btsburgh

[btsburgh]

Chapter 13 (The Darkest Timeline)

Tawni’s brain was firing off responses. Anything immediately available in her brain was dragged to the forefront like it would help her situation.

SWOT Analysis. How long have I been asleep? When is class? Go get your beanie. It’s on your head. Bradford. Bean’s on the balcony. Jungkook.

Jungkook?

Jungkook.

There was a single fanzine that looked at Jungkook. Eye contact was made and she could feel the electricity. The coursing feeling of sudden understanding that JK_Love97 knew that she was holding hands with THE Golden Maknae. As the girl tilted her head, and Jungkook looked at Tawni, there was no longer anything beyond fight or flight in her synapses.

“We have to go.” Tawni whispered, tugging on their joined hands urgently.

“Uh, duh. That’s where I’m going silly.” Jungkook said, his like 8’4” ass a little bit stronger than Tawni so when he tugged, she went along with him and towards the door.

“No, really.” Tawni urged, “We need to-“

But it was too late. Through the window, she could see the one girl raising a hand to pat her friend and pointing at the glass. Her oily fingerprint indicating directly at Jungkook on the window.

“Fuck.” Tawni made a decision.

———

Jordan locked her phone, effectively ignoring the call from Kim Seokjin, but also saving herself from getting dragged into another 95’s and their mother brand escapade. Namjoon seemed really distraught anyways and was tugging on Jordan’s hand.

“What’s up?” Jordan asked.

He looked away, another notification from Animal Crossing Pocket Camp pinging: Somebody new has moved into the park. And what a shame that Namjoon was more interested in the dispatch page than anything. Rocco was a truly interesting little horse that he was just ignoring because his band was making headlines or whatever. Dumb.

“So …” Namjoon clenched his jaw, obviously displeased with Rocco. Or I guess BTS. How can you be displeased with Rocco? I’ll attach a photo here like look he’s so cute.

Rocco

Anyways moving on

“Taehyung has been spotted in Busan. And Lobi never checked into a hotel.”

Jordan wrinkled her stress line free forehead (stress free because she’s never once worried about a anything besides America’s Next Top Model) and spoke, “Why are either of those things problems?”

Namjoon looked at her like she was actually insane, “Taehyung was in Seoul like two hours ago and Hoseok isn’t supposed to be-“

All of a sudden there was a scream.

No, more than that. A sea of screams. A symphony, cacophony of screams that erupted out of nowhere. In mass, in number, so many that Jordan’s ears almost curled at how polyphonic the sound was. So many sounds it created a perfect harmony. A three part chord.

Then they grew louder, punctuated by the sounds of boots and shoes on pavement. And when they looked towards their certain doom, they saw an onslaught. A mass of women, just charging. And quickly. Towards them. Specifically.

“NAMJOOON!!!” The crowd screamed.

“Oh that’s probs not lit” Jordan said.

Before she knew it, Namjoon was yanking her away and they were running.

Jordan didn’t like Jordan.

———

Bria looked to Yoongi, “Yo, fam, your hands.”

He pulled his hands up, examining them closely, “I guess I do have hands.”

———

Now, it wasn’t like Kobi intended to make joining high stakes video game tournaments part of their lore, but at a certain part in your very secretive relationship with the most talented artist on the planet, you start to make dumb decisions. Maybe because their relationship being a secret is like a plot point? But also not because Kobi is perfect lmao who am I kidding.

Anyways, they HADN’T gone to fuck in a hotel. Joke’s on you. They decided to hang out and do South Korean stuff because Kate wanted to experience where Hoseok lived and all that dumb stuff. She’d been there before, but not like this.

And definitely not when they were high key gaining traction because they were like artist of they year or whatever.

So they went and did dumb stuff. Until the ended up agreeing to play in a Mario Kart tournament. They were both quite competitive and actually really good at Marip kart. Though, Kate had the upper edge because she was a fucking beast with Yoshi on the motorcylce, but Hoseok wouldn’t really own up to that one ever.

They played a few rounds, easily surpassing the newbies who thought simple drifting would get them to first place alone. How naive of their young souls. Then eventually they ended up a little further up. Nudging each other after every match because holy shit they were better than South Korea’s best. Which is insane. South Korea has got mad skills in the video game department.

But eventually it came down to the semi-finals.

And Hoseok sat down with the guy he was against and Kate sat down to play against the random chick she was against. And you knew for a fact that they were going to have to eventually play each other ofc, but we’ll Dave that for later.

———

The crowd was gone. Dissapted in a thorough stampede towards Namjoon. For which, Tawni felt only a slight pang of guilt. Firstly because she sent a hoarde of fully energized fansites against Jordan, but also because she made the decision sans Jungkook’s guidance. Not that she had time to seek it out or anything, or that the decision was bad itself, but Tawni was a pro at beating herself up over dumbass details so here she was.

They had pulled their hoods over their faces and escaped quickly into Seoul’s more forgiving city streets. In fact, there was a little drizzle right then. Just slight raindrops across the fabric of their hoods, and a dampness in the air that they breathed. It might have been spring break, but it was still pretty chilly, even a whole 24 hour flight away it was chilly. So Tawni could see her breath as she let Jungkook tug her through alleys and streets.

She knew he liked to take pictures and be some dumbass artistic bitch because he was good at literally everything for no reason, so he roamed the streets of this city on occasion with his own hood up and a fake name to give when he eventually stopped to order ice cream. But right now it was apparent that he knew these streets. He dragged her along until he saw a little late night noodle shop, and pulled her inside, snatching his phone as soon as he did.

“Kookie, I’m sorry about-“ Tawni started.

But he cut her off, “No, it was hilarious. Namjoon’s gonna kick my ass, but it’s so worth it.”

Well, at least she knew he was seriously because he lit up like a little bunny rabbit. Smiling with mischief because, yeah it was a little fucked, but also oa little fun. The thrill of getting caught. The thrill of sending a hoarse of random women after Namjoon.

Serves him right for getting mad when everybody suggested an acoustic version of Expensive Girl.

But after a couple of seconds on his phone, Tawni realized that not all was fun and games.

“Come on, we definitely shouldn’t stand around.” Tawni raged Jugnkook towards the noodle bar.

Luckily, Tawni was a master at Duolingo and Memrise, and had managed to fully finish out the food ordering portion of the apps which comes directly before the “how to speak to wise owls in Korean” but after “deciphering basic prophecies” and “colors” so she was well versed, but nowhere near fluent.

But noodle ordering - totally okay.

She ordered them two bowls in extremely broken Korean. The woman behind the counter looked to Jungkook on more than one occasion during Tawni’s epic struggle, but he seemed eight feet buried in his phone, so he was no help whatsoever.

But, after multiple interpretations of the woman thinking Tawni was ordering “gay bear noodles” instead of sesame bulgogi, they got their food and sat down.

“What’s the problem,” she asked very carefully.

Jungkook bit his lip, “So I guess Kobi aren’t at a hotel?”

“She’s really not tapping that right now? Damn.” Tawni took a bite of definitely not gay bear noodles.

“it’s hard to hook up in hotels for us. Everybody knows our face and we have to show it so they can identify us.” Jungkook explained, not even touching the noodles Tawni had walked through hell and high water to order. “But there’s also Taehyung … I guess he-“

Then they turned their heads to the sound of a sudden flashing.

———

Like Pascal, guiding his boat through a treacherous storm, they dove into safe shelter, Jordan taking Namjoon with her as they glided underneath an overpass.

They palstered themselves against cold stone walls and just took in long, labored breaths. They didn’t want to risk breathing too loudly and alerting anyone to their location. And a few seconds later, they heard the terrible sounds of clattering boots against cement.

But they grew louder, and louder, and louder. The screams of excited young Korean women filled their ears. Over took their senses until suddenly they were duller, quieter, and became distant. In a second, the hoard had passed, moving on to the green pastures of wherever it was they decided that may be. Not Namjoon certainly, since he was heaving against a brick wall next to Jordan.

“Yo that was intense. I saw my life flash before my eyes.” Namjoon exhaled.

Jordan nodded. “So since you leaned close to death have you changed your mind about that acoustic version of expensive girl?”

Namjoon glared, “I decided I don’t want to be with you anymore.”

“Understandable.” Jordan nodded, “have a nice day.”

But then her phone rang.

Jordan’s, not Namjoon’s.

Oh shit I guess the pronouns gave that away wtf. Anywys. Shit. Anyways. Jodan’s phone rings and she’s like

“Yo, what up, It’s J-Dumpster. Can I help?”

There’s low breathing on the other end of the line, breathing sh recognizes as Seokjin’s so she pulls the phone from her face and hits the speaker phone button like any middle aged soccer mom might do if her fully grown son had called her.

