Chapter 39 – All Work and No Play (pt.3)

“Are you nuts?!” exclaimed Rapmonster, after Suga finished unravelling the details of his conversation with his old friend from his very first rap group in Daegu, “If it was just us 3, we could totally pull it off, but all seven of us? By next Sunday?! You’re high…”

“Dude, we can do it. This is an amazing chance!”

“He said there’s another one in 3 weeks, let’s aim for that” suggested the blonde boy instead.

“He said we might not get it though.” Protested Suga.

“We just have one song!” exclaimed Ramon.

“We can use the one with Hobi and Jimin dancing, that’ll look less ‘rap-like’. ” countered the red-haired boy, nonplussed.

“Ok then. Two songs. Still not enough.”

“We can remix one of our old songs with vocals. Add a chorus.”

“In a week?” wondered, Rapmon, his voice showing how much he doubted it.

“I can do it. Don’t you trust me?” asked Suga, starting to get annoyed.

Rapmon looked at him suspiciously.

“Come on man… if we do this, it could be huge!” exclaimed the shorter boy, unable to hide his excitement.

“It could also backfire terribly…”

Suga gave him a flat look.

“And what about these kids? You even ask them if they wanna do this?” asked Rapmon, gesturing at the others behind him.

“I wanna do this!!” exclaimed Jungkook, raising his hand up in the air, like a child too eager to give the answer out in class.

“Oh me too!!” pipped up Jimin next to him.

“Me three!!” J-Hope started jumping up and down in caricature of Jungkook, with an exaggerated smile on his face.

Suga turned back to Rapmon, raising his shoulders and smirking.

“What about choreo?”

“Then we practice.”

“It’s test week.”

“Then we practice after tests.”

“Ooh! Ooh! I can make a dance!” piped up Hoseok, getting excited.

“Dance?” echoed Jin, nervously.

“Don’t worry I’ll make it easy enough so you and Rapmon can follow…” the dark-haired boy reassured him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Rapmon shot him a look but didn’t say anything, just frowning.

“Dude, why are you so against this? You’re the one who had all these big dreams about showing your rap to the world…” complained Suga.

“I know but…” he sighed deeply, but when he looked back up, he was smirking. He reached out to give Suga a little bro-hug-handshake and said, “You win. I’ll play”

And everybody cheered.

*

The rest of the afternoon flew by. Everyone was excited about this new turn of events, and even Insook forgot to act awkward around Rapmonster and enjoyed herself thoroughly.

It was around 7pm when people started showing the first signs of tiredness… First with Suga refusing to go on any more rides and offering to guard everyone’s bags while they lined up, after which Jin and Hoseok soon joined him, and by 8pm, nearly all of them were sitting on a stone wall by some shrubbery, waiting for Insook, V and Jungkook to come back from the “flying chairs” ride.

When they did, Jungkook took in the tired-looking older kids and made a face. “Jeez… you guys look like old folks…”

“Aren’t you just about out of energy yet?” asked Suga, with a tired expression.

Jungkook shrugged, “I just wanna get my money’s worth. I could stay til close.”

“Close?!” exclaimed Hoseok, in a dramatic wail, that made Jimin chuckle.

“How about you two?” asked Soonja, motioning to V and Insook.

V just grinned widely, before shaking his head, and Insook answered “Well, I am a little tired, if you guys all wanna go…”

“Tell you what,” suggested Jin, getting up, “why don’t we all go on one last ride, and then call it a day?”

Everyone agreed that it was a good idea, so they decided on something chill to end the day on a good note. The teacups.

Although Jin had said they’d all go together, he, Suga and Soonja ended up sitting that one out as well and waiting for “the kids” on the sidelines. Since it was getting late, and it was a kiddy ride, the line was really short, and soon, the other six were hopping onto a trio of pastel-colored teacups.

Jungkook and V ran for theirs together as soon as their turn was up, Jimin and J-Hope followed, trotting towards another one together, and that left only two of them for the last pairing; Rapmon, who finally got his wish to do a ride with Insook.

They climbed into their yellow cup, and sat opposite each other, waiting for the ride to start. Insook turned the wheel a few times, but when she glanced up at Rapmon, who was looking really tired, she stopped, flashing him an apologetic smile. They continued just sitting there quietly, content to just let the automated contraption rock them around, and too tired to really chat about anything, until they saw V and Jungkook’s teacup spin past them at a ridiculously fast pace.

Insook craned her head to stare at them and started laughing, watching the two younger boys joining forces to turn the wheel as fast as they could.

“You’re really starting to like him, huh?”

Rapmon’s voice pulled her out of her thoughts and she turned to look at him, startled, as a strange expression crossed her features.

