Hi everyone, it's Peanut-nim again, back with the second chapter! I'm really sorry for being 3 weeks late ;-; school was insane!!! I get home at 7pm every day and I'm out of the house by 7am again sigh 12 hour work days are just not my cup of tea... Please enjoy and I'll be back next week with the next installment!

“Seriously J-Hope, can you at least pretend to pay attention?” Kim Namjoon glared at his buddy, shoving the unnamed CD under his nose.

“I told you not to call me that in school!” Hoseok hissed, his eyes finally focusing sharply onto Namjoon’s smirking face.

“Only way to get you to look at me, bro,” he shrugged carelessly, grinning toothily at his pal. “You’re really out of it today, you know?”

He really was. He’d come bumbling in halfway through English with his signature silly smile, scratching the back of his head and apologising profusely. Mr Kim had been really mad and had ordered him to stand outside the classroom while carrying the dictionary for the rest of the lesson, which was at least another hour long.

But what was different about today was when he came back into class after his punishment. Usually he’d groan and complain about his aching muscles with his big contagious smile but today he slouched in, eyebrows furrowed with concentration. Not only that, he’d been talking in the hallway again, but he wouldn’t mention who he’d been talking to. For the rest of the time until lunch, he’d been staring out of the classroom door, evidently frowning and didn’t talk at all.

“Now you’re zoning on me, Rap Monster,” Hoseok chuckled, spooning his food into his mouth.

“Yeah whatever,” he rolled his eyes before waving the CD in the air. “Honestly, I think this is our big break. I can just feel we’re about to strike gold!”

“You say that about every mixtape we produce,” Hoseok groaned. “Honestly, I think we need to pull in some new members. The three of us aren’t enough to attract nationwide attention… We need vocals! We need more dancers; I can’t be the one choreo-ing for every release! That other group is doing a lot better than us now; they’ve been picked up by some stupid entertainment agency and we’re still performing in basements!”

“I thought you like choreo-ing,” Namjoon said defensively, clutching the CD to his chest. “That’s why Suga-hyung and I left it to you!”

“There’s choreo for every song. We’ve done three mixtapes and a total of 18 songs,” Hoseok deadpanned. “I cannot do everything.”

“Fine, we’ll look out for more members,” Namjoon sighed. “Anyway, what happened today bro?”

“… Nothing,” the same look of concentration was on his face. “That first-year iljin… She’s weird. Something’s off about her.”

Fantastic, he was off gallivanting with a sadistic psychopath.

“Please don’t get involved with her,” Namjoon groaned, letting his head rest on the table. “She’s bad news man. She’ll gut you alive. She’s diabolical!”

“Yeah, I’ll gut you alive,” a feminine voice joined in. “I’m diabolical.”

Namjoon’s head shot off the table, swivelling towards the source of the voice. Lee Youngmi was seated next to Hoseok, who looked utterly terrified yet curiously intrigued, daintily nibbling on a carrot as Hwang Mirae filed her nails next to her, blowing on them exaggeratedly. A gaggle of other girls surrounded them, tittering mischievously.

“Superhero sunbaenim, how are you enjoying your lunch?” she inquired pleasantly.

“It’s… fine?” Hoseok answered cautiously as Namjoon watched, the look of horror on his face growing more obvious by the second.

“Fantastic,” she smiled brightly. “I think it can be improved, don’t you?”

Hoseok had the grace to look slightly confused.

“I think for starters,” she suggested, “you should eat on the floor.”

She swept his plate off the table. With a crash, the plate toppled to the ground, spilling his food everywhere. The entire cafeteria turned silent immediately, all eyes gazing upon their table. Hoseok stared at the food in disbelief before glancing back to her.

“You can’t be serious right?” he laughed incredulously. She nodded her head innocently, a bright smile on her face.

Namjoon watched in horror as Hoseok got onto his knees, leaned downwards and… grabbed a tissue from his pocket and started to gingerly wipe the floor, gathering up the rice grains and scooping them up into the tissue.

Lee Youngmi did not seem to take this well.

“Yah, Superhero sunbaenim!” she cried angrily. “You’re supposed to eat, not clean up!”

“Sorry Lee Youngmi-ssi,” Hoseok smiled sympathetically at her. “5-second rule.”

At that moment, in Namjoon’s eyes, Hoseok became akin to a god.