“Please.” Seokjin said softly. “Taehyung’s gone.”

Namjoon leaned in closer to the phone. “First of all, bitch, why didn’t you call me? Secondly, I’m sure Taehyung’ sfine. He’s probably getting ready to make chalk murals in Busan right now.”

Seokjin’s breathing became heavier, “I can’t talk. Just. He’s not safe. Send-“

The signal cut off.

Namjoon straightened himself out.

Jordan didn’t. “He’s joking, right?”

Namjoon looked steely. Like Jensen Ackles. Or Christian Bale as Batman, he looked steely cold.

“Seokjin doesn’t joke.”

———

Kate had finished her match in record time. As to be expected from the best Mario Kart player in the whole universe. She finished with no problems. Coasting through the course and even hitting those treacherous Canyon glider sections with precision and ease.

Even Hoseok finished as well. Not as well, obviously. He took one fall on Bowser’s Castle, but luckily the guy he was playing against was also a little bit clunky and ate it on one of those ghost brick things. When he won, everybody knew because he jumped into the air, popping and screaming and hollering like Hoseok does. And when he was finished, dashed back to the board to see …

“Wait, what?” Hoseok asked, turning in confusion.

He saw that Kate’s name had been advanced to the finals but not his. In fact, both his name and the guy he was playing against were marked out on the enormous inflatable velcro board they had put shit on. Why they didn’t use a white-board, I have no idea, but this is South Korea so they take their e-sports seriously.

“You’re disqualified,” A man said.

He appeared from shrouded darkness, a familiarity too him as he stood in the open light now. The overhead lighting cast shadows against his face and Hoseok squinted like … Maybe he’d seen him before. Some other time. Some other place. Some other … life.

“What?” He asked, “I didn’t … Wait, do I know you?”

“I am Byun Baekhyun. King of all gamers here in Korea.” He narrowed his eyes, “You may be a more famous idol than me in this realm, but you made the mistake of stepping foot in here. Where I have all the control.”

“What? You’re an idol?” Hoseok stepped forward, lowering his voice, “Listen, Don’t-don’t tell anybody who I am, okay? I can’t get caught out with a girl or else all 10 million girls following my twitter account will have me thrown into the ocean or something.”

Baekhyun didn’t respond for a moment, tugging the dark, thick cloak I just decided he was wearing tighter to his body. He seemed to contemplate the sentence for longer than necessary, the sounds of impatience ringing in his ears.

“Accept an unrightfully disqualification.” He whispered.

Hoseok stepped back, shifting the mask on this face as he looked around and pulling his ball cap further down. I was gonna give him a bucket hat to be In Character™ but like I decided since this is my universes, I can do whatever the fuck I want and I want no balenciaga’s or bucket hats in this universe. ACTUALLY LOVE YOURSELF HASNT COME OUT YET SO HE DOESNT EVEN HAVE THE MONEY FOR BALENCIAGAS SO ITS CANONICALLY CORRECT

Anyways

“No!” Hoseok stifled his voice, “I won fair and square. I can’t just let Kate take the title.”

“Wow, you’re a shitty boyfriend,” Baekhyun rolled his eyes, “But fine, I’ll just post on our Facebook page that you and her were here. Playing Mario Kart. Together.”

Hoseok bit his lip. “Okay, fine. I’m disqualified. Just don’t post any pictures.”

Baekhyun clapped his hands.

Just then, as if it was written that way, Kate bounded up to them. JK I don’t bound places. I dissolved into the air next to Hoseok like a badass.

“Whaddup”

“Congrats!” Hoseok shouted, “I uh … I got disqualified so you win.”

Kate turned to him with furrowed brows. “You got disqualified? For why?”

He tugged his collar, “I uh … I used cheat codes. I’m sorry.”

Kate didn’t really believe it but hey, “So yeah, I’m the best bitch at Mario kart then.”

“Well,” Baekhyun chuckled, “Not exactly. You would have to defeat the reigning champion for that.”

“Reigning Champion my ass,” Kate said, “I’ll whoop their ass, lemme at ‘em”

“A CHALLENGER!” Baekhyun exclaimed, flinging his arms open so his dark cloak spread wide like wings of blackened angel. He then slowly took his phone out of one of the folds. “Let me call him real quick tho.”

———

“Listen to this,” Yoongi held up a finger, looking very seriously.

“Fam, I’ve been listening.” Bria laughed.

“Good,” Yoongi paused for 35 seconds before slowly reaching over and pressing a key on his keyboard.

A single Eb note rang out followed by silence.

“Shit,” Bria exhaled, “That’s genius.”

———

Now you see, Tawni’s a photographer. She knows intimately how cameras work … or at least, she knows enough. Enough to get how white balance functions.

White balance is not, contrary to popular belief, the balance of power that keeps white folk as the oppressors because they were too pale to deal with the sun and had to creat their own toughness.

White balance is actually how a camera determines color and lighting. Meaning that if a dark tone is set as white because there’s very little white in the photo, it will balance the photo out color and lighting wise to fit. However, if there’s too much white and light tone is set, it will blow out the photo and make it basically a white blur of incomprehensibility.

It’s also important to note most people set their white balance on auto which does not handle sudden change well

Meaning that when Tawni yanked the table cloth up off the very nice table in the noodle shop they were eating, the fanzine’s cameras couldn’t adjust in time, and the photos instantly became … white blurs.

Which gave them just enough to -

“Run!”

“Again??” Jungkook looked surprised, “I haven’t eaten yet.”

“Listen, I love food too, but we have got to go, bitch.” Tawni stood up from the table, still shrouded by the falling cloth.

Cameras continued to flash as Jungkook looked longingly at his bowl on noodles.

“COME ON!” Tawni shouted.

Jungkook grabbed the noodles and they bolted.

It didn’t take long for the horde of fansites to lose them as well. Which was a bummer because they’d lost Jungkook and Namjoon in one day. Which is tough because Jungkook is very large and Namjoon is very slow so they aren’t usually easy to lose.

But Tawni and Jungkook had made themselves at home in a very, very tiny alley way. The space was just thin enough for both of them to slide into side by side, the cold, damp brick of soeul buildings holding them both upright. Jungkook was scoping noodles into his mouth by the truck fulls and Tawni’s not extremely athletic so she was catching her breath.

“Sorry,” Jungkook shoveled noodles in-between muffled words, “This is a shitty first date.”

“First date?” Tawni asked, “You mean us seeing Justin Bieber was like a pregame or?”

Jungkook laughed, swallowing the last of his noodles, “As long as you don’t hate Korea because of me, then it’s fine.”

“I could never hate Korea. You’re here.” Tawni, the dumbest person ever, said.

Jungkook lit up a little, lowering his bowl, “Okay, but you’re catching it at a really good time it’s not always like this.”

“What do you mean?” Tawni cocked her head, “What’s different about it right now?”

“You’re in it …” He smiled goofily.

And I won’t even pretend they were gonna lean in and kiss bc y’all bitches know that shit ain’t happening until at least he comes back to America.

But his phone did ring. And he picked it up, eyes widening as he got zero words in. The chatter on the end of the line was rapid and demanding until it burned out, just barely letting him speak.

“Now?” He got out.

“Now!” The other person yelled.

The call ended.

“So uh … your mom?” Tawni asked.

Jungkook looked wide-eyed and bewildered. “We have to get back to the dorms. Taehyung’s missing.”

Tawni rolled her eyes, “Are you for real? I’m sure he’s rescuing puppies in Gwangju right now. Can’t we stay out a little longer? Do they really need you?”

Jungkook looked unamused, “This is my career, Tawni. Seriously, let’s go.”

———

Namdan and Tawkie arrived at almost the same time to the dorms.

Namjoon slammed the elevator buttons, breaking through to the other side and sighing as he did so.

“Gonna have to put that on the list,” Jungkook said softly.

“Yeah,” Namjoon glared at him, “I’ll put it on the fucking list.”

He reached up as the elevator started and took a pen from a holder to write on a yellow pad of paper pasted to the inside fo the dorm elevators. He scribbled:

Sorry, broke three more buttons. Please take from my next paycheck - Joonie

Jordan raised her eyebrows, “That’s …”

“Don’t.” Namjoon held up a hand.

When they got to the dorms, they found it in disarray. It hadn’t been cleaned when Jimin and Seokjin got back. In fact, there was more damage if that was possible. Jimin was sitting on the couch, staring at his phone, but when they arrived, he immediately stood up.

“Hey!” Jimin scratched his neck, “Uh, nice of you to rendez-vous. Seokjin’s not feeling well so if you could-“

“I need to talk to him.” Namjoon stated, walking over towards his room, but Jimin leapt in front of him.

“You really don’t!” Jimin said, sweat on his brow.

