Chapter 1 – First Meeting

I first met him in a convenience store.

A friend and I had made the trip from Japan, all the way to Seoul, Korea for BTS Begins, because the concert had been hyped as being such a once-in-a-lifetime performance, and because we were both crazy. Also it was spring vacation so it wasn’t like we had anything else to do, really.

It was a day after the last show, and though I was still hyped up about it, I would’ve never dreamt that I would have a one-on-one encounter with one of the 7 members I loved and admired so much.

As far as fan-devotions went, I never did anything too over the top to show my love for the boys; I didn’t wear BTS shirts, I didn’t hold up sign boards, and I didn’t tattoo my face with their names, but I did do one small thing that was a little kooky: I’d gotten myself a set of BTS-inspired nails. It was discreet enough that non-fans had no idea what it was about and still thought they looked cool, but to any ARMY who looked at them, they were pretty ing awesome. Both thumbs were painted with the band logo, and the other fingers had the names of each member with little stars and hearts in white font over a black background. Every time I looked down at them, I would grin like an idiot because I felt silly and proud all at the same time.

Now why am I going into such detail about my stupid nails, you ask? Well, you’ll see.

So like I said, it was the night after the final concert. Alicia was back in our rented room, playing on her phone, but I couldn’t sleep and wanted a snack so I’d gone off in search of a combini. There was one down the block so I’d walked in, spent a few minutes scrolling down the aisles looking for something good, finally deciding on a conspicuous bag of chips. I thought I should get a drink too so I headed to the back of the store towards that section and let my hand trail across the glass window as I tried to make sense of the foreign drinks.

Now I’d been the only person in the store when I walked in, which is why I freaked the hell out when someone suddenly grabbed my hand, pulling it away from the window and towards them to examine it. But if I was surprised the first time, it was nothing compared to the shock that came over me when I realized who it was that was looking down at my fingers so intently.

My mouth dropped to the floor and I can only imagine how stupid I must have looked right then. But could you blame me? Kim Taehyung, Bangtan Sonyeondan’s V, stood right there in front of me. And he was TOUCHING me. Now, I’m not even a V stan, but seeing him in the flesh was still enough to render me completely speechless. He was wearing a big grey parka with the hood up and had little round glasses perched on his nose, looking utterly adorable.

He mumbled something in Korean that sounded like a question, and finally looked up to stare at me. I blinked, blatantly not understanding a word, and continued gawking at him. He was still holding on to my hand.

“Aah…” he spoke up again, seeming to realize that I didn’t understand, “Me… Where?” he asked, in broken English, before blinding me with one of his jumbo-size grins.

The small part of my brain that hadn’t completely imploded clicked that he was referring to my nails, and he was asking why his name wasn’t on there. Too stunned by the silliness of the question, I answered by lifting up my other hand and showing him my pinky finger.

He laughed.

I smiled.

And somehow, the situation didn’t seem completely absurd.

He was really how I’d always imagined him to be. So friendly and guileless. Like a puppy. You know sometimes idols have this “persona” that they put on when they’re in public, but then in private they’re completely different? He wasn’t like that at all. With Taehyung, what you see is what you get. Usually.

We chatted for a few minutes, using bastardized English and lots of hand gestures. I apologized for not being able to speak Korean and he said he was sorry because his English was bad. When he said that, I jokingly told him that I could teach him English because I was an English teacher and he said “Chincha?! Really??” and asked me if I used Kakaotalk. We should practice together.

Disbelievingly, I gave him my ID and then after a bit more chit-chat, he said he had to go and left. I was too stunned by what just happened to move for a while, but when I finally regained my senses, I paid for my chips and went back to the dorm, where I told my friend what had happened while she squealed excitedly. I conveniently left out the part about him wanting to talk to me again though. It still felt too unreal and for all I knew he would forget about it and never mail me again. So why get her hopes up as well as mine? I thought that I’d probably never hear from him again, but still that was ok with me. I couldn’t even believe I’d met him.

I went to bed completely elated, staring at my phone screen. I’d had to google up a translation because I couldn’t even read hangul back then, but his screen name was “Taehyungie” which I thought was adorable. He’d just sent me a sticker to test out the address when he’d first asked for my ID, and that was the only thing staring back at me now: a silly, cartoony-looking puppy saying “hi”. I fell asleep staring at it.