Human Rats and Raging Jack

GOT7 Update: An update concerning the JYP Nation’s flight back from America has been confirmed. Due to flight booking issues, GOT7 will be taking a later flight than the rest of the agency, along with co-artists 15& and their managers.

The news is up and running; the seven boys could expect another hour of fans screaming through their airport time. Not like fans are annoying—quite the contrary, they’re the only reason for the boys’ success. But every now and then, the foreign members of GOT7 want to re-live the normal airport experience, and the Korean members would love to know the feeling in the first place. Nowadays, the boys smile at the girls in the crowd and act happy. Act happy. They may be thankful, but gratefulness and inner peace are two terms foreign to one another.

            As for their co-workers, 15& would love to experience the overwhelming feeling of fans crowding them at an airport. Sure, they’ll get some fans here and there asking for an autograph, but that’s about it. No paparazzi fan-boys snap photos of them at the airport in Korea, let alone in the USA. It’s all about boy groups nowadays anyway, but wouldn’t it be nice to experience a crazy sasaeng fan just once? Groups like EXO would disagree, but they’ve experienced more than enough.

But if crazy fans are going to be there because of GOT7 anyway, might as well take advantage of the situation.

“Now is a great time to experience that!” Jimin exclaims to Yerin. “We’re going to be walking with the guys, so there are going to be fans and cameras all around. It’s a great opportunity to feel famous!”

            Yerin shifts around on the bed. She turns to the hotel clock, which reads just before midnight. Sleep would be ideal, especially since checkout and the flight are tomorrow. But Jimin isn’t going to let this delusion slide. The taller girl hugs her pillow to release frustration.

            “Jimin-ah, Yugyeom has told us countless times that it gets tiring…” Yerin tries her luck at lowering her friend’s expectations.

            “Don’t you get it?” she huffs, “They loved the airport fame the first time. And this will be our first time having airport paparazzi!”

            “But it’s not our first time!” Yerin raises her voice above her normal whisper. “It’s their time, not ours. We’ll experience our first time someday, but these fans are not ours.”

            None of Yerin’s words changed the smaller girl’s mind. She huffs and grabs for her phone. Yerin glances over and sees that Jimin is logging onto Twitter.

            “Okay, fine,” Jimin agrees, “Then let’s see how many fans will come to the airport tomorrow.”

            She starts typing away. “Off-to-the-air… port… to… morrow… with-Got-Seven…” Jimin reads aloud as she types in English. “Hope-to-see-some-American-friends-send-us-off… will-any-of-you-guys-be-there…?”

            Yerin falls backwards on the bed. She mumbles in English. “Thirsty.”

            “Excuse me?” Jimin snaps jokingly as she sends the tweet out.

            “I don’t mean you,” she explains, “But GOT7 fangirls are going to be there. Even if our fans do come, the thirsty baby birds are going to invade personal space more than our fans will. They’ll even trample us so that they can get to them.”

            “S’all good,” Jimin waves her off, “Jackson Oppa will protect me from that. Oh! The re-tweets are rolling in.”

            Yerin gives up and hugs the pillow over her face.

Though the seven boys should be divided into two rooms, a magnet is set in JB, Youngjae and Jr.’s room, where the maknae and hyung line invade uninvited. JB rubs his temples and grunts loudly, waking up Jr.

            “And?” JB groans at the sounds of the other room barging in, “What do you need this time around? This is the fifth time you've come into our room, waking us up…”

            “We don’t feel like sleeping,” Jackson admits honestly, the maknae line nodding behind him. Mark’s dark circles contradict what his roommate just said.

            Jr. sits up, coming at eye level with the clock on the wall. He reads the time: three am, and pokes JB’s cheek. “No use fighting them,” he pouts, “We have to get up in three hours anyway.”

            He grins as JB hangs his head in defeat. JB shakes Youngjae, who is still drooling and ad-libbing in his sleep. “Youngjae, don’t let me suffer alone.”

            After a few shakes and slaps on the chest, the younger boy finally wakes up, in no particular mood to talk. Immediately after sitting up, he falls sideways on JB’s lap, eyes closed again. Leader sighs and brushes his brother’s hair out with his fingers, petting the boy back into dreamland. “No helping it… we can talk for a few more minutes.”

            Their Thai member, Bambam, hooks an arm around the maknae’s neck. “Actually, Yugyeom was just confessing his worries about his girl.”

            Suddenly, the tired line seems more interested as Jinyoung and Jaebum lean forward and Youngjae opens one eye. To this, the younger member simply blushes and laughs.

            “Bam! What is my girl supposed to mean?” he exclaims bashfully, “I was just saying that we have many American fans, and I’m scared Yerin will get bad treatment from them because she’ll be walking with us.”