“Move, Jimin.” Namjoon said softly, “Or we will move you.”

Jimin swallowed. “You can’t move m-“

Jungkook promptly lifted Jimin up off the ground and slung him over his shoulder. They five of them, four willingly, and one squirming on Jungkook’s shoulder which Tawni wished she was, but wasn’t, made their way to Yoongi and Jin’s room at the end of the hall.

“No!” Jimin shouted, “You don’t want to do this!”

They passed the studios which exist in the dorms in this universe because I realized there was a major plot hole and idk how to handle that so I just decide that it’s not the way it is lmao. Then walked up to the room where Namjoon looked to the others as he reached for the doorknob.

“Fine!” Jimin yelled, clenching his jaw and adopting a serious demeanor. “But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

Namjoon opened the door.

And on the other side was Jin. Laying face up, covered in ramen.

“What the fuck.” Jordan said, pinching her nose.

Like we’re talking, fully cooked and seasoned packets of instant ramen, but like sixty of them, because only his head, hands and feet appeared out of places in the mound of stringy noodles. His face was gaunt, pale and worn in from stress and neglect. His eyes were hollow as they stared up at the ceiling and his mouth was just repeatedly mouthing I don’t give a shit I don’t give a fuck over and over, yet no noise came out.

“Oh boy,” Namjoon looked to the others, “Let me handle this.”

He walked past the threshold and the minute his foot hit the floor beyond the door Jin halted his chant. Namjoon took another tentative step inside and Jin slowly, in the way a body might rise from the dead, tilted his head up to look at Namjoon.

Jin spoke with a high accent, one entirely made up as well. “Oh! It’s my betrothed come back from war. Lydia, how I’ve missed your face.”

“Not … Lydia.” Namjoon said slowly, shaking his head and taking more careful steps across the room towards the pile of noodlejin.

Jin followed him intently with his eyes but remained motionless as he rounded to come squat by his side. “Oh Lydia, how are the valkyries fairing these days? I hope you haven’t fought too hard, my love.”

“Still not Lyida,” Namjoon sighed, falling into a cross-legged position next to Jin and letting out a sigh, “Or a valkyrie for that matter.”

Jin didn’t respond, mouthing nonsense for just a moment until his gathered something else in his jumbled brain. “Lydia, you’re frightening me.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “Okay, fine. Alright, I’m Lydia. Yo, whaddup, Lydia in the house.”

Jin smiled, “Ah, Lydia. How I’ve missed your humor. Always the trickster you. However, I do have to admit that things have no been well in your absence. The Kingdom is in disarray.”

“How so?” Namjoon asked.

“We’ve lost a squire, Kim Taehyung. You may remember him. He was always a bit odd. But he’s been taken from us. I fear,” Jin looked back towards the ceiling with his hollow eyes, “For the worst.”

“The worst?” Namjoon asked, “What do you mean?”

Jin shook his head. Denying any further comment.

“Come on, Jin. Tell me.”

Jin looked to Namjoon, but kept his mouth shut, turning back to the ceiling. “It’s unspeakable.”

Namjoon let his head fall, staring down at his feet for a moment. This has only happened once before. When Hoseok got sick off of a dish Jin made, he wrapped himself in carefully deconstructed bento boxes and called himself Mr. Roboto for 36 hours until eventually Namjoon snapped him out of it.

“Jin. I need you back, buddy. I know you’re blaming yourself for whatever happened but you can’t make multiple personalities every time something goes wrong that you decide is your fault.”

Jin sighed, “Lydia … I fear I am too far gone.”

“Jin.” Namjoon looked him in the eyes. “They named somebody else World Wide Handsome.”

There was a moment of silence.

Then Jin snapped up, the mound of noodles slopping away and spilling into Namjoon’s lap as Jin sat up wearing a t-shirt and boxers. “Hold the fucking phone, bitch, what?”

Jungkook shook his head, “I don’t know how Namjoon does it.”

———

“Alright, so Taehyung’s been kidnapped.” Jin said, pointing a stick at 20 pieces of printer paper Jimin and Jungkook had taped to the wall and scribbled details of a plan on. “By some sort of high risk Korean gang. They left me a voicemail saying we can come with four bajillion won by ourselves tomorrow at noon to these coordinates.” He slapped the stick to a poorly drawn image the resembled Apple Maps and a pin where the coordinates led. “Or they’ll send a real ransom to bighit.”

“Oh,” Jimin leaned back on the couch, “That’s fine. Let the authorities handle it once they send a ransom, he’ll be fine.”

“There’s more.” Jin cleared his throat, “They’ll send his nudes to AllKPOP.”

“Shit,” Namjoon breathed, “We gotta make that drop tomorrow.”

“But we don’t have four bajillion dollars.” Jungkook noted, leaning up from the tiny armchair that he and Tawni had crammed themselves into. “And we don’t know where Kate, Hobi, Bria, or Yoongi are either.”

“Oh, well,” Jimin raised his hand, “Yoongi’s here actually.”

———

“How many fingers am I holding up?” Jin held three fingers to Yoongi’s face.

Yoongi concentrated on his fingers for a very, very long time before breaking down into laughter, “These are Jin’s hands, not Hoseok’s!”

Bria leaned forward and grabbed Jin’s hand. “You’re right! What the fuck, this buzzfeed quiz is so hard!”

“Next one!” Yoongi leaned back in his chair.

Jin nodded, “Yeah, they’re gone.”

“Gone with the wind,” Yoongi said softly, “A good novel.”

“I want to see the movie,” Bria said too, “Should we go?”

“Shit, right now?” Young looked at his bare wrist, “The movie theaters don’t open until noon here.”

“Oh, we have an hour or two,” Bria settled back in the couch to wait.

Jungkook looked between them, “It’s 10 PM, guys.”

Yoongi scrunched his eyebrows together before bringing his wrist back up and looking at it more closely, “You’re definitely wr-“

Namjoon burst out, “THERES NO WATCH ON YOUR WRIST YOONGI!!”

“Cool!!” Jin and Jungkook grabbed Namjoon and pulled him back and to the other side of the studio. They held him firmly as he thrashed, random and uncontrollable rage taking his body suddenly.

“Cool!” Jin yelled, “Stay cool!”

Namjoon took a slow deep breath. “You’re right man, we gotta figure this out.”

“Yeah, we found two. We just need one more couple and then we’re good. We can figure out how to retrieve Taehyung in the morning and-“ Just then Jungkook’s phone rang and he took the call, stepping away for a moment and plugging one ear.

“Actually,” Jimin said, “If we can find Hoseok and Kate then I think I have a plan for getting Taehyung back. But we need all hands on deck.”

“Yeah,” Jungkook nodded even though he was on a phone call so nobody could hear him, “I’ll be there in ten.”

Everybody looked at him as he turned back to address the crowd, suddenly calm. “So … I know where Kate and Hoseok are. But I have to be the one that gets them.”

“I’ll go with.” Tawni said.

Namjoon agreed, “Good idea, if he’s dressed up and with a girl nobody will suspect it’s Jungkook.”

“Hey, I’m-“

Jimin interrupted Jungkook, “And we can stay here and prepare for getting Taehyung tomorrow. But we’re gonna need lots and lots of black clothing.”

“Shit,” Yoongi laughed from the couch, “That’s crazy. I have lots of black clothing.”

Jordan nodded, “Let’s get cooking.”

[btsburgh]

Chapter 12

The BTSBurgh squad assembled.

Each member of the party was wearing their Sunday best for when they land in Korea and get picked up by their boyfriends or not boyfriends or kinda boyfriends or odd platonic friends that harass them on tumblr. They had kept their party a little on the small side in an attempt to keep things under wraps. It was going to be hell enough with how much more popular the boys have gotten, but thankfully Bria is a master at planning, research, and networking, so this trip was going to go perfectly according to plan.

Flying out was easy. Nobody's watching in Pittsburgh. They get on a plan to Newark and then on one to Korea. Straight flight. Once they arrive, BigHit offered to transport them, but Bria insisted that they take a taxi looking like normal tourists and roll up to a moderately priced hotel. Just far enough from BigHit that it won't be suspicious, but extremely well placed. They check in and then later go out in teams, taking different routes to different vans that will deliver them to BigHit.

It was foolproof.

And you know, that part of the plan went perfectly fine. It was everything else that caused some alarm.

———

"How long until Kobi disappears for two days straight like usual?" Jimin asked Taehyung with a smile, "My money is on like two hours."

Taehyung scrunched up his nose and rolled his eyes, "Honestly, I'm betting on Tawni locking Jungkook in a closet before the week is over. Guess he has to do it sometime."

Jimin raised his eyebrows, "Oh, well, Kookie's not a virgin, you know that, right?"

