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Jinu couldn't remember why he had agreed to do this. Maybe he just wasn’t paying attention.
Yet here he was with the other Saja Boys leaving a meeting about their upcoming appearance on a reality show called “Switch Up”. The show was to have a five episode special where the Saja Boys would have to switch their personas with one of their bandmates for a week, getting a task or scenario each day to complete while acting as the other. Who they would swap roles with was assigned at random. Since there was an odd number of them, one of them would be chosen to judge the others and decide who wins. The swaps were told to them individually before the meeting they had just left.
In an incredibly on-brand manner, Jinu was assigned to swap with Baby. It wasn't the worst option, but Jinu had been hoping to be able to avoid most of the chaos by being chosen as the judge.
Jinu was incredibly aware that no matter what he did, Baby would get revenge on him at some point. Yet, he was also closer to Baby than anyone else in the group, meaning Jinu could get incredibly specific, not that the audience would get it, or even the judge, but Baby would. Maybe I could have fun with this. Jinu thought to himself. Maybe I could throw in a few little things he only does around me. No one else would know.
It appeared that, when required to imitate Baby Saja, mischievous thoughts follow quickly.
Deciding on whether or not to be mischievous would need to be considered later. First Jinu needed supplies in order to fully act in his new role, especially if he wanted to look the part.
The five were in the limo heading back to their apartment from the studio after the meeting. The other four Saja Boys were eagerly discussing what they wanted to do for dinner, Baby and Romance quickly devolved into their normal arguing: Baby wanting takeout from his usual favorite place and Romance wanting to get dinner at a new upscale restaurant. Mystery, always finding compromises for the two, reminded them that they didn’t have to get dinner as a group.
Jinu pulled a small notepad out of his pocket, a promotional one that companies give out with their branding on it, along with the matching pen -Jinu had a habit of collecting them- and began writing a list of what he thought he might need in the way of supplies to help him act more like Baby. Filming was scheduled to start early the next morning and it was already rather late, there was not much time to pull his plans together and get supplies, Jinu had to carefully plan where he was going to go - if he was going to do this he was going to go all out, which would require several stops at different stores.
It had been a shockingly quick turnaround from Jinu complaining about the gimmick of the show and wanting to be the judge, to him becoming determined to be the best, and to win.
In his eagerness, Jinu failed to realize that he and Baby were assigned to swap roles. Just as Jinu was assigned to act like Baby, Baby was assigned to act like Jinu. Antics that Jinu tried would be quickly thrown back at him. This was going to be an interesting week for everyone involved.
The five had barely arrived back at their apartment when Jinu was already getting ready to leave again. The others were getting ready as well, it appeared that they had decided to go to the new restaurant that Romance wanted to try, even Baby was going to join the others for dinner.
Jinu only needed a handful of things, lollipops, some clothes that look like Baby’s, and maybe one of those bottles that Baby always brought with him to fan events. And he should probably grab dinner while he’s out.
Despite the short list, the apartment was silent when Jinu returned late that evening. Everyone else had already gone to bed for the night. Jinu stopped in the kitchen to grab chopsticks for his takeout, before heading up to his room. The day had been long and exhausting, Jinu finished his dinner and went straight to bed, not even bothering to fully unpack the bags of supplies he had acquired.
Filming was scheduled to begin bright and early the next day. The sun was barely visible in the sky when the buzz of an alarm rang through the master bedroom. Jinu had decided during his adventure the previous night that he would use the morning to practice acting like Baby before the five even left their apartment. Baby was infamously a menace anytime he needed to wake up before noon, and Jinu planned to play into that.
Jinu thumbed through the clothes he planned to wear for the week. Some he had acquired yesterday, a few things were pulled from his own closet, as well as the handful of pieces he had from Baby’s closet. Jinu tried, and struggled, to decide on an outfit for the day. He already had his outfit picked out for Friday, the deep purples, blues and reds matched the color palette of the upcoming album they were currently promoting, but he hadn’t organized any of the other clothes into actual outfits.
Jinu paused, realizing that his overthinking was not something that Baby would do. What would Baby do? He wondered to himself.
Baby would absolutely not have an outfit put together this early in the morning. He’d roll out of bed and get breakfast before attempting to actually think about anything. So that’s what Jinu did; he headed downstairs to get breakfast in his pajamas before making any decisions for the day. He headed out of his room and down the stairs, his hair messy, his face unwashed and his teeth unbrushed. It felt oddly…..freeing?
The smell of coffee brewing in the pot filled Jinu’s nose as he headed out of his room. He could hear all four of the other Saja Boys voices mingling in the kitchen. This meant Jinu was the last to wake up and start the morning.
