"You look just as manly as the day we met you."
"Thanks, Hobi." You half heartedly teased back to him while you were self consciously tugging down the front of your wig's fringe again.
Since your class' play wasn't happening until the last two hours of the festival, every other homeroom on campus had their attraction launched into full swing. Even though you roughly had an hour more or less until the play was beginning seating, it seemed that everyone except you and Jimin were still running around backstage for final touch ups.
You could practically absorb all the jitters and excitement that radiant off of every classmate that dart past you like a human version of a energizer bunny. Which in contrast only worsen the way your dread sank in as a small spike in anxiety pricked you every now and then. Reminding you of your protagonist role in a story that you felt more volunteered into rather than a choice made by your own will. At least right now you know that stage fright was the least of your worries, as if you could go the rest of your life avoiding the dark.j
Figuring you can convince your nerves to unwind themselves if you trick them into thinking you were plopped onto the couch at home. Rather than the current musty red prop couch in the back room behind the temporary makeup station set ups. But at least you had company now since Jimin dipped out a while back fully donning his Juliet character, saying he had to get something last minute.
You were somewhat surprise at how Jin was managing to eat without being effected by the pungent odor reeking from the couch the three of your sat on. As you were momentarily distracted with how blissfully content and effortlessly handsome Jin look while eating some black bean noodles out of a to go container, your attention was lured over to where a wide eye Hobi was closely staring at you.
"Wow," Hobi did a small nod before turning to Jin exclaiming, "She really does look handsome, like it's crazy how handsome she looks."
Thanks? You contemplated saying out loud, but compromised for an indirectly awkward nod in response to him. Beaming his dimpled smile back towards you with that signature sparkle drawn in his eyes, he leaned in closer towards you as his eyes analyzed ever aspect of your face's appearance.
"It really blows my mind how different she looks. Seriously they even gave her a five o clock shadow using makeup, that's really impressive." Hobi kept on complimenting in admiration of your transformation into Romeo. You'd be lying if you said you didn't think as a guy you weren't attractive.
Considering when you were doing some minor exploring around the festival you were asked for your number at least a few times, but everything time it was always asked by a girl who claimed you were their type. Only for them to embarrassing retract their request once you explained in your own voice you weren't actually a guy. So yeah, the guy version of you was apparently hot, which didn't make you want to think about how others perceived the real female you. Not that you cared about something trivial like that or anyone's opinion on your matter of looks.
"You should see Jimin then, he looks really impressive too." You told him while stretching your arms out over your head. Kind of in the same boat as you, Jimin, even by your standards looked like a runway model. It almost felt unfair that he looked drop dead gorgeous in just a dirty blonde wig and medieval women's costume from the party city clearance bin.
Jin now speaking up as he pauses mid chew into his bite, he points out his dirtied wooden chopsticks while saying, "No way, I've seen Jimin knocked out drunk on the toilet before and his pretty privilege didn't help him out there."
Snickering at the way Jin scrunched his nose while saying 'Pretty privilege', you stretched your arms out in front of you as you make a counter comment to that, "I watch half of the classes guys question their sexuality over a cross dressing Jimin, I'm sure his charismatic ability is still in tack." Looking between the two as one went back to eating while the other checked their phone, you grew curious as to what the other members are up too.
"Namjoon and Yoongi couldn't make it?" You openly dropped the question out so either of them could answer it.
"Ah no, they wanted to come really badly too," Hobi spoke up while never removing his eyes from his phone screen, just his head as he tilted it towards your way more to direct his speaking better, "They really wanted to come and support Tae and your guy's stuff but they only had today for the meet-"
A loud coughing caught Hobi as Jin gave him a glance that turned his carefree eye smile into a wide eye Bambi caught in headlights, "A-A meeting about.. gang stuff?"
"No way, you think so?" Your response dripping in sarcasm as you rested your chin onto the palm of your hand. An all too familiar vein making itself known as it irked in irritation as you felt the cycle of being kept in the dark repeat itself.