"What?" Taehyung asked.

"Yeah so -"

Just then Jin appeared out of the kitchen with a straight lace smile that said he was too anxious right that second for his own good. He looked at both of them with that vacant ass stare and said, "Sorry to interrupt, can you guys organize your shoes, thanks."

They both watched his move mechanically to another room. Geez, Jin hadn't been this worked up about guests since BlackPink came over for a party one night. Maybe girls in groups of four gave him the spooks. Or he's just obsessed with having a clean enough home. Jimin and Taehyung shrugged, gathering up their shoes as the other members flitted in and out of the main area doing montonous tasks.

Eventually, the door bell rang and everybody jumped into action.

Jordan and Bria were the first to appear. They were picked up near a very nice looking mailbox and transported to BigHit safely. When they stepped inside of the dorm, they were greeted warmly.

"Jordan!" Namjoon exclaimed.

"Jimin!" Jordan exclaimed.

Bria made no sounds because it felt too extra. However, just then one Min Yoongi came grousing out of the bedrooms looking like he had just emerged from a several year slumber. He moved, blinking against the light towards the kitchen before the cleanness of their dorm caught him off guard.

"Wait ..." He looked up, eyes widening as he realized they had guests, "Oh shit. Is that today?"

Jin appeared suddenly, striking him down like zeus with a dustpan, "Of course it's today you idiot!"

Yoongi threw his arms up to sheild himself from the onslaught that was Mom!Jin before apologetically defending himself, "Kate's here all the time, how was I supposed to know this was different!"

"You literally live with me!" Jin hissed, recoiling threatening, an arm raised, but not following through. He instead decided to let Yoongi cower in fear of getting hit with a cleaning implement again for a few seconds before dropping it to his side, "And see how far it's gotten me?"

Namjoon entered the area right then, throwing a look at Yoongi, "Aren't you tired of complaining about that by now? We drew straws. It's fair."

"Jungkook still has his own room." Yoongi rolled his eyes and straightened up, "It's fixed. Rigged I tell you!"

Jimin chimed in, "He's just mad that he doesn't bunk with Hoseok anymore. Meanwhile, Hoseok and I make great room mates."

Yoongi didn't seem to agree, rolling his eyes in response. "I'm going to make food. And guess who's invited? That's right - none of you. Only the guests."

"Yes!" Jordan cheered quietly.

"Not you." Yoongi pointed a finger, "You're a Namjoon sympathizer. You've aligned yourself."

Leaving only Bria in Yoongi's favor, they slugged off to the kitchen, following which Namjoon went to awkwardly hug Jordan. Neither of them really sure where they stood. After parting from the hug, he gestured over to the couch and they sat down, leaning back and having a casual discussion.

"Can I get you anything?" Jimin asked being adorable and sweet and perfect, "I'm sure you're a little jetlagged. Isn't it like midnight in America now?"

"Nothing hard, though." Jin pointed a finger, "We need to make a run."

Jimin held up his hands, "Geez, sorry, mom. Tae and I will make a liquor run later."

"You better.” Jin shook the finger accussingly, “And I swear to IU no more absinthe, you guys have got to stop with that stuff. Dispatch can have your half-conscious bodies next time.”

Before Jimin could make his rebuttal. The doorbell rang again. This time it was Kate and Tawni, both very eager to see the boyband.

Jungkook and Hoseok appeared out of nowhere as usual. It was like they only existed as love interests at this point. Weird. But both were super excited to see the two of them.

"Hey, everybody!" Kate called, entering the dorms like they were her own because she's cool and casual like that you know.

Everybody greeted her usually, minus Yoongi and Bria who were currently racing to see whose technique could melt an entire stick of butter in a pan the fastest. Update: It was Bria's.

"Do we have plans for today?" Tawni asked, standing way too close to Jungkook.

Jin shrugged. "Well, we were sort of just going to hang out at the dorms and then you guys could all split off tomorrow."

Tawni seemed less than excited about the notion of having to share Jungkook with other people for the entirety of the night, but dealt with it inwardly like the bad bitch she was. "So drinking games then?"

"Yes!" Jimin's mouth was wider than they ocean as he failed to contain his excitement.

"No." Kate sighed, "We can't have another bangtan party night."

Yoongi and Hoseok both shivered, only one of them having heard what was said.

"It'll be less ridiculous this time." Taehyung promised.

"Please?" Jimin asked.

Both of the 95ers got on their knees and put their hands together, shaking them profusely as if begging for gold coins in Skyrim or something. They looked around, gaining sympathetic shrugs from everyone except for Jin and Kate who were adamantly against it.

"Nope." Jin said. "Last time we said it had to be unanimous and Kate and I are against it so no."

"And nothing will change our minds." Kate agreed.

———

Several hours later, they all sat in a circle with a deck of playing cards and various mixed drinks. Kate had a very, very large bag of funyuns and one of Hoseok's sweaters on. Jin had an enormous bowl of noodles and also one of Hoseok's sweaters on. This had everything to do with nothing being able to change their minds.

"So if it's five that means ..." Jimin looked to Tawni.

"Guys. BTS drink!" Tawni cheered, "Gosh, didn't you guys ever play Kings?"

Namjoon shrugged, taking a sip of his drink, "I think that's uniquely American."

Suddenly three people’s fingers were pointed at him, Taehyung screaming the loudest, "YOU DIDN'T DO LITTLE GREEN MAN! DRINK!"

"I think Taehyung is done." Jimin gently lifted the cup out of his hands.

"I think Taehyung is just getting started." Yoongi smiled, grabbing the cup from Jimin and returning it to Taehyung.

"I agree." Bria agreed, "Let Taehyung drink."

"Thank you, Bria." Taehyung slurred, "I'm glad to have friends like you."

"FOUR FLOOR!

Everybody's hands hit the floor with a resounding thud.

They all looked around.

Jin sighed, "Yoongi. You have to hit the floor. Again, it doesn't count if you're already sitting on the floor."

Yoongi rolled his eyes, "You guys aren't playing right. And just trying to get me drunk. I'll have you know I don't sleep with anybody on the first date so this isn't going to work."

Everybody, including Bria, laughed.

“Never have I ever.” Kate said putting the card down. “So do I start?”

Tawni nodded, apparently the only one who knew how to play basic drinking games.

“Never have I ever been famous.”

Each member of BTS put their fingers down. Then Bria did too.

Hoseok was next. Sort of. He was sitting behind Kate, but they all just assumed he was next because Kate likes to snatch cards when it isn’t her turn anyways.

“Never have I ever had my own room.” Hoseok smiled.

The Americans put their fingers down. Then Jungkook did, begrudingly.

Jungkook, now suddenly salty and next in line said, “Never have I ever dated an American.”

Hoseok shot him a look as he put his finger down, the BTSBurgh girls putting their fingers down. And then Jimin as well.

“Jimin what?” Taehyung asked.

Jimin frowned, “It was a bad call okay. Plus, hasn’t everyone dated Taylor Swift?”

A bit of stunned silence followed.

Jin cleared his throat, “Yeah, so I’m gonna get the absinthe then.”

———

The next day rolled around, and it hurt.

Tawni woke up in Jungkook's bed ... without Jungkook. Instead there was a pile of about sixteen plain white t-shirts just beyond her. She blinked, feeling the incriminating headache of a deserved hangover creeping into her system. There were no noises in the dorm either. That was either really good or really bad.

She eventually managed to hype herself up enough to get out of bed, and into the hallway. She was immediately met with the sight of Jimin cradling an empty bottle of liquor, entirely unconscious on the wooden floors of the dorm. Upon further inspect she saw that Taehyung was laying, also blacked out, further down the hallway, but closer to his room than Jimin. He was covered entirely in glitter.

"What the fuck." Tawni stated softly, stepping past the unconscious boy band members and into the main area. Yoongi was in a face mask, also sleeping on the floor while Bria seemed snug with a lot of blankets and pillows on the couch. Jordan and Namjoon had tapped out much earlier on in the night so she assumed they were in his room. That only left Jin, Kobi, and of course Jungkook unaccounted for.

Looking to her left, however, she realized that one of those answers was coming in the form of the eldest. Jin's foot was sticking out from the kitchen area in to the living room. But where did that leave Jungkook?

The door opened just then, a maknae appearing very suddenly.

He looked as good as he had the night before, his hair perfectly styled, his face bare of make-up but cute as shit, and an all black outfit to boot.

"oh!" He seemed surprised that she was standing there, "You're awake!"

"Yeah, dipshit." Tawni sighed, "Did we like ..."

"No!" Jungkook held out a hand, taking it off the car carrier full of coffee cups he was toting, "I slept on the floor and let you have the bed. I didn't want to be disrespectful."