Jinu was already doing well at acting like Baby.
He stopped at the bottom of the stairs noticing that the others had the same idea as him, they were already playing their new roles. Baby was at the stove attempting to make some sort of breakfast, already dressed for the day in a simple black hoodie-no doubt one of Jinu’s- and a pair of light blue jeans -likely also taken directly from Jinu’s closet. Romance and Mystery sat side-by-side at the kitchen island, having swapped their usual attire in a color coordinated manner that made it clear the two worked together on their outfits, the pink and purple of their outfits were reminiscent of the Saja Boy’s debut era. Abby must have been chosen as the judge. He was grabbing something from the pantry, wearing jeans and a button up that looked like it was about to burst - the typical outfit of his idol persona.
As Jinu made the brief walk from the bottom of the stairs to the kitchen, he noticed Mystery elbow Romance and point. Jinu suddenly felt self conscious, he could only imagine how much of a mess he currently looked, he hadn’t taken a moment to look at himself in the mirror before heading downstairs. Jinu did his best to ignore the duo and approached the stove to see what Baby was making.
“Really?” Baby asked, sounding unimpressed as his eyes scanned every inch of Jinu. “I do not look like that much of a disaster in the morning."
“No Baby, Jinu has you pinned down, your morning style is always like that.” Mystery piped up from behind them, doing his best at a solid attempt of mimicking Romance’s cadence.
The choice of words had Abby howling with laughter, nearly dropping what he had grabbed from the pantry.
Jinu took the opportunity to finally glance down at what Baby was attempting to make on the stove, he couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be. The sludge was so far from appetizing Jinu had to suppress a gag. Nothing should be that color of grey. “I should go get dressed.” Jinu announced as he rushed to head back upstairs before Baby tried to serve the dish.
“Not before you eat something.” Baby replied, but his tone was deadpan - not caring if Jinu ate or not.
Jinu grabbed the muffin from the counter that Abby had placed there moments ago for himself, before receding to the stairs.
“Good boy!” Baby called after him, sounding a strange mix of smug and proud.
“Hey!” Jinu could hear Abby's delayed complaint from halfway up the stairs, as he finally noticed the muffin had been stolen.
Jinu took his time getting ready for the day, first slowly consuming what he discovered was a delicious lemon-blueberry muffin, then doing an elaborate skincare routine, and continuing to be indecisive about his outfit for the day. Jinu waited until a few minutes after the Saja Boys had planned to leave to finally emerge from his room.
Just like when Baby took his sweet time and nearly made them late, the group didn’t say anything to Jinu when he returned downstairs, simply heading out the door as quick as possible, Mystery staying behind to make sure he was coming. Jinu quickly threw on his shoes, grabbed his keys and followed them outside.
The ride to the studio was unusually silent. Dressing and acting as someone else was uncomfortable and draining. While they regularly did that to an extent with their idol personas, the personas were essentially a more extreme version of their own personality, it was a different experience trying to act as someone else entirely. Behind the scenes also felt like a bizarre intersection of who they should act like and what they should say - dressed up as someone else but acting as yourself felt just as jarring as acting like the person you're dressing as - either way there was an incongruence.
The five arrived a few minutes before call and were ushered into pre-filming preparations which went by in a blur, as per usual. Despite the unusual stretches of somewhat uncomfortable silence, the excitement in the air was still as palpable as it had been the day before.
“Ten minute warning.” Someone called into their green room.
The five did their last minute checks, their role-swap having been forgotten as their typical pre-show habits set in. Baby crunched the last of his lollipop off the stick and got up off the green room couch to throw it in the trash. Romance checked his mic pack, and then again as if it would have disappeared in the seconds he looked away. Mystery fiddled with Romance’s hair, paying more attention than usual due to the switched styling. Abby briefly checked himself in the mirror before going to check on Jinu, who was reaching in his bag for some of the lollipops and other supplies he had picked up yesterday. Jinu couldn’t remember being this calm minutes before a show. He wondered if it was because he wasn’t technically the leader or if it was because he was playing a completely different character, rather than a fictional version of himself.
“Welcome to Switch Up!” The host announced. “Today we have some incredibly special guests joining us for five incredibly special episodes! Please welcome the Saja Boys!”
The clap track that followed was their cue, and the five filed onto the stage, waving excitedly to the cameras.
The announcer continued, animatedly moving around the stage and waving the hand that wasn’t holding the microphone. “Mystery, Romance, Jinu and Baby will try to perform tasks while ‘Switched Up’. Abby will judge the other four and decide who wins each task. At the end of the week a winning pair will be crowned.”