            Between teasing oohs, Mark, a little more awake, opens his rare sarcastic mouth. “Ah, you only care about Yerin? Not Jimin?”

            The teasing laughter gets louder, and Yugyeom tries to redeem himself. “No! Of course I’m scared for Jiminnie, but she’s so independent and strong. Yerin is fragile!”

            “He can’t let his little flower be touched~!”

            “No… you guys!”

            Between all the chaotic teasing, Jackson remains strangely blank-faced. Upon realizing the other half of the Dumb & Dumber line wasn’t laughing along, Jaebum stops.

            “Hey, Jackson, why so serious?”

            “I don’t know…” Jackson squints to think. “I don’t know if there’s anything to worry about, Yugyeommie. I’m pretty sure IGOT7’s like 15&.”

            Yugyeom looks at the floor, playing with his fingers. “Yeah. I hope so.”

            “Hey, did you buy snacks for the plane, Jackson?”

            “, sorry.”

The managers clap their hands impatiently and motion the group to the large taxi van. All nine artists run as fast as they can and throw their belongings in.

            “We’re going to be late! Who the hell thought it would be okay to sleep in?” GOT7’s manager, Noh Young, stares daggers at Youngjae.

            “It wasn’t Youngjae this time!” the group’s mom comes to his defense, “JB hyung was so stubborn in his sleep… he wouldn’t wake!”

            JB charges for Jr. with his upper body threateningly. “And whose fault was that?!”

            JJ Project starts another immature argument, which makes time fly fast for the group. Before the two can reach the conclusion that it was actually Jackson and the maknae line’s fault, they reach the airport. The sounds of muffled squeals just make it through the windows.

            “Should I open the window?” Bambam teases, as is his right as the King of Fanservice.

            “No, no, no, no,” Youngjae quickly stops him from making the screams louder so early in the morning.

            15&’s manager sighs and shakes his head. “You’re gonna have to get out now anyway, so brace yourselves for screams.”

            He pushes the door open, a wave of fan-girl noises booming as they all walk out. Between the loudest “Jackson Oppa!” and “Mark Oppa!” screams, the rest of the boys recognize their own names and wave back at the girls, smiling. Yerin walks ahead with Yugyeom in an attempt to get to the airport doors quicker. Jimin stays behind with Jackson and whispers to him.

            “You guys looked more annoyed and tired in the car.”

            “Well, we can’t show the fans that side of us now, can we?” Jackson smiles and waves as he speaks through his teeth.

            As they finally make it to the airport entrance, they see a gate has been set up to separate the fans from the JYP units. Jimin turns to Youngjae, who is sighing loudly at the relief of not being squished between the fangirls.

            Regardless of what the boys say, they do seem to have fun talking to fans, even if it is tiring. Bambam high fives a row of girls and JB gladly accepts the gifts meant for everyone. This goes on for a while, leaving Jimin wondering if her own fans decided not to come after all.

            Jackson leans over. “Hey, you all right?”

            “Yeah, I’m f—”

            She stops at the sight of Jackson’s fans giving her bad glances. Jimin steps a bit further away from Jackson. ‘Jackson Oppa will protect me.’

            “Um, yeah, I’m fine. Hey, I’m gonna walk ahead to Yerin, cool?”

            Jackson nods, not seeing any changes in Jimin’s emotions. As the younger girl walks ahead to her best friend, she suddenly hears a low voice of one of the crowd’s fan-girls.

            “Yerin unnie! Jimin unnie!” she hears a group of girls shout. The group consists of no more than maybe ten girls, but that’s all Jimin needs. She rushes over to the group.

            “Hey!” Jimin drags Yerin to the group and turns on her English, “Glad to see some of you guys here!” The girls get giddy and shuffle in their bags.

            “Hi! Sorry, the group is leaving you behind!” one of the girls says in concern, “But please take these gifts before you go!”

            That cues one of the girls to hand them a bag. “This has all of our presents in here for you guys. Thank you!”

            Jimin and Yerin both nod and bow, thanking them. They run to catch up with the group, and Yerin giggles at her friend. “You seem happier now.”

            “I am,” Jimin admits, “I mean, I didn’t expect them to get us—what—20 gifts? This is great!”

Boarding time approaches, as does the group to the airport gates. Baby Birds follow them throughout the whole time, making GOT7 wonder if their fans bought tickets just to follow them around.

            “Two minutes to boarding,” Noh Young announces to the group. Everyone begins to pack their things back in and get ready. Yerin hits Jimin’s shoulder.

            “Jimin, stop looking through your presents. We have to get ready,” she scolds, but stops quickly as she sees the small grey box Jimin is holding. “Hey, that present doesn’t look like any of the other ones the girls gave us.”

            Jimin nods as she waves the box around. “One of Jackson’s fans gave me this present earlier. I guess she’s into 15&, too.”

