Chapter 29 Interlude – Swoon –

The day after his big declaration to Emma, Taehyung could not sit still. He left her early in the morning, with a kiss on the forehead, to sleep the day away while he went off to rehearse for their first concert in Kobe. He didn’t really tell anyone what had happened, but the whole morning, he drove his entire team crazy. Originally, it was because he wanted to tell Namjoon first, but there was never an opportunity to get him alone, so since his energy had nowhere to escape, his behavior just kept on escalating, until even the bewildered maknae was rolling his eyes at him and telling Tae to chill.

“Ok, stop, stop, stop…” Suga waved his hand around, stopping their entire group dance after Tae had once again ruined the performance by pulling on the back of Jimin’s cap and making it fall, causing the boy lose his concentration and mess up a couple of steps in response. “Will you tell us what the is wrong with you?” he snapped at Taehyung, more aggravated than angry.

Tae smiled sheepishly and promised no more teasing, but that wasn’t good enough for his hyung.

“Go on then. Obviously it’s an Emma-thing, so maybe if you get it off your chest, you can get over it and we can finish this damn rehearsal that was supposed to end 40 minutes ago, yeah?”

The second youngest boy in the group looked down at the floor in embarrassment, rubbing his shoe at a spot on the floor like a shy schoolgirl before admitting that he’d asked Emma to move to Korea for him, and she’d said yes.

Suga, Hobi and Jin all stared at him with open-mouthed shock. Jimin and Jungkook on the other hand were both scratching at their heads, looking away, and doing everything to pretend this didn’t concern them. Rapmon was also surprised, but contrary to the others, he had seen it coming since Taehyung had often come to talk to him about his worries and intentions with Emma over the last few weeks. Still, as the leader, he knew he had to do something, so he put on his trademark grin and walked over to his dongsaeng to give him a slap on the back.  

“Damn son, that almost sounds like a marriage proposal.” he laughed loudly, trying to dispel the weird mood that had fallen upon the group, though it sounded kinda forced.

Suga shook his head, as if he was trying to shake the shock away, and in a moment his usual smirk was back on his face, “Well then, good for you, I guess.” he shrugged, “do you feel better now? Can we get on with it?” he asked, and Taehyung nodded several times like an obedient little puppy.

Their rehearsal lasted about one more hour, after which, they were taken away to some famous restaurant for lunch with a local celebrity. After that they had a short interview for a Japanese magazine, before being whisked back to the venue, a mere two hours before the show. By that time, there were several fans crowding the venue and everyone cheered and screamed the names of the seven boys, seeing them walk back into the building. Even though it had already been 3 years, it always made them somewhat giddy whenever that happened – especially at enormous venues such as these – so they were all shoulder-bumping each other, and ruffling younger members’ heads as they made their way indoors, grinning and joking with each other.

“So, is Emma coming then?” Rapmon asked Tae casually, as they entered their dressing room side-by-side.

“To the concert? Of course.” replied the younger boy, eagerly.

“No, no… I meant now. I mean you guys are pretty official and everyone kinda knows so…” Namjoon didn’t finish his sentence.

“Yeah…” Tae sigh as a makeup girl forced him into a chair. He let her move him around like a rag doll as she started working on him, not seeming bothered at all, and continued his conversation with Namjoon as if it was the most natural thing, finishing a little sadly, “but it makes her kinda uncomfortable…”

“Hmm… I guess…” Namjoon mused, rubbing his bottom lip with a finger, “…Well, still, I’m happy for you kid.” he smiled, pressing his hand into Taehyung’s shoulder before walking away towards his own makeup chair.

Tae was happy that Monie-hyung was on his side. He knew some of the others were a bit weary of his relationship with Emma. Some, like Hoseok and Jimin, had already accepted her open-heartedly, deciding that if Taetae liked her, then it was good enough for them; and others, like Jin or Kookie, were obviously more reticent, the more serious things got, but generally kept their opinions to themselves, for which he was glad. He wasn’t the first guy in the group to have a girlfriend since they’d debuted, but he was the first one to have taken things to that level of seriousness, so it was only normal they were starting to get more worried. But overall he was glad to have the support of his brothers.

He settled in his chair, smiling at his makeup noona in the mirror, before deciding to send his girl a text. Even if she wasn’t here in the flesh, there wasn’t any reason he couldn’t be talking to her right now, was there?

***

The show went great, both boys and fans leaving ecstatic, tired, but eyes glowing with inexhaustible energy. Tae wanted to meet Emma as soon as possible, but there were still many official things to deal with so in the end he told her he’d meet her at her hotel later because it might be very late.

It ended up being past 3am when he snuck into her room, and it was almost 7am when he left again, not having slept a wink.

The sun was already up in the sky when he rushed back into his own hotel room, to the scowls of Jin, whom he was sharing with this time.

“It’s so late Tae… shouldn’t you at least try to be more careful? It’s daytime.”

“I don’t see what the big deal is…” the younger boy shrugged, peeling his shirt off.