The entire cafeteria erupted into cheers as Lee Youngmi gazed around in horror. Hwang Mirae was eyeing her with equal shock as the other girls disappeared into the crowd, muttering amongst themselves while casting dirty looks onto both girls.

Lee Youngmi stomped up to him and grabbed Hoseok by the collar.

“Listen, Superhero sunbaenim,” she threatened with a low voice, “you better not try this again, you hear?”

With that, she flounced off, her lackey in tow, the cafeteria hooting and jeering after them.

“You’re… amazing,” Namjoon uttered, his jaw hanging open in admiration.

“You make me blush,” Hoseok grinned before picking up his fallen plate and walking off to the dirty dishes station.

Namjoon followed wordlessly, wondering since when his best friend became such a badass.

---

“I can’t believe him!” I growled furiously, as Hinsaek pecked on the grass, cawing noncommittally now and again.

I was sitting in the courtyard behind the school, leaning against a tree trunk and skipping class as usual. Mr. Lau could kiss my . I didn’t have any problem with English so why should I attend it? Somehow I had found Hinsaek around the corridors after lunch and he decided to follow me to the courtyard right in the middle of the school. It was completely closed off from students, but lucky me, I managed to persuade the cleaner to lend me her key, which I made a copy of and now it was my secret hiding spot.

“Arghhhhh!” I screamed into my knees as Hinsaek continued busying himself with finding worms. “Why is he so annoying? Stupid Superhero sunbaenim! First he saves my new plaything, and then he just had to catch me while I was talking to you, and now he screwed with me during lunch!”

Hinsaek glanced at me indignantly.

“Okay fine, you’re not bad company,” I relented. “But still! Now he knows about the stupid bruise and you! He’ll ruin me if he says anything.”

Hinsaek cawed sympathetically, before offering me a juicy worm, still wriggling.

“Ugh, no thanks,” I grimaced as Hinsaek shrugged birdily and swallowed the worm whole.

He chirped and gestured to the school with his head, just as the bell rang.

“It should be Science now,” I groaned and pushed myself off the grass, wiping the blades off my skirt. “Stay in the courtyard until I come collect you, okay?”

Hinsaek cawed and followed me back to the building before returning to the courtyard, hiding there until it was time to go home.

---

“Really? This is all you could come up with?” Hoseok, or J-Hope glanced at the ragtag bunch of people in front of him. Yoongi-hyung, or Suga-hyung and Namjoon, or Rap Monster smiled sheepishly.

They were currently gathered at Suga-hyung’s rented studio apartment straight after school. Suga-hyung was in university studying business, and his parents had basically kicked him out to fend for himself when he graduated high school. However, his studio apartment did include a fancy dance room and a nice café next door, so it was their unanimously-decided meeting place.

There were 3 people. One of them he vaguely recognised from school; a kid called Park Jimin. Park Jimin was a pretty famous boy, being one of the stars on the basketball team. He was well known for his high jumps, and J-Hope knew of many a female classmate who had his picture in their phones. He had a wide grin on his face, kind of like that Spongebob Squarepants grin from that training video.

The other kid looked unfamiliar, but he was wearing the neighbouring school’s uniform. He wasn’t wearing a nametag. His face was exotic though, with slender features and deep-set eyes that were staring challengingly up at him. J-Hope cleared his throat awkwardly, adjusting his collar as heat rushed to his cheeks.

His narrowed eyes roamed onto the next candidate. He didn’t recognise him at all, but from his constant awkward glances to Suga-hyung he could tell they were in some sort of relationship. No, not that kind of relationship, more like they knew each other previously and- who the heck was he explaining himself to anyway?

“Are you done frying the meat with your sizzling eyebeams yet?” Suga-hyung remarked drily. “Seriously dude, you’re scaring our new candidates; stop glaring at them.”

J-Hope stared reproachfully at Suga-hyung as RapMon took the lead.

“Okay guys, we’ve invited you here today to join our esteemed and prestigious hip-hop group. Mainly, we do hip-hop stuff like rapping and dancing, but we’ve decided to include more facets such as vocals to our performance to make it more dimensional,” RapMon finished nonchalantly, because good words and good language comes easily to the guy. “Please introduce yourself and what skill you can bring to our group.”

“Hi guys, my name is Park Jimin,” Jimin started first, polite yet friendly smile on his face. “Kim Namjoon-sunbaenim invited me here.”