            The boys all begin to stand up, Yerin as well. Jimin follows, while opening the box Jackson’s fan gave her. The box is monotone and tiny, but it’s heavy. She shakes it a bit to get her last clues on what it could possibly be. Shrugging, she gives up and reaches for the lid.

            At this point, Jackson gave up with fake-smiling. He’s done. The fans are all appreciated, but the crowding makes him irritated. Not like the fans would notice. If anything, seeing him tired and annoyed will trigger them to scream his name in hopes of lifting his spirits.

No spirits are to be lifted today, because WangKong is so done.

His thoughts are cut short by the sound of a scream. Everyone turns to Jimin, who let out the noise. Yerin leans over and covers . The smaller one drops the box and falls from weak legs. The group rushes towards her, arms immediately wrapping her.

            “What happened?”

            “Jiminnie, are you okay?”

            “What’s going on?”

            The noise of shutters increases, and the beeps of recording are growing as well. The fans all try to get in a closer look, but are held back by security guards.

            Jackson walks over, a strong aura being released from him. He stares at the box she dropped. It’s knocked upside down, and a card seems to have been dropped when its container fell. He picks up the card and his eyes widen as his teeth grind. But this will be taken care of when he’s alone; he crumbles it up and shoves it in his pocket. The priority is Jimin.

            “Jimin, what happened?” he demands.

            Covering , as if she were to throw up, she points to the box, where a deathly odor is coming from. As Jackson approaches it, Yerin lets out a warning squeal from behind her palm, as if telling him not to check what’s under it. Jackson ignores the noise made from her teammate and flips over the box.

            Gasps and shrieks arise at the sight of the dead rat under the box.

Jackson stands immediately. The now-empty box is being crushed in his hand, which he waves around accusingly at the fans.

            “What is this?! A dead rat?!” He yells, then switches to English, “A dead rat?! Who did this! What sick person would have thought that this was a good idea?! It’s not clever or witty, it’s just sick and so fuc—”

            The Korean members don’t need to be fluent to understand where that word was going. JB takes on his role as a leader and rushes to Jackson to cover his mouth. He leans in.

            “We’re idols.”

            Jackson makes a face and storms into the plane runway. The others slowly follow, Yerin and Yugyeom rubbing Jimin’s back in concern as they walk on. The camera flash just gets louder and louder until the terminal doors close behind the,

            “Are you okay?” Yugyeom asks soothingly.

            “Yeah… sorry. I was just shocked,” Jimin claims as she wipes her face.

            “I’m sure that person has nothing good to do in their life,” Yerin says, “Do you want to sit next to me during the flight? To comfort you?”

            At a time like this, that would be ideal. She turns to Yugyeom, whose flight seat is supposed to be with Yerin’s. He flashes a worried smile, prioritizing Jimin’s happiness before his. Jimin shakes her head. She'd rather Yugyeom sit with his crush.

            “Thanks, but my original seat is next to the window. I want to lean on the wall to rest,” she lies. Yugyeom blushes, seeing what her intentions are. Naïve Yerin just nods in understanding.

Of course her seat is right next to Jackson’s. She shyly scoots past him to get to her window seat. They nod at each other awkwardly. As she sits, she can feel an annoyed aura coming off her friend, but tries her best to ignore it. She’s never been so uncomfortable with him before.

            But the flight goes on for a few hours, and the uncomfortable air is hard to steer away from. She’s gotten over the incident already, but Jackson obviously hasn’t. The more she tries to  ignore, she more she notices things. The more she notices his leg shaking, his teeth gritting. The more she notices his hand in his pocket, fumbling with a piece of paper. A piece of paper! Perfect, an icebreaker.

            “Wh… what’s that?” Jimin asks, pointing to the crumpled up piece of paper.

            Jackson turns to her, almost offended that she would even ask something like that. “It’s nothing. A receipt.”

            Jimin an eyebrow. “Receipt paper is way thinner than that. Is that cardboard?”

            “It’s a receipt!” He snaps, shoving the paper back in his pocket, “Get over it, jeez.”

            “What’s wrong with you?” Jimin mocks. This only triggers Jackson’s rage further and he clicks his tongue. Finally, he turns to Jimin to talk.

            “Okay, I’ll tell you what it is if you tell me this,” he compromises, “Who the hell gave you that dead rat?”

            That was unexpected. A bit of hesitation is needed. “Um… I don’t know her name.”

            “No you don’t know her name.”

            “Excuse me?”

            He sighs loudly and leans forward, head buried in his palms. Simple actions like these are recognizable under regret. Jimin tries to rub his back, but he flinches, startling her hand away.

            “Don’t touch me.”

            Hearing his voice is more soft than sharp this time, she ignores his demand and gives him a long side hug. Her face is close to his ears.

            “Why not?”