"Damn." Tawni's voice ebbed with disappointment.

"Damn?" Jungkook raised an eyebrow.

"Heeeeeey!" Kate called, appearing with her perfection incarnate dancer boyfriend in tow and looking showered, dressed an ready to take on the day. She snagged a cup of coffee from Jungkook's multi-level stack of them and tugged Hoseok behind her, "Thanks for the coffee, maknae. We're going, uh, out and about, but thanks for this, really. Means a lot. I think Namdan are hitting some museums? Sounds fun - byeee"

and just as quickly as Kobi appeared, they left, taking two cups of coffee and the reality of the natural known world with them.

"Oh yeah, I ..." Jungkook smiled, recovering form the whirlwind, "I know our last coffee outing got cut short so I got us some."

"That's really sweet." Tawni smiled, taking a few steps forward to reach for one of the coffees, "You're really sweet."

Jungkook contained himself, biting his lip so he didn't look like a whole entire idiot as she just took a coffee out of his hoarder level collection of them. They looked at each other stabley for a few seconds. She tasted the coffee. Sugar with a little coffee if he remembered her order correctly, and she nodded. Approving off the cup that was actually just full of granulated sugar.

"Museum daaaaaaayyyyyyy!" Jordan called in a sports announcer like voice.

"We're getting some motherfucking noodles!" Namjoon called, waking Taehyung and Jimin in the process.

"Yeah, yeah." Jimin mumbled, "I'll be on time for practice, Hobi-hyung."

Namjoon kicked him on his way down the hall, "I'm not Hobi. And there's no dance practice. Just museums. We're gonna learn shit."

"learn a ... new routine." Jimin rolled over, facing the wall, "Got it. Thanks Beyonce-hyung.”

Namjoon shrugged.

The two ended up in the main area, only mildly judging to the five passed out people they spotted along the way.

Jordan smiled, "You guys can come! It would be like a double-date!"

Tawni looked at Jungkook.

Jungkook opened and closed his mouth a few times, stuttering, "Double date?"

"Yeah!" Namjoon walked over and slapped in the back, causing him to almost lose every single one of the coffees he slowly walked up the stairs of the dorm building in an attempt to keep them from getting spilled across the floor. "Come on, rookie."

"Well ..." Jungkook looked at Tawni.

"Let's go!" Tawni agreed, though she secretly was hoping it would jsut give her a chance to be with Jungkook and not the rest of BTS for a second.

———

"How do you know this information?" Yoongi asked, clutching a bottle of white gatorade like his life depended on it.

"I might sleep, but I'm never entirely unconscious." Bria explained. I take in auditory information while I sleep."

"Huh." Yoongi took a sip, refueling some vital electrolytes.

"So Kobi definitely went to go fuck in hotel. Tawkie and Namdan are on double dates. And Jimin and Taehyung and Jin are passed out somewhere."

"Passed out?" Jin called from the kitchen, sitting up suddenly, "I need to get everyone water. This is bad."

"Jin!" Yoongi put his hand out, "You're fine! Everybody is okay and accounted for!"

Jin started to spiral, "What if we lost someone last night? Did Taehyung buy Kesha tickets again? Did Jimin sleep with Seulgi again? Remember last time? Yoongi-Yoongi!"

"Jin." Yoongi stated calmly. "It's good."

Jin stared blankly at him for a second, "So we know where everyone is?"

"Fuck. Yes." Yoongi nodded, "Chill."

Jin seemed to calm down suddenly. He went on snapchat to check stories but when he saw Kate post a video of Hoseok dancing in an elevator and Tawni post a black and white selfie with Jungkook where Namdan was barely visible getting too close to a sculpture in the background, he felt at ease, if only for a moment.

"okay." Jin said, "I'll make breakfast."

———

At the museum, things were going well. Jordan and Namjoon were having fun guessing what the gender of each artist was.

“It’s so phallic.” Jordan said “Gotta be a dude.”

Namjoon agreed, “It’s created during the renaissance where people were more free to express their ideas. No way a dude was not going to make it look like his penis.”

They checked the name of the artist and sure enough, they were correct.

“let’s start a tally.” Jordan offered, “Whoever had the most by the end of the night wins.”

“You’re on.” Namjoon smiled, grabbing her by the arm and tugging her into the next exhibit.

———

“Do you know much about art?” Jungkook asked, walking with his hand sin his coat pockets and less than desirable mask over his face as they browsed the exhibits.

In truthfulness, Tawni loved art. She just didn’t understand it. Not like her room mate Kristen did. She had no idea what the historical implications of art were. Where they came from or how they were done. All Tawni understood was sometimes she looked through a camera lens and saw that they world seemed more beautiful from this specific angle and snapped a picture of it.

“Not like this.” She said softly.

“Oh.” He let out softly.

“I can take pictures, and I can do lots of things. I know what looks good, but …” Tawni chuckled, “I can’t paint the virgin mary.”

Jungkook laughed, his face lighting up in that adorable way that people knew as happy Jungkook. Not the “I just got a trophy in Overwatch look” but something similar to it at least.

“Same. Old art is cool but other stuff is more fun.” Jungkook explains.

He reaches over and takes Tawni’s hand. It seems like it’s inadvertent. Not something he planned to do. More like he just felt like it was the right thing to do so he took her hand and walked her through the exhibit, step by step, until they were close to the end, a whole hall’s length apart from Namjoon and Jordan.

“We should go out and take pictures together sometime.” Jungkook offers.

Tawni nodded in agreement, “Of course. There’s a lake by where I live. It’s fake but still.”

“A fake lake?” Jungkook starts to laugh.

While it is in fact. on elf the seven wonder of the world and one of the cutest thing in existence because can you imagine Jungkook laughing at one of your jokes? Come on now. It does happen to attract th attention of a group of girls and it’s not all in the clear.

See, BTS is somewhat a big deal now. They have to dress up in public. They had a bodyguard watching their every move in public. It’s a fear looming over them at any point in time now. Jeffrey the bodyguard was observing a piece himself, which Tawni and Jungkook passed a window, suddenly seeing a large huddle of falsities outside with cameras.

Tawni realized this was no longer a situation she could get out of safely.

So when the tours ended, she had kept the little observation to herself, stepping outside to meet Namjoon and Hoseok who were keeping each other warm and waiting for Tawkie by the entrance. The fanzines across the street were watching every single individual who walked through those doors.

Suddenly, Tawni knew she and Jungkook were next.

———

Halfway through the art exhibit, Jordan had come to the conclusion that Namjoon was constantly preoccupied. Even if he was present and hilarious and funny and cute for a total of of one hour, he seemed to get dragged away by his phone. Sometimes these spurts would last a few mitnesu and sometimes they would last longer. At first, during the trip, it was only a few seconds, but he had been attending to his text message for quite a while  now.

“Is a villager trying to leave?” Jordan inquired, jokingly.

She and Namjoon were very close on Animal Crossing Happy Camp.

“Oh no, Rocco stayed.” He affirmed, “Just that Dispatch has been buzzing lately.”

“That’s odd. Are you guys doing anything?” Jordan inquired.

Namjoon tugged her a tiny bit clsoer, his gray coat matching and blending in with her also neutral ass wardrobe as they stood outside the museum and waited for Tawkie together. They two of them were secret art hoes so they were mentally ready for this to happen.

“No. That’s the weird part.”

The skies were a bit grayer now, and Jordan spotted Tawkie finally emerging from out of the exhibit. They seemed as fresh as ever and Jordan had made lunch reservations earlier in the day so there was no need to waste time.

“I think they’re finishing up.” Jordan declared.

Namjoon rose his eyes off his phone to the exhibit just beyond the glass where Tawkie were walking with linked arms and chatting a little bit. Their pace was excruciatingly slow, especially considering Jungkook was as long as a football field, so they sure as hell could have left that building in four strides maybe. Instead they were going as slow as possible.

And so Namdan rolled their eyes and turned back to Animal Crossing.

“I’ve had shit fishing today.” Namjoon sighed, “Just bass.”

“Speaking of fishing.” Jordan tugged down on a message notification from Jin.

“What does Jin want?” Namjoon asked, still fishing.

“He lost Tae and Jimin at the store.” Jordan responded, now also fishing.

They were fishing together for a second, Namjoon focused really hard on reeling something in before responding.

“FUCK! ANOTHER BOOT!” Namjoon had half a mind to toss his iPhone to the ground, but contained himself, “And he better not have lost them. Last time Taehyung got lost we found him three days later in Gwangju wearing an entire suit made of alpaca fur.”

“What the fuck.” Jordan laughed.

“Yeah. The weirdest part was that Hoseok’s sister found him.” Namjoon said, staring off into the distance.

“That’s so weird.” Jordan muttered, getting another text from Jin.

