Chapter 2

J-Hope calmed down his ways for the next few days, as we wrapped up our Japan trip, but it was right back to business as usual the moment we landed in Korea. In fact, he didn’t even wait til we landed since I’m pretty sure I saw one of the flight attendants slip him her number at some point during the flight… but then, what else was I expecting, really?

I got to have one day off when we returned, but the boys were not so lucky. It was right back in the studio for them, to practice their dance for the last upcoming show of their tour, and work on their new album, which was supposed to be out in the fall. As far as schedules went, this was what we called “easy downtime” in our line of work. Especially in my case since boys rehearsing meant I didn’t really have that much to do… so when I returned to work the next day, most of my time was spent in the office, editing videos and occasionally popping in and out of the practice room to see if the boys needed anything.

One night, as I was working on a particularly tricky piece, I looked up to find Jimin smirking at me.

“What?” I asked, making his smirk turn to a grin.

“You look so serious with that expression on your face…” he said, walking up to me and peaking at my computer screen behind my shoulder, “What are you working on?”

So I showed him what I’d spent the last hour editing and asked him what he thought. It was a video that I’d taken at the last TBR stop, of Hobi and Kookie dancing around like idiots. Jimin burst out laughing.

“Kookie looks so stupid when he makes that face!!” he nearly cried, “It’s good. ARMY will like it.” he went on, nodding, “but what about me?” he pouted. “There hasn’t been a new bomb with me in it in a while…”

“I have a video of you playing cheerleader at ISAC coming up… but I wanna get this one done first…”

“Ah… show me…”

“I’ll show you when I get to it. Did you want something?”

“Ah no… I just went to stretch my legs and saw the light… it’s late, noona, you should go home.” he said to me in a really sweet way.

I looked up and smiled at him fondly, I really had a soft spot for the child; he was always so caring to everyone around him. I told him he should do the same, and he laughed, that cute throaty laugh and said “ahh, well… you know that’s not how it goes… but noona, if you’re not busy, won’t you take my video? I look cute today so I wanna post it.”

“You look cute every day, Jiminie,” I cooed at him while he made a little embarrassed-yet-happy face and handed me his phone.

We took a bunch of silly videos, and I’m not quite sure how, but we ended up switching to my camera and things escalated into him strutting down the hallway in between the cubicles like it was a runway in a bunch of different ways, like super camp, super serious, and then doing a little dance, and we were just laughing and having a good time till Hoseok showed up, looking for him. As soon as he saw the camera, he the crazy and started chasing Jimin around, saying he loved him and Jimin was all like “get away from me!!”, which we all knew was a routine that was really popular with the fans. Then, somehow, they ended up in each other’s lap, telling me a story about some stupid thing that had happened during dance practice earlier.

Just as they finished, Jimin’s phone rang so he picked it up. It was V, who said he, Kookie and Jin were heading home and asking if he was coming along. Rapmon and Suga were staying a bit longer (this was code for ‘all night’ by the way) to work on their songs.

Jimin said he’d be right down and hung up.

“Ah well, I guess I’m off, let me know how that video turns out, noona, and don’t forget to go home too.” he told me, with a little smile as he left.

I glanced at the clock and saw that it was already 11:15pm. He was right, I need to get my home.

“What about you?” I asked Hoseok, who hadn’t made a move to leave the chair he was sitting on, “not going home? Was there no willing victim today?”

“Noona, I’m hurt… It’s not like I get a new girl every single day…”

“Ok, so you’ve downgraded to one a week now?” I asked offhandedly, though he knew I was joking.

“Uh!” he pretended offense, putting a hand on his heart and making an effeminately shocked face, which made me chuckle.

“Well you know it’s the only way to deal with the pain of you constantly refusing my advances…” he added dramatically, making a mopey face.

“Yeah yeah... I’m sure it’s breaking your heart.” I said, sarcastically. “Go home, Hoseok. Get some sleep for once.”

He winked at me as he got up.

“Good night, Nari.”

