for the day."
"What!" Wooyoung squawks. "You can't just go around making up rules willy-nilly!"
"What if I said I wanted to clean up our beastly image just like Jay hyung wanted to clean up the apartment?"
"You?" Chansung laughs. "But -- you! You're the one who has that image the most!"
"Which is why it's my responsibility to engineer a change." Taecyeon says firmly. "I'm sick of getting all these injuries because we keep beating each other up."
Junsu scoffs. "I'm not going to follow your stupid rules."
"Oh, because I'm not older than you?"
"I didn't say that."
"Guys," Nichkhun says, holding up his hands. "Let's just relax for a second, okay? If Taecyeon sshi wants to change some things, let's hear him out, alright?"
"No, no," Junsu shakes his head. "Why should we? He's done the least amount of work since Jay's implemented his new rules, so he shouldn't be able to just pull things to his favour just because he got a paper cut."
"I have four holes in my freaking palm!" Taec says, glaring at Wooyoung.
"I told you it was an accident!” Wooyoung balks. “Anyway, it's because Chansung bumped into me."
"Wh-why are you bringing me into this!"
"Let me see the rules," Junho says, reaching for the paper in Taec's hands.
"No," Taecyeon pulls away. "I need to make some changes."
"That's not fair," Junho argues. "If you can make changes then we all should get an equal say in it."
"Taecyeon," Nichkhun says, "give us the rules back. You're being purposely malicious."
Taecyeon doesn't relinquish the paper. "Big word there, for the Thai Prince," he says, voice low.
Nichkhun's expression darkens. Everyone takes a step back from him.
Jay sucks in a deep breath. This isn't good. Things are getting out of control -- they already are out of control. Jay hadn't wanted to start up any fights when he'd made those rules; heck, they were supposed to make living together a lot more peaceful, not the other way around. And now everyone is at everyone else's throats about who should be doing what and dammit, Jay isn't a guidance counselor or a mom, he doesn't know how to solve tense emotional issues. But he's leader, right? He has to do something. Because Nichkhun getting angry is never a good sign, Taecyeon getting too serious is never a good sign, the unhappy expression on Wooyoung's face right now is not a good sign. Jay has a responsibility to keep his team happy, and damned if he's going to let them have a huge fight over something as stupid as a set of household rules.
"Give me that thing," Jay snaps, and snatches the list out of Taecyeon's hands. Before anyone can say anything, he rips it in half.
"There! Okay!" he says loudly, ripping the paper again a few more times. "No more rules. At all. So no more need for lame-ass arguments." He lets the scraps drift to the ground. "Good now?"
There's a moment of silence while everyone stares at the pieces of paper littering Jay's feet. Jay breathes out slowly.
Junho suddenly looks up at Jay. He's grinning. "Are you going to clean that up?" he asks.
"I--" Jay starts to say, and watches as Taecyeon and Nichkhun high-five. Chansung jumps up and down a few times, laughing. Wooyoung and Junsu are covering their mouths, but it looks like they're trying not to laugh as well.
"I, uh," Jay says again. "Wait. What?"
Taecyeon slings an arm around Jay's shoulders and leans into his ear, snickering.
"Conspiracy," he whispers.
Rule no. 6: At least try to follow these rules. It's not like I'm expecting a miraculous turnaround here, but come on. Just make a little effort to clean up after yourselves and the apartment will be in pretty decent shape. Seriously. We’re a family now, and I want us to be a strong one.
"Come on, hyung," Wooyoung says, sitting down on Jay's bed. "It was just a stupid prank. Don't be upset, please? We have all your rules memorized anyway.” He pauses. “Okay maybe not. But I’m pretty sure I remember the general gist of them."
Jay’s curled around his biggest stuffed bear and is facing the wall. He refuses to speak civilly to such evil, evil children. "I hate you and I want you all to die an extremely painful death," he says slowly.
"But we love you, hyung," says Nichkhun’s voice. Someone pats Jay on the back.
"LIES. COMPLETE LIES," Jay yells, rolling away. "GET OUT OF MY LIFE."
"Hyung," Junho says, coming into the room. "Can you sulk somewhere else for a few minutes? I want to wash the sheets."
Hey now. Jay pushes himself onto his elbows. "You're washing the sheets?"
"Yeah," Junho says.
"Voluntarily?" Jay asks, blinking.
"Uh, yes? I mean, it's been a while since we've last washed them, right? I’ll do the pillowcases too."
"Yes!" Jay agrees enthusiastically. "Yes it has! They all need to be washed!"
Junho looks at Wooyoung, who twirls a finger next to his ear. "Uh, yes. So, can I take your sheets please?"
"Yes!"
Nichkhun and Junho are stripping Jay's bed when Junsu pokes his head into the room. "Min hyung just phoned; he should be back soon and he bought us KFC. Chansung's setting the table right now, so tell him quick if you want to eat too."
"But it's past ten," Nichkhun frowns. "What about his diet?"
Junsu shrugs. "He said he got extra exercise today by vacuuming the couches."
Jay stares for a second. "Chansungie vacuumed the couches? I didn't know that."
"You were at the gym. He spilled half a bag of chips on the big one so he said he might as well clean them both."
"HEY," Taec shouts from one of the washrooms. "WHO GOT WATER ALL OVER THE SINK COUNTER? WHERE'S THE CLOTH THING?"
"IT'S IN OUR ROOM," Junsu yells back. "I was using it to wipe away dust on my keyboard."
“I’ll tell Chansung to save some chicken for us,” Wooyoung says, toddling out.
Jay smiles. For some reason, he feels better.
(end)
Thank you for reading! My first real 2PM fic so any comments/crits are more than welcome! :)
Rating: PG (for some swearing)
Fandom: K-pop (2PM)! :O!
Pairings: None
Summary: No, really. He's going to get the apartment clean, or his name isn't Park Jaebeom.
Words: ~10,000, hopefully some of them are humourous to read! ;A;
Notes: A few things -- 1. UGH I AM SO NERVOUS ABOUT THIS! *gnaws on nails* 2. I finished writing this before Chansung’s “scandal” (lol) with the littering came out, so please don't think I'm making fun of him for that. I mean I am practically in love with the guy okay. 3. Thank you to the lovely aeslis for beta-ing, even though she didn't have to. ♥
House Rules
You know what, Jay doesn't care what anybody thinks. Minjae hyung tells them what to do and when to do it, fine, but that's because he's the only one who's masochistic enough to keep track of all seven of their schedules at the same time and get paid peanuts for it. Sure he's 2PM's manager, but he's not their leader. He's not the boss of them. That title belongs to the one and only Park Jaebeom, and no one in the group would ever argue against it. Of course, no one in the group would ever respect him for it either, but Jay's working on that part. Wait, Jinyoung hyung is technically their boss. Hm. Well, he's halfway across the world in America shoving the Wonder Girls at the Blownas Brothers so his vote in group-related affairs is invalid. Maybe not one hundred percent invalid, since they still have to check in with him weekly, but it's invalid enough. Especially concerning matters of the household.
Matters such as the household's current resemblance to a city dump.