Namjoon was still absorbed in his phone when she looked up at him. There was a crowd of girls gathering nearby, but they seemed interested inside more than anything. Jordan naively assumed it was a school trip. It didn’t matter either way, they were past the doors and both bundled up so there was no reason for the girls to harass them.

After six years approximately of awkward shy flirting, Tawkie began to head towards the doors.

“Hey, Joon.” Jordan said, “They’re coming.”

He grunted in response, still buried in his phone.

“The fishing can wait. The fish change at night anyways.” Jordan urged.

He didn’t respond, eyes still scanning as he scrolled. “Fuck. We have a problem.”

“What?” Jordan asked.

Just then her phone rang. She had missed a few texts from Jin and now he was calling her. She looked up at Namjoon who was frantically looking at his phone, eyes wide and pupils wide with anxiety. The phone stopped buzzing. Jin’s text read: It’s urgent.

“Jordan.” Namjoon stated again.

Her phone began to ring again.

———

The night had wound it’s way closer and closer to dinner time, and nobody had appeared at the dorms. Yoongi and Bria had early on decided they didn’t have the energy nor the desire to go out in public.

For one, Yoongi really fucking hated going out anymore. He had to wear a morph suit just to not get recognized and it was barely even worth it. And Bria also was uninterested in any of the things the others had been doing. The dorms were more interesting anyways and there was no reason to miss out on food in the near future.

However, when none of the three groups of people that had left returned, they were starting to think that other plans had been made.

“Did anybody say something in the groupchat?” Bria asked.

“Don’t know. I have it on mute.” Yoongi shrugged, leaning back in the chair of his studio and letting his eyes shut.

“You have your own band’s group chat on mute?” Bria asked.

He nodded, just moving his head enough to make it affirmative. Seemed strange, but entirely Yoongi like.

“What if somebody needs something?” Bria asked again.

“If it’s an emergency then they’ll call.” He sighed, sitting back up and looking at his computer. He opened something on his DAW a couple of hours earlier but had made zero lee-way, instead they had spent most of the afternoon taking buzzed quizzes and laughing at the ridiculousness every time Yoongi got Jimin for his BTS Boyfriend.

Somewhere Tawni’s eye twitched.

Bria shrugged, “Maybe they all got sidetracked and got food on their own.”

He nodded again, eyes glued to the screen.

Now, Bria wasn’t a nosey person. Most of the time people just tell her things because she’s the bearer of many secrets. She knows tons of things she can’t talk about. Everything from the McDonald’s secret sauce ingredient to a couple of North Korea’s nuclear launch codes. So naturally people are drawn to her when they have information to give.

Anyways, she rarely seeks out things in spaces or asks questions is the point.

So her accidentally knocking something off of Yoongi’s couch was 10000% an accident.

And so was her seeing what was wedged between the cushions inconspicuously.

“You have something …” Bria leaned over and grabbed the offending object that must have slipped down there by accident.

Yoongi raised an eyebrow, turning his head to catch what was going on just a split second too late.

“Ah no—�� Yoongi reached out a hand but it was too late.

Bria pulled the baggie out from between the couch cushions and instantly knew what it was.

“Listen, it’s Namjoon’s I swear.” Yoongi raised his hands, obviously flustered.

Bria looked from the bag to him, “Okay, but fam, it’s in your studio not his.”

“Okay, alright.” Yoongi bit his lip in thought, another excuse already on his mind, but he ghosted over it, shrugging it off and telling her the truth, “Fine. Jin and Hoseok and I confiscated it from the maknaes and then uh …”

Bria raised an eyebrow.

He tightened his jaw, “Listen, I’m the good one. They’re the bad influences, okay? I just went along with it.”

“But like …” Bria looked back at it, “That’s not true.”

“I swear. I was going to pitch it, just haven’t gotten around.”

Bria looked at the bag for a moment, “Okay, well …”

———

If you’re reading this, you’ve made it to the end of this chapter. Congrats!

However, there’s a little something extra here. And that something extra is me because I’m the most extra ass mother fucker on the planet. If you haven’t already guessed, the next chapter will be fairly lit, and you three all have input on it.

Text me individually after you read this and I’ll give you the deets. Since it’s specific to you, you won’t be able to share with others and also won’t know what the others are getting. Play fair, yo.

[btsburgh]

BTS - WINGS Album Review

Greetings, Bribies. I’ve been holding out on this one for a while, because this album is   t h i c c   so get your riding boots ready. I haven’t been able to get too much exclusive content on this one, but I can assure you it’s worth your time. These boys are hot hot hot and I’m not just talking about their looks. They’re scaling charts like some of you wish you were scaling their maknaes and they’re not messing around.

The album was a little confusing for me. Not as strong in composition as their past ones because of all the solos but when a song bops on here, boy does it bop. I think I just have to break it down.

So here’s my thoughts.

1. Boy Meets Evil (Intro) - too short, bitch, too short. Hoseok’s got moves and I’m not just talking about the dance. Girl his vocals are too die for. Great track. 2. Blood Sweat and Tears - fam I was gyrating. This isn’t your usual club banger, but you will be out of your seat. It’s tailing off some Rihanna vibes and tbh probably one of their best tracks to date. Watch it take over. 3. Begin - this is the song to get it to I swear 4. Lie - Jimin can lie to me any day. potentially the best solo girlies 5. Stigma - I can’t remember how this goes soz 6. First Love - a little overdramatic. dude goes on for an hour about his piano. guess he has a nice flow, but really a weak solo song 7. Reflection - I guess it’s aight? 8. Mama - Ignoring the fact that this is all Kate would play in the car for a month straight, it’s pretty good. Cute content. 9. Awake - a little forgettable but I’m glad Jin is out here showing these ho’s up. 10. Lost - a little elementary sounding out first, but I definitely added it to my playlists fast. A feel good song that fits the overall flow of the album. Vocal line slays. 11. BTS Cypher 4 - this song slaps. owns my entire ass. my favorite verse is Hoseok’s because that boy has adlibs for daysssss. I could die to this song. 12. Am I Wrong? - I’m still figuring out what sample this is. A little funky. 13. 21st Century Girl - You might not like this, but I hear they’re doing a halloween dance practice for it so look out. 14. 2! 3! - an emotional rollercoaster if you know these kids at all. phew I’m tearing up. 15. Wings - a solid end to the album. Jungkook’s vocals fuck me up. Anyways.

There we go. I’ll be back with some more content too, bribies!

[btsburgh]

Chapter 11

[ENG TRANS] BTS Ideal Girl:

RM: A girl who can cook and clean. Because I suck at both of those things and having Jungkook has a room mate has not helped me learn.

J: Mrs. Worldwide Gorgeous.

SG: Somebody who likes peace and quiet. Preferably without yelling at people over the internet at 4 AM. Not naming names. Maknae.

JH: I feel like I’ll know her when I see her.

JM: Who has time for that when I could be getting gains? A friend from America sent me protein pancake recipes this morning.

V: Short orange hair. Beautiful eyes. Love unconditionally. Tail.

JK: I think a girl with a nice smile. Somebody willing to be up at weird hours to talk to me. And thinks eating pizza is fancy.

[btsburgh]

Chapter 10 - The Five Dates (Part 3)

Date 1 (Jimren)

The gym was quiet that morning. All of the bears from bear wrestling hadn’t been woken up yet, and most of the sane people hadn’t dragged themselves out of bed yet to get working out. And I say sane as if they aren’t still insane for doing crossfit. Because you have to have at minimum one screw loose to get up before the crack of dawn to go flip tires in an empty building in the south side. But anyways.

Jimin slapped his palms against one another, smearing kung-fu powder across his palms.

“What’s that for? Grip?” Lauren asked.

Jimin laughed and shook his head, “No, I just like to see powder go flying when I hit things. Makes me feel like Jackie Chan.”

Somewhere in China Yixing’s eye twitched.

“You do kick-boxing?” Lauren asked again.

“No, but I do Taekwondo, Judo, Aikido, Hapkido, and once spent a weekend deep in South Africa with a group of Bantu monks that taught me how to focus my energy while stick fighting.” Jimin explained, slowly finishing his two hour long stretching routine.

“I know Muay Thai, Jijitsu, Karate, and Taekwando. I also spent … six weeks at OCS and dislocated my shoulder fighting a girl there.” Lauren also finished her stretches succinctly.

“So …” Jimin smiled. “Lifting first?”

“Deadlifts.” Lauren points to the barbells in the corner.

Jimin seems a little hesitant. Kpop training is all about musculature, endurance, and leaning down. Very rarely does Jimin hit the weights very hard. That’s more a Wonho activity. Not that they ever go to the gym together or anything.

“Alright.” Jimin agreed, not one to back down.