“Hi Park Jimin,” the entire group droned in unison, before everyone looked at each other in surprise at their coordination.

“I’m usually a sports dude, but I can dance and sing,” Park Jimin smiled again, before showing off some wicked moves.

J-Hope watched him, impressed by his flexibility. This was a guy he wanted on his team!

As if in a trance, J-Hope’s eyes suddenly swivelled towards Park Jimin’s own. His lips were curved into a strange, queer smile. J-Hope felt the atmosphere of the room dim a little until it felt almost like the two of them were the only ones in the room… The aura was a dark, gloomy purple while Park Jimin’s eyes shone like beacons, imprisoning J-Hope in his gaze as his lips murmured softly, enchanting J-Hope to…

“You’re in!” J-Hope called immediately as the other two looked at him in surprise. He shrugged in return. Those dance moves were pretty good… and he didn’t know what exactly came over him one minute ago.

“Um… Okay next,” Suga-hyung announced, side-eyeing J-Hope.

“Name’s Kim Taehyung, but you can call me V,” the handsome exotic-looking boy announced coolly, before jumping into the universal victory sign and selca pose, smiling with squinted eyes cutely. “Jimin asked me to come for fun!”

“Hi V!” The group greeted with a little more energy, because this kid was really cute.

“My specialty is aegyo,” V grinned shyly before looking up at the gang with cute puppydog eyes, whining cutely. “I can also si-”

“You’re in!” J-Hope announced, blushing brightly at the adorable aegyo. The other two members gave him wtf looks before gesturing to the last person.

“Hello everyone, my name is Kim Seokjin,” the last guy smiled bashfully. “Yoongi invited me here.”

“Hi Kim Seokjin,” the response was more muted than usual, because this guy didn’t seem very interesting… until he announced his skill.

“My specialty is cooking!” Kim Seokjin pulled out a box from his bag and opened it.

Immediately, the smell of delicious chocolate chip cookies wafted through the air and into J-Hope’s nostrils.

“You’re in!” J-Hope cried, tears streaming as he breathed in that heavenly scent.

“Okay sidebar!” RapMon narrowed his eyes at J-Hope and pulled him and Suga-hyung into the corner of the meeting room.

“Dude, you’re hiring people based on weird stuff!” RapMon hissed. “I doubt cooking will ever play a part in our routine!”

“Imagine we’re super exhausted after training for seven hours for the big competition coming up,” J-Hope hissed back. “Ding-dong, it’s the bell. Turns out it’s Kim Seokjin- sunbaenim, who’s brought us some delicious kalguksu and meat side dishes to revitalise ourselves, along with refreshing beverages! And then the aegyo can re-energise us so we can practise more! Plus, Jimin’s just got that aura around him that’s just…”

“Oh my god he has a point,” Suga-hyung looked at RapMon with horror. “We need them. And meat. We need meat.”

“Are you serious…?” RapMon sighed before glancing back at the trio currently engaged in hushed discussion. “Ugh, fine, you two get your way.”

Getting up from the corner he turned to the trio and opened his mouth to officially announce that they got into the group when the trio burst into an a capella version of Officially Missing You by Geeks, harmonising and blending smoothly with each other.

Their voices melded into one, the perfect harmony causing shivers to run down J-Hope’s spine. Park Jimin’s high notes seemed even higher than his jumps as V’s low tones complemented Kim Seokjin-sunbaenim’s stable middle voice impeccably. The bittersweet emotion from the song flowed over the other three like water.

As the voices faded, the song completed, there was complete utter silence in the room.

“You’re all in,” RapMon said breathlessly, as the three vocalists erupted into cheers and J-Hope rubbed his tears onto Suga-hyung’s jacket.

“Now that you’re in, we need to have stage names for you,” Suga-hyung piped up after shooting a dirty look at J-Hope. “V is already settled, but what about you, Seokjin and Park Jimin?”

“I guess I could be called Jin,” Kim Seokjin-sunbaenim smiled.

The rest of the group nodded in appreciation.

“Um… Ji-man?” Park Jimin tried, but the group frowned.

“How about Baby-G?”

“That’s copyrighted!”

“Baby J then?”

“That’s lame!”

“Young Kid…?”

“That’s just a description of your age! And you won’t be young forever!”

The room deliberated in silence.