The thing is that everyone in this apartment is a filthy slob except for Jay and Wooyoung, but Wooyoung only cares enough to clean up things that are in his direct line of sight or within arm’s reach. While that kept half the living room, a third of the left washroom, and his seat at the dinner table spotless at all times, not many other parts of the dorm could boast the same level of cleanliness. That is to say, the other parts of the dorm were a fucking sty. Frankly, it had annoyed the shit out of Jay the first week he spent adjusting to seven other people living in a space most definitely not suited for that many, and it's still annoying the shit out of Jay now, almost a full year later. Unfortunately, due to a good diet or daily exercise or maybe some hidden drugs in their water, all of the members of their group to this day remain adequately energetic and healthy, and while Jay's a big fan of everyone staying alive, he can honestly say that had one of the members died for whatever reason (whatever reason, mind you), the extra space would've been really appreciated.
And it's not like Jay's some spoiled American brat, used to mansions and limousines and chandeliers dangling over his spiral staircases, O.C. style. Jay grew up in a tiny little apartment on the ninth floor of a rundown building where the wooden stairs made sounds like a dying cat and they still used radiators for heat: Goddamn pipes that were so rusted over it looked like they were growing bright brown fur. Their place had been tiny too, but Jay's mom did the best she could to keep everything neat and ordered so the rooms didn't seem so small. Every little bit of space counted, and his mom had hated clutter. Clothes in the closet, books on the shelf, bowls in the cupboards, etcetera etcetera. Keep it neat, or suffer the consequences. Eighteen years of life with his mom later, her clean-living habits had become ingrained in Jay's freaking soul.
Which is why it's driving him crazy to find life in Korea so messy, where there's even less room to afford to be. Here the clothes are thrown on every available surface, the underwear is hung on the towel racks (sometimes next to the cloth that Jay uses to wash his fucking face, no less), bowls are piled in the sink like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and one time Jay had gone to the fridge to get some juice and had returned to his breakfast to find a rolled up sock in his oatmeal cereal.
The straw that breaks Jay’s back comes in the form of a pile of clothes by (and half-under) Junho’s bed: Jay kicks it out of frustration only to find that there are a pair of ten kilogram dumbbells hidden underneath (Jay’s 10kg dumbbells, actually, he’d been wondering where they had gone), with the toes on his right foot making a very abrupt and unhappy acquaintance with them. Jay limps to the washroom to find a band-aid, but after fifteen fruitless minutes of sifting through all the junk in the drawers and medicine cabinet, gives up the search. On the way out he slips on a patch of water on the linoleum and nearly bashes his head against the door frame.
Little things like that happen to Jay way more than can possibly be normal. The fact that all three instances of bad luck occurred in rapid succession must be a sign that there needs to be changes implemented in household infrastructure, and fast. Jay doesn't know about the others, but he isn't too keen on getting sent to the hospital for stitches in a cliché soap-bar-in-the-bathtub related incident. That’d be humiliating. Think of what all the hot girl idols would say.
H to the U to the Miliating. Something has to be done.
That evening, Jay makes a list.
~
"What's this, Jay?" Nichkhun asks, hovering over Jay's shoulder as Jay smiley-face-magnets his magnum opus onto the refrigerator door.
"This," Jay announces proudly, tapping the paper, "is going to seriously up the craptastic standard of living we've been wallowing in around here." He stands back to allow Nichkhun to read the paper, taking advance satisfaction in what is sure to be an appreciative response from Khun.
Khun's eyes skim the whole list twice before he says something. He says, “Wow, um.”
“What,” Jay says, narrowing his eyes. “Just say it.”
Nichkhun smiles reassuringly. “I was just a little surprised, that’s all. But they’re fine. I think. Why are the rules so... detailed?”
“You think that if I write ‘put the garbage in the garbage can,’ people are going to listen to me? It’s already obvious that the garbage goes into the garbage can. That’s what it’s for. But sometimes you guys still forget to use it. So I need to take another approach.”
“With threats,” Nichkhun says slowly.
“They aren’t threats,” Jay clarifies. “More like appropriate and fair consequences for breaking the rules.”
“You don’t think the punishments are too harsh?”
“It’s only to get the message across.”
Nichkhun still doesn’t look impressed. “Do you know the saying ‘you can catch more flies with honey?’”
“Good thing I’m not catching flies,” Jay says firmly. “I’m cleaning house.”
Nichkhun taps the paper gently. “If you’re sure you know what you’re doing, then I guess we can try them out.”
“Great,” Jay says. “That’s the kind of optimism I want. I’m sure they’ll work. Don’t worry your tiny little head about it.”
~
"MEETING TIME," Jay bellows, sticking his head into Junsu and Taecyeon's room.
No one even twitches in response. Jay tries to kill everyone with the power of his glare. It doesn't work.
"I SAID," Jay starts again.
"We heard you the first time," Taec interrupts. He doesn't bother to look up from his laptop.
"Well?" Jay waits, but neither Junsu nor Taecyeon move the slightest inch from their beds. Wooyoung is flopped face down on the floor in only his t-panties and Jay gives him a swift kick in the butt.
"Mrrrrmggh," Wooyoung groans, wriggling slightly. He looks like a fish on land, giving in to its eventual death.
"What is the matter with you?" Jay asks. "Didn't we say you weren't allowed to wear those anymore?"
"It's hot," Wooyoung says. "I'm hot and sticky and I'm about to die. And I have nothing else to wear because no one did the laundry."
"That's what this meeting was supposed to be about," Jay says. "Getting laundry done, stuff like that. Uh, cleanlinass." That was the right pronunciation, wasn't it?
“Cleanliness,” Taec corrects.
“That’s what I said, yeah. Anyway. It's going to be important." Jay frowns at Wooyoung. "It's not that hot. Taec's got a freaking laptop on his chest and he's not even sweating."
"I'm delicate," Wooyoung says, rolling onto his back. "I have baby skin. It's sensitive to fast fluctuations of temperature. The makeup noonas always tell me that."
"Yo," Junsu says, throwing Wooyoung a pillow at him from his top bunk. "Cover up, please." Wooyoung picks it up and instead of using it to hide his immodest choice of underwear, slides it under his head with an obnoxiously loud sigh.
"Whose turn is it to do the laundry this week anyway?" Junsu asks Jay, chucking another pillow at Wooyoung's head.
"I think it's mine," Taec answers, still finger-typing away on his keyboard.
"Are you going to do it man?"
"Not yet," Taec grins. "I made a bet with Chansung involving Panty-Express over here and his clothes."
"You what?" Wooyoung squawks, pushing himself up to knees, making his underwear ride up very--
"WE'RE HAVING A MEETING RIGHT NOW," Jay yells, and slams the door on his way out.
~
"Hey nerds," Jay calls, walking into Junho and Chansung's living room study session. Their textbooks and papers have basically made a new layer of carpeting on the hardwood floor around them and Jay twitches, resisting the urge to just kick everything out of his way and send the sheets flying. "Take a break for a few minutes, okay? I'm calling an emergency meeting."
"We heard you the first time," Chansung mutters around his almost chewed through pencil, though he's clearly lying because he's wearing his headphones and no way Jay's voice had been that loud, right?
"And I've decided that Chansung's not allowed to talk until he calls off that whatever bet with Taec and makes him do the laundry," Jay says.
"Hyung, you should be studying, not calling random meetings," Junho scolds. "It's not often we get a break like this. Don't you have a midterm next week too? Taecyeon hyung was complaining about it this morning."
Jay in fact does have a midterm next week. On macroeconomics. Jay has attended approximately two and three-quarter classes for this course (what can he say, he's a busy guy) and still isn't quite sure what macroeconomics are exactly, much less how he's going to do calculations for/with/about them. But, see, he'd tried to study last night, and it hadn't worked at all because the many unpaired socks littered around his desk had been too distracting. They had been jeering at him, mocking him for his inability to win the fight against The Mess. Jay had ended up kicking them all into the pile of clothes by Junho’s bed, which was when he’d stubbed his toes.
