Chapter 4 – Party’s over

Insook was super bored. She’d seen Rap Monster come back and perform his little rap show – which had been amazing – but now he’d gone off somewhere again and had obviously forgotten about her. There’d been a commotion on the dancefloor right after, as two guys seemed to be having a dance battle of some sort, but people had been crowded around them so tightly that she could barely see anything other than a foot here and a head there. After that, things had returned to normal, but still nobody talked to her.

For the last 10 minutes, she had entertained herself by watching this weird kid in an oversized grey sweater, nearly the same color as his hair, dance by himself as if he was mimicking his own private little rock concert. ‘I guess there is someone here who looks even stupider than me…’ she chuckled, but then again, he didn’t seem to care what people thought about his behaviour, so she wasn’t sure she was the one winning that contest. She was seriously considering just making a run for it, but it was already too late to take the subway back home. Maybe if she took a taxi, it wouldn’t be that expensive...

‘5 more minutes,’ she told herself, secretly hoping that those would be the 5 minutes in which Rapmonster would finally remember her existence, and she pulled out her phone to see if Soonja had replied to her last text.

She didn’t notice the ashen-haired boy had come to sit down on the couch right next to her until he called out “hello!” in a chirpy voice, right by her ear. She jumped back in surprise. Up close like this, she thought she recognized him from her Japanese elective class. His name was Kim Taehyung, and he’d always seemed like a nice enough boy, though they’d never talked before.

“You seem sad. I’m V. What’s your name?” he asked her without pausing for breath in between each statement, showing her a wide smile.

There was some kind of childish innocence about his behavior and she couldn’t help a little smile.

“Lee In Sook” she said, handing him her hand, which he shook. “Why V?” she added.

“I dunno. I just liked it.”

He flashed her a mouth full of teeth and she laughed.

“There. You’re happy now!”

And she laughed again.

“Will you dance with me?”

“Oh, no, no, no… I don’t dance.” she shook her hands in front of her.

 “Why not?” he asked, tilting his head.

 “I just don’t.”

He shrugged and then reached a long arm across her body for her beer cup, which lay forgotten on the side table next to her.  “Can I have this?”

“Sure… but…”

He took a sip and made a face. “Eww, it’s gone all flat.”

She chuckled.

“Come on, let’s go get more.” And he took her hand and dragged her with him to the kitchen.

*

Much later, they were sitting on the sidewalk in front of the building, chatting. They’d spent most of the night together and Insook had somehow forgotten about her desire to go home. V was really easy to talk to and didn’t seem to mind that she didn’t that have much to say. He seemed perfectly happy just chattering away about the randomest of things.

“Oh hey, there you are!” said a voice behind them, “I thought you’d left!”

They both turned around and saw Rapmonster standing there, smiling too widely at her.

“Oh, hey Taehyung” he added, as if he’d just noticed the boy was there.

“Hey,” replied Taehyung in an uncharacteristically cool voice, standing up and dusting his pants. Insook got up too, asking “you guys know each other?” to which the younger boy just answered “hmm”, not looking at anyone.

“Hey man, do you mind if I borrow her for a minute?” asked the blonde boy, putting his hands on Insook’s shoulders, which made her brain stop working for several seconds.

“Go right ahead” replied V, flicking his hair out of his eyes with a shake of his head, “I need to go home anyways. It’s late.”

And then, without saying goodbye, he just walked off. Insook stared at him; the incongruity of his personality change pulling her out of the daze she’d gone in when Rapmon had touched her. Then, the mention of going home made her look down at her phone to check the time.

“Holy crap, is it really this late?!” she exclaimed, as her phone display flashed 4:32am.

“Yeah, nearly everyone’s gone already.”

“Oh my god, my parents are gonna kill me!! I should go.”

“No wait. We didn’t even get to talk” he said, grabbing her wrist and she just looked down and stared at it, even as he let go. “Besides, if you wait just 20 more minutes or so, trains will be starting again.”

She debated the point in her head but realized he was right, so she nodded. “…okay…”

“Here, I’ll walk you” he said, and offered her his hand. But again, she just stood there staring at it.

“Come on, I’m not contagious!” he laughed, grabbing her hand in his and pulling her along.

She fell into step next to him, feeling her cheeks burning. Luckily, it was still dark out, so he didn’t take any notice. They walked quietly for about a minute before he asked, “do I make you uncomfortable?” casually, without looking at her.

She nodded, staring at her feet.

“Here, let’s stop for a minute.”

There was a bus stop with a little shelter and a bench nearby, so he sat her down and kept standing in front of her.

“Look at me” he pulled her chin up, but she avoided his eyes.

 “Am I so scary that you won’t even look at me?” he chuckled.

“Namjoon…”

He sat down next to her. “What?”

“I don’t know what you want from me…” she answered in a really quiet voice.

“Do I have to want something from you?”

He was looking at her but she just stared at her shoes, quietly.

“Hey…” he nudged her head towards him again and raised an eyebrow at her.

“I’m not…” she started and fumbled, “you don’t… I’m… I’m not like the girls that you want…”

“How do you know what I want?” he replied, deadpan, fixing his eyes on her, and she looked down again.

“It just makes no sense. Why am I here? Why are you even talking to me?” and she looked up at him on that last part, her eyes almost pleading because she wanted to understand.

“I just want to.” he said, looking at the deserted street in front of them, “Don’t you ever do stuff cuz you just want to?” he asked her.

“Not like this…” she whispered.

He chuckled.