A quick panic set into Hobi's tone as he desperately attempted to salvage his loud mouth, which lasted briefly as he signed before caving in. The whole time Jin watched on like a witness to a car accident as he more or less at his noodles with slight annoyance directed towards Hobi. Quick to notice the bitter shift in your resting face, Hobi hastily reexplained to avoid an irked you, "Some people don't know you're alive, so they wanted to use this time until the truth comes out about you to cross out some suspects on whose this Bin person."
A little more understanding, a hum echoed from your lips but came out as a slight purr as you couldn't help but agree with why you were left out this time. You never thought of it that way, without keeping your ear against the underground as far as you knew only BTS, NCT, Red Velvet, and Bin knew you were alive n kicking. So if they had suspects in mind and pretended to approach them in a manner as if you were dead.. Then that would definitely cross off the majority and highlight those potentially working with Bin or Bin themselves. Something only Namjoon could've pulled together.
After all as of right now, nothing is more dangerous than an unknown enemy and their ties and strength measured in the underground. Digressing from your previous state, you let yourself lean back into your seating more, "That makes sense then, not to involve me cause that risk everything they're trying to do." You spoke aloud, not to anyone in particular but just to let those words be out there. Which in duo response you heard those two let out their own huffs of relief, probably half heartily expecting you to storm out since you were kept out of that informational loop.
Except without really knowing it yourself, but in a way your means of understanment has matured to the point where your able to mediate both sides. While at first you were tilted at the idea that Namjoon was going behind your back again, you instantly countered yourself as you figured this was done in the best interest of you and the gang's safety altogether.
Tempted to drift off now, seeing as their wasn't much left for you to do except wait for the impending shit show to begin. Yet, before you get a chance to squeeze in a mini nap, the three of you were all startled by the sudden yell of Tae's baron toned voice, "Has anyone seen [Y/n] or Jimin?"
Sitting straight up, you looked over the back of the couch to him, "I'm here, so currently one for two, wait's going on?"
Frantically running a hand through his hair to cool off, Tae messily pushed out the words, "Class A-5 isn't doing a dance showcase since half of the class came down with something so we got bumped up into their time slot."
Clearly un-phased by the sudden wrench thrown into the metal works, you didn't unravel quite like Tae was doing now. "So we're trying our best to start early, we only have an hour now but it's not enough time- maybe if I spread the crew out to help other groups- but either way some of our classmates are still out and probably don't know about the time change so.. so this is kind of falling apart."
Tae finished softly with dejection weighing down his shoulders, "But I guess from the beginning.. it was obviously this was going to crumble one way or other- maybe I should just tell them our class won't be able to pull through either."
"No way in hell are we ending today like that." You said as you stood up from the couch. Part of you agitated that all this work was about to be for nothing, and another part that was annoyed over the fact you've been in costume for almost a hour and Tae wanted to call the whole thing off. "Look," Taking a deep breath, you managed to make up for the direction Tae was missing, "We hit road block, not a wall. Worst case, we do scrape the whole play, but we're not at worst case we're at like.."
"Not-so-entirely-worst case level." Hobi piped in from behind you.
"Yeah exactly, so we can definitely fix this. Just redistribute the backstage hands to fill in who we're missing. If it's technical problems Hobi could help, Jin too if you need a temporary assistant director, and we can have everyone whose here right now help spread the word about the time change. And unless there's any other major set backs, I'd say we're back to best case scenario." You reassured him with a thumbs up, without looking for confirmation you knew the other two in the area wouldn't protest against being volunteered to help by you.
Slowly Tae's confidence resurge back to him as he stood a bit straighter with his shoulders turning squared, only to falter as if he realized something, "Well.. there is kind of one major set back.."
"Unless someone died or the stage caught on fire, I don't think whatever you're going to say is that major of a set back." You told him in light to help ease the stress and tension off of Tae. Doing so by choosing, arguably, the most extremely and unlikely things to happen within the current hour.
Cracking a smile at your indirect take at trying to lighten things, Tae's small grin still couldn't help but let out a sigh as he said, "Jimin's missing."
~~~
Expect another update today *^*