“Fans could’ve seen you.” Jin replied, pointedly.

“So?” the half- boy called out, heading into the shower, “I can just say I went for a run, right?”

Jin rolled his eyes but said nothing else.

After his shower, instead of feeling refreshed, Taehyung suddenly felt like death. Of course, all he wanted to do was sleep, but there was no time. He napped in the car, on the way to the venue, and then again in the makeup chair, while they put his face on for the Vapp interview they were planning to do later, but neither of those power naps made him feel any better. When the rest of the boys dragged him towards the stage to start rehearsals, he sleepily shuffled along, asking one of the noonas if she would get him some coffee, which he rarely ordered.

They started the rehearsal with no problem, though it was a bit hard for him to focus at first. The boys went slow; warming up with the ballads and gradually moving onto more dance-heavy numbers. Tae thought he was doing alright – nobody had scolded him for ing anything up yet – but then…

“Woaaah!” Hoseok called out, catching his little bro in his arms just in time as he swooned in front of him. “Taetae, you ok?”

The younger boy blinked a couple of times and shook his head to try and wake himself up. “Yeah hyung,” he said, patting his older friend’s shoulder with a small smile as he raised himself up, “I’m just tired.” he explained, “I didn’t get any sleep last night…”

“I bet you didn’t…” muttered Jimin under his breath, making Namjoon snicker.

“Yeah and whose fault is that??” Jin called out pointedly, while Jimin dramatically rolled his eyes.

“Guys, I’m fine. It’s not the first time we go one night without sleep… let’s just start over.” Tae waved his hands at them, trying to prove that he was alright, and the staff girl picked that exact moment to appear with his coffee, which he grabbed gratefully. “See? This is all I need. I’ll be just fine, stop worrying.”

Jin gave him an unconvinced look but just huffed and walked over across the stage to his starting position.

“Why don’t we take a break?” Namjoon called out, looking pointedly at Jin, who raised his eyes to the heavens in annoyance but shrugged his agreement. It seemed like everyone was going to approve of that suggestion until Suga suddenly surprised everyone by saying: “can’t we just get it over with?”

The comment made everyone’s attention shift to Yoongi. Now that Tae was looking at him, he could definitely see that something was off with the second eldest member of the group. He was wearing a mask, shielding almost 50% of his face. Though that wasn’t really unusual, it was a bit of an odd choice when you’re doing choreographies as demanding as theirs. And  Taehyung couldn’t be sure, but he seemed to be even paler than usual under his cap.

“Hyung, are you ok?” he called out, suddenly full of concern.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” barked the pasty boy, in his usual grumpy tone, alleviating Taehyung’s worries.

“Come on, 5 minutes couldn’t hurt, eh?” Jimin walked over to Suga to pat his shoulder, but the older boy just grunted and walked past him to some stairs at the front of the stage.

Again, the whole thing happened like in slow motion. Yoongi tried to sit down on the uppermost stair, but he missed and tumbled down the – thankfully rather small – set of stairs.

“Omg, Yoongi!” “Hyung!” “Hyung!”

Calls of concern echoed all around, and bodies rushed over, crowding the frail-looking boy who was still lying on the ground with his eyes closed.

“Omg, Yoongi. Yoongi!!!” Jimin called out in a shrill, worried cry, instantly attracting the medical staff that the venue kept on hand.

Their shouts had attracted staff, and within seconds the boys were giving way to professionals, watching on worriedly a little way over while medical staff took his pulse and tried to make Yoongi come to. After about a minute or so, their friend opened his eyes again, looking around in a disoriented manner, and cursing. At that, they all breathed a sigh of relief.

“I’m fine, I’m fine…” he said, trying to shoo them all away and stand up, but of course they all forced him down.

“Hyung you’re not fine, you just passed out.” scolded Jimin, though the look in his eyes was more terrified than anything else. Yoongi gave him a flat look, as if to say “don’t scold me, you little ” but couldn’t make the words come out.

“His blood pressure is really low.” one of the attendants turned to tell one of their managers, “We should take him to a hospital to check, just in case”

The manager nodded at the same time as Suga stubbornly interrupted: “No.”

“Yoongi, It’s just precautions…”

“No! Just, gimme a bit of time to rest, I can do the show…” he whined, wobbling a little bit on his feet as he showed too much passion in his argument.

“Yoongi, you really should listen to them…” Jin was saying.

“But the show is in 3 hours…” whined the boy.

“Yoongi…” Rapmon put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and the older boy knew he’d lost the fight.

“What about Tae?” Hobi asked, making everyone turn towards the mushroom-haired boy.

“No, no, I just…” Tae started waving his hands in front of him, but before he could say anything else, they were all pushing him out of the room.

“If we got two of you fainting, hyungs, it’s definitely not good,” Jungkook was saying, manhandling Taehyung towards the backstage area.

“… but I’m really fine!!” protested the boy.

“Come on, the quicker you go, the quicker you can come back!”