And so they went about doing said deadlifts, next to each other.

Jimin reached down and picked up the barbell, mirroring Lauren as he pulled it up, hiked the barbell to his chest than pushed it up above his head. However, before he could even get ti back to thefloor, he saw that Lauren has not only done the exact same thing, but was on a second rep.

That’s how it started to get bad. After every set they would pile more and more and more weight on until all at once Jimin put it above his head and it didn’t feel right. He dropped it to the ground and groaned.

“Ouch.” He uttered, reaching behind him to his back.

“Giving up?” Lauren asked.

“No, just feels a little …” He rotated a bit, feeling the area pinch. It was definitely getting inflamed. “Shit.”

“What is it?” Lauren walks over, watching him stretch.

“I don’t know. Just hurt all of a sudden. But I was doing everything fine.” Jimin explained.

Lauren’s eyes got a little bit wider. “Well let’s hope you don’t have a strain.”

“A what?”

———

Date 2 (Namdan)

Namjoon’s dramatic, let’s just get that out of the way.

Everybody thinks it’s Jin, but Jin is just a loud and generally over-reactive character. He always handles big changes and interesting developments with a keen and cool eye. Sometimes that involves grabbing a sledgehammer, sometimes it doesn’t. Either way, the title of drama queen definitely goes to Namjoon.

He may seem chill, but he take everything so very seriously.

And it has to be raining outside.

Jordan walked out wrapped in six to ten blankets and a hot cup of tea. She gently approaches him in an apologetic tone. “Sweetie why are you standing in the rain.”

She would offer him an umbrella, but Kate is still salty about the time that Jordan broke her umbrella freshman year so that luxury is being excluded from this scene.

“This whole trip was a bad idea.” Namjoon grumbled, letting the rain soak through his hoodie. “Why don’t you just go hang out with Jin?”

“Okay, well, if you sit out here then it’ll definitely make you miserable. Come back inside and eat the food you literally just got.”

“No.” He grunted, staring across the street angrily. “In less than 24 hours we’ll be on a plane and everybody will be complaining about leaving anyways so what’s the point.”

“That’s really pessimistic.” Jordan rolled her eyes, the blankets somehow protecting her from the onslaught of rain that picked up on them. “Come on, for real.”

Whenever Hoseok first came to him about dating somebody, Namjoon threw an actual fit. He was all up in arms about a scandal and how this affects the future of everything. Which was a pretty useless thing to get upset about because even Yoongi, the most careful person in the group was like dude do whatever the fuck you want. But Namjoon usually makes a scene.

“I’ll stay here thanks. I don’t want to watch Say Yes to the dress.”

“You know what?” Jordan threw back her ponytail hair once more. “I want to, so I will.”

She disappeared in the house as suddenly as she appeared, leaving a dry spot on the pavement where she had once stood.

Date 2 (Kobi)

They had danced in near silence, neither one missing a step, but both showing signs of fatigue. The crowd behind them had grown ravenous sounding, getting so close that they were afraid a misstep would take off fingers. Kate’s lung capacity was certainly not up to par, and Hoseok had to use all his mental will power to hit the precoded steps and not slip into the actual choreography.

And then it happened.

A single misstep and he was out of the rainbow on the DDR bar that indicated a perfect score. He sent a glance over to Kate but she’s in the zone, only barely recognizing his mess up a few steps later. Jimin is on screen now, doing something with gray hair. Honestly the music video was making things worse. But they kept on pace for what felt like too long.

Then another.

Hoseok cursed under his breath. It was enough to snap Kate out of her laser perfect focus, but not enough to jar her away from the steps.

“Looks like Contestant number 218 has made two grave errors. But will it cost him his life?”

Hoseok looked over at Kate. They were both beginning to think this wasn’t fun and games anymore. “I go left in the choreography. This is mirrored.”

Kate was uninterested. “Hey, that’s fine. It’s not even my favorite song.”

“I know.” Hoseok taps away, more in the zone now. “It’s baepsae right? Or Moving On?”

“Nope.”

He looks back, missing another step. But neither of them are in the rainbow anymore.

“What’s your favorite song?”

“Off the one you guys just released.” Kate looks over at him. “Run.”

She bolts off the platform and into the crowd of people. Everything is immediately turned to chaos and Hoseok is only seconds behind, his probably way better endurance catching him up to Kate with her tiny (but not too tiny because she’s beautiful the way she is) legs. The people were swarming around them, hands reaching out to take handfuls of their shirts, but somehow through the magic that is adrenaline they make it out into the hallways.

But that doesn’t fix things. There are more bald men there. Hundreds. Actually like six but when you’re running really fast it looks like a lot. Hoseok snags Kate’s hand and Kobi runs the opposite direction, following the exit signs.

And just when their lung capacity had met its match and the stampede of people screaming for blood behind them became too much, there was a door with a red illuminated sign above it. They didn’t hesitate before slamming into the door and being thrust into the light, throngs of angry people still behind them, but outside now.

———

Date 3 (Tawkie)

Of all the dates, Tawkie was surprisingly doing the best.

Jungkook was still struggling with how awkward of a person he was, but they made do with what they had. For the latter part of the afternoon they talked about things that they loved. This was mostly cameras and like film or something. I’m not sure, maybe they went to a dark room together and like used chemicals to make daguerreotypes. Something like that.

Anyways, at the end of it all, they ended up outside. Kate had given Jungkook her keys earlier probably due to a lapse in judgement or because she anticipated having to see the Justin Bieber movie and figured she’d be six martinis in by the time they got back to the car. Seeing as Hoseok was still not allowed to drive following the last Kobi road trip, Jungkook seemed like a reasonable choice. He was good at everything so.

They leaned against the car, Jungkook spinning the keys on his finger as they waited for their friends. Not only had Kobi ditched them, but they hadn’t answered any text messages.

“Maybe they’ve just been fucking.” Tawni shrugged.

Jungkook choked on his gum. “For three and a half hours?”

“Aren’t you guys dancers?” Tawni rolled her eyes. “Anything is possible.”

Jungkook continued to choke on his gum, doubling over a little as he tried to get it back up his throat.

“Are you okay?” Tawni was concerned now, making a cringe-y expression as she looked over at him.

Finally, the gum dislodged itself from his throat and Jungkook unceremoniously spit the gum back up onto the parking lot asphalt. A few coughs followed.

“That’s disgusting.”

Jungkook looked up, a little offended and red-faced. “Hey, you caught me off guard?”

“By insinuating that they skipped a movie to get it in?” Tawni again, rolled her eyes. “Wouldn’t you?”

Jungkook shook his head, a little off-kilter because for one he spends most of his time around six other men who talk about sex but only in the longing “wow wouldn’t it be nice to like not be at practice all day” kind of way. Rarely is he faced with an American woman who’s saying the same thing.

“I’m just not used to talk about that stuff.” He said softly, choosing to unlock the car.

“This is America.” She smiled. “Get used to it?”

“You’re mean.” He stuck out his tongue as he walked past her to get to the other side of the car. She followed him with her eyes closely and once he was in the driver’s seat decided to get in as well.

“Wow. You’re excited to leave.” Tawni said, trying not to sound offended.

“Did you get Kate’s text?” He asked.

Tawni looked down at her phone. Since it’s an android she had to utilize a ridiculous looking display, unlock her phone four times, call customer support, then speak to God himself directly who then reached down from the heavens and willed her phone to work for a second. Once it did she read the screen.

[STRIKE TEAM DELTA GC] Kate: On my way!

“Why would she type that?”

“It’s autocorrect from omw,” Jungkook, a normal iPhone user, explained.

“Weird.” Tawni locked her phone, hoping to one day use it again, before looking over at Jungkook. “You never answered my question.”

“Yeah, I’m okay. I was just choking on my gum.” He leaned back in the seat.

“No I meant the wouldn’t you part?”

Jungkook’s face got a little red again. “Well, my schedule it really demanding and we weren’t allowed to date when we’re trainees. And even now if we want to we kinda have to run it past people or just keep it on the down low like Ho-“

“It’s a yes or no question, kook.” Tawni shot back.

“I’m just saying -“

“Yes or no.”

“You’re mean.”

Tawni smiled innocently. “I am. I don’t get what you’re saying though. You’re on a date right now. You have time.”

“I won’t when I go back to Korea. We sold our souls to come here. Well, Jimin and Taehyung did. and we only get a couple days. Plus the jet lag …” He trailed off. “Wait we’re on a date?”

“Oh my god.” Tawni sighed. “So did you think that we were just hanging out with another couple for fun?”

“I guess not.”

“So.”

“So?”

He looked at her from across the center console, their eyes meeting in some sort of magical way because that’s how these things work. It was a little magical though, if only on Tawni’s part because let’s be real Jungkook is cute af, okay.