"It's not random," Jay argues. "I'm just damn sick of how disorganized this place is. It's you guys who are forcing me to take action, with all your gross habits. I'm not going to be known as the leader of the group that can't learn to pick up after themselves."
"I'm pretty sure we don't go around to schedules leaving a trail of garbage in our wake," Junho says flatly.
"I think you're rolling your eyes at me, but it's so hard to tell," Jay snipes back.
Chansung slaps his textbook closed. "Are we allowed to eat during the meeting, or is that still banned?" he asks.
Jay makes a face. "Fine, you can eat, but no loud chewing. And if you start leaving crumbs all over the table I'll--"
Chansung darts up and runs to the kitchen table, landing heavily in Wooyoung's usual seat. "There," he says. Nichkhun, already sitting at the table, blinks with surprise as the sandwich he's eating disappears out of his hands and into Chansung's mouth with frightening speed.
"I guess the meeting's started?" Nichkhun says.
~
Minjae hyung's off doing whatever it is slave-driver managers do at the JYP office for the afternoon (no doubt searching for new and creative ways to rape their dignity), but that works out well for Jay: now there's no one here who can supercede his authority. Not that Jay thinks that Minjae hyung would have problems with Jay exerting his executive power for matters like these, because it's not like Jay is being unreasonable here. It can't be too much to ask to be able to use the washroom without having unpleasant interactions with old toenail clippings on the floor and knotted up hair in the drains and dried toothpaste gunked all over the sink. It's during instances like those when Jay has debated, not for the first time, asking Jinyoung hyung to hire a maid for their dorm. But, not for the first time, Jay ends up reasoning that it's much safer without one. He's heard some horror stories from idols who did have maids; crazy Korean fans come in all sizes and professions and Jay really does not want to lose track of a few pairs of boxers only to find them on some sketchy online auction site, going for 50,000 won, shipping included. (Maybe even up to 100,000? That would be pretty cool. But creepy, yes, also creepy.)
Everyone has sat down now so Jay calls for attention and slaps his precious list onto the center of the table.
"2PM... house rules?" Junho reads.
"You've got to be kidding me," Taec says, eyebrows rising. "We don't need this."
"Wrong," Jay counters immediately. "Don't you know it makes us look bad when our apartment gets filmed and the place looks like a dump? We're getting a bad rep. I've seen people online comparing us to how neat and tidy SHINee's dorms are." This is true. Jay had been doing his nightly compliment count on 2PM fansites when he’d come across a comparison chart, complete with pictures: 2PM vs SHINee. Rumour had it that the member with the blindingly orange-yellow hair -- what was his name again? Kim? Kee? The gay one, anyway -- enforced a zero tolerance rule for dust, dirt, and litter of any kind, which kept their place spotless all hours of the day. Jay really doesn't care one way or another about SHINee (except when they keep winning all the music awards, those girly, malnourished, too-talented punks) but the next time he sees yellow-hair-guy, he's going to have to ask for tips and tricks for how to keep his members in line. Rule with an iron fist. Jay likes the sound of that.
"SHINee?" Nichkhun's perked up. Jay ignores him.
"With this regime, all your slobbish tendencies are going to be wiped off from the face of the earth, hear me? So, yeah. Read the rules, and follow them. Or I'll hurt you."
"Hyung," Wooyoung grabs the list, face rapturous. "This is amazing!"
"Yes," Jay agrees, grinning. He knew he could count on Wooyoung. "I put a lot of work into it."
"I can see that! Your spelling's really good here!"
"Thanks." Honestly, it had been hell using the dictionary to search up every word he wasn't sure how to write, but Jay had known that he was going to have a hard enough time getting the other members to take his rules seriously without rampant spelling errors everywhere. The last time he'd shown off something he'd written (a short essay response for his ethics class), Junsu and Junho had each taken a coloured pen and edited the living daylights out of that sucker. The paper had turned out looking like a black, red and blue scribblefest and Taec taped the finished product on the wall over his desk to cheer him up whenever he got bad grades, which was all the time.
"I really like these rules," Wooyoung continues. "I think we should definitely do this, guys. The place will be so much cleaner!"
Chansung puts his head down on the table. "Stupid Woodong. Now I'm going to be nagged at even more," he mopes. Junho pats him on the back.
"Oh I'm sorry," Wooyoung says, "do you enjoy living in your own filth?"
"It's not that bad," Chansung mutters, "it's at a comfortable level."
"You're not the only one who sleeps in the living room, you know. I'm in a state of constant fear that I'll accidentally slip on one of your dirty socks and crack my skull open. Blood on the hardwood floor. My blood, Chansung ah."
Chansung shrugs.
Junsu snatches the list out of Wooyoung's hands. "So, this is like, going to change a lot of things around here." He doesn't sound too pleased, but that's probably because he's one of the worst dirt-petrators here so he's going to have to expend a lot of effort to be tidy. Jay would feel sympathy for him, only -- actually, there's no only. Jay doesn't feel sympathy for him.
"Change for the better," Jay emphasizes. "Those one hundred fangirls who switched favourites from you because your feet stink too much? They're gonna come crawling back. You'll see. You'll thank me later."
"Hey, watch it," Junsu points a finger at Jay. "It was only fifty-seven."
"Whatever. Think of this as improvement training, or, no, yeah. That."
"And what," Taec says, "you're going to be the one making sure we follow all these ridiculous rules?"
"I'm leader," Jay states simply. "As 2PM members, you have to obey me."
He realizes that he shouldn't have said that as soon as he finishes the sentence, but by then it's already too late to take the words back. The six other people sitting around the table all stare at him in disbelief for two long seconds, and then everyone's suddenly on their feet and reaching for Jay. Jay bolts.
Rule no. 1: Put your dirty clothes in the laundry hamper. Clothes not in the laundry hamper will not be washed. Laundry will be done every Sunday evening, or whenever the hamper is full. Laundry-calls are no longer permitted.
Everyone forgets to use the laundry hamper except for Wooyoung and Jay. But they're a group of seven boys who basically do nothing but eat and sweat, so predictably, there are a lot of clothes to wash. What sometimes happens is that someone will walk around the apartment and pick up all the clothing randomly decorating the floor, furniture, appliances - in short, everything - and let everyone else know that he was going for a laundry run. That was the laundry-call. Within the time that the person spent picking up scattered clothes, the other members had a few desperate minutes to sort through their own rooms for anything else that needed washing, and get it to the caller before he left for the laundry room in the basement of the building.
But no one likes picking up anyone else's stained, smelly clothes (especially underwear and especially socks), so predictably, laundry rarely gets done in their dorm. Minjae hyung made an alternating schedule for it, but it's over three months backed up so everyone’s always trying to trade spots with someone else. Basically, their laundry only gets done when someone runs out of clothes and is desperate enough to do it.
The solution is simple, Jay thinks. If you're too lazy to put your clothes in the hamper, then tough, they're not going to be collected for you. They'll stay dirty until you do your own laundry. Running out of clothes to wear is one of the worst situations imaginable to an idol, so Jay predicts that by the end of the week, everyone's going to be running to the hamper as often as they run to the fridge.
Jay ends up being right about this, but that's the problem.
