All the music-show schedules finally wrapped tonight. Everyone came bursting out of the TV station like horses off the reins, unable to hide the rush in their chests, and made a beeline for a barbecue place to celebrate.

"Cheers!" Luke lifted his glass of orange juice high and clinked with the others.

The manager deliberately seated the nine members of collAGE together at a big round table—not only to give them a quiet corner to eat, but because three of the nine had clearly said they don't drink. At a company dinner, that can be... inconvenient. Better to keep them at one table and avoid trouble.

Just then, some TV-station staff from other tables came over with their glasses and started pushing drinks.

"Come on! Tonight we drink till we drop!" The first glass was shoved toward Cheol-seong, who was manning the grill. He hurried to set down the tongs, lifted his glass to be filled, gave a little nod—and downed it in one go.

"Not bad, kid. You can hold it! One more!" The second glass landed in front of him before he could say a word. He raised it and threw it back. The instant he put it down, they topped him off again. And again. And again. Eight, nine rounds later, the soju bottle ran dry and they finally paused. By then, Cheol-seong was coughing hard, the back-rush of liquor burning up into his nose.

Satisfied grins spread across the staffers' faces. They started hunting for their next target. "You, you, you—" Their eyes settled on Lan Yu; he knew at once they'd picked him. "Have a drink with us."

"Thanks, but no. I don't drink." The refusal left Lan Yu's mouth without a second thought, and for a few seconds the table froze, like someone had hit pause.

No one had expected Lan Yu to turn them down so flatly—including the ones doing the pressuring. Color rose and fell in their faces."You can't drink?" one of them asked through clenched teeth; Lan Yu could hear it in the way he bit off the words.

"I guess so," Lan Yu said with a shrug.

"So you do drink, huh? Come on, have one with us." He tipped the soju bottle toward Lan Yu's glass. "Everyone else has had a shot. Don't be the odd one out. Don't be a buzzkill."

Lan Yu slowly turned his glass over and set it mouth-down on the table. "I don't think me drinking would make this any more fun."

"You're kidding me, right? Don't be so uptight—what, are we strangers to you?" The staffer's tone made it plain he was seconds away from losing it, hanging on to the last thread of social courtesy.

Around the table, the members watched Lan Yu in a tight hush. Beside him, Cheol-seong gave the hem of Lan Yu's shirt a little tug, trying to keep him from locking horns. But Lan Yu ignored the threat tucked in the man's voice and said, unhurried, "I respect your right to be a drunk. Return the favor and respect my wish not to be a booze-crazed idiot. I came to enjoy dinner, not sign up for torture."

The moment Lan Yu spoke, the already stiff mood at the dinner table plunged to freezing. Everyone knew a fight was now inevitable.

"Hey, what kind of big-shot act is this? We ask you to drink and you act like it's life or death. You think being a star makes you special? Didn't you only get popular by riding some man's coattails?" Under the influence of alcohol, the staffer whom Lan Yu had just turned down flushed a furious red and shouted at him.

Lan Yu didn't budge. He shot him a cold side-eye. "What—did my 'riding some man's coattails' start putting money in your pocket? Whether I ride some man's coattails or not, what does that have to do with you pushing drinks on me? I'm not getting famous by pouring drinks for anyone. Sorry."

"Hyeong didn't mean it like that—please don't be upset," Cheol-seong jumped in first to keep the peace, turning to soothe Lan Yu.

Jiho stood up too, trying to block the staffers. "Sorry, everyone. Yu might be in a rough mood after the schedules lately. If he said anything that made you uncomfortable, I'll apologize on his behalf."

"Jiho hyeong," Lan Yu lifted his head and looked at Jiho, who was trying to calm the argument. "Why are you apologizing for me? I don't think I said anything wrong. You all, on the other hand—shouldn't you be apologizing to our Cheol-seong? Is he even close with any of you? You kept forcing drinks on him—can't you see he's still feeling the burn and unwell?" Lan Yu's gaze, cold and piercing, fixed on the handful of employees on the verge of an outburst.