There was a pause for another clap track. “Their first task is quite mundane: ordering boba for the group!” The host turned to the Saja Boys, “contestants - you just got a text from your bandmates to pick up boba and bring it to rehearsal.”
The filming then took a break for everyone to move to the set of the boba shop. They were briefed on a few more details for the scene and the order was announced: Mystery, Jinu, Romance, and finally Baby. Abby was whisked away to a separate set to do his judging from a video feed of the scene where the others can’t see.
The set was surprisingly intricate, despite being an indoor set made for filming, it looked like a boba cafe on a street, complete with outdoor seating. The cafe even had a logo and its own menu. There were extras pretending to be customers inside the shop, which added to the feel of it being a real cafe. Jinu stopped to admire how realistic the lighting looked. The four were to wait at the otherwise empty outdoor seating before and after their turns.
Mystery was up first, and his challenge was the greatest. Romance was incredibly peculiar when he got boba for the group; he had an internal catalog of what drink each of his bandmates liked and disliked. Romance also frequently tries to order his bandmates something new that he thinks they might like, slowly considering whether they might like the new order. This leads to Romance always taking an impressive amount of time for such a simple task.
When given the go-ahead to do so, Mystery went into the boba shop. The others could see him through the windows of the cafe. He stared at the menu for an inordinate amount of time, occasionally mumbling to himself about possible orders. Mystery did not have the catalog for drink preferences that Romance has, leading to him basically guessing blindly at the specials menu hoping to choose something that the others like. He returned outside of the cafe with 5 drinks after a ridiculous forty five minutes in the shop. At a minimum, he got the timing correctly. Though that would turn out to be the only thing he got correctly.
Mystery ordered jelly for Baby’s drink and popping pearls for Abby’s drink, the two infamous for only liking tapioca pearls. Jinu’s drink smelled like roses, which was certainly something outside-the-box like Romance would choose, but a flower-tasting tea was not something that appealed to Jinu in the slightest. Romance’s drink had espresso in it, making the drink an unappealing murky brown color, despite Romance being one to care more about the aesthetics than the actual flavor of the drink. For himself, Mystery got a watermelon-flavored tea with starfruit jelly, which he ended up not liking, despite being the only one to drink his entire tea - the rest of his bandmates barely touched theirs.
Jinu was up next. When he received the cue that filming had begun for his section, he removed a lollipop from his pocket and unwrapped it, balling up the wrapper and setting it in front of Baby before sticking the candy in his mouth dramatically. He headed inside and looked at the menu for only a few minutes, most of his focus was on how foreign the lollipop felt in his mouth - the sensation definitely felt out of place for a reason Jinu couldn’t quite figure out.
He stepped up to the cashier, “one brown sugar milk tea with tapioca pearls.” The cashier stared back at him expectantly. “What? That's it!” Jinu replied with the single ounce of rudeness he could muster, trying to make it seem as if his patience had already evaporated. It took significantly longer than the few moments Jinu had looked at the menu before the drink was completed and his order was called. He spent the time trying to figure out how to get used to the sensation of the lollipop in his mouth, particularly if he was willing to keep up this bit for the rest of the week.
As he headed up to the counter, Jinu crunched the lollipop, just as Baby had before filming began, and grabbed the beverage. He threw away the lollipop stick and the straw wrapper before turning and heading out of the cafe, only carrying the one tea, to the shocked faces of his bandmates.
“Hey, if you guys wanted something you could have gotten it for yourself.” Jinu said smugly, sipping on his tea as he sat back down, he did his best to slouch in his seat the way Baby does, without looking awkward.
Only getting boba for himself is exactly what Baby does when asked to bring boba to practice, and is exactly what the fans would expect him to do. His bandmates were shocked that Jinu could get so into the game that he would be able to override every bone in his body that demanded he make sure everyone else is taken care of before himself. Baby’s nonchalant selfishness was not something the Saja Boys expected Jinu to be able to follow through with - even if it was just for a variety show appearance. Jinu’s need to take care of everyone else at the expense of himself was deeply ingrained.
Romance chuckled, a hint of nervousness present, “guess it's my turn then.” The cue for him to begin came shortly afterwards and he headed inside. He returned in 10 minutes flat with five of the same drink: taro milk tea with lychee popping boba, exactly like Mystery does when instructed to get boba for the group.
Jinu was tempted to complain like Baby does when Mystery brings tea that only he enjoys, but when Jinu opened his mouth the confidence he had evaporated and he remained silent, still sipping on the brown sugar boba from before.