On Saturday, three days after Jay's implemented his new household rules, Wooyoung pokes his head into his room while Jay's exercising. "Hyung," he says, "the hamper's full."
"Already?" In three days? Did they have that many clothes? "Well, go empty it then," Jay says. God, Wooyoung was so dumb sometimes.
"It's not my turn this week. It's Taecyeon hyung's."
"So go tell him to do it."
"I did. He said that he did his turn on Wednesday."
"Then get the next person on the list."
"That's you."
"What?" Jay says. "I did it last week!"
"Yeah, but you were doing it during Junsu hyung's turn."
"So tell Junsu to take my turn."
"Um. Okay," and Wooyoung shuffles away. Jay goes back to his push ups.
A few minutes later, Wooyoung returns. "He said it's not his turn because he made up for Chansung's turn last last week. So I went to Chansung but he said that he definitely did the laundry last last week. So I asked Junho and he said that Junsu and Chansung both did separate loads at different times of the day, but he can’t do it either because he’s cramming for his midterm. Do you--"
"Holy fuck, fine, I'll do it," Jay says. He's in a group with a bunch of preschoolers.
So Jay heads downstairs with the laundry basket and the detergent (one day, Jay vows to himself, one day they will be able to afford fabric softener). He's in the middle of sorting out the whites into the washing machine when Nichkhun dashes into the laundry room, carrying a bundle of shirts.
"Ah! Ah ah ah!" Jay says, quickly lowering the lid of the machine before Nichkhun can throw his clothes in. "Your stuff wasn't in the hamper; they don't get washed."
"But I'm here now!" Nichkhun protests. "And you haven't started the load yet. I can just put them in!"
"No! It's against the rules! If I don't do this you'll never learn to use the hamper!"
"I promise I'll use the hamper from now on. Jay, please?"
Usually, Nichkhun's kicked puppy expression would have worked wonders to get him whatever he wanted, but Jay can't give in this time: he can't afford to be lax with his own rules. If Jay makes an exception here then everyone will call him out for being Khun-biased (which, by the way, is one of the most unfair terms ever because everyone is Khun-biased, even Jay's mom, and this is when Jay does nothing but trash talk Khun to her on the phone -- mostly lies, but like she'd ever find out), and his rules will lose credibility. Use your iron fist, Jay reminds himself. It's about showing who's boss around here, and it's for their own good, anyway.
"No," Jay says resolutely.
"Come on, that's not fair," Nichkhun says, huge eyebrows furrowing. "I was in Thailand; you can't say that's my fault."
"You should've emptied your suitcase as soon as you got back this morning," Jay says. "You knew the rules."
"I didn't know you were going to do the laundry today! It's Saturday, not Sunday."
"The hamper was full."
"It wasn't this morning."
"You could've checked again afterwards," Jay says, holding firm. "Just get another machine and do it yourself."
"But you're right here. And you haven't started washing yet."
Jay turns two dials and presses the on button; the water whirs. "Yes I have."
Nichkhun's mouth drops opens like he can't believe Jay just did that. "Fine, be mean." He purses his lips. "Just to tell you though, I bought everyone packs of dang mo pan candy and now you can't have one."
"What!" Jay yells. He loves those stupidly delicious things. They're one of the only reasons Jay ever cares when Nichkhun goes to Thailand. "You can't deprive me just because I'm upholding the rules."
"I can deprive you because you're being an ass," Nichkhun says, and goes to find another empty washing machine.
When Jay gets back upstairs, he's bombarded by dirty clothes as soon as he opens the door. He sputters as some of them land on his head.
"Junsu hyung and Taec hyung cleaned their room," Chansung explains as he walks by, popping a handful of Nichkhun's candy into his mouth.
Jay pulls a still damp wife-beater off his face and hates life.
Rule no. 2: Disposables must be put into the trash can. Disposables not put into the trash will be relocated to their owner's bed. The last person to fill the trash can is responsible for taking it out.
Jay wakes up to the sound of heavy footsteps. He gropes under his pillow for his cell phone to check the time; it's almost three a.m. Taec must be back from his recording. Jay closes his eyes. Sleep... sleep... sle--
"Wh-what are you doing?!" Chansung's voice rings out from the living room.
"I should ask you the same thing!" Taec's voice shouts back.
"I wasn't doing anything! I was sleeping!"
"You left all this crap on my bed!"
"These? I didn't do that!"
"You're telling me it wasn't you who ate all my dried mangoes?"
There's a pause.
"But I didn't put the bags on your bed!" Chansung says. "I left them... uh. Oh."
"See!" Taecyeon's tone is accusatory. "It's totally your fault!"
"I forgot the rule, okay. Geez, sorry. ...But it doesn't mean you have to dump all this stuff on me while I'm asleep!"
"Oh, and I suppose it's so much better to come home after three hours of recording to find your snacks eaten and sticky preservative powder spilled all over your blankets?"
Jay can dimly hear Wooyoung's voice whining something about sleep and can it wait and this is so lame you guys, who caaaares about the stupid bags, just go throw them out already. Then, increasing in volume, "Ow, hold on, not the face! Don't-- ah, AH, NO BITING, NO BITING!!"
"Hyung," Junho mutters from his bed, voice muffled by his pillows. "You have to go talk to them." He pulls his covers up to hide his head.
"Me?" Jay gapes. "Why me? Why not Minjae hyung? Or you? They like you. You go do it."
"You're the leader," Junho says, sounding annoyed.
"Their fight is their own business."
"They're arguing about your rules right now, aren't they?" Junho sighs, covering his ears when Taecyeon lets out a particularly loud shriek. "Hurry up, before Wooyoung starts fake crying. Then you'll get Khun hyung upset."
"Ugh, fine," Jay snaps, throwing off his covers. "Bunch of pussies, waking up the whole damn house, can't believe they can't just man up and grow a pair. That includes you, by the way," he says, slapping Junho's ass as he walks out of the room.
Okay, so presumably the guys are in a bad mood right now. But how hard can it be to tell them to shut up and sit the fuck down? Jay's done it plenty of times before. It hasn't always worked, but at least he's done it before. Maybe if Jay just tells Taecyeon that it was him who put the bags on Taec's bed, and then pretends to apologize or something. It was actually Wooyoung, but it was Jay who told him to do it. Whatever, Chansung shouldn't have left the packages just lying there on the sofa; how was Jay supposed to know that it wasn't Taec who'd finished them? The point of the rule was to teach the litterer to not litter, and honestly, Jay hadn't expected playground-level fisticuffs to emerge from such a freaking simple concept. Damn, but who was he kidding, this was 2PM -- their collective maturity quotient would maybe hit high-schooler on a good day. Maybe he should have imposed a monetary fine for littering instead, like those highway signs. On second thought, no: 2PM members don't earn a lot and Jay's not that cruel.
In the living room, Taec has Chansung's neck caught under his armpit and Wooyoung on his back. Chansung's trying to bite Taecyeon's wrist but he can't quite reach because Wooyoung is pulling his head backwards by his hair. They all freeze when they see Jay.
"Go to bed," Jay orders. "Now."
Taec tsks and lets Chansung out of the headlock. Wooyoung slides off Taec's back, ducking his face sheepishly and lying back onto his futon. Chansung stretches his neck and his jaw a few times before flopping down onto the couch like a sack of potatoes.
"The bags--" Taec starts.
"Belong in the garbage can," Jay says snidely. He picks the plastic packages off the floor and stomps off to the kitchen. "I mean, are you two so stupid that you can't just put the--" Jay stops.