            “It’s my fault you got that god damn gift.”

            “How is it your fault?”

            Another sigh. “It was one of my sasaeng fans.”

            Jimin hugs him tighter. “I know. Don’t take responsibility. Just because she likes you doesn’t mean it’s your fault she doesn’t like me.”

            “But it is my fault.”

            “No… it’s n—” she pauses and thinks. Suddenly, her comforting voice is gone. “Wait, Jackson—how did you know it was one of your fans? You weren’t with me when she gave the rat to me.”

            He reaches for the crushed card in his pocket and tosses it her way, not convinced by her words. She lets got of the hug and unfolds the messed up card. Much like Jackson’s original reaction upon seeing it, her eyes widen. This was the card included with the gift.

            Stay away from Jackson Oppa.

It’s not written half-heartedly; the handwriting is clear cut, as if the fan was trying to make sure that Jimin would grasp every letter of her message. She brings it to her face when she notices a small smell coming from it, then drops it at the realization that is smells like the dead rat.

            “Jackson, I…” she tries to find the right words, “I know how this fan feels. I’ve always known. I saw other girls give me dirty looks at the airport. They see me as a dirty flirt.”

            “That’s the thing!” Jackson exclaims.

            “What’s the thing!”

            “I don’t want to care about how fans see my relationships with girls. I’m casual around girls so that IGOT7s don’t freak out when one of us starts dating! But I’m casual around you because you’re my friend. And I really shouldn’t care if they’re jealous, but if someone gives you a god damn corpse, then how can I ignore that?”

            Jimin is taken aback; speechless. Her eyes wander around, as if she’ll see and spot the right words to say. “I… It was just a rat. You could have gone on normally—”

            “Jimin she made you cry! I don’t like it when people important to me cry!”

            Silence.

            He groans loudly and pulls her into a hug. Though surprised by his sudden act, someone important to him knows he’s always spontaneous. She dyes into a glowing red and sinks into his arms, eyes a little teary. As she’s about to pull away, Jackson pulls in closer and tighter. He sinks his head lower, lips unknowingly resting on her forehead. It feels like he’s comforting himself rather than her.

            ‘Jackson Oppa will protect me.’

            Not that she’s not feeling comforted.

...

...

“Shouldn’t we wake them up? The flight is over soon,” Junior asks Bambam as they stare at the couple sleeping.

            “But hyung, they look so cute! They’re resting in each other’s arms…” Bambam pleads.

            “… Okay. You can take one picture, then we wake them up.”

            “Yes~~!”

~

“Rookie idol ruins his image? IGOT7s post footage of Jackson letting loose.”

“GOT7’s Jackson freaks out at the airport for 15& Jimin”

“ROOMMATE star Jackson Wang flips out at his fans"

“15&’s damsel in distress protected by GOT7’s outrage by Jackson”

“Wang-Kong scares the Baby Birds”

“Some people just can’t handle sasaengs: Jackson and Jimin”

“Over twenty fan-leaked footage show GOT7’s Jackson break out into rage at the airport. As the boy group and 15& take a later flight than the rest, the fans at the airport were almost exclusively AhGaSae. Just before they enter the terminal, a supposedly normal airport trip is disrupted by the sound of 15&’s Park Jimin screaming. The footage shows that a sasaeng fan gave the young girl a rat’s corpse. After seeing the present, Jackson Wang flips out and jumps to her defense. He yells accusingly at all the fans and nearly cusses them out before leader JB pulls him away. Check out the footage below!”

            [+213] [-32] “I think it was sweet of Jackson to protect her from the sasaeng.”

            [+90] [-92] “Jackson was so rude!!! I was there, he got so worked up, it was scary.”

            [+300] [-12] “The ‘fan’ who gave that to Jimin needs help. Disgusting.”

            [+100] [-103] “It was not cool of Jackson to flip like that. He’s an idol… cursing is irresponsible”

“I’m so sorry you have to read all this…” Jimin laces her fingers together and twiddles them as Jackson reads the controversial headlines the very annoyed JYP gave him.

            Jackson huffs loudly and shuts the laptop. “Jimin, I don’t give two s about this.”

            He expresses his passion as he stands and ruffles Jimin’s hair. For extra effect (though Jackson’s definition of “extra effect” is alien to his co-workers), he takes off his snapback and jams it on his friend’s head.

            He adds another dose of dramatic effect even though Jimin’s eyes are covered by the snapback by staring at the ceiling. “I would ruin my image to all of my fans to protect my family.”

            Under his cap’s duck flap, a small smile emerges from Jimin’s face as she blushes. She pulls the flap lower to cover the redness. “What image…”

            “What did you just say?!”

THE END

What did you think? ^^ My first fic, please give an honest review below! I don't mind criticism! Sorry if my sentences are hard to understand, English is my second language. <3