I walked to the abandoned dance room to record the last video. While walking to the dance studio I kept getting this weird feeling that something wasn't right, but I ignored it and thought about which cover I know. I usually made my own choreographies so I didn't know many covers. Then the song came to me! How's This? By HyunA. I got into the room and it was surprisingly not as dirty as I would expect it to be. It was a medium-sized dance room. As soon as you open the door you meet the mirrors. The floors were made out of a light colored wood. I walked to the center and set up my phone to record. I took a deep breath and I turned on the music. And I started dancing.
The one thing among many that annoyed me about myself was the fact that when I'm dancing I don't see anything else. I was dancing about 2 minutes and like 52 seconds in when someone walked in, and of course, I didn't realize. Let's backtrack a bit. When I left and went to the dance room, the members came to pick Taehyung up form the classroom. The teachers had allowed them to come to the dance room to practice for their concert as long as they were okay sharing with someone else that was already there, me. I knew none of this before. So as I was dancing the members were coming to the studio. And a whole lot of questions was soon to be asked. As I said I was about 2 minutes and 52 seconds into the recording, a few seconds away from ending when they opened the door quietly. Jin was about to enter not realizing that I was recording but Jungkook stopped him. They all stood hiding behind the door, watching me as I danced the last few steps. The song finally ended and I ran to the phone to stop recording. Suddenly I heard voices.
"WOW! YOU ARE GOOD AT DANCING!" yelled J-Hope! I quickly turned my body with darkened eyes.
"How long have you been here?" I asked. I hope not long.
"Like 30 seconds. Why?" I asked RM. I sighed in a bit of relief. They weren't here for long.
"You dance really good Seolhyun!" Added in Taehyung.
"Don't tell anyone about what you saw. For all, you know I dance terribly, which is not a lie." I said.
"What? Why?"
"because I said so. "
"Why do you not want people to know you dance well?"
"We all have a story we keep hidden. And why do you ask so many questions?" I said
"because you never answer any of my questions" He answered
"And for good reason. What are you guys even doing here?" I asked
"We have to practice a bit for our concert tomorrow night. Since we already submitted our applications the teachers are letting us practice while everyone else does what they need to do," answered RM
"Oh okay. Well, good luck. I'll go now." I was about to leave when someone grabbed my arm.
"No, wait! You don't have to go! We were supposed to share the room with you." responded Jimin.
"It's okay. I'm already done" I left and let them practice. I really hoped they didn't tell anyone. The rest of the day was like usual. I left school picked up Youngjin and sneaked into the house. We ate fell asleep and then went to school. I dropped Youngjin off and walked myself to school. Again father had not come home. Today was another day given to us to finish off our applications for those who needed the time and for the rest, it was our free day. Taehyung didn't come in today, or so I thought. I was waiting to get the acceptance email from the school while walking around. The halls were quiet except for a few students in the hallway talking. I was starting to get bored and the nerves were driving me crazy. I found myself walking to the dance studio without even realizing it. I was a few feet away from the door when I heard music, I stopped walking. "Is someone inside?" I whispered to myself, and as if on cue the door slammed open. My head shot up to the figure walking in my direction with his head down. Once he saw me he stopped and looked up.
"Seolhyun.." he averted his eyes. Someone else came out from the room.
"Taehyung wait!" I looked a the door and saw Jimin. Taehyung looked at him and started running down the hall after saying.
"Just leave me alone." He left disappearing from sight. The one thing I remembered so vividly from the moment was his eyes. His eyes....they were different. They didn't shine with an annoying glow to them, they looked almost sad? He looked like a completely different person than from what I knew. But then again you never truly know someone. I looked over to Jimin confused.
"What happened?" I asked
" Just some stuff " he replied. Stuff really specific ey Jimin. Out of nowhere another voice spoke.
" Hatred is a painful thing." It came from behind Jimin.
"yeah...? So?" I was confused about where he was getting at.
" There have been tweets and hate telling Taehyung to leave the group, that he is not handsome stupid stuff like that." I looked down remembering his eyes. I still couldn't find the word to describe them.
"Hyung!" Jimin yelled out. "We weren't supposed to tell anyone!" I looked back up.
"Well, she is not anyone. And she is probably the only one amongst now to help him. " The members started to come out of the room hearing the chattering.
"Why me?" I asked. I was nothing special. I barely even knew Taehyung.
" As I said. He seems happier now that he's friends with you" I remembered our deal. Friends...What does the word even mean?
"I'll find him." I started to run in the same direction. I looked through the windows of the room to see if he was there. I came to the end of the hallway hearing a creaking noise. I turned towards it and saw the door leading to the roof open a bit. "Could he be there?" I whispered. I slowly opened the door to the roof and climbed the stairs closing the door behind me. The cool breeze reached my face as I walked into the opening. There was no one there. I walked to the edge and was about to turn back when I saw Taehyung hugging his knees with his back against the wall. He was hiding his face in his arms. He was crying... silent tears. I walked up to him silently and bent down beside him. He still hadn't noticed me. I was reluctant but I placed my arm around his shoulders patting him. As a reflex, he quickly looked at me.
"What are you doing here?" he asked wiping his tears. I took my arm back and gave him a tissue from my skirt pocket.
"Looking for you" He took the tissue and started wiping away the tears. I sat on the floor with my legs extended in front of me. "So what are you doing here?" I asked looking at him.