"Can's full." Taec sounds entirely too smug about this, that bastard. "You know the rules, hyung. Go take out the trash."
"Boy would I like to," Jay mutters, glaring at Taecyeon. He has never wanted to slap the huge idiotic grin right off of Taec's idiotic face so badly.
"Be quiet when you're leaving the apartment, if you please," Taecyeon adds, wiggling his eyebrows. "Everyone's trying to sleep." He scurries away before Jay can throw something at him.
Rule no. 3: Once a month, the apartment must be thoroughly cleaned. All members are expected to help out equally, with the exception of a huge mess created solely by specific members only -- then they alone are responsible for cleaning it up. A member who is found to be not doing their fair share of the work will be made the target of ridicule on 2PM's next variety show.
"We're drawing straws," Jay says.
"Rigged," Taec counters immediately.
"We're drawing straws," Jay says again.
"Can't we -- we should play a game or something instead," Chansung suggests. "Like arm wrestling, or just wrestling."
"We're drawing straws," Jay says, and motions to Khun to hurry the hell up with them already.
"Okay, here," Nichkhun smiles, holding up seven popsicle sticks in his fist. "Whatever your stick says, that's your job for today."
"Will this be okay?" Junsu asks. "You can't even spell."
"Sure I can. Anyway, it's legible."
"I'm skeptical."
"Wooyoung wrote half of them."
"But he's even worse than you."
"I'm what!"
"Can you fucking retards shut the hell up and pick a damn stick," Jay snarls.
So they each grab a popsicle stick. Jay ends up with one that reads watshing the windows. Not bad, Jay thinks. He'll have to climb on something to reach the high parts but he doesn't mind that. As long as he's not delegated to bathroom duty, then Jay is a happy man.
"Explain to me again why Min hyung isn't helping out?" Taecyeon asks. He's squinting at his stick, which Jay glances at: swaepping the flour.
"He cleans up after us enough of the time the rest of the month," Junho sighs. "He deserves his afternoon off."
"And we don't? We've been working hard too."
"Splitting the chores seven ways is going to make it go fast," Jay says. "So suck it up, ladies."
"This penmanship is terrible. I can't read it at all," Wooyoung says, moving his popsicle stick closer and farther from his eyes.
"You wrote it," Nichkhun says, taking it. "It says bathrooms." Then, seeing Wooyoung's expression, he adds, "I don't want to switch."
"No one wants to switch with you, Wooyoung," Junho says preemptively, heading towards the closet by the front door. He pushes it open, revealing the various types of cleaning equipment inside. "Grab your weapons, soldiers."
There's a brief scuffle between Chansung and Taec for the only pair of size large rubber gloves (Chansung wins when he reaches out and twists one of Taecyeon's nipples), but pretty soon all seven of them are busy at work, for once concentrating on getting the apartment clean instead of dirtying it up. Jay seriously considers hiring a TV crew to record this blessed moment for prosperity, but he's afraid that it'll give the impression that this is a special occasion (which it is, sort of), and that's no good. Jay wants this to be a regular occasion, or even better, a habit. If Jay weren't a hot-blooded man, he'd totally be making a page for this day in his scrapbook.
Though of course, since they’re 2PM, their serious work vibe doesn't manage to last for very long. Jay's peacefully wiping bird shit off of his window ledge, humming cartoon theme songs to himself, when he hears someone holler. Junsu? And then something crashes. Jay perks up. That sounded expensive.
"Oh dude," Taecyeon shouts. Jay turns around to see him rushing down the hall towards Khun's room.
"Yo, it was an accident!" It's Junsu's voice, sounding anxious.
Everyone hurries to the scene of the crime to see Junsu standing in the middle of the room with a feather duster in one hand, a damp cloth in the other, and shards of glass at his feet. It’s a broken picture frame. Oh, oh, it's Khun's picture. The one that his fans made him: a collage of his face made composed of hundreds of his smaller faces. Khun's favourite fan gift. And Junsu had broken it.
"Yikes," Wooyoung says, squeezing in between Jay and Junho to get a better look. He'd tied a bandana around his head, like Jay's grandmother did when she went grocery shopping. Behind Wooyoung, is Nichkhun, who's as pale as Jay has ever seen him, and that's saying something.
Nichkhun blinks once, twice, and purses his lips unhappily. Everyone watches silently as he bends down to pick up what's left of the portrait.
"Hey, listen man," Junsu says, "I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to, really. I was dusting the top of your bookshelf, right? And I jabbed out my elbow too far and it just pushed the frame over the edge, so, uh. Yeah. Sorry."
Nichkhun sighs. "It was an accident," he says softly. "The picture's a bit ripped here, but I can tape it back together. And I can buy a new frame." He puts a hand on Junsu's shoulder, looking concerned. "Did you get any glass on you?"
Good fucking grief, Jay thinks. Khun is so fucking nice sometimes it makes Jay want to kick a puppy out of spite.
"Uh," Junsu mutters. "Uh, no, no. I'm good."
"Okay. We should get this mess swept away though, before someone gets hurt."
"Taecyeon's job," Junho says. "He's the sweeper."
"Doesn't this count under a 'mess created solely by a specific member'?" Taecyeon asks. "Shouldn't Junsu clean it up?"
"Just do it," Jay tells him. "Why didn't you offer to help Junsu clean the top shelf? You're tallest."
"I was in my room! What, you expect me to see through walls?"
"Wait, wait," Junsu says. "Since Taecyeon is tallest, then shouldn't he be given all the tall-chores by default? It's easiest for him."
"Hey, so Jaebeom hyung should get all the short chores, right?" Wooyoung interjects, face hopeful. "Like, scrubbing the toilet, right?"
"No, no. Sweeping would be the short chore," Jay says.
"No, sweeping would be the medium-height chore, since you get the broom," Junsu corrects.
Junho crosses his arms. "Half of us are the same height anyway, and we can't all do the same chore."
Taecyeon frowns. "Wait, so Chansung and I have to do all the tall chores? Why the height discrimination? You can just use a chair or something. Just because Junsu hyung's stiff and clumsy, we have to do his job for him?"
"Stiff? Stiff and clumsy?" Junsu repeats, punching Taecyeon. He shouldn't have, in retrospect. Despite Taec's height, he's easy to push over, and since he was trying to avoid getting a foot full of glass shards, Taec grabs onto Chansung, who loses his balance and topples into Junho, whose hand flails up to smack Wooyoung in the face, who takes a step back and bumps hard into Jay. Jay bumps into Nichkhun's desk, where Nichkhun had recently placed a vase of flowers delivered to him from an older fan (for no occasion whatsoever actually... not that Jay was jealous or anything), and the vase wobbles, tips, and, well.
Crash, goes the porcelain. Splash, goes the water.
"My flowers!" Nichkhun cries.
"Your mess!" everyone says, simultaneously pointing at Jay.
So Jay ends up cleaning up the water, the flowers, the vase, and the picture frame, and the incident is brought up on their next radio interview because everyone in his group is an immature shithead who purposely ignores their leader when he's making the ix-nay-on-the-ase-vay-since-I-didn't-break-the-third-ule-ray signal. (The interviewers ask Jay if he's feeling unwell today, because what is that face he's making?) Jay's UFO page gets spammed with hundreds of messages that afternoon, all from rabid Khun fans devastated that Jay had broken Nichkhun's precious painting and delicate flower vase. Jay has no idea how his name also got attached to something Junsu obviously did, but apparently that's how the rumour mill works: against Jay. In the following few days, Khun gets sent a total of seventeen bouquets of flowers through the fanclub (including one from their PD noona - kind of heartbreaking, since Jay had always thought that he was her favourite 2PM member), runs out of space on his desk, and so relocates some of them to Junho and Jay's room.