I waved him off, not looking at him as I straightened a stack of papers on my desk and heard him chuckle.

Once he was gone, I looked up to see him disappearing around the corner and sighed. Then I packed my things and left too.

***

After a relatively slow week (by Bangtan standards…) of just working at the office, we were off again to Hong Kong for the last stop of the The Red Bullet tour. Honestly, even though the boys were tired, everyone was super excited. They were all smiles at the airport, posing for their fans to take fashion shots of their clothes, and even on the plane, they stayed up chatting excitedly for at least a good hour before knocking off to sleep.

By luck of the draw, I ended up seated next to Hoseok on the plane, and he kept chatting my ear off even after everyone had gone to sleep.

“Hobi, I love you but… how do I say this nicely? Please shut up. I really wanna sleep now.”

“Aww, but noona…” he whined. “Everyone else is sleeping…”

“Just listen to your music or something. Or watch a movie.”

“It’s boring watching alone… watch it with me…” he said, pulling on my hand.

“I wanna sleep Hobi… you should too…”

“I had coffee…” he complained, making a puppy face, which had no effect on me.

I shrugged and reached to pull my eye mask down over my eyes.

“Noonaaaaa!!!” he whined, shaking my arm and preventing me from doing so, “noona don’t abandon me!!”

I rolled my eyes at him.

“And no flirting with the stewardesses while I’m out.” I added, ignoring his comment.

He pulled an offended face and I reached for my eye mask again.

“No!” he shouted, like a sulky child.

“Hoseok-ah…” I warned, but he just took the mask off my head and then held it to his chest, crossing his arms over it and going “no! no! no!” like a baby throwing a fit.

“Hobi seriously, stop with the freakin aegyo, it’s only cute when you’re on camera.”

“It’s cute! I’m cute!!” he squealed, pulling a ridiculous face.

“Are you a man or a baby?”

“Hopi Hopi is the cutest little baby!!!” he chanted, punctuating his words with cutsey little arm gestures and finishing by poking both his cheeks with a finger and flashing me the cheesiest, most child-like smile he could produce.

I tried really hard not to give him the benefit of laughing, but I failed.

“Fine,” I gave up, “what do you wanna watch?”

“Yaaaay!!!” he cheered, and then we scrolled through the list of movies available on the flight and settled on the new Avengers movie, which neither of us had seen yet.

All in all, it was a pretty good flight.

***

The show went well. In fact, it went better than well, they were great. It was the last show of the tour and everyone felt a sort of nostalgic energy, as if they really wanted to give it their all and go out with a bang. On top of it, the fans had prepared a special cake for Jungkook’s birthday, and that made the whole night even more special.

After the show, we all headed back to the hotel, and had a big party in a room that management had rented out for the occasion. It was rare that the entire staff was included in such celebrations, but I guess that to commemorate the end of an 11-month-long tour, they thought they could spare the expense.

The food was spread out in an enormous buffet, and everyone was just milling around, eating, chatting and drinking.

I was sitting at a table, chatting with Eun-bi, from wardrobe, and Jiyoon, one of the makeup girls, about what we were gonna do when we got home, since we were actually gonna have a full 3-days break for the first time in months.

“I’m going on a trip with my boyfriend” was saying Eun-bi.

“Does he have off?” I asked, popping another dumpling into my mouth.

“I don’t know but if he doesn’t, he better take off!!” she said and we all laughed.

“Ahh… must be nice to have a boyfriend…” sighed Jiyoon, wistfully.

I scrunched my nose and refrained from commenting as I spied Jungkook approaching the bar out of the corner of my eye. He grabbed a glass of wine, casually looking around to see if anyone had seen him, and then walked off surreptitiously. I chuckled under my breath at him trying to sneak drinks, which prompted Jiyoon to ask me what was so funny.

“Don’t you want a boyfriend?” she asked pointedly.

“Boys are too much trouble…” I answered, waving her off, “and it’s not like we have time to keep any kind of relationship…”

“True…” added Eun-bi, “I don’t think Yuhan and I would’ve lasted this long if we hadn’t already been dating for two years before I took this job…” she sighed.

