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Filming for that day’s broadcast had gone very much over schedule, so much so that I ended up having to go straight from my set to the restaurant in order to make it to dinner. My manager dropped me off out back to avoid the paparazzi that had accumulated out front after having caught wind of the others’ appearances there. Anna herself would’ve been enough to have drawn the crowd at this fresh and buzz-worthy time in her SKEES career.

I hustled inside, maneuvering through the restaurant’s back hallways until I made it to the main dining room. A massive table of 11 greeted me with enthusiasm. Three of the seats were empty so it was really only eight greetings I received but it was still loud enough to fill the entire space. I immediately concluded that one of those empty seats belonged to Anna as I didn’t see her at the table. I then safely assumed Chun Hwa was the other missing person.

“Anna and Chun Hwa are in the bathroom. They only got here a few minutes before you did,” Hoseok informed me from where he sat towards the middle of the table, as if he had read my mind. It was more likely that he had read my expression.

“What are you saying about us?”

I turned to see Chun Hwa emerging from the hallway with Anna following close behind. The former look at Hoseok with an expecting gaze while the latter’s eyes met my own.

“Hey,” Anna smiled warmly, earning an identical greeting in return. Hoseok’s eyes seemed to linger on us before he turned his attention back to the Korean-American standing between us.

“Why don’t you come sit over here and I’ll fill you in on what we were saying,” he told her conspiringly and for a second, Chun Hwa looked genuinely lost. I sighed at her innocence.  Even I had a clue as to what he was trying to do. 

He raised his eyebrows at her, doing his best to achieve the closest thing to telepathy that he could. It still didn’t seem like Chun Hwa had much of an understanding as to what was going on but agreed regardless.

“Okay…” she mumbled before walking around the table and sitting in the lone seat between J-Hope and Jimin. It was a seat I had assumed was being saved for myself when I first walked in. Something told me it actually was.

“Alright, then,” Anna commented under her breath, just as confused as her dormmate. She turned to me. “I guess you’re stuck sitting next to me then, Yoongi.”

“What a shame,” I teased before following her to the only two vacant seats left at the table. A small purse had been left behind on one of them, evidence that it had originally been Chun Hwa’s. When I called out to her to let her know, the face that turned to me adorned a mischievous grin in reaction to Hoseok’s hushed words. I didn’t even want to know what they were up to.

“Just don’t steal anything,” she joked in response to my chivalry, to which Hobi leaned over to her and mumbled added sentiments that made her giggle behind her hand. The only word I could make out was ‘preoccupied’.

With an eye-roll, I moved her bag to the floor and finally took my seat. My stomach growled desperately and I was grateful that Taehyung had decided on a barbecue place for dinner. There was no need to wait for individual orders, all the meat we were to share family-style had already been ordered.

While we awaited the return of our waiters and the platters of raw meat to be cooked, everyone seemed to be engaged in individual conversations. Hobi and Chun Hwa continued on with their mischief, seemingly having dragged Jimin into it as well. The younger boy looked like he was eating up whatever they were saying, occasionally glancing over to where I was sitting directly across the table. He always did lack discretion.  

To my right, Jin, Namjoon and Eunha, a good friend of our group, were engaged in a much more low-key conversation that seemed to be stemming from Namjoon’s cell phone. With the tall boy in the middle, the other two leaned in to look at something on it, commenting and joking about it. Probably netizen talk.

To my left, Taehyung seemed to be doing his usually good job of entertaining others- this time with Jungkook by his side and Anna and Kang Seulgi across from him. Seulgi was a mood-maker in the girl-group that made her a member of SKEES so it didn’t surprise me to see the way she and Anna would laugh with each other about the things Taehyung would say and do. I had a feeling those two would get along well. Jungkook seemed a lot more passive with Anna compared to their first meeting, though he was all the way across the table. There wasn’t much he could do from over there.

Safe to say, I was pretty satisfied with the seating arrangement.

My satisfaction ran deeper when Anna turned to look at me, as if to check whether I was in on and/or enjoying their conversation at all. Her eyes twinkled in amusement and I once again surprised myself with the feeling that stirred within me at the sight. Not expecting to see my eyes only on her, she could only manage to give me a smile, which I returned subtly.

“So, what do you think? They’re not half-bad, am I right?” I asked her as soon as I could gather the words.

“They’re really awesome,” she easily admitted, glancing around at all the faces sitting at the table. “So many different personalities.”

“That’s for sure. Got a favorite?” I questioned, purposely putting her on the spot. A part of me had already grown so keen on challenging her, maybe because she was so typically willing to take me on.

