Dinner with the in-laws went over better than expected. At least you all thought it had.
Until yesterday.
Luckily you hadn't been on the receiving end of the call, but you've never seen Namjoon so incensed.
PD Bang and by extension Choi, were furious. Not that you were planning on staying together, so much, as they resent the fact you neglected to tell them first.
You watched Joon sit on the pool steps, as you made lunch. Over hearing only his side of the conversation. Not that Choi really let him get a word in edgewise.
There were many frustrated 'yes but-" and "no its-" and "we-" but not much of a two sided conversation.
You're laying cheese on the bread for sandwiches when you hear the snap of his phone shutting, and an echoing yell. You jump spinning quickly, frightened by the sudden outburst.
"Oh! I'm sorry babe!" He apologizes rushing over to you, cupping your face gently, seeing how startled you were. "I didn't mean to scare you, I forgot you were in here."
"It's okay," smiling weakly, you turn back to the sandwiches, "What was the call about?"
"What was that????"
Taehyung and Jin burst in from the swinging door, panting.
"Sorry, that was me, I'm just, just frustrated." Joon says plopping down in a chair. "To answer your question, baby, that was Choi. Apparently, one of our parents who is requesting to stay anonymous, called Bang. They wanted him to persuade us to reconsider staying with Y/n."
"Oh shit."
"Yea."
"So- so what would we," You struggle to process. You were so sure that they had liked you well enough to be cordial and tolerant of the relationship. Sure they might not have agreed completely, but you didn't expect them to suggest getting rid of you. "What are we going to do?"
"Well, we aren't going to listen to them, that's for sure." Tae slides up beside you, holding your waist protectively.
"No we aren't." Yoongi strolls in, with a solemn face. "I heard, But no, we aren't going to listen to them in the slightest. I suppose Bang and Choi want to have a meeting then?"
"Yea tomorrow. Where are the others?"
"They went to the studio to work on some new choreography, but they should be back soon." you offer.
"Good. Family meeting over lunch, we need to be prepared for anything they ask."
Now you're in the van on your way to the studio. Your stomach is in knots, you're sure the others must feel just as anxious. It is your whole future being brought to trial after all.
Sanggyeol parks and the 8 of you get out, the drive passed in a blur of worry. You hardly process walking through the halls and riding the elevator , because your mind is so focused on the chaos you're about to walk into.
Jin knocks firmly on Choi's office door, fully blowing past poor Junghoon who really does try his best to stop your horde of men on a mission. But alas, they are determined, and you outnumber the nervous secretary.
"Come in"
The door is opened and the 8 of you pour into the small office taking Choi by surprise.
"Oh yes, it is about that time isn't it." He grimaces before pressing the intercom button. "Junghoon, is the CEO on his way?"
"Yes sir, just walking in now."
"Very well, please show him in."
You take your seat amongst the guys. At least this time they made sure to provide enough chairs this time.
Choi fiddles with papers, stacking and straightening them. putting pens and his stapler at neat angles across the edge of his desk.
The door pops open and shuts quickly, you jump but the men around you sit stoically as their company head walks briskly over Choi's desk. He pulls a chair around and takes a seat with a great huff.
"So boys, you know why we are here, there's no point in beating around the bush." He scans your group, with a steely hardened face. "I-"
"Exactly what we were thinking sir!" Namjoon intentionally interrupts him, with an all too fake grin. "We would have told you all about this little plan of ours, if we had found it any of your concern you see. But as we dont, we didn't."
Choi sits there for a few moments, mouth agape, stunned by Namjoon's frankness and confidence. His eyes dart back and forth from your leader to his, not sure how to respond, if at all.
Bang shifts in his chair to a more relaxed position, an amused smile tugs at the corner of his mouth.
"Too right you are, usually it would be none of our business. However, seeing as you are our artists, and your public image is our responsibility, that makes it our business. I'm sure you can agree with that."
"Oh yes," Now it's Yoongi's time to shine. "We thought you'd mention that. But I'd like to kindly remind you that we are the foundation of this company. We are shareholders and we are also well known enough that we are not bound to this company to succeed."
"Are you threatening to quit?!" Choi screeches, looking incredibly stressed and frazzled.
"Calm yourself Jihun. Have some water." Bang pours the producer and he sips it nervously. "Now, there's no need to have any more of that talk, Yoongi. I understand this decision means quite a lot to all of you, so I will not insult you by even insinuating that you should change your minds. We merely wish you would have informed us of this decision first, that way we might have been even the least bit prepared for your parents to breathe down our necks about it."
The aura on either side of the desk softens. "What we need to be discussing now is the logistics of how we move forward. Have any of you given thought to how we will handle this from a PR perspective?"
"Well-no-"
All of the preparation you had done was only to fight back against them trying to stop you.. You hadn't actually gone into fully planning anything else.
"I see, well, I have as it happens." Bang presents a manilla folder, opening it on the desk pushing some of Choi's neatly placed items to the side haphazardly. "Or rather we have, after your one parent called, we put our heads together and came up with a game plan."
He pulls out a handful of photos of a giant house surrounded by lots of large trees. There are photos of bedrooms, a large kitchen, nice bathrooms, and the works. The pictures are circulated through your group.
"This is the house we shot soop 2 at isnt it?" Jin questions.
"Yes, it is, after all it was designed with all of you in mind but it's got plenty of space for the eight of you, and then some. Though additions may have to be made in the future, but as it stands it's certainly large enough. And most importantly, it's private enough for you all to disappear in a way. The company still owns it and we'd be willing to sign it over to you."
