When the boys arrived at the office of the manager, they were all waiting eagerly to hear what he had to say. What was the important news? Their manager wouldn’t call them over when they had left just hours ago, usually. He would cover it all in one meeting and then let them leave for the day. What could have happened in such a short period of time? It couldn’t have been more than four hours since they left, after all.

“So,” the manager said, starting up the conversation. How was he going to phrase this? He had used the last two hours to plan all the practical things, and with the help of professional reality program-planners, he had come up with an absolutely incredible idea. “You’re going to participate in a new … variety-show,” he said, trying to twist the words into sounding appealing.

And it became quiet for a while. The boys processed the words, forming a faint idea on what they were going to do in the next month or so. After a short minute, Namjoon’s eyes slowly turned into slits, as he eyed the manager suspiciously.

“What kind of variety show?” he asked, taking the leader-role unexpectedly, saying what the other members thought. The manager knew he couldn’t say it was something that needed a lot of physical strength and energy – he could tell by a look that at least half the members would end up not getting out of bed the day of filming. He had to wrap the truth in a pretty package, not entirely lying, but not entirely telling the truth either.

“Please don’t let it be Rookie King all over again,” Jungkook pleaded. “There is no way I’ll get through eating ramen in a sauna while wearing four layers of clothes ever again,”

The other members could relate to this. They all shared the pain of being punished as the End Plate King in their previous show.

“If I have to run on a treadmill while wearing a Chinese dress again I’ll die,” Seokjin nodded, taking sides with Jungkook.

“Hey, I was the one who had to serve customers bread in a maid-outfit,” Yoongi said, shuddering over the unpleasant memory.

“You didn’t have to brush your teeth with wasabi, though,” Jimin looked at them, making faces as he remembered the burning feeling of wasabi in his precious mouth. “That was horrible.”

“It was kind of fun to watch, though,” Taehyung smiled, with a dreaming look in his eyes as he remembered all the memories and End Plate-punishments. This gained more than one irritated stare from the other members. Taehyung was the supreme winner all right, as he was almost never punished. He was incredibly lucky, to phrase it modestly.

“Oh yeah, how was your kiss with Hoseok?” Yoongi asked, looking at Taehyung like he was seriously considering slapping the younger. If Taehyung was the supreme winner, Yoongi had to be the supreme loser.

Taehyung turned his head to Yoongi with a half sour, half arrogant face. “At least I’m appealing enough to be kissed,” he countered.

“WHY YOU LITTLE –“ Yoongi stretched his hands forward to strangle Taehyung. He would have succeeded with his plan as well, if not Hoseok, who had suddenly decided get involved, had held him back. “Hey, it wasn’t like he had a choice. It was probably his first and only kiss anyways, so don’t sweat it,” he reasoned with Yoongi, trying to calm him down.

This made Taehyung react like Yoongi had, ready to jump Hoseok. But this time, it was Namjoon who kept him back. “Shut up, all three of you. Or we’ll never get to know what kind of variety show it is.” He said. The others decided that this was fairly reasonable after all, and kept quiet.

The manager, who had kept quiet and just watched be boys quarrel, silently thanked Namjoon for deciding it was worth the trouble to get them to shut up. He folded his hands on his desk, nodding to Nam Joon as a thank you.

“Now, before you get to know the theme for your new variety-show, I want you to tell be how your tour was, concert for concert. Okay?” he asked. He need to know this in order to prepare the show, and had to be as subtle as possible. He wondered if they were still as awake and sharp as they had been when they left, or if their doubt for other people had left them.

The boys looked puzzled at him for a second, but concluded that he only wanted because he was their manager.

“Weeell,” Seokjin started up, thinking back on their tour. “We started in China, right? That was fun. I really liked Beijing and Shanghai. The fans were nice.”

“Oh, and we visited Thailand, right? I miss it.” Jimin followed up. “And then we went to Vietnam and Japan, I remember it now. Tokyo was, like, so big!”

Nam Joon nodded. “I think that’s right. Singapore was cool as well, though. Remember during the bridge in ‘Just one Day’, when they started throwing roses on stage?” He turned to Seokjin with a smile. “You got one in the eye, though.”

Seokjin rolled his eyes. “You’re just jealous because more people threw roses at me, than you.” He replied, which Nam Joon of course ignored.