Baby was the last one left to go, and suddenly Jinu’s mouth felt dry. There was something about Baby's disposition that unnerved Jinu. His own Boba trips were always the most boring - just getting the boba that everyone asked for, or what they usually ordered, not bothering with trying something new. But as far as Jinu knew, Baby didn’t have their normal boba orders memorized.
Is that really what I look like? Jinu wondered to himself as Baby walked inside and looked at the menu. Jinu studied Baby’s movements, self consciously looking for insight into how other people perceived him - looking for some deeper meaning in each of Baby’s movements.
Baby returned shortly with five different drinks. Brown sugar milk tea with tapioca pearls for himself - his go-to order. Taro milk tea with lychee popping pearls for Mystery - the only boba he will reliably enjoy. White milk tea with raspberry popping pearls for Romance - an order he gets frequently, and is likely what Jinu would default to ordering for him. Strawberry milk tea with tapioca pearls for Abby - which Abby has been talking about nonstop since Romance convinced him to try it a few weeks ago.
What thoroughly impressed Jinu was what Baby ordered for him, a green milk tea - no pearls. As much as Jinu enjoyed boba from time-to-time, he doesn’t love drinking pearls, especially not enough for more than one drink with them in a day. Jinu doesn’t remember ever verbalizing his opinion, and it hardly ever comes up in practice, leaving Jinu stunned that Baby had paid enough attention to him to even notice.
“Jinu?” He heard a familiar voice call his name. Jinu turned to look in the direction of the sound and noticed his vision was blurry - tears had welled up in his eyes, he wiped them away as casually as he could while he picked up the tea and held it up to his face, trying to cover up whatever his facial expression may be giving away. Jinu could hear Baby’s voice talking as his segment finished and the cameras stopped rolling.
“Yes?” Jinu responded after a beat, casually taking a sip of the tea, though still not lowering it.
“Do you want to go first for the individual interviews?” Romance asked and Jinu was finally able to look up at him.
“No, you guys can go first, I can go last.” Jinu replied, back to acting as himself now that the cameras weren’t rolling.
Romance nodded and got up from the table. It was then that Jinu noticed Mystery was also gone, leaving him and Baby alone.
Jinu had no idea what to say, he sat his tea down on the table and stared at it.
Baby pulled his phone out of his pocket and started casually strolling. It seemed as if he didn't want to talk, but in reality he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know what he could say at a place like this, somewhere so public compared to their usual moments alone at their penthouse.
Jinu hadn’t brought his phone onto set, he was too anxious for that, but Baby was always one to sneak his phone in, to the point where people on set who had worked with the Saja Boys before knew it was going to happen. This meant Jinu was stuck sitting in silence until it was his turn for the individual interviews. Jinu wasn’t sure he could sit in silence that long and tried to think of a reasonable conversation starter. He considered asking about the green tea that Baby had ordered for him, but it felt like too private of a conversation to have on the set, especially with how emotional Jinu had gotten.
Luckily, it wasn’t long before Romance returned, Baby didn’t even glance up from his phone making it Jinu’s turn. He got up from the table and followed the PA to the small set where they were filming individual interviews of the guys' hindsight reactions to what had just been filmed.
After the individual interviews were filmed there was one more scene before they wrapped for the day. Abby was going to announce who he chose as the winner for day one.
The four were sitting on a couch together, with Abby and the host standing nearby.
Much to his surprise, Jinu was chosen as the winner. The segment didn’t include much of an explanation as to why. That part would be added in post, leaving Jinu a bit confused but appreciative. He stood up from the couch and accepted the oversized token from Abby that symbolized his first place win, before sitting back down on the couch. The segment continued with Abby ranking the other three - Romance got second, Baby got third and, unsurprisingly, Mystery came in last place. A wrap on the day was called shortly after they filmed the segment.
The rest of the day was like the morning in reverse, the five relaxed in the dressing room for a bit, glad to be out of their characters after a long day of filming, then went to makeup to get their makeup removed, and then finally the Saja Boys were back in the limo on their way back to their apartment after a long day of filming.
By the time they had gotten to the limo, everyone was exhausted, eyelids were heavy, yawns were abundant, the five were all curled up together, prepared to nap even on the brief ride home. This had been one of their longest days of filming that the Saja Boys had experienced, and they had this schedule for four more days.
Despite his exhaustion, Jinu couldn’t push the question from his mind. “Abby, why did you pick me as the winner?”
Abby picked his head up and opened his eyes, slowly blinking the tiredness away in an effort to form a coherent thought, "because you acted like Baby?” He stated simply, as if the simple response was what Jinu was looking for.
Jinu tried to think of a follow up question, but before he could he was asleep.