“Hm,” she mused, looking around the table once more, this time with much more focus.

“Besides Hoseok and I,” I quickly added. “I’ll make it fair for the others.” She chuckled but nodded and continued her one-over until I had another thought. “No girls, either. It’s easier for you to get close with them than it is with the guys.”

She slid her gaze to me, one of her thick eyebrows perked up. “That’s totally not true. I’ve always been the kind of girl to befriend the guys over the girls, no matter where I was.”

Based on her social history thus far within SKEES, that much I did have to admit I knew. But to be honest, she was generally an all-around, naturally amicable person. In the end, my silence was enough for her to draw her own conclusion.

“Since your point is arguably invalid, I’m gonna go with Seulgi over here,” she exclaimed, wrapping her arms around the girl’s tiny shoulders. Seulgi brought a hand up to her chest, exaggerating her emotions.

“I’m touched,” she breathed, both girls breaking back into aanother fit of giggles. Namjoon leaned over the table.

“You guys gonna eat or can we have this all to ourselves over here?”

The five of us on the opposite side of the table looked over his way to see that there was in fact a large round of cooked meat waiting for us on the stove in the middle of the table. Not a single one of us had even noticed our pack of waiters return, let alone cook our food. But Namjoon didn’t have to ask us twice. At the sight of the sizzling sirloins, we became hungry beasts and dove for our desired cuts.

I eventually noticed that Anna’s chopsticks were no longer joining the others’ at the grill. I glanced down at her empty plate and then the empty chopsticks she played with over it. I looked up at her face with a raised eyebrow.

“Done already?”

I managed to steal her attention away from her eating untensils, her head snapping in my direction as if I had pulled her out of a daze. Maybe I had.

“Uh, yeah,” she replied, the smile she tried to sell me with notably forced. It certainly wasn’t the answer of someone who was full.

I chuckled. “You don’t sound too sure about that.”

“I mean, I guess I could have more, but I shouldn’t,” she waved it off but I could feel the sadness beneath her words.

“Why not?” I asked though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer. “On second-thought, don’t bother telling me. Just eat.”

“I have to keep up with my diet,” she rejected with a slight whine. “I can’t afford to eat a lot like you guys can. You’ve all already got your figures down.”

“And your figure is just fine, as well.”

“It’s not where it should be,” she returned with a shake of her head. “Not in this industry.”

“Funny, you never struck me as someone who wanted to look like everyone else,” I challenged. She looked at me dubiously.

“I’m white in a world that only had Asians in it until I came along. I’ll never look like everyone else here no matter how much weight I lose.”

I sighed, beginning to wonder whether an argument with Anna would be comparable to one with a lawyer. “Alright, so you’ve got some more meat on your bones than some of us. Pun not intended.”

She looked down at her lap with a sad smile, finding humor in my sentence but still upset with its topic.

“You’re still a beautiful girl, though,” I continued, almost not believing the words had left my lips. I could see her cheeks flush even in the shadow her down-casted head was creating. It was a reaction that allowed me to not linger on my statement and encouraged me to continue. “If you want to lose weight for yourself, go for it. But if you’re only doing it after comparing yourself to all of us, then stop before you hurt yourself. Nobody said you have to be thinner, right?”

“Not yet,” she mumbled.

“Exactly. So don’t force yourself into something that hasn’t been imposed on you. The only person you should be doing this for is you.”

I watched her intently as she played with her fingers, unsure of what to say. If she wasn’t at a public dinner table, I questioned whether she would’ve gotten emotional. Instead, she gave me a simple nod and looked up at me with a smile.

“I guess you’re right.”

“You guess?” I pushed.

“You’re right,” she corrected with a submissive sigh. “You’re totally right.”

“I know. I typically am,” I agreed with a satisfied smirk, leaning back in my chair and crossing my arms over my chest. I then reached out for a piece of meat and dropped it on her plate, hoping for proof in a change of attitude. Her small laughter was a sign of just that.

“I want to argue but it really does seem that way,” she also agreed, looking at me with slight awe. It had always been slightly discomforting for me to be mentally put on a pedestal like that and that was no different now.

But at the same time, there was a more positive feeling mixed in there somewhere that I had never gotten before. I wanted to impress her. I wanted her to look at me like I was something special, like someone she couldn’t help but admire. It threw me off because I didn't think these weren’t things a friend wanted with just another friend. But wasn’t that all we were?

I glanced over at Hoseok, catching him observing us himself. His eyebrow raised at my new attention on him and surprisingly, it didn’t annoy me. I was too busy rethinking everything.

Had he actually been onto something this whole time?