“Look. I don’t know why I seem to be freaking you out… I just want to get to know you more. Is that bad? Should I stop?”

He waited for her answer and she finally shook her head.

“Good. Cuz I wasn’t planning to.”

She looked up to see he was grinning at her.

“Come on” he said getting up, “let’s get you home.”

*

After having dropped Insook off at the station, Rapmonster made his way back to Suga’s apartment to find J-Hope snoring on the couch, and few stragglers still standing in a little clump by the bar, chatting. He ushered them out, clapping, “party’s over, folks, go home!” They ed and moaned a little, but eventually everybody left and the place turned oddly quiet. Suga came out of the bathroom soon after, looking even paler than he usually did.

“Hey man, are you ok?” asked Rapmon, and his bro gave him an uncertain nod.

“We should clean up…” said the redhead in an unsteady voice, looking around the room that was littered with trash and empty alcohol containers.

“No man, you go rest, I’ll take care of it.” Suga nodded and headed over to his bed, where he promptly passed out.

Namjoon went to the kitchen where he grabbed a large trash bag and started chucking empty plastic cups and plates of half-eaten food into it without discrimination, but less than 10 minutes later, he was sprawled on the couch next to Hoseok, snoring.

***

The boys woke up late on Saturday afternoon, and since Yoongi was still feeling too hungover to move, Rapmon and J-Hope took care of the clean-up duties. It took a while because they were going at it at a snail’s pace, but eventually, they got the place back to a semblance of a livable environment. The sun was already setting outside by the time they dragged up 4 large plastic bags full of trash to the dumpster behind the building.

“Aaah… I hate cleaning!” moaned Rapmonster, letting his whole body drop on the couch, once they’d come back.

“It’s not that bad” chuckled J-Hope, sitting on the couch’s arm rest and looking at his friend with a small smile, “last night was really fun, so it’s the price we have to pay!”

“Yeah, it went pretty well, didn’t it?” Rapmon grinned back at his friend.

“How did it go with that girl? Any progress?” asked the white-clad boy, sliding down next to him.

“Urgh…” he moaned, which made his dark-haired friend laugh, “I don’t even ing know…”

“Told you it wasn’t gonna be easy!!” smirked J-Hope.

“Yeah, yeah…” the blonde kid gave him a flat look and sighed. “I don’t know man… I’ve been pulling out all the stops on that girl and she can’t even look me in the eye! What am I supposed to do?!” he sighed.

“Wanna give up?” asked his friend, still smirking.

“No way!!” exclaimed Rapmon, throwing a cushion at him.

***

As the sun was setting down on Saturday evening, Insook stepped out of her house wearing an oversized grey track suit, and trotted down the front steps to go meet Soonja, who was waiting for her on the sidewalk, looking irritatingly flawless, as usual.

“Kyara!” squealed the girl, spotting her friend’s little Pekinese dog bouncing around at her feet, and bending down to pet him.

“I see you made an effort for our date” joked the tall girl, in a flat tone.

Insook looked up at her friend and flashed her a big smile, and then to the dog, “ooh, what’s that kyara? You think I look cute? Ooh, good boy… oooh… you’re so cute…” she cooed, ruffling its ears.

Soonja rolled her eyes. After a minute or so, Insook stood up and held out her hand towards her friend. “here” she dropped the borrowed tube of lipgloss into her friend’s palm, “thanks.”

“So, did it help?” she asked, raising an eyebrow.

Insook shrugged. “Probably not…”

And they started walking down the street.

As they took Soonja’s dog, Caramel, on his nightly walk, Insook recounted the events of the party to her best friend in all its glorious (and not so glorious) details. Soonja ooh-ed and aah-ed and hmm-ed as the story unfolded, but mostly kept her thoughts to herself until she was sure her friend was done.

“So what do you think?” Insook asked her, eagerly, after a while.

“I think this V guy sounds nice,” replied Soonja, smirking with her eyes.

“Nooo… not him! About Namjoon! What do you think!” she wailed, linking arms with her friend and pulling on her sleeve.

Soonja laughed, “I know, I know... well…” she trailed off.

“Well…?”

“Well… I dunno. I just have a bad feeling about the guy.”

“What!? Why?”

“Well first off, anyone who calls himself ‘Rap Monster’…”

Insook gave her a narrow look and her friend chuckled.

“Ok, ok… I dunno… just my gut feeling. Like, his seeing you off was really cute and all, but he just left you there for the whole party and didn’t even say hello.”

“He did say hello.”

“You know what I mean…”

“Well he was busy. He was kinda hosting the party so…” explained Insook.

“Ok fine, but weren’t you saying yourself just a few days ago how weird you thought it was he was suddenly paying attention to you??”

“If you think I got no chance, just say so…” Insook sulked.

“I’m not saying that… I’m just saying don’t get your hopes up too quickly…”

“I know that…” sighed the baby-faced girl.

Soonja put a hand on her friend’s shoulder, and was about to utter some comforting words when Insook’s sweater pocket started vibrating. The girl pulled out her phone, and looked at the screen.

“Ooh!! It’s him!!” she exclaimed, turning to her friend with a delighted face.

“Rap Monster?”

Insook nodded eagerly and quickly opened the mail.

“He says thanks for coming to the party.” she read, “and he’s looking forward to see me at school on Monday! Ooooooh!!!!!”

Soonja chuckled, watching her friend so excited, and Caramel, sensing the excitement started jumping up and down at their feet too.

“Oooh, you’re happy too, Kyara?” Insook bent down the pet the excited puppy, “yes, today is a good day!!”