“LOOK, THERE THEY ARE!” A grown man in a Blackpink t-shirt, waving a Blink toy, screamed as he pointed towards the exit from baggage claim to the arrivals area at Suvarnabhumi Airport in Bangkok. Almost at the same time as the man began his cathartic release of joy, other fans also screamed, most of them just cheering at the top of their lungs while others shouted sentences that were almost drowned out by the tidal wave of excited fans. 

Hundreds of people, mostly Thai, had been waiting for the arrival of the hottest girl group in the world: Blackpink. Some of them had been there for hours to make sure that they were at the front of the crowd, although social etiquette lost all meaning as soon as the girls came into view. The huge crowd of starstruck fans stampeded towards the girls as soon as they stepped into the arrivals terminal. Bodyguards used their bodies as shields, by forming well-rehearsed lines on either side of the girls, preventing them from being grabbed by fans who would die for just a touch of a Blackpink member’s skin. 

The tsunami of fans kept pushing against the ocean defense that was the bodyguards, but some fans snook their arms through, holding their phones, just to be able to video the girls walking through the airport. A simple video of them getting on with their daily lives is treasure for their avid followers, especially for the people who actually manage to capture them. In fact, hundreds of people were filming them as they hastily moved through the sea of people, as the girls tried their best to ignore them and get to their car as soon and as relaxed as possible. 

The girls were walking in their usual two-two formation, with Jisoo and Lisa behind Rosé and Jennie. The latter-mentioned girl had a history of panicking in public places where hundreds of fans were pointing their phones in her face and trying their best to grab ahold of her, just to be able to scream into their friend’s face “Oh my god! I touched Jennie!” without even thinking about how she felt by being touched by a stranger. 

This day was particularly bad for Jennie. As soon as the plane landed and taxied to its gate, the managers turned their phones on and were instantly informed of a mob of Blinks awaiting their arrival. As soon as Jennie heard of the size of the mob, she began panicking. Her palms started to sweat, her breathing shallowed, and her breaths became more forced, as she struggled to get enough air into her lungs with each breath. She was sat next to Jisoo for the entire flight, which was standard protocol, but as she started panicking Jisoo knew she wasn’t the one that Jennie wanted. 

Jennie had her eyes closed with her head down, as she tried her best to concentrate on her breathing, but her mind kept betraying her, as it kept pushing the image of a bloodthirsty mob to the front of her imagination. She knew that the crowd waiting for them loved her and the other members, and she knew that they all meant well, but Jennie’s anxiety distorted her perception. Jisoo tried to calm her down by holding her hand which Jennie instantly squeezed, but it wasn’t the hand that she craved. 

“I want Rosie,” Jennie muttered under her quickening, shallow breaths. Without answering Jisoo pivoted away from Jennie to Rosie, who was sitting across the aisle from her. Rosie had been carefully watching Jennie since she heard of the size of the crowd and knew how Jennie reacted to such large gatherings in confined places. Rosie’s eyes met Jisoo’s as soon as Jisoo turned to her, and without saying a word the eldest member of the group just nodded her head, and then the blonde got into action. She unclipped her safety belt, grabbed her stuffed dog toy, handbag, and jacket, and jumped up to move places with Jisoo, who moved almost as quickly as she did. 

As soon as Rosie sat down, she grabbed Jennie’s right hand with her left and squeezed it to tell Jennie that she was there. The blonde put her stuffed dog toy, handbag, and jacket in her own lap and then instructed Jennie to lean into her with a simple “come here.” Jennie leaned into her with her head resting on Rosie’s shoulder as their hands remained tightly clasped together. Rosie then quickly and smoothly swapped her left hand for her right so that she could use her left arm to hold Jennie. Her arm went around the back of the short brunette and used her hand to gently Jennie’s hair, which she wore down today. 

“It’s gonna be okay, babe,” Rosie whispered into Jennie’s, making sure her volume was soft enough for only Jennie to hear. “You’re gonna get through this.”

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Rosie was guiding Jennie through the airport, through the parted sea of the hungry crowd whose sound roared through the entire airport. Wearing skinny light blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and a blue baseball cap to block out the sight of the panic-inducing mob, Jennie bravely walked with her hand firmly grasping the beautiful blonde’s beside her. Rosie, who was wearing black skinny jeans and a thin beige sweater, with her straight blonde hair hanging down, walked half a step behind while her left hand comforted the short brunette’s right. She walked with her left shoulder ever-so-slightly behind the brunette, to increase body contact and reassurance for Jennie, who needed to feel Rosie’s protection. 