"I just need to get away from some things..." More tears were threatening to fall down his face making him face away from me.
"Suga told me what happened. Don't listen to those haters, they are worthless." he sat down with his legs crossed.
"Kinda hard when wherever you go all you hear is 'leave the group', you're ugly', 'you should have never revealed your face'." He started playing with his finger, pressing on them to hold back tears.
"yah! Taehyung. Look at me." He reluctantly turned his face. His eye they were...broken. " Those people behind those messages are just scared little low lives that have nothing better to do than hurt someone else. You are way too strong to have someone as small as they break you down. The things they are saying don't even make sense. You are not ugly. You should definitely not leave the group and revealing your face, that would've had to be done sooner or later."
"No, they are right. I should just leave the group. Ever since I revealed my identity the group started getting more hate. Sometimes, I just think It would be better for the rest of the group if I just left. I was selfish all these years hiding my identity making things harder for them. And now this? When is it going to stop?" He asked me.
"It's not" I sighed. "That's the cold hard truth. There will always be haters, but let me ask you something. If another member wanted to leave the group would you let them?"
"No of course not."
"Exactly. The same goes for the rest of the guys. When you guys debuted, you debuted as a group as one. Not as seven individual guys as one group. You either take it all or take none. What you have with those guys back there is special, they got your back, so don't let some insecure wannabe's take that away from you. You should be proud of how far you've come, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Be proud to be Kim Taehyung the ex-secret member of international K-pop group, B.T.S." He leaned his head back on the wall and turned it towards me. His eyes glistening with tears.
"it's so hard. I try so hard to put on this face for ARMY even for my other members that I'm okay and happy. But it's just so hard. I feel like along the way I just lost myself. Who even is Kim Taehyung? A human? An idol? A lie? " It was getting harder and harder for him to hold back the tears.
" You are a human. You have the right to feel this way. To feel lost and alone. To not know who you are. Your fans don't love you because of this face you put on, they see through it. They love the fact that you use your voice to talk about things that matter. To show that even though you are idols you too are human just like them. And just like them, you cry when things get hard. So just cry." On cue, the tears fell down his face. He whipped them off with the back of his hand.
"I don't like letting people see me cry"
"Well, you have some good luck because I'm not people. I'm a Seolhyun. We are a very rare breed. In fact, I think the only one mostly alive is right in front of you!" I could hear him chuckle facing the opposite way. I chuckled back. "I could hear you laughing kid"
"I'm not laughing..." I laughed at him.
"Yeah, and I have blonde hair" I don't... He turned and looked at me. I gently smiled at him.
"You are smiling..." he said.
"So?"
"I've never seen you smile before..." I turned away, I don't remember the last time I smiled in school.
"We shouldn't stay up here too long. Your friends are really worried about you." I changed the subject. He looked at me before finally speaking.
"Our friends" he corrected. I smiled.
"No. Your friends" He just looked at me as if trying to read me. "You're not going to find the answers you are looking for Taehyung"
"I will...one day" I blinked. No matter what he does he always seems to astonish me. "Just not today."
"Don't get your hopes high" He just smiled at me as if making a bet that he would. Thank god it wasn't an actual bet.
"Let's go?" he asked
"Yeah" we stood up and started walking down the stairs closing the door. We closed the roof door and I stopped Taehyung from walking. "Wait you go on ahead, I have to do something." he walked down the hallway and turned the corner. I didn't really need to do anything I just wanted to be alone. After a few minutes, I walked down the hallway and stopped at the dance room's door. It was open. I hid behind the door and listened to what was going on inside.
"Taehyung we are all in this together. If they don't love one member than they don't love any of us" Said RM.
"I'm sorry. It's just harder than I thought it would be" Taehyung lowered his head. Jimin walked over to him and hugged him.
"Don't be sorry for being hurt." Suddenly a ding came from multiple phones. I quickly got my phone and muted it hoping they didn't hear mine. They looked at each other and then at their phone. I saw an email: 'Congratulations, You have been accepted as a dance and vocal major at Kim Lee School Of Arts....." The members looked up and talked at the same time.
"Did you get in?" They asked each other "Yeah!" they all excitedly hugged each other. Those seven boys showed so much happiness all because they were together. I smiled. It must be nice to have that type of friendship in your life. I got out from behind the door and started walking past it to go back to roaming the halls. I guess I wasn't sneaky enough because someone saw me. I was walking down when I heard chatter in the room.
"Was that Seolhyun?" asked Jimin.
"Where?" asked Jungkook
"She just passed by"
"Oh let's go see her results!" I quickened my pace but was too slow for his running feet. "Seolhyun!" I turned around.
"Oh hey, Jungkook."
"Did you get in?" He asked. Behind him were the rest of the members eagerly waiting for my response.
"Yeah, I did." Jungkook's smile got wider as everyone's worried faces became happy once again.
"Come with us! We are going to the dance room to celebrate!" spoke Jungkook
"Oh I actually have to work something out but I'll see you guys later." I started to turn around to walk away but turned to them once again. "Oh and congratulations on getting in guys." I turned around and walked away. While the member started to walk back to the dance room Taehyung thought about what I said.
"Getting in? We didn't tell her we got in...." He whispered to himself as he watched me walk away.