At night, Jay can hear the flowers laughing at him.
Oh, shit.
Jay gets it now. He sees this for what it is. How could he have failed to notice it before?
Conspiracy.
Rule no. 4: Use proper bathroom etiquette. Examples include but are not limited to: trying to keep bottles, combs, razors, etc, from taking up too much space on the counter, wiping up water around the sink, unclogging whatever you clog up. Members who are found to be making other members' bathroom experiences needlessly unpleasant will be responsible for bathroom scrubbing the following week.
Jay's going to tread carefully from now on. Sharp and watchful are going to be his middle names, as well as cautious, stealthy, and able-to-see-through-whatever-is-there-to-be-seen-through. Now that Jay knows that the rest of them are conspiring against him, he refuses to leave himself open for any kind of attack. No vulnerability in the midst of the battlefield. Wait. Maybe battlefield isn't the right word. Or maybe it is. Something explosive seems to happening today, at any rate.
"Oh my God," Wooyoung is bleating from the washroom, voice faint. "Oh my God oh my God oh my God."
"Wooyoungie, come on," Nichkhun pleads, twisting the doorknob to no avail. "We can help, just open up."
"Hyung," Chansung calls, pressing his ear to door of the other washroom, opposite Wooyoung's, "are you going to come out?"
"NO," Junho's voice answers. "I am most definitely not. Where's Minjae hyung? HYUNG, CAN YOU GO BUY THREE BOTTLES OF CONCEALER?"
"He went to do the laundry," Chansung says.
After a beat, Junho yells, "He must have left on purpose! He knew about this!!"
"About what?" Nichkhun yells back at Junho's door, sounding desperate. "What's going on?"
"MY HAIR," Wooyoung wails.
Jay, standing at the end of the hall, takes in the scene with wide eyes. He has no idea what is happening. They'd just come home from their last performance, everything was fine, they were planning to wash off their makeup before heading down to dance practice: the usual routine. Junho and Wooyoung had won rock-paper-scissors, so they got to use the washrooms first. Jay was just lounging in the living room, staring at nothing, when he first heard Junho's scream, closely followed by Wooyoung's. So they'd rushed over, but the others had refused to unlock the doors. And now Junho's telling Chansung to call Minjae hyung right this instant, and Nichkhun is trying to persuade Wooyoung not to use the scissors without supervision, and Jay is more than a little bewildered and at a loss for what to do -- when he hears someone snickering behind him. Jay whips around to see Taecyeon and Junsu, sprawled on the couch, muffling their faces with the throw pillows to hide their laughter.
"You guys did this, eh?" Jay hisses, marching over to them and punching Taecyeon in the back.
"AH," Taecyeon shrieks, but he's still grinning. Junsu holds up his hand and they slap each other a high-five before dissolving into more laughter.
"Huh," Jay says. Suddenly things are making a lot more sense.
Yesterday, Minjae hyung had ordered a massive cleanup of the washrooms. Empty bottles, out. Makeup and skin care, hidden away. Any lingering hairs, gone. They couldn't leave any trace of the products they used to become the hot idols they were supposed to be, because a filming crew was scheduled to stop by the apartment to expose every nook and cranny that had not been exposed enough on their previous Let's Sleep Here Tonight episode or Wild Bunny. Personally, Jay didn't understand why anyone cared so much about what their rooms looked like, but the netizens hath spoken; they needed to know what they needed to know, and apparently they were overcome with burning questions like what colour 2PM's towels were, if they had individual shower caps, and whether they used electric or normal toothbrushes. It was just another note in an ever-growing mental list Jay had labelled "Korean fans, get used to it."
Jay hadn't known which show the film crew belonged to, but since it gave a good excuse to purge the washrooms of all its excess clutter, Jay hadn't bothered to ask. As far as he knew, their job was to clean the house and then go off on their regular schedule while the filming went on, and everyone would be gone by the time they got home. It's only now that Jay realizes that filming hadn't finished at all. In fact, it had only just begun.
So that's why Taec and Junsu hadn't been with them for most of the morning. And that's why Minjae hyung had been stuttering non-stop for the whole day. Jay should have known. They were in on the whole thing.
Pranking via toiletries.
Wow, had Jay ever dodged a bullet today. He'd nearly won that game of rock-paper-scissors.
Chansung screams when Junho finally emerges from the washroom. Junho’s cheeks and eyes are streaked in a dark purple and the shadowing makes the scowl on his face look ten times scarier than usual. Wooyoung comes out next, and Jay breathes a sigh of relief to see that his face is fine. But then Wooyoung turns his head and everyone can see: behind his right ear, there's an area about the width of three fingers where the hair has been noticeably thinned out.
Taecyeon howls with laughter. Junsu is covering his face with his arm and slapping the sofa, his shoulders shaking.
"There was some sort of gel on my brush," Wooyoung explains, "and I didn't see it. It left this big streak of yellow on my hair and when I tried to wash it out, all this hair came off. Like. Right off." He pulls out a few more strands. "Look! What is this!"
"Some kind of bleach?" Nichkhun says, patting the tender area.
"I don't know!"
"Ask those two," Junho nods his head towards Taecyeon and Junsu. "Seems like they're not very surprised by any of this."
"Oi! Yours'll wash off!" Junsu calls. "Just let it dry first."
"Did you dump out all of my face wash to replace it with this dye?" Junho glares.
"The show's producers said they'll buy you a new bottle," Taec says, still giggling.
Nichkhun frowns. "Did we only clean up the washrooms so it'd be easier for them to sabotage our stuff?"
"And to make it easier for them to put in hidden cameras," Taecyeon adds.
"HIDDEN CAMERAS?" Junho says, stalking over to him. "IN THE WASHROOM??"
"Not filming the toilet or anything! And there's no sound wired up, so - hey, OW, OW!"
Jay has a bad feeling that the show's not over yet. He flits his eyes up to the corners of the apartment walls. The cameras leftover from Wild Bunny had been turned back on, red lights blinking. Jay hadn't noticed, damn. "What else did you guys do?" he demands.
Junsu licks his lips. "That's it for us. Maybe there's some other stuff that Minjae hyung arranged? I'm not sure. Really not sure."
"He's doing the laundry," Chansung mentions again.
"He won't, like... dye all our clothes purple, will he?" Wooyoung asks.
Junsu's mouth drops open. "He wouldn't do th-- he can't." He jumps to his feet and dashes out of the apartment.
Nichkhun wraps a comforting arm around Wooyoung's shoulders and narrows his eyes at Jay. "Hyung, I hope you know you started all of this."
"Me!" Jay yelps. "What did I do?!"
The answer is nothing. Jay did nothing, but apparently he was supposed to have done something. What kind of crappy reasoning is that, Jay wonders, and he’s about to say something back when Junsu returns in defeat, carrying an armload of bright pink clothes. Nichkhun takes this as adequate grounds to make Jay the bathroom maid for following week. (Jay argues that since he's the one who had written the rules, he's logically the only one who can dish out the penalties, but they take a vote and those bastards outnumber Jay six to one.)
"This is a conspiracy," Jay says, as the other members sort through the wreckage that is their laundry basket (only Jay's clothes are safe, since they were all pink to begin with). "Don't think I haven't caught on. I have. And it's a conspiracy."