"You little punk! Watch your mouth! Listen to yourself—what kind of language is that?!"

"Korean. If you'd rather I do Chinese or English, I can. If you can follow Japanese, I'll translate," Lan Yu shot back, ice-cold. "Even at its dirtiest, my mouth's cleaner than your booze breath—don't you think?"

"Y-y-you...!" The comeback—unyielding and precise—knocked them off balance. Speechless, they jabbed their fingers toward him, fishing for words.

"If you can't even come up with a comeback, go get your brain scanned. Odds are the booze has already fried your neural circuits—that's why you can't string a sentence together." Lan Yu didn't give him a chance to respond; he fired back, clean and direct. The staffer, thoroughly provoked, lunged at Lan Yu, and the members sprang to their feet, stepping between them to break it up.

The commotion turned every head in the restaurant. The manager hurried over to intervene, and the remaining TV-station staffers—some still mid‑bite—pushed in to help break it up.

Getting a few drunk adult men out of a brawl is no easy task; it took three or four people per man, talking them down and hauling them by the arms, before they were finally dragged clear of the fray.

Lan Yu stayed in his seat, watching the farce wind down.

After that dust-up, there was no salvaging the mood. The TV-station staff filtered out. collAGE trailed the manager as he apologized table to table, then stepped outside with him to the mouth of a side alley.

"Lan Yu, why did you do that?" Barely had they turned into the alley when the manager rounded on him, almost shouting, anger and bewilderment braided together. "Do you have any idea what this does to the group and the company? What if something had happened? You going to drag everyone down with you?"

"..." Lan Yu just looked at him, saying nothing.

Seeing that look only stoked the manager's fury. "So you don't care about your career, is that it? You had to blow it up this big to be satisfied?"

Cheol-seong hurried over and hugged Lan Yu's arm, trying to make peace. "Hyeong... let's cool down, yeah? Maybe give Manager-nim a proper apology?"

Lan Yu only sighed and looked back at the manager. "I honestly don't see what refusing unreasonable pressure to drink has to do with not caring about my career as an idol. I'm not the kind of person who can keep my head down when someone's being bullied. Is it wrong not to let my teammate be pushed around?"

"Since when is that 'bullied by his teammates'?" the manager shot back, his voice up an octave.

"How is that not bullying? They were forcing alcohol on Cheol-seong. Didn't you see he's still not recovered? If someone is made to do something against their will, that's bullying." Lan Yu's gaze sharpened.

"Cheol-seong, say it—were you bullied?" The manager's tone sharpened as his gaze locked on him.

"I..." Cheol-seong hesitated, unsure how to begin. Lan Yu cut him off at once. "You don't need to answer that question, Cheol-seong. A question like that is bullying in itself, isn't it? Why should the victim have to answer a question that only humiliates them?"

"You!" The manager was left speechless by Lan Yu's cutting retort; he hadn't expected Lan Yu to hit back without pulling any punches.

"…Hyeong…" Cheol-seong tugged Lan Yu's sleeve, head bowed, at a loss.

Lan Yu smoothed a hand over his head and said, gently, "It's all right—you did really well." Then he looked up at the manager and said, "I honestly don't think I did anything wrong. But if the company is going to treat this as a mistake, please don't drag the other members into it. If anyone has to be punished, let it be me alone."

The manager let the remark pass. He fixed his eyes on Lan Yu, his expression unreadable. Lan Yu met the look and didn't blink.

"Forget it," the manager said after a long beat. "There were only our people and the TV crew in there—no outsiders—so it won't blow up. And there's nothing else on the schedule after this. You're going to stay put and think it over for a bit."

Lan Yu could tell this was the moment when he was expected to add a word of thanks or an apology, but he simply refused. He kept his eyes fixed on the manager and let him finish.

The manager, as if he had anticipated just that from Lan Yu, finished speaking and walked off on his own, leaving Lan Yu and the others where they were.