"Would I be able to see the house?" You ask. "I'd just like to get a better feel for the layout that's all."
"Yes, we have arranged time in early November for a 2 night stay for all of you. I know you weren't able to come during the filming of soop, there were just far too many cameras."
"You mentioned disappearing. Do you mean we can't ever go out in public again?"Jungkook speaks up.
"No no, not at all, quite the opposite. I was merely suggesting that the current house is too close to population, and we don't want any more situations like the possible stalker that one night. That would be too big of a scandal for even us to handle if people found out."
"So you're just okay with this all of the sudden, you were furious when y/n might have been pregnant last year. What changed?"
Bang takes off his glasses and rubs the bridge of his nose.
"Well fellas, I can be honest with you. Last year I was upset because I still saw you as the sons I helped build this company with. But over the past few months especially, I've really seen how mature you all are and that you are grown ups at the end of the day." He thinks for a moment, and huffs a laugh. "Besides, I want to keep my company afloat so I better keep things on the up and up with my top 7 shareholders."
It's encouraging that he is able to joke this way. It certainly puts you at ease. It's a little bit of reassurance that the entire world isn't against you.
During this entire conversation, Choi has been sweating profusely, and furiously trying to straighten all of the things shoved aside by his boss.
He's very jumpy today it seems as he elbows his water bottle and frantically goes to catch it before realizing it's closed. You giggle a little at that.
Clearing his throat he brushes back heavily pomaded strands of hair, and leans forward folding his hands on top of the desk.
Bang side eyes him slightly annoyed, but he leans back giving his cohort the floor.
"Yes, anyways," Another smooth of the hair, "You all also have your military service coming, especially for you Jin. We've been able to put it off for this long, but next year that deadline is up, it's just a matter of time."
"I know." Jin's posture dips a bit. You wish he was sitting closer so you could comfort him.
Who are you kidding, that comfort would be just as much for you as for him. Hearing he might leave you for so long has your stomach falling into the bottomless pit of despair. You want to cling onto him and never let him leave.
"What- what if we had a baby right now? Jin hyung could claim he is the only one taking care of it and then he could be exempt right?" Jimin asks, speaking very animatedly, excited at his possible loophole.
"Well, yes," Bang chuckles heartily, "And I certainly admire the thought, Jimin, but I think the government would probably see right through that very quickly. And if it's not too bold for me to say, I think that's an awful lot of pressure to put on miss y/n to have a baby so soon."
"I don't know, maybe I wouldn't mind..." You say quietly, making all heads turn your way putting you in the spotlight. "I wouldn't mind having a baby I think...not right this minute, but maybe soon if we all agreed"
You look around your small group of boyfriends, spotting equal glints of hope and fear in their eyes.
"That's something you can talk among yourselves, that's none of our business." Bang smiles softly, at all of you. "But I think I've said everything that immediately needed to be said. What do you think, Jihun?"
The frazzled producer shakes his head wearily massaging his nose bridge.
"Any questions from you? No? Alright well you have my number, I'll hope you use it from now on. And I have to get back to work now. Pleasure as always Jihun, you really should drink some more water, you look terrible."
You say thank yous, and goodbyes with many bows as bang leaves. You leave shortly after, being shooed out by the ever nervous Junghoon, after he saw the state you left his wreck of a boss.
"Home then?" Namjoon asks.
"I'm starving. Can we pick up something on the way?"
"Jungkook, you're always starving."
The group concedes to getting Fried chicken take out and you make it home, before Jungkook gnaws off anyone else's fingers.
You dish out the food onto better plates than the paper bags the food came in.
When all of the plates are set out and drinks are poured you sit and relax. Exhaling for the first time today. This morning you were so nervous you hardly ate any breakfast. The fried chicken in front of you makes your mouth water.
"That went way better than I could have hoped for." Yoongi says take a huge bite of the kimchi rice that came in your order.
There are muffled agreements as everyone else is also stuffing their faces too.
"So," Tae talks through his mouthful of the delicious chicken, "You really don't mind having a baby with us so soon?"
You choke a little, slightly forgetting you had said so in Choi's office. Had you actually meant it though? It's one heck of an idea to put out there only to take it back.
But then again.... After seeing how much support the guys give you...and how on board they are...and now that you know you won't be left alone with a newborn...
"No I don't mind, and... I think I'd like to stop using birth control..." Their eyes widen but shift to ecstatic smiles in the blink of an eye.
"I'm really excited, I'm sure we all are, but don't let that sway you." Jin says, swallowing hard to speak with you seriously. "Take some time to think about it. I don't want you to regret this?"
You agree to give it more thought but at this point you feel pretty resolute. But if it helps them feel better about the choice, so be it.
"Oh! I was thinking earlier," Hobi breaks the silence of munching, "What if we had one last party before we leave this house?"
Interest is aroused around the table and a few even stop their eating to listen more carefully.
"It's gonna be Halloween soon, and I doubt we'll have parties when we are living more secretly, especially if there's a baby around, our parties are way too loud." He continues."So we might as well make the last party a real banger."
"That's not a bad idea actually!"
"Yea! We haven't had a party in a while, we should!"
"Well Halloween is 2 weeks away, we better get planning."
"It should definitely be a costume party!"
"Of course it will be! It's Halloween, you can't just not dress up!"
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As of the time I'm uploading this, Halloween is in fact 2 weeks away, and that is exactly when the next chapter will be up. So if you want to read the Halloween chapter during the spooky season keep your eyes peeled and reminders set for 10/28.
As always I appreciate every read and vote, and kind words. I purple you all.
Love, Avis.