“I think you should just stay with Jimin,” RapMon finally decided. “It sounds cool.”

Jimin sighed in relief.

“Alright then guys, let’s get to practising! Jimin, you go with J-Hope and plan the choreo for this song we just came up with. Jin-hyung and V, you can go practise your vocals. Suga-hyung and I will start writing new songs!” RapMon’s eyes were sparkling with delight and inspiration. “Also, we need to come up with a group name.”

As all of them parted ways to different corners of the room, J-Hope couldn’t help but think that there was still something missing.

---

School had finally ended. I yawned and stretched, grabbing my bag just as Mirae burst into the room.

Damn. I really wanted to just go home and play with Hinsaek, or build him a house in my room. Especially since it was a Saturday, the last day of school of the week and it was already nearing 7pm.

“Come on Youngmi! It’s time to party!” Mirae danced and did an air guitar pose, inclusive of fake strumming.

Sighing, I made no complaint as she dragged me off to the club, where our buddies were waiting.

“Hey, Youngmi! Mirae! You made it!” Jiyeon-unnie smiled drunkenly at the entrance, arm slung around Hyomin-unnie who waved sheepishly.

Mirae waved back happily as I bowed my head slightly in greeting and entered the club run by Zico-oppa.

Sure enough, the usual Saturday crowd was dancing to EDM or doing body shots or just making out together. I made myself comfortable on the couch, watching the clock as loud pounding music wracked my eardrums. Mirae had already disappeared amongst the sea of people, probably grinding it up against some dude.

Usually I’d at least dance a bit, but today definitely wasn’t for dancing. Superhero sunbaenim’s words were harsh and kept ringing about in my head.

What did he mean by the only person willing to be friends with me was Mirae?

I had social relations to the people here. I wouldn’t exactly call them friends. Mirae was a friend of mine, I suppose. She only got close to me after Zico-oppa personally met me in middle school and asked me to join his group of friends when I topped the level for English, Korean, Science and Mathematics. I didn’t particularly care for her, but neither did I detest her. Her researching skills were very useful.

Just by joining Zico-oppa’s gang, I could be at the top, peering down on all the useless mortals below. Zico-oppa offered me protection and power, and that was more than enough for me. That was how I became “famous” in high school I guess. Zico-oppa did go to this school too after all, and people were scared less of him.

Did I really have no friends?

As a particularly touchy-feely couple landed in my lap and continued to make out, their tongues all over each other’s faces, I decided I had had enough. Clubbing was no fun if you didn’t want to dance or get with anyone.

Grabbing my schoolbag, I waved at Jaehyo-oppa seated with his lady friends and exited the club, breathing in the cold winter air tinged with the harsh smell of vomit and beer. I was more than used to that stench already, so I didn’t even flinch.

I started on the route back to school to collect Hinsaek.

The school wasn’t locked, since there was night remedial for the people who were more behind in work. However, most of the lights were pretty much turned off to save money, and the hallway was completely dark, save for the light coming from the classrooms. But the classrooms were all the way on the opposite end and where I was standing, I could barely see where I was going. Honestly it was really creepy and it felt like the beginning of a horror movie.

Keeping my back against the lockers just in case anyone behind me wanted to stab me or whatever, I snuck past the lockers and headed towards the courtyard.

As I passed the nurse’s room, a cold wind ghosted its way across the back of my neck.

“Haruman…”

A murmur floated past my ear. Suppressing a scream, I forced myself to keep walking and not look around to confront the inevitable zombie soldier who had risen from the dead to murder my brains.

“Neowa naega hamkkehal su itdamyeon…”

Strange, I didn’t know zombie soldiers sang before they devoured people’s brains.

I crept closer to the nurse’s room, peeking into the window on the door.

Jungkookie was singing to himself on the bed, smiling tenderly. I’d never heard of this song before, but he sounded surprisingly good, his voice soft and melodious.

Interesting, I noted, tucking this little bit of information into my head for further use.

I turned back, traversing the hallways and whistling for Hinsaek.

With a flutter of his wings, he landed onto my bag, cawing softly.

“Let’s go home,” I smiled.

He cocked his head, eyes staring back into mine intelligently as we made our way back to the front gate.

I hope you liked it! Please leave a comment and subscribe if you do, and I hope that you will continue to read my story! :))))

-Peanut-nim

PS: who's your bias in BTS? I wanna know!