Chapter 5 – (too) Happy to See You

The third time I saw him was in New York.

The boys were having their first American tour ever, and it happened to be around the same time that I was flying home for a month. Now usually, when I fly home, I transfer, either in Toronto, Vancouver, or through NYC or Chicago if I go through the States. So I decided that, if I could get tickets, I would do a pit-stop in New York because… why not? And I actually managed to get a ticket on the first try, so I ended up doing that.

When I told V, he was really excited, but scolded me for not asking him to just get a ticket for me. I said I didn’t realize we were on such terms that I could ask that from him and he just retorted, “Noona! I’m hurt!” Silly boy. He remedied the situation by insisting that he book me a room in the same hotel as them and paying for it. I felt a little bit bad, but at the same time… yay?

They were already in New York when I arrived, and obviously off doing god-knows-what related to their promotions, so I just checked in and went to check out my room. It was pretty sweet, cuz it was a really nice hotel – way better than anything I could normally afford – though my room was still pretty small. The concert wasn’t til the next day, and I was pooped from the 12 hour flight, so I decided to just take a shower and go to bed.

I mailed Taehyung when I got the wifi to work but didn’t get a reply from him. It was only about 4pm, but I was dead so I fell asleep right away.

I woke up 3 hours later because someone was jumping on my bed.

“Noona!!! You’re here!!” Taehyung screamed as he jumped on me and hugged me fiercely. I woke up disoriented and smiled at him sleepily, ‘til I realized that I had no clue know how he’d gotten in and that it wasn’t really normal.

“What the heck are you doing in my room?” I asked, suddenly regaining my wits.

He plopped down on the bed next to me and looked up, grinning, holding a keycard triumphantly. “I got your room card.”

“How is that even legal?? What about my privacy?!” I scolded him.

“ Legal cuz I pay your room” he said, sticking his tongue out at me, “I promise not to come  when you’re .” he then added and I raised my eyes at him in disbelief.

“And how the are you gonna know that?” I replied, snarkily.

“Cuz my alien powers, of course.” he grinned back.

I made a face at him but he just laughed. And then he hugged me again and mumbled “I’m so glad you’re here… I missed you so much!!” and I laughed, cuz he really was like a puppy.

But something twinged inside me. For the first time since our friendship had started taking roots, I wondered if this kind of behavior was really acceptable… But I was tired so I shrugged it off.

He got called by his manager a bit later and had to leave for an interview (“at 8pm??” I’d whined in surprise, and he’d just shrugged) so I got dressed and went off in search of a place to eat. When I got back, there was already a message from him saying he was done and I should just come to his room when I returned, so I did that. He was sharing a room with Jungkook and both he and Jin were there when I came in. They were both surprised, and Kookie especially didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, but Jin was very polite and tried to speak a little English to me.

Finally V decided that we should empty the mini-bar and make friends. So we got a little drunk.

After a while, Jungkook didn’t seem to mind my presence too much, although he mostly just chattered away in Korean and I had no idea what he was saying.

While V was poking around the room for something to entertain himself, he found a bunch of board games in a bag of fan presents and decided he wanted to play. They were all in English of course, so I had to explain the rules to everyone. We ended up playing the game of LIFE for the next 2 hours, and I gotta say, it was probably one of the most hilarious experiences I’ve had in my entire life.

The next day, I woke up much too early for someone who’d spent the night up drinking, but there goes jetlag for you. I showered and got dressed, and mailed V but didn’t get a reply so I decided to go walk around the city. I explored around the hotel a bit, but I didn’t wanna get lost, or worse, miss the show, so I made my way to the venue early and, once I’d found it, parked myself in a Starbucks nearby to wait for it to start.

While I was waiting, Taehyung mailed, asking where I was, and then asked me to come meet him inside cuz he was bored. I told him that wasn’t necessary and he stopped replying. I thought that he was probably busy with pre-concert interviews and whatnot so I didn’t think he was ignoring me or anything like that, but maybe 20 minutes later, a stocky Korean man showed up in front of me, asking if my name was Emma. I nodded and he told me to follow him, handing me a “staff” pass to put around my neck before we entered the building. When we reached the dressing room, he brought me over to V, who was sitting in a chair, getting his makeup done, grunted something in Korean, which made Taehyung look up and then he just left.

When V looked up in the mirror and saw me, his face lit up into a huge smile and he shouted “Noona!!” His sudden movement made his make-up girl’s hand slip and she cursed at him. We chatted a bit as he kept getting primped, and Rapmonster and J-Hope came to say hello, expressing surprise at my being there, so I explained that I was flying home and connected through NYC, and we made various other small talk until they excused themselves to go talk to some other people.

When V was done he took me around the room, introducing me to everyone, and they had an interview scheduled right after so I was asked to leave. V sulked, but I said it was fine and I would see him later. He flashed me a smile and I left to go take my seat. My ticket wasn’t standing, but it wasn’t a bad view either since the venue was pretty small. And to be honest it was fine by me since I didn’t want to have to fight teenage fangirls for a spot at the front in my jetlagged state.

The concert was amazing, as usual and the boys looked like they were having so much fun on stage. Their English was especially cute, and American ARMY seemed to be loving every minute. After the show ended, I took a taxi back to my hotel because I was just too dead to try dealing with the foreign subway system. I texted Tae a quick message, congratulating him and saying I’d gone back and was really tired, and promptly fell asleep before he even had time to reply.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the feeling of someone holding me.

At first I freaked out, it was dark, and being jet-lagged, it took a moment to remember where I was, but when I heard the muffled “noona”, I calmed down and started breathing again. It was only Taehyung. But then I thought “wait a minute, wtf is Taehyung doing in my bed???”  and I looked at the clock and it was 3:38am, I looked down at him and he was obviously fast asleep.  I shoved him a little, telling him he should go sleep in his own bed, but he only mumbled incoherently in Korean, and held me a bit tighter, before loosening his grip on me as he drifted away once again. I sighed, not knowing what to do. I looked down at his face that I could now see in the dim moonlight that managed to peek through the curtain. I could smell the alcohol on his breath. But what was weird was that, though he normally looked so childlike to me, with his eye-smiles, dorky laugh and general playfulness, looking at him like this, his face serious in sleep, all sharp edges and thick eyebrows, he looked more like a man than he ever had to me. I felt something drop to the bottom of my stomach and tried to dismiss the feeling as I extricated myself from his grasp. I rolled over and tried to go back to sleep; only managing to do so after over an hour had passed and the sun was nearly coming up.