I burst out laughing and they both turned to look at me, perplexed. But I wasn’t looking at them, so they craned their necks to see what I was looking at. A few steps away from our table, in the corner of the room, Sejin-oppa, one of the boys’ manager, was busy giving Jungkook an earful about underage drinking and the kid, though obviously embarrassed and guilty-looking, was still arguing to let him have just one drink since it was his birthday.

“Poor Kookie…” I chuckled quietly, taking a sip of my own wine, and looked up to see the other two girls looking at me funny.

“Well anyways, if you wanna date, you should maybe try dating someone on the team. Then at least you’d have the same schedule.” said Jiyoon.

“Are you high?!” I exclaimed, nearly choking on my drink, “That is the worst idea ever.”

“Why not?” asked Eun-bi, “she’s got a point…”

“No way…” I shook my head, “What if it doesn’t work out? It becomes super awkward, not just for you, but for anyone else in the office…”

“You’re so negative, Nari,” Jiyoon tutted at me, “What if it does work out?”

I gave her a flat look, to show what I thought about that, but she just rolled her eyes at me and moved on to another topic of conversation.

It wasn’t really that I was such a Negative Nancy, or that I was completely jaded about love, but I’d seen enough of J-Hope’s one night flings either mope around for weeks after he was done with them, or downright quit, to know that office romance was a terrible idea.

***

The next morning as we flew back, the whole entire team was hungover. Nearly everyone; except Kookie, who was busy being noisy as . I guess it was karma for not allowing him to drink the night before. Oh well.

But Kookie did end up getting his wish of being drunk.

And hungover.

A day later, on the eve of his actual birthday, the boys took him out for food and got him completely wasted. I kinda wish I could’ve seen it… drunk Kookie must be something to behold… but alas, I had to live through the stories that the boys recounted to me the following day, which we spent making funny videos of the birthday boy all passed-out. (We’re mean.)

We had our holiday, and then it was off to Thailand and Indonesia for fanmeetings again, and a pit-stop in Japan for a special charity event, before coming back home. Rapmon’s birthday also got squeezed somewhere in there, in the middle of all the activities. Actually, I felt bad for him… For whatever reason, Rapmon always seems to get the short end of the stick when it comes to his birthday… they’re always so busy they never have time to do anything… at least this time he got a fancy sushi dinner.

Then there came the mess that was their American highlight tour… oh boy… I guess we’re not going back to the States for a while… which might not be such a bad thing if you ask me, but I’m pretty sure no one’s asking me…. God, what a flop that was…

Basically, there was no organization whatsoever… the boys were told nothing in advance so we couldn’t plan the sets properly. The shows were overbooked and many fans couldn’t get in. Then too many fans were let in for autograph and picture sessions and it was a mess… and some fans got grabby at the photo session, but the way they were dealt with was just atrocious… and the staff was just… I don’t like saying mean things about people, but if I never see that organizer girl again, it’ll be for the best. She seemed more interested in flirting with Rapmon and Jimin than anything else, and really not getting the message that they were not interested at all. In fact, I got a slight inner feeling of glee when I saw Rapmon actually, physically, turn down her drunken advances at dinner after the 3^rd show. Maybe that’s why she didn’t show up to the fourth one, lol. But anyways, I just wanna forget about that whole thing.

Hobi, in his usual way, dealt with the stress by picking up chicks. It’s kind of amazing actually, how he still manages to pick up girls even when he’s in countries where he has super limited language skills. If it didn’t turn me off so much, I’d be impressed. In San Francisco, he went home with the pretty waitress from the restaurant where we ate dinner, and in Toronto, there was a y, blue-eyed brunette who caught his eye at the signing and somehow she ended up “accidentally” finding her way into his hotel room while Jimin had gone to the gym… *sigh*

Anyways, when all that drama was finally over, we flew back to Korea, only to be met with MORE drama…