“I thought we agreed not to talk about this…” she muttered, looking down at her hands, suddenly.

“Well can we talk about what happened at my house then?”

“Especially not that…” she added, going bring red as she still stared at her hands.

“Why not?”

“You know why”

“Actually I don’t.” he replied, crossing his arms and looking at her pointedly.

Insook shut up like a clam and looked away.

“I thought you liked Soonja anyways?” she finally asked, not looking at him.

“What?! Why?!” he exclaimed, his eyes widening.

“She told me how you two really met…” answered the teenage girl with a chuckle, finally turning back to look at him, just in time to see Rapmon’s face drain of all its blood.

“Yeah but that was before…” he fumbled with his words, looking away from her.

“Before what?” she asked, looking at him intently.

The cups slowly stopped moving as she waited for his answer. They stared at each other so intensely for a few seconds, Rapmon trying to convey his feelings with his eyes instead of words.

The cups came to a full stop, though neither of them noticed, lost as they were in their little moment.

“Guys!!! That was soooo fun!!! Can we go again!!?”

Insook’s head snapped up just in time to see Jungkook and V barrel in towards them, laughing like little kids.

“But this time I ride with Insookie!!” shouted V, flashing her a beaming smile, which made her feel sort of guilty.

“Yeah V, that sounds fun!” she smiled at him, jumping off the teacup to head for the exit.

V clapped happily, and grabbed her arm, pulling her along. As they walked away, Insook turned to cast a small glance in Rapmon’s direction. He still sat in the teacup, looking defeated.

***

“Ok, spill.” asked Suga, in a flat tone, as he and Rapmon were walking back towards his house together.

They’d parted ways with everyone at the last transfer point, and Rapmon had decided to join Suga who’d said he was gonna start working on remixing their songs for the upcoming performance right away.

Rapmon looked up at his friend in surprise.

“Come on, you’re never usually this quiet. What gives?” asked the shorter boy, not liking the awkwardness of the silence between them.

“Nothing…” mumbled Rapmon, childishly, before adding “so which song are you thinking you wanna remix?”

Suga turned and gave him a flat look, which made Rapmon go “What?” and he shook his head.

“You were fine til you went on that last ride with bet-girl. Did something happen?”

“Don’t call her that…” muttered the blonde boy, in an annoyed manner.

Suga rolled his eyes, “Fine, if you don’t wanna talk about it…”

Rapmon sulked quietly for a moment, then finally sighed and answered, “I think she likes V…”

“You mean they’re not dating?!” exclaimed the red-headed boy, shock actually showing up on his face.

Rapmon threw him an angry look.

“What? I mean it looked like they were!”

Rapmon tsked in annoyance, looking away.

“What, so do you like her then? I thought you liked her friend?” asked Suga, not very good at relationship talk.

The blonde boy let out an irritated groan and scratched his head in annoyance. “Aaaah, I don’t know!”

Suga stopped walking to stare at him.

“What don’t you know?” he asked, cluelessly.

“Soonja… I like her, I mean she’s hot, you know… and it’s so much fun trying to get under her skin… but Insook, she… I don’t know…” he concluded, helplessly.

Suga gave him a look and then started walking again. Rapmon followed.

“But Soonja’s the same… she just likes messing my head, I don’t think she actually likes me,” the blonde boy went on, though Suga hadn’t said anything, “and Insook, I KNWOW she likes me… or at least, she did……. Now…”

Rapmon sighed.

“Now…” he struggled to go on, as if he didn’t know how to properly explain it, “every time I try to get close to her she pushes me away… and I know V likes her too, and… when I see them together… I wonder if I even got a chance…” he sighed, sadly, looking at the ground in front of him.

“Aaahhh….” Said Suga, knowingly.

“What?”

“That’s why.”

“Stop talking in riddles and ing say what you mean, man.” asked Rapmon, growing annoyed.

“It’s a classic. She’s pushing you away, so you’re chasing her.”

Rapmon just looked at his friend like he wanted to argue, but said nothing.

“It’s the nature of the predator.” his friend added, with a little chuckle that made Rapmon throw him an unimpressed look.

“Look. Think what you will. It’s not my business and it’s not my heart.” said Suga, with a little shrug, “but just think long and hard about your intentions. What are you gonna do if you win? Do you really like her? Will you be satisfied? Because honestly, I’ve never seen you be interested in a girl for even 5 seconds after she gave it up to you…”

Rapmon looked at his friend in wonder and bit back the words he was going to say. He hated to admit it, but what Suga was saying made a lot of sense.

‘Do I really like Insook? Or do I just want her because she’s pushing me away?’