“Oh, and then we proceeded to Australia!”

This continued on, and their manager had to admit; they had an incredible memory. They filled up with stories about the stages, behind the scenes, and every dumb thing they ever did. Which turned out to be quite a lot.

“And then, as we took the plane to Canada, it ended up in Alaska! Have you heard? And it was like six hours to the concert,” Taehyung, Seokjin and Hoseok were the ones to explain in the end, eagerly telling the manager everything they did. And as Taehyung came to when they ended up in Alaska, the manager had to stop them.

“You WHAT?” he said. This was news to him. They had almost missed a concert, without him being noticed?

“It wasn’t that different, though,” Hoseok shot in. “They both were snowy and cold,”

The manager closed his eyes, and tried to control his breathing. “Those are two different countries! How in the world did you manage to pull that one off? Your tour-manager was supposed to guide you!” he almost yelled.

Seokjin’s eyebrows crept together. “Tour-manager? He wasn’t with us. And Alaska and Canada are kid of alike, so it would’ve been the same, or something. Lots of Starbucks everywhere. I liked it there.”

The manager used a couple of seconds to take these words in, to put the sounds together to words that meant something. Starbucks. Canada. Tourmanager. Gone.

"And where is your tour manager?!" He tried to keep his calm, and think rationally – these boys were just too much. He turned to Nam Joon, so upset his veins were showing. "You're the leader! Where is he?! He's supposed to be here with you!"

Nam Joon shrugged, and exchanged gazes with Hoseok.

"When did we last see him?"

Yoongi tapped his cheek. "Well, he was with us in China, at least," he said with a pondering expression.

"That was your first concert!"

"Well I remember I saw him, isn't that what counts?"

At this point, their manager wanted to rip his hair out.

Then Jungkook, who had been busy dozing off, looked up. "Wait, wasn't he with us when we were in Egypt?"

Seokjin snapped his fingers. "That's right! He was on that train, right? And why was he banging at the door when we went off? I don't think I ever saw him after that,"

Taehyung nodded. "Yes! Wasn't he dancing? I'm pretty sure he was dancing."

And then the manager actually banged his head with his palms. "He wanted to get off, obviously! And you actually left him on a train in Egypt?! That's three weeks ago! Who took care of you after that?" he exclaimed, on the verge of tears. These boys were as unpredictable as they were stupid.

"Make-up and hair-stylist noonas were very nice and guided us," Jimin grinned foolishly. He had a weird light blue cloth around his legs, and on his upper body he had wrapped an even weirder, dark blue piece of fabric. He looked like a monk that had tried to go the way of fashion, but failed.

The eyes of the manager looked at all of them with despair, as he walked around his tidied, dark brown desk.

"You let your make-up noonas lead you around the world?"

The boys nodded eagerly (with the exception of Jungkook of course, who had fallen asleep once again).

At this point, the manager gave up and sunk tiredly down in his chair. "So you lost your tour manager in Egypt. You went around the world, and almost missed four concerts. You ended up in Alaska instead of Canada. What HAVEN'T YOU DONE?"

"Alcohol and drugs,” he grinned. Then he got a doubting look on his face. "Well, at least not me,"

The manager took a deep breath, and blinked slowly one time. Then he looked at the boys who were standing in front of him, either sleeping, not interested or foolishly grinning. He pointed at them, one at a time.

"Did. One. Of. You. Do. Drugs. Or. Alcohol?" he demanded, shifting his gaze from person to person for each word.

"Of course not. They'd only disturb me in my sleep,"

"Drugs are so not healthy!"

"Drugs dilutes your sense of righteousness and will lead you onto the wrong universal path,"

"Nah, too bothersome. I'd get a headache,"

"For the money drugs costs I can buy, like, a hundred Starbucks, so of course I'd rather have the Starbucks!"

"Drugs? Oh, I think some guy in America had some. I told him no though. Aren't they supposed to be bad for you?"

"Waste of money. I'd rather use it on music. They have the best hardcore music in Europe!"

And their manager silently thanked God that they were as stupid as they were.

He sighed. “I’ll let you go for now,” he said and sat tiredly down at his desk, waving them off. He needed some time to think alone. And then, call the Korean embassy in Egypt to get the tour-manager back.