As Rosie ushered Jennie through the seemingly eternal airport, fans were getting ever more opportunistic. As the bodyguards made a barrier between the girls and the fans, now with the help of their managers as there were more fans than expected, even Rosie became slightly panicked, not for herself but for Jennie, as they had never witnessed a crowd of this size before. 

“WATCH HIM!” Screamed a manager as a young Thai man with glasses, wearing a Blackpink t-shirt snook through a gap in the human barrier. He ran towards the girls from Rosie’s side. Jennie looked up ever-so-slightly, enough to see the incoming danger that the manager alerted everyone to, but not enough to let the entirety of the crowd come into view. 

Rosie, who saw every second of the man breaking through as she had her head held high being the protector of Jennie, stretched out her right arm as the man approached with his phone held in front of his face. He stopped mere metres away from them as he took a picture and then lowered his phone and put out his hand to touch Jennie, who he thought would be the easiest to touch as she purposefully directed her eyes away from the man who now had a look of wonder as he tried to come into contact with Jennie’s bare forearm. Jennie’s blonde protector glared at the menace, knowing full well what he was trying to do as he reached out his hand. She could feel Jennie’s grip on her hand tighten, and her body push back into hers, as she tried to lean far enough away to avoid the man’s hand. Rosie felt everything in Jennie’s body language and knew she was getting more panicked. Something in Rosie’s eyes told everyone watching that you have to go through her if you want to get to Jennie. She took a long stride forward, double the length of any step she had taken throughout the entire airport, as she launched herself towards the man. She raised her right arm, extending it across her body, using it as a shield against the fan. She didn’t care about shielding him from herself, she only cared about shielding the short brunette in her protection. 

As the blonde and brunette approached the man, Rosie’s protecting arm pushed the man who stumbled two steps back. His face fell as he realised that we wasn’t going to be able to touch Jennie as he planned. Striding past the man, Rosie looked into his eyes with a furious glare that could have melted ice. As soon as the man was behind them Rosie fell back behind Jennie, whose grip still remained tight and neck scrunched, but she realigned herself after seeing the man’s arm go out of reach.

Once the man was behind them, a bodyguard grabbed him and dragged him back into the crowd. 

Still gripping Rosie’s hand for dear life, the brunette used a finger to the blonde’s hand, as if to say thank you for protecting her. Feeling the subtle gratitude on her skin, Rosie leaned down to Jennie’s ear and whispered, “we’re almost there,” as the exit was only a few metres away.

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Once they got in the minibus, which was big enough for 10 people, but was only for the girls and a manager, all four girls settled a little as the screaming crowd was now separated from them by the walls and windows of the vehicle. Rosé sat next to the window just in case anyone on the streets saw them and wanted a better look by approaching the window; something Rosie knew was very unlikely to happen as the windows were tinted and the van was generic, but Rosie wanted to make sure nothing would make the girl in her protection more panicked. Jennie sat beside Rosie and fell into her with her body nestling into the blonde. The brunette’s face was solemn as the effects of her panic attack remained, even though she felt safer in the car,  and her baseball cap was still tilted forward, even though there were no screaming fans to be seen, only to be heard, muffled through the windows. 

As the car drove off, headed for the hotel, Rosie took Jennie’s baseball cap off and put it back on the brunette’s head in backward fashion so Rosie could see the whole of her face. Rosie smiled as her heart melted at the sight of the pouting brunette whose head remained nestled in Rosie’s chest. The blonde the other girl’s hair and softly said, “See, I knew you could do it.”

Jennie’s pout broke as a smile threatened to pierce through the glum look on her face. She looked up to try and see Rosie’s face even though her head was directly beneath the blonde’s. 

“Only because of you,” Jennie croaked through a tortured voice. Rosie heard the pain in her words and pulled Jennie’s head tighter into her chest, reminding her that she’s safe now. Jennie then released herself from the blonde’s embrace, lifted her head up to make eye contact as tears threatened to fall. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Rosie used a hand as a fan to try to dry the brunette’s imminent tears and accompanied her action with a soft shush. Fanning her face helped her hold back the tears but it couldn’t raise her emotions, as Jennie’s eyes wandered from the blonde’s eyes to her lips. All Jennie wanted to do was kiss Rosie and show her how much she appreciated her protection, how much she needed her, and how much she loved her. 

The blonde knew what was coming from the look in the brunette’s eyes. “Not now,” she whispered to Jennie, who looked up at Rosie’s eyes, who used that split-second of eye contact to gesture her eyes towards their manager as if to say ‘not in front of him.’ Jennie got the message and then lowered herself back into Rosie’s embrace, with her head once again snuggled against the blonde’s chest.