July 8, 2018

 2:29 AM

 Ah, what a long day it's been. As I sit here at my computer, typing to myself, I think about what's to come in the future for me. Working at a company where journaling is what you do all day is pretty difficult, even if that is what you're going to college for. It's tough work doing what I do, it really is. Not to say that other jobs aren't difficult or anything. I bet being a policeman or a doctor is difficult as well, but being a journalist? Come on. Let me give you a few reasons as to why journalism is difficult. You need to be in great touch with the people. The people are confusing, you know? Always moving on to different trends, even if they're weird. As long as it's popular, you can catch them doing it or something similar to it. You need practically perfect grammar, although nowadays they have computer programs for that I guess. It's not particularly shameful if you use one, although I wouldn't say you'd need to if you payed attention in school. Although, I could see how you could just be forgetful at times. Anyway, you have to know how to spell as well. Gosh, I've had a few run-ins with that. One time about two years ago, I was covering a story for The Washington Post, a huge English news outlet! I was pretty excited. To be a Korean person doing a job like that, you'd think I was an actual professional or something. Well, there was a run-in where I had a spelling issue. It wasn't too urgent, as it was a very small mistake and my English isn't as good as others, but that day was incredibly exciting. Getting up at 6 in the morning isn't, but anyway, I had to cover a meeting with a politician near Alabama about a new law they were passing. The law seemed to be about same marriage. I personally didn't approve of it, but this article wasn't about opinions. It was moreso about informing the people. On June 26th, 2016, it was legal in every state. Isn't that extraordinary? Although I don't approve of it, the citizens of the United States bound together and created change within their nation. I find that absolutely amazing. The United States government is something you can learn from, I would say. I wonder just how it was established...

 Oh! Speaking of news stories! I was asked the other day to complete another story for my company. I am asked often to write stories pertaining to certain topics, (and may I add, more than others that work there, because as my boss puts it, I'm "an incredibly talented and mature youth) but never something as amazing as this. I had just come into the office with a chocolate milk and a Snickers bar and sat down when my coworker, Kwon Jiyong (who was an extremely higher position than I) confronted me at my office cubicle. 

 "An Youngah," he said in his gruff yet lightly higher pitched voice. He's always had a sort of throttle about him, always sounding up and ready to go in the way he spoke but constantly tired. It was weird, "we want you to cover something very important to the people these days."

 "Something important to the people?" I inquired. What could it be? In Korea, there were plenty of important things. There was always food, beauty, plastic surgery, K-Pop idols, K-Drama actors, variety shows...I could go on and on forever! "Something" has never been a very specific term when used in conversation, Jiyong-ah. I opened up my milk carton and took a small swig.

 "Yes, yes," he said wearily, nodding his head. "It seems when we create articles about topics that matter to us, we do lower in economy than our competitors." He looked lower to the ground as he said this, and I could tell that the articles we normally posted in the papers and on our website just weren't making the cut these days.

 "Ah, this is true. Then again, the articles we post about are normally pertaining to news in other countries. Maybe Korean people don't really care about that as much?" I said, as if I wasn't a Korean person. With that, he looked at me pointedly. I took a small bite of my Snickers bar and looked up at him with puzzled eyes.

 "Who doesn't care about the news? It was all my parents had me watch back in my day." He said with a huff. I can see why he's so annoyed about young people not wanting news in their lives, but then again, what's more exciting? K-Pop concerts, or the news? K-Dramas, or the news? The latest fashion, or the news? I imagined the news on one of my shoulders, and the trends of Korean culture on another. You had to pick one, you know. I took another swig of my milk and thought deeply.

 "Jiyong-ah, there are a lot of younger people tuning in now ever since we posted the article about Park Hyungsik." I said, twisting my chair around to look at him with a thoughtful look. "Maybe we should cater to our youth a bit more." I suggested, already gathering ideas in my head. This story was going to be a knockout if done correctly.

 "Ah, An Youngah, that's a great idea! What do young people like nowadays, other than K-Dramas? We can't have repetitive articles, and I can never keep up with the trends," he said with a toothy grin. Of course someone as old as him would be this way. 

 "Well Jiyong-ah," I said, glancing in another direction with a blush creeping to my cheeks. There's always been one certain topic I've always wanted to write about, and it isn't the news. Ever since I arrived to work at this company a few years ago, I wondered when this topic would dart into my queue of stories to research and type up. I wondered if I would get to meet people in this industry one day, and I wondered just how many! There were thousands of people in this industry! Oh...I should probably tell what industry it is, shouldn't I?

 "The K-Pop industry is always loved subject amongt the youngsters. I'd be extremely excited to conduct complete and thorough research on this topic." I said, flashing my own grin. It was more of a "I'm-in-a-very-dreamlike-state-and-I-don't-know-if-I'll-be-coming-out-any-time-soon" sort of grin. As I smiled lovingly at the prospect of seeing the men and women of my dreams, my senses were snapped into reality by the shaking of my shoulders and the tumbling of my hair being shaken down my back multiple times.

 "An Youngah? An Youngah! Is there a brain in there?" He raised his fist to gently rap at my skull but before he could, I grabbed his hand and pushed it back toward him, pushing my chair back toward my desk in the process.

 "Oh, I'm sorry Jiyong-ah, I lost myself for a second there. What were we talking about?" I said dreamily. The same look became plastered to my face when I began to recall why he had shaken me out of my dreamlike state.