"You're paranoid," Junsu says.
"Of course you'd say that," Jay snaps. "You're an instigator."
The only bright side of the whole thing is that the show ends up getting huge ratings and nothing particularly embarrassing happened to Jay for it. That is, until the crew decides to come back for a sequel.
Rule no. 5: If the food is take-out, every member is responsible for cleaning up their own mess. If the food is home-cooked, the members who did not cook are responsible for the clean-up, with the exception of any microwave/oven/stove-top explosions caused by negligence or sheer stupidity of the cooks -- then the cook(s) must clean up that mess himself. Unwashed dishes cannot be left in the sink for longer than 48 hours.
Okay, enough of this bullshit.
Jay's done with cleaning up other people's messes. Alright, so as leadja he does have a certain responsibility to make sure that his team is happy and healthy, and if sometimes that means he has to pick up the slack for others, then Jay's happy to do it. He's pretty sure it's even written in his contract somewhere (and considering the length of that damn thing, was it Jay's fault that he skipped a few pages here and there?) that if Nichkhun ever embarrasses himself in public in some way that needs immediate action, Jay is legally required to take the rap for him to save Nichkhun's image. But nowhere does it state in his contract, nor in any moral sense is Jay obligated, to be continually be the brunt of some cruel joke where his own rules of the household are being turned against him. That is just not on. Jay has to assert his dominance or they’re never going to listen to anything he says ever again.
It's Park Jaebeom versus the Rest, and Jay's determined to come out the victor. He has the right. They're his freaking rules. He's lost the battle with the first four rules, but he's not going to lose the war. Damned if Jay is going to pick up another speck that he doesn't have to.
Which is why he decided to cook dinner for everyone today. It's a tactical move on his part: according to the new rules, if Jay cooks the meal, then he's exempt from having to clean it up. As long as he doesn't make a huge idiotic mess while he's cooking. And of course he's not going to. Just because Jay's dishes taste like a cat's litter box (Wooyoung's words, not Jay's) doesn't mean he's an oaf in the kitchen. He knows things. Oil is flammable, no shiny metals in the microwave, and utensils that touch raw meat should not touch anything else. See. No sweat.
"You're cooking?" Junsu says, walking into the kitchen. "Who's getting punished?"
"Uh, shut the hell up," Jay answers. "And hand me the salt."
"Why aren't we getting take-out?" Junsu asks, handing him the salt.
"It's good to have a home-cooked meal every now and then, isn't it?" Jay smiles, in a way that hopefully looks innocent. "Now go away and wait for your food like a good little boy."
Junsu raises an eyebrow at him, but dutifully leaves the room, muttering something about giving poison control advance notice. Jay pretends not to hear. It's not like Junsu can talk anyway. Jay never sees him volunteer to make everyone something to eat when they trudge home tired and starving at 3 a.m. in the morning and all the restaurants nearby are closed for the night. It's usually Minjae hyung, Nichkhun, Junho, or Taecyeon who does it. Taecyeon's the best cook out of all of them because he can make simple things like rice and pasta pretty okay (as opposed to like, burning the water, as Jay's done before) but the trouble is that Taecyeon often likes to go "gourmet," and his gourmet style is like his clothing style: loud, garish, and prone to nightmarish combinations. Still, there's something to be said for edibility, and Taec's skill in that is something Jay has not yet managed to match.
Well, kill two birds with one stone, right? Jay can get practice in the kitchen and avoid clean-up duties. He should have thought of this years ago.
"Aaah," Taecyeon says, as Jay's carefully setting down the pot into the centre of the table. "Here it comes."
"Aaah," Junsu echoes.
"What is it?" Wooyoung asks, taking the lid off the pot.
"It's meatball stew," Jay says proudly. "My mom's American-Korean recipe.” He eyes the hat covering Wooyoung’s head. “Why are you wearing a beanie inside the house? We already know what your hair looks like.”
“My head is cold,” Wooyoung sniffs.
Junho takes the ladle and prods inside the soup. "Where are the meatballs?" he asks.
"They're at the bottom of the pot. I guess they're a bit heavy."
"I see," Junho says, tone flat.
Jay levels a pair of chopsticks at him. "Don't even start. They taste fine, okay? I just tried one; they're fine."
"I'm sure they're delicious," Nichkhun says kindly. "Everyone, let's thank Jaebeom hyung for the meal."
There's a vague chorus of "thank you for the food"s and Jay smiles as he serves everyone, feeling accomplished. He wonders if he should put some meatballs and pasta in a container to save for Minjae hyung. Wouldn't he be so pleased to come home from a long evening of meetings to find a delicious home-made dinner ready and waiting for him?
Okay, cut off that train of thought right there. Jay's not a freaking housewife. Minjae hyung can starve in a gutter for all Jay cares.
"This actually isn't that bad," Junsu voices, after everyone's had their first taste of the food.
"I sort of like this level of chewiness," Wooyoung adds, giving Jay a thumbs up. Jay beams.
Chansung picks up the ladle in the pot and pours a generous helping of the thick soup over his plate of pasta. "The sauce is good," he says. "It makes the noodles less hard."
"You see!" Jay grins. "I'm pretty much a master chef. And, because I've cooked such a delicious and nutritious meal for you all, you guys all have to pitch in to clean up, right? So, yeah. Don't forget later, or something."
Junho smiles weakly. "I'm sure you'll remind us."
Jay does.
~
"What the--" Junho says, surveying the kitchen. "When did a tornado pass through here?"
"What," Jay frowns. "It's not that bad."
It's not as bad as tornado wreckage, but maybe it's pretty close. Pots and pans everywhere, tomato sauce spilt all over the countertops, some stray noodles on the ground, the styrofoam containers that contained the ground beef tossed haphazardly into the sink... well! It wasn't like Jay purposely made as big of a mess as he could to get back at the others in a completely justifiable revenge. Jay just happened to use a lot of cooking utensils, a lot of ingredients, and a lot of space. So it's a big mess. That's the sacrifice that has to be made to prepare a great meal.
"It looks like that scene from a movie I saw," Chansung murmurs, pushing past Jay. "Like, after all the bad guys raided the house."
"And we're supposed to clean this up?" Junho continues. "Before we can sleep?"
"How long can it possibly take you?" Jay asks, curious.
Junho sighs. "I guess we'll see."
~
It takes them a while.
It's nearing 9 p.m. when Jay is abruptly woken up from his nap by the sound of arguing. At first he thinks that it's Taecyeon and Chansung getting into another fight about rule 2, but on a closer listen, he realizes that it's all of them talking at once. And no one sounds very happy.
"Wooyoung, I just wiped up that spot!"
"Oh, you did? Who could tell? There were still tomato sauce stains all over it."
"Where do these pots go?"
"In the left bottom cupboard -- left, Chansung ah. No, left."
"There's no room."
"Then put them somewhere else. Don't stuff them in there! WAIT--"
Crashing.
"Oh, lovely."
"For the love of-- Can't you guys do anything?"
"My mom always took care of this stuff for me."
"But we've been living together for a year! How have you managed to avoid helping out with this sort of thing for so long?"
"I... don't know."
"Hey, hey. Did any of you see a pile of salt in the corner? I thought I swept it up, but now it's gone--"
"Oh. Yeah. Whoops. I guess I stepped in it."
"I'm going to kill you."
"Bring it."
More crashing.
