2 years. I stan this group for 2 years. And I've never stan a group so hard like this, never feel this much passion for a group before, never ever stanned for such a long time before.

Yes, I admit I am not really a loyal fan. Since I knew Kpop in 2013, I drifted here and there, stanning and dropping groups. I bought merch. I bought albums, even, but not once I have stanned one group loyally for over a year.

They, BTS, did this to me.

I started stanning at September 2015, when I happened to stumble across the On Stage Prologue on Youtube. I was attracted by the theories, then I thought Butterfly sounds good, so I searched them up. I listened to Dope first, and then No More Dream. I found a few Bangtan Bombs. I found full episodes of Rookie King. Little did I know, I was falling into a blackhole of happiness. 

Maybe I was insane. Maybe I was just mad. But when the Nevermind Teaser came out, I made one of the bravest move I've ever done: I preordered the HYYH Pt. 2 album on an online shop. By myself. Yes I've bought a few albums before with my friend, but never have I once done online preordering before. And it was only two months since I started stanning.Then before I even realised, I started going all out for them.

I created a Wattpad account. I made myself a Twitter account. I listened to all their songs, predebut singles and mixtapes and all. I was lost in a happy bubble. I laughed over fandom jokes and binge watched Bangtan Bombs (a whole weekend over them, oh gosh). 

I initially thought true love for a Kpop group would be something like madness at first, but it eventually fades to a "long-lasting" love. Now that might be true for some people, but it's not true for me. I found out that for me, if I really really like a group, the love keeps burning, like the fire in a hearth, it might not be noticeable at times, but it's always there. It's ordinary. Like breathing, like tapping your toes to the beat of music, like the leaves rustling when the wind blows, it's normal and always exists anywhere.

I've never felt so mucj compassion for a single group before. I'd got plenty of mutuals (in school) when I stanned the other group, but for BTS, maybe they were not that popular in my country, or in my school (somehow everyone's crazy over SM groups), only after about 5 months since I started stanning, I found one single mutual, and she's one of my best friends since then. There are less people to get high and scream with, but it is somehow more fun, and completely enjoyable.

Then I, alongside with my friend, the two of us started watching their fame grow around us. People stopped playing only EXO and BigBang songs (no offense™) and started playing BTS songs. They got their first 100M video, they held two major concerts, they released 2 albums (both of which I bought) and finally, I watched them receiving their first Daesang, live on Youtube.

I held in a scream when the announcer said their name. I saw how shook they were. I saw how everyone's eyes clouded up with tears of happiness. I heard them screaming our names. The name the defines us. The name that gives us a significance. And somehow they always put it at the very beginning of their acceptance speech, the very first word of their sentence.

I am proud to be an ARMY.

Then I continue to watch them soar with their beautiful wings. They flew all over the globe. Winning awards overseas. I smile while watching from a distance. Being an international fan is never easy. Being a broke international fan is never easy. I see people excitingly going to their concerts. I see people attending fansigns. I see people bumping into them on streets.

But the fire inside me is still burning. Every single second I feel so proud of them, a love indescribable, a passion so strong, and I want to scream to the world that I stan an amazing group called BTS, and the world should know and appreciate them!! I'm just a normal teenage fangirl in a corner of the world, and they won't ever know me, but still, I love them so much.

Namjoon, Seokjin, Yoongi, Hoseok, Jimin, Taehyung, Jungkook, Bangtan. The brightest stars in my sky.

I proudly call myself an ARMY, and I won't ever say otherwise. 

170613 (whosh I typed so long lmao)