Namjoon hyung's phone was going off for the third time that morning and I was more than happy to just kick him in the shins and toss his phone out the window - it was playing that stupid factory set ringtone incessantly. He wasn't even awake to hear it.

"Yah! Namjoon!" From the driver's seat of the van, our manager yelled at him. He stirred awake, and Jin hyung, who was sitting next to him, nudged him to full consciousness. Namjoon hyung answered his phone. It was probably one of his friends from the underground rap scene. Only they would call at the most inappropriate times, like right now, as we were on our way to the outskirts of Seoul in the wee hours of the morning for an appearance. 

"Whatever happened to that girl you met in Los Angeles?" Our manager asked me. He noticed that I was awake and I guess he decided it was a good enough time as ever to talk to me, especially since I was sitting up front with him. I really should have just feigned sleep. 

"I still talk to her." I picked lint off the sleeve of my shirt. "In fact, we're making plans to see each other soon."

"Yeah?" Manager hyung scoffed. "How are you going to do that when you're busy all the time?"

I scowled. "I'm not busy at night."

I think Manager hyung choked on my words because he almost pressed the brakes on the van. "Yah, Kim Taehyung-goon, don't say things like that!"

"Like what?"

"You meet this girl at night?" Manager hyung worriedly glanced at me while simultaneously trying to stay on the lane. 

"I plan to," I answered, nonchalantly. What's so worrisome about that?

Our manager opened his mouth as if to say something, but closed it again and remained silent. He furrowed his brows for the rest of the ride to our promotion. I didn't find it necessary to reason with him, seeing as I actually didn't make plans to see her yet.

She kinda stopped replying to my texts.

#

I walked into Jimin and Hoseok-hyung's room without knocking. In the beginning, this kind of miffed Hoseok hyung, but since Jimin-ssi was my main source of advice and I was running to him more and more frequently, hyung got used to my unceremonious entrance. Besides, it would have been tedious to always let him in if I had to knock and was coming in so often.

"How can I help you this time?" Jimin was lying on his bed, staring at the ceiling. He didn't even turn to look at me. He already knew what I was going to whine about.

"I need you to tell me that everything will be okay."

"Um." Jimin sat up and awkwardly patted my leg. Even in private, he wasn't fond of being sweet and caring to people. "Every - "

I sat up at the vibration of my phone. I lied back down when I saw that it was just a notification from another app. Noticing my demeanor, Jimin spoke up.

"Are you expecting a text or call from someone?"

I turned away in shame. "At this point, I don't think so."

Fast thinking, Jimin reached over for my phone. He held his arm out to hold me down and went through it. Unfortunately for me at this time, he knew my phone's lock code and opened it up. The first thing that appeared on the screen was the messaging app that Min Jung and I used to talk to each other. The last thing that was sent was a message from me, telling her good night. That was from approximately 20 hours ago.

Jimin barked out laughing. I punched him in the shoulder and snatched my phone back, but that didn't seem to faze him. 

"Taehyung-ssi," he said after his laughter died out. "Let me tell you something. I'm only going to tell you this once, so listen very well."

I waited. Jimin looked me straight in the eye, his face serious as hell. He leaned in closer and said, softly, "Did your fall off?"

He sprinted for the door before I could grab a pillow from the couch and chuck it at his head. 

#

Jimin eventually came back in - after first checking with if I still wanted to hit him. He appeared with Jin-hyung. 

"I've brought a human shield in case you were planning anything else," Jimin said, standing strategically behind Jin-hyung. The other boy was definitely taller than Jimin-ssi, which makes him taller than me, too. "So if you want to lay a hand on me, you have to go through Jin-hyungnim first. And I'm going to warn you, this guy is tough to bend."

"Yah... Jimin, I wasn't enlisted to the company to be anyone's body guard," Jin-hyung said. He turned to me. "Now what is this girl problems I am hearing about, Taehyung-ssi."

"Nothing," I replied, moving over on Jimin's to give him some room to sit. Jimin opted to sit in the floor in front of us. "It's nothing."

"Lies," Jimin hit me on the knee. Instead of being touchy-feely with us, Jimin had a habit physically hurting us. I have a couple bruises from him now. "The real reason why I brought Jin-hyung over is because he knows a lot about dating than I would, so ask him."

I felt my face go warm. Jin-hyung was older than us so I wasn't super comfortable about asking him about how to talk to a girl. Also it was really embarrassing. At that moment, I wanted to just punch Jimin. Again.

"If it's any consolation," Jin chimed in. "I was sort of in your position not too long ago."

Jimin nodded, as if to validate. "It was a trainee in an acting agency."

"What happened?" I asked. Despite having lived with Seokjin-hyung, this was all news to me. 

"Met her at one of the awards shows and I thought she was cute. Truthfully, she reminded me a lot of my ex-girlfriend, who was unique and always a step ahead of everyone..." Jin-hyung trailed off, staring at nothing in particular. After a beat, he continued. "So yeah, I managed to ask for her number, but for some reason, I didn't have the courage to actually send her a text. Took me forever to actually text her. When I finally made up my mind t