Untitled, 2018

Chapter 31: Meet the Boys

Once we got in, we were greeted with... an organized mess. Everyone knew where they were going but it was teeming with people, from managers to cameramen to other randos- I think we saw some food caterers in the whole mix too. We just went straight towards the smell of food. BTS had landed again in Seoul an hour or two ago. I wondered if they were in the building today. I quickly pulled the camera out to capture the bustle. One man spotted and almost stopped me, and I instinctively shrunk immediately, but Kang spoke and quickly explained what we were doing. He looked at me sympathetically, and I gave a small, nervous smile.

As soon as we got to the room, I spotted Jungkook and Jin. Jungkook noticed us and whispered to Jin, who in turn waved hello to me. My face broke out into a huge smile as I waved back enthusiastically. Life is gooood.

I spotted a few of people I knew and walked up to them to say hi, and they did, surprisingly, remember me. I found out they had started planning rehearsals for the year-end shows.
"They just landed though?!"
"Yeah... its a rough schedule with the tour."
I nodded sympathetically, sincerely hoping the boys would be feeling okay.

Kang and I went to the hallway with the practice room, and I was once again wowed by the size of it all. I figured many of the people here were vendors and not part of the core company. We walked past a few locked doors, and I recognized a couple of them that were probably the new Genius Lab and Mon Studio— not that I'm bragging, but HAH I got to see them in person.

I scanned the dance practice room, which had several people in it (and was humongous), but my eyes stopped on a certain... shirtless dancer. I did a double take and stared at Hoseok, who was changing his shirt. I know, it's bad, but I was just a little taken aback more than anything else, so I couldn't help but freeze for a second. I let out a laugh and tried to muffle it, and hid behind Kang to contain my flustered squirming. We were greeted by two managers, who gave us a rundown of what they wanted filmed and what they didn't, and that they wanted to review footage before we left, because of protocol.

So once we had settled down in a corner, I put up a tripod and pulled out a smaller, cheaper camcorder to record some of the fun. I went from Hoseok practicing dance moves with Namjoon, to Taehyung, Jungkook, and Jin arguing about something stupid, to Yoongi and Jimin, sitting in another corner, on their phones. I couldn't help but zoom in on Jimin, looking seriously at his phone, scrolling animatedly. I zoomed in on his face and felt myself smiling stupidly.
Suddenly, I yelped when I felt a hand graze my arm. I shook the hand off and turned around: Taehyung. Everybody was looking at me so I shriveled up in embarrassment, but I also low-key glared at Taehyung. But he followed up the surprise of my yelp with a big smile, so I decided to immediately forgive him.

"Filming anything special?" He asked in his accent in English. He repeated 'special' a couple of times until he was satisfied.
I shook my head.
"Oh really?" He looked over my shoulder and I instinctively followed his gaze to briefly lock eyes with Jimin, who looked away, disinterested.

"Hey, why do you have a camera? Don't you do office work?" Taehyung asked suddenly, pulling my attention back to the fuzzy haired, rather tall boy. I guess he wanted to practice his English with me? I was more than happy to oblige.
"I know how to use a camera well and our team is pretty small, so I do this work because there's no one else to."
He nodded fervently, and then cracked into laughter, responding in Korean. "That was too fast for me. But wow, you're really good at both languages. How do you learn it?"
"Just, you know— apps and years of practice."
"Hmm but why Korean though?"
I laughed. "I'm a fan of kpop and kdramas, honestly. I've wanted to learn it for a while."
"Are we your favorite group?"
"Well, yeah of course... and Bigbang too."
Behind me, Hoseok shouted "Bigbang!" And did a complicated dance move to come closer to us.
He slid up so he lay on the floor next to me.
"Hey, am I really your favorite— wait why are you turning pale... are you getting nervous?"

I tried to stand up and stumbled miserably, getting more flustered by the attention of the guys by the second. "I— uh. I'm just a little amazed that I'm here with all of you."
Scattered laughter broke out among the boys and the staff. One lady who was fixing up Kang's papers patted my head and laughed, "Kids, you should take care of her. She's just flustered."

I sat up and sucked my lips in, unable to respond. "Let's go do something fun later with the staff. We have time after this practice. You wanna come?" Jin chimed in. I looked over at Kang and made puppy-dog eyes, and he rolled his eyes and nodded, giving me permission.
"Karaoke!" I blurted.
The lady who had patted my head earlier said, "Well, I think we'll stay back — take some of the other kids." I assume she meant the younger people on staff.

And so their preliminary practice began, as did a lot of discussion, dance practice, arguing, sweating, swearing, and finally, a proper outline of a performance. By the time it was 4 pm, they were all showered and changed, and walked towards the garage with me and a few others around their age I had to introduce myself to. Kang had gone wandering off a while ago, but I was enamored by the scene in the practice room and recorded that. Jimin still hadn't talked to me, and I guess he wouldn't really have wanted to in front of everyone.

We all got ready to leave for dinner, and I got into the car he wasn't in. Regardless, I had a great time chatting with Taehyung, Yoongi, and Hoseok. I got to know them the way I had had in mind when I dreamt of meeting my idols... unlike my first encounter with a certain BTS member...

At the karaoke place, we hopped out the car and I realized how cold the evening was getting. Shivering a little, I hopped over to the entrance bumping into Jimin, who turned around looking concerned, and then rolled his eyes when he saw it was me.
"Having fun? Meeting your favorite member?"
"What?"
He raised his eyebrows and indicated to Hoseok, who was strolling over to the entrance behind me.
I laughed, "Oh, no I love him but he's not—"
I stopped and Jimin scrunched his eyebrows (adorable). I just smiled, "Gosh you're kinda stupid."

What I didn't realize was that the rest of the members had gathered at the door and heard me insult Jimin like that, but I don't think he realized it either.
"Yeah that makes total sense coming from you."
"Hey I'm the one in a top research group."
He snorted. "You just eat chips and cry sometimes."
My jaw dropped and I looked around to see the other members looking at me carefully. I got embarrassed and pushed Jimin through the door. "That was once."

Once we were settled in, I announced to Namjoon and Jimin, who were on either side of me, "By the way, I really can't sing." Without missing a beat, they responded, "Me neither."
I looked between the two of them and just sighed, "Shut up." Namjoon laughed.

People. Were. So. Good. Everyone took it pretty laid back, so it was a nice lazy jamming session, but damn were they good. I was annoyed that even the staff could match vocals with BTS, and when my turn came, I suddenly got too embarrassed to sing and just sat in my chair looking stupid. Jimin pushed me up and I looked back at him, my eyes screaming BUT I'M REALLY BAD.
His screamed back, WHO CARES? (But also wow I realized he was wearing a plain T-shirt and jeans and killing it. I caught myself staring at his chest and looked away. Don't distract me, damn you).
I CARE, that's who.

I internalized in my brain that this was my moment to frickin SHINE, and clicked through the songs to find the perfect one. A smile crept onto my face as I walked to the stage; I was going for a grand entrance. Suddenly the beat dropped and I struck a frickin practiced-in-mirror-in-my-bathroom-cuz-I'm-a-STAR pose.
"My anaconda don't—"