"PUT DOWN THE KNIFE, PUT DOWN THE KNIFE."
Jay decides to get out of bed.
Maybe it was a mistake to cram six tall boys into one tiny kitchen, because when Jay gets there, all he can see is calamity. They seem to have managed to tidy up all of Jay's cooking mess, but by creating an entirely new mess in the process: one made with cleaning supplies. Is it because there's too many of them trying to do everything at once? They didn't have any major problems when they cleaned the apartment together (although granted, for that, they had their tasks assigned to them, and the space was a lot bigger). If this weren't such a stupid situation, Jay might've been impressed with them.
Junsu hastily puts down his knife when he sees Jay standing at the doorway.
"What the fuck," Jay eloquently says.
"It's Taec's fault," Chansung says immediately.
Taecyeon isn't even in the room. "Where is he?"
"He got stabbed with a fork so he's in the bathroom crying over his boo-boo."
"He's been in there for almost twenty minutes," Junho says, checking his watch.
"Is he dead?"
"He's probably sleeping in the bathtub."
Junsu clicks his tongue. "That guy. He's clever, I'll give him that."
"He’s avoiding duties?" Wooyoung asks. "Shouldn't he get a punishment for that?"
"That's not part of rule 5," Nichkhun says, reading the list still posted on the fridge.
"I thought it was like an implied thing."
"No one said that," Taecyeon says, padding back into the kitchen. "If it's not stated explicitly, it's not a rule."
"What is this, a court room?" Wooyoung says peevishly.
"I wasn't avoiding duties, by the way. You tried to murder me." He holds up his right palm, which is covered with two band-aids. (Just where did he manage to find those, Jay wonders.)
"I said I was sorry!"
"I'm adding a rule to the list," Taecyeon says, ripping the paper from the fridge magnet. "All members who purposefully attempt bodily harm on another member have to be that member's slave for the day."
"What!" Wooyoung squawks. "You can't just go around making up rules willy-nilly!"
"What if I said I wanted to clean up our beastly image just like Jay hyung wanted to clean up the apartment?"
"You?" Chansung laughs. "But -- you! You're the one who has that image the most!"
"Which is why it's my responsibility to engineer a change." Taecyeon says firmly. "I'm sick of getting all these injuries because we keep beating each other up."
Junsu scoffs. "I'm not going to follow your stupid rules."
"Oh, because I'm not older than you?"
"I didn't say that."
"Guys," Nichkhun says, holding up his hands. "Let's just relax for a second, okay? If Taecyeon sshi wants to change some things, let's hear him out, alright?"
"No, no," Junsu shakes his head. "Why should we? He's done the least amount of work since Jay's implemented his new rules, so he shouldn't be able to just pull things to his favour just because he got a paper cut."
"I have four holes in my freaking palm!" Taec says, glaring at Wooyoung.
"I told you it was an accident!” Wooyoung balks. “Anyway, it's because Chansung bumped into me."
"Wh-why are you bringing me into this!"
"Let me see the rules," Junho says, reaching for the paper in Taec's hands.
"No," Taecyeon pulls away. "I need to make some changes."
"That's not fair," Junho argues. "If you can make changes then we all should get an equal say in it."
"Taecyeon," Nichkhun says, "give us the rules back. You're being purposely malicious."
Taecyeon doesn't relinquish the paper. "Big word there, for the Thai Prince," he says, voice low.
Nichkhun's expression darkens. Everyone takes a step back from him.
Jay sucks in a deep breath. This isn't good. Things are getting out of control -- they already are out of control. Jay hadn't wanted to start up any fights when he'd made those rules; heck, they were supposed to make living together a lot more peaceful, not the other way around. And now everyone is at everyone else's throats about who should be doing what and dammit, Jay isn't a guidance counselor or a mom, he doesn't know how to solve tense emotional issues. But he's leader, right? He has to do something. Because Nichkhun getting angry is never a good sign, Taecyeon getting too serious is never a good sign, the unhappy expression on Wooyoung's face right now is not a good sign. Jay has a responsibility to keep his team happy, and damned if he's going to let them have a huge fight over something as stupid as a set of household rules.
"Give me that thing," Jay snaps, and snatches the list out of Taecyeon's hands. Before anyone can say anything, he rips it in half.
"There! Okay!" he says loudly, ripping the paper again a few more times. "No more rules. At all. So no more need for lame-ass arguments." He lets the scraps drift to the ground. "Good now?"
There's a moment of silence while everyone stares at the pieces of paper littering Jay's feet. Jay breathes out slowly.
Junho suddenly looks up at Jay. He's grinning. "Are you going to clean that up?" he asks.
"I--" Jay starts to say, and watches as Taecyeon and Nichkhun high-five. Chansung jumps up and down a few times, laughing. Wooyoung and Junsu are covering their mouths, but it looks like they're trying not to laugh as well.
"I, uh," Jay says again. "Wait. What?"
Taecyeon slings an arm around Jay's shoulders and leans into his ear, snickering.
"Conspiracy," he whispers.
Rule no. 6: At least try to follow these rules. It's not like I'm expecting a miraculous turnaround here, but come on. Just make a little effort to clean up after yourselves and the apartment will be in pretty decent shape. Seriously. We’re a family now, and I want us to be a strong one.
"Come on, hyung," Wooyoung says, sitting down on Jay's bed. "It was just a stupid prank. Don't be upset, please? We have all your rules memorized anyway.” He pauses. “Okay maybe not. But I’m pretty sure I remember the general gist of them."
Jay’s curled around his biggest stuffed bear and is facing the wall. He refuses to speak civilly to such evil, evil children. "I hate you and I want you all to die an extremely painful death," he says slowly.
"But we love you, hyung," says Nichkhun’s voice. Someone pats Jay on the back.
"LIES. COMPLETE LIES," Jay yells, rolling away. "GET OUT OF MY LIFE."
"Hyung," Junho says, coming into the room. "Can you sulk somewhere else for a few minutes? I want to wash the sheets."
Hey now. Jay pushes himself onto his elbows. "You're washing the sheets?"
"Yeah," Junho says.
"Voluntarily?" Jay asks, blinking.
"Uh, yes? I mean, it's been a while since we've last washed them, right? I’ll do the pillowcases too."
"Yes!" Jay agrees enthusiastically. "Yes it has! They all need to be washed!"
Junho looks at Wooyoung, who twirls a finger next to his ear. "Uh, yes. So, can I take your sheets please?"
"Yes!"
Nichkhun and Junho are stripping Jay's bed when Junsu pokes his head into the room. "Min hyung just phoned; he should be back soon and he bought us KFC. Chansung's setting the table right now, so tell him quick if you want to eat too."
"But it's past ten," Nichkhun frowns. "What about his diet?"
Junsu shrugs. "He said he got extra exercise today by vacuuming the couches."
Jay stares for a second. "Chansungie vacuumed the couches? I didn't know that."
"You were at the gym. He spilled half a bag of chips on the big one so he said he might as well clean them both."
"HEY," Taec shouts from one of the washrooms. "WHO GOT WATER ALL OVER THE SINK COUNTER? WHERE'S THE CLOTH THING?"
"IT'S IN OUR ROOM," Junsu yells back. "I was using it to wipe away dust on my keyboard."
“I’ll tell Chansung to save some chicken for us,” Wooyoung says, toddling out.
Jay smiles. For some reason, he feels better.
(end)
Thank you for reading! My first real 2PM fic so any comments/crits are more than welcome! :)