 "Youngah! For Heaven's sakes. Do you want to write about the K-Pop industry or not?" He said in an exasperated tone.

 At that, I was shaken awake without the shaking part.

 "Really? You're going to let me do that? A senior in college who has no idea what she's doing but enjoys it anyway?" I said excitedly in a high-pitched tone.

 "Really. I'm going to let you do that. I'll even let you conduct research if you wish. We'll come up with an allowance for you, and you can delve into the topic of K-Pop and its inner workings. You can even swim to the outer edges of that. All we need you to do is come up with a story relating to the K-Pop industry," he said with a tone of finality. I took a final swig of my milk and continued to eat my Snickers bar. Thinking about this was too exciting! The K-Pop industry? Field research? I'm going to meet K-Pop idols! What a turn of events.

 As I headed home that night, I thought long and hard about what exactly within the K-Pop industry I should write about. There were many groups these days, coming from all kinds of companies across Korea. Should I write about the industry itself? That probably wouldn't make the cut. I doubt people would be interested in how it actually works. People want to see the groups they love in the papers. "SNSD makes a Y comeback this summer!", "Big Bang's T.O.P introduced to military life!", or "CL works on NEW album for ENGLISH fans!"

 Everyone wants to know what their biases are doing or what the groups they stan are up to. Now that I think about it, which K-Pop groups am I most fond of? Maybe I should create a story with heart and soul put into it instead of just slapping some words down on a paper. I think writing about a group I'm more interested in will convery to my readers the passion I have for journalism (and the group). Thinking back, there are many, many groups that I stan. Or, stanned.

 The very holy grail, the one most amazing, perfect, best, absolutely extraordinary group in the entire world, the one that broke records, was the first K-Pop group to win a BillBoard award, pretty much created music, B T S.

 To me, BTS, Bulletproof Boyscouts, Beyond the Scene, Bangtan Sonyeondan, whatever you like to call them, are the absolute kings of K-Pop. They've been with me (through the power of YouTube) many a night while I come up with ideas for our latest hit article. They've been with me since my dark teenage days, where I felt no one understood what I was going through. I felt safe as they sang gentle songs and I felt inspired as they sang ground-breaking, unique songs, about the corrupt education system and it's flaws. Ah, just thinking about them now has me bubbly with joy and ecstasy.

 You could imagine when the news was brought to me that they disbanded, I was in total shock. Tears threatened to spill across my cheeks and my eyes puffed into little cotton balls. My nose became red and stuffy and I wouldn't come out of my room for days. That was where writing and journalism came in. Through expressing my feelings and ranting to paper, I was able to overcome my sadness of their disbandment. Come on, BTS has been with me since the beginning. It affected me in the worst way. When an artist leaves their fans, not only is the artist heartbroken, but the fans are moreso. When you spread the sadness the artist feels to not just one fan, but thousands, millions, billions of fans? It's not pretty. Their fame was at it's peak as well. They had won the BillBoard award, breaking international records. Sights were high for them, but they decided it wasn't worth it. Well, that's what I think happened at least. What I would do and what I would give to figure out why they disbanded...WAIT. I have an idea.

 Jiyong-ah said I could write an article with research funded by the company about anything related to the K-Pop industry. This includes groups that have been established, are ongoing, or have disbanded. This means I very well could figure out the mystery of Bangtan's disbandment. They all publicly stated that the reason they disbanded was because of disagreements with their contract renewals, as BigHit's contract renewals come around every 4 years, not 7. Although the 4 year term allows the artists to renew or not when it comes to career changes, you can definitely tell that some of the members wanted to take another path. It was in the way they spoke in public or the way they'd speak to each other. They weren't as close as they used to be.

 Even though the main reason may have been their contracts, I wonder if, with my purely grounded research, I'll be able to figure out just how difficult idol life was for Bangtan and if there were any more reasons for their sudden disbandment.

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AN:

Whew. It's 3:52 AM and I did quite a lot of work on this chapter. Proofreading, research, checking to see just how high pitched GD's voice is...

Ah, at least this chapter is out of the way. Look forward to some juicy Bangtan interviews soon!

Editing process: I've just revised this chapter and I'm now happy with the way it's turned out! Thank you for the few people who stuck around to watch this get a bit better, heheh. Here are a few notes:

I did mean to make that spelling mistake in paragraph one. Did you catch it? :) This is showing development toward our main character. You'll be seeing more of her elegant charms in the future.

 Speaking of paragraph one, I am not homophobic, nor do I disagree with any choices of the LGBT community. Writing from a Korean person's perspective, I thought it would be more effective to the story to write it in a way that other Korean people would relate to. (Personally, I am a member of the LGBT community.)

The font is purposely "Times New Roman" in our chapters because she is a journalist and this is the font that seems most sophisticated. She wants to come across as such, and her very talkative personality contradicts her sometimes. Whereas in my author's note, it is instead "Comic Sans MS" because there's more of a relaxed atmosphere down here. :)

Park Hyungsik is a famous South Korean actor who was a main character in the K-Drama "Hwarang; The Poet Warrior Youth". Just thinking about the drama has me melting :) I definitely recommend it if you haven't already seen it! Go support our baby Taehyung!

Since this is my first fic and no one really knows much about me, if you find it worth your time to comment, you may call me Grace or Jungdont. I'm not very fond of "author-nim." Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! I'll be updating very soon, with our first interview being... a surprise! You'll see who the lucky winner is soon!