And by the power vested in me as an author, Jungkook leans across the center console, resting his forearm on the compartment, and stretching his insanely long body over to get closer to Tawni, who shuts her eyes in anticipation. He hesitates a little bit, being so far from home and wondering if this was leading somebody on because low-key he has to be a super star, so there’s not a ton of hope for them even if they want it to be.

He looks up momentarily, seeing something out the window.

“What is it?” Tawni asks softly.

“Nothing.” He says, looking down at her for a moment before shutting his eyes and leaning in again.

Really, if Hoseok can make it work. Why not everybody else too? So he goes for it.

But there’s a noise.

He looks up.

“Come on. What is it?” Tawni asks, opening her own eyes. “Do I have bad breath. Kate’s addicted to gum so-”

“No, it’s-” Jungkook shifts to look out the window, “Hoseok and Kate.”

“That’s fine. They can wait for a second.” Tawni reaches forward for Jungkook’s shirt.

“Uh, I don’t think they can.” He responds.

Tawni looks over her shoulder to where she saw Hoseok and Kate making a mad fucking dash for the car and waving their arms. Tawni basically growls, popping the door open to yell at them but being met by more sounds than she could compete with.

“START THE CAR!” Kate is screaming, her voice hoarse like she’d run a marathon.

“WE GOTTA GO NOW!” Hoseok screamed as well, practically dragging Kate behind them.

Not to far in the distance, an angry mob approaches, more people than Tawni can count that are yelling in high pithed voices, waving money and honestly she decides in that moment that it’s probably a pretty fucking serious situation.

“Go!” Tawni yanks the door shut and pushes Jungkook.

Jungkook slammed the keys into the ignition and is cursing to himself under his breath, cranking it until the car comes to life, then slamming the unlock buttons. In a matter of seconds, Kate and Hoseok throw themselves into the car by yanking the door open and piling in. Not even waiting of ranything, they pull the door shut and start yelling

“JUNGKOOK”

“GO FUCKING GO RIGHT NOW”

And Jungkook does, indeed, fucking go, nailing the gas pedal with his foot and squealing Kate’s car out of the parking lot.

———

Date 5 (Minten)

They rode the Phantom like six times in total silence. Each time coming back to the beginning and not really being sure if they liked it.

In reality, Yoongi was trying to figure out how exactly Bria knew enough employees of this local park to get them to run the ride just for shits and giggles. One was named Kittywampus and she seemed to have a great deal of understanding on how to run these things. It seemed that Tater Cakes and Czechia just pushed buttons and gossiped.

Either way they ended up at the end of their … seventh run through? And decided to just sit in the carts and look at the lights of Pittsburgh. It was good for the creative energy.

“I’m writing this song.” Yoongi said at last. “It’s gonna be fucking insane.”

“How fucking insane?” Bria inquired.

“Like … burning up.” He said, taken a back by his own words. “That’s pretty good isn’t it? Sounds good in korean.”

“What type of song is it?” Bria asks.

“Like … pop, hip hop. Hoseok and I were doing some work on it before we left. I think he just wants something they can make intense choreography too, though.”

“And you?”

“It’s gotta have some sort of meaning, you know?” Yoongi made a face, “Okay, well right now the chorus is just the word fire, but I’m sure it’ll get better by release.”

Bria nodded, understanding intimately the process of songwriting from her days as an underground jazz rapper. The scene was really toxic, though, so she’s glad she got out when she did.

Yoongi sighed, looking out over the city lights of Pittsburgh before his phone started to go off. “Fuck.”

“What is it?”

Yoongi sighed, pulling his phone out. “I only get vibrations from our manager. That usually means somebody fucked up.”

“Did they?”

Bria didn’t get an immediate response, watching Yoongi glower down at the little display on his fully functioning iPhone for a couple of seconds. His expression went from pissed to sour to generally disappointed in a couple of lines of text. “Yeah, apparently this trip didn’t go well for the majority of us. Hoseok and Kate did some dumb shit as per usual and pulled Jungkook and his not-girlfriend into it. Jin was being Jin, Namjoon was being a dumbass and now Jimin might have an injury and Taehyung may have stolen an animal from it’s home.”

Bria shrugged. “Well, you should try everything once.”

“Not fucking up your career.” Yoongi groaned, hopping out of the cart and onto the platform to leave. “I gotta go.”

“I’ll come with you. I’m a good translator from dumbass to slightly less dumbass.”

It made Yoongi laugh despite how pissy he was suddenly. So they got off the ride, thanked all of the people Bria knew and quickly made their way out of the park and towards the exit where they would proceed to sit around and wait for an uber for a little bit.

“You know what pisses me off more than them doing dumbass shit like this?” Yoongi asked.

“Namjoon taking credit for your songs?” Bria asked.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Yoongi looked back to the road, continuing his thought from before, “It’s that we’re on the rise and all that. If this song doesn’t suck, which … could be the truth, then we could be hits. Maybe not like EXO or BIGBANG huge but we could be … something. And I just don’t want these idiots to fuck everything up before we get that chance.”

“Is being famous that important to you guys?” Bria asked sincerely.

“I mean, Jungkook debuted when he was 15.” Yoongi laughed, standing up as a car approached. “I don't think any of us went through Hell to fuck it up on one trip to America.”

Bria looked at the person rolling up to pick them up. “Yo! Glenjamin, how’s it been?”

———

And yes, Yoongi had to play mom along with Jin. Once “Strike Team Delta” got back to Pittsburgh, they all got a thorough tongue lashing and The two now parents of this squad of children, yanked everybody to the airport in the morning and flew out to Korea.

The trip to America left a bad taste in their mouth.

But it certainly wasn’t the end of Kobi, Tawkie, Namdan (or Jorjin if you’re into that), and Minten.

In fact, I think Kate is planning a trip to South Korea as we speak. And everybody wants in.

[btsburgh]

Chapter 9 - The Five Dates (Part 2)

Date 1 (Namdan)

When they arrived back at the BROthel, Jin had actually cleaned the entire house from top to bottom and was reading a book at the kitchen table.

They had actually ended up eating way, way too much at the food truck deal. There was a food truck that was literally just dedicated to different ways of making corn on the cob so how could they not try every single one of them?

Then on the way home they got stuck in traffic again, because they decided to take 376. Which was fine, but all of the bridges in the city had closed that day.

“Shit.” Jordan had sighed. “I totally forgot it’s national bridge-less day. All the bridges just disappear for one day. I should have remembered.”

Namjoon teased. “At least we can spend time in the car. I have some songs to recommend to you.”

Suffice to say that after eventually having to drive Jordan’s car (which just got fixed) through the allegheny river to get home, they were quick to change into dry clothes and just sit for a little while.

“Movie?” Jordan asked.

“Movie.” Namjoon nodded, slouching into the couch crease a little bit deeper. “I can order pizza to be delivered in a bit too so you and Jin won’t have to cook?”

“Is Jin still here?” She asked.

Jin answered by almost floating into the room, carrying a set of cleaning supplies. “I was just tidying up. Don’t mind me.”

Namjoon flicked through his phone, selecting his pizza options. As he flicked past the ranch option in sauces, he waited to feel the pang of Kate’s disapproval from the other side of the state, but oddly enough it wasn’t there. This was strange because Hoseok literally started eating ranch pizza after dating Kate because she liked it so much, so for Kate not to send a wave of disapproval his way meant she must be extremely concentrated on whatever she was doing.

Weird.

“It’s ordered.” Namjoon said.

However, Jordan was fast asleep on the couch, her head slowly leaning over until it was on his shoulder. The movie began to roll, but Namjoon didn’t exactly feel like giving it much attention. He was tired as well, so he leaned his head over and let his eyes flutter shut as Jin went about humming to himself and wiping things down. There would be no more dirt left in universe if he kept going at this rate. Which would be pretty lit I think.

When he woke up again, it was a bit darker out, the golden light of sunset just barely dwindling away beneath the city buildings. It cast warm orange shapes across the ugly ass carpet of the BROthel. Thanks for the interior decorating, Sean.

Namjoon smiled because Jordan was quite literally knocked the fuck out. After looking out across the golden streets of Mt Oliver, probably looking past three drug deals and a mugging in the process, he turned to look at the rest of the room. Netflix gently questioned if he was still watching, which he wasn’t, and as he scanned the room further, he saw Jin was also sacked out in the chair against the wall, holding onto Kate’s cat blanket tightly.

BTS’ leader reached into his pocket and pulled out his iPhone which thanks to 4D touch already knew he wanted the camera open to forward facing. With a goofy smile, he snapped a couple of quick selfies with Jordan on his shoulder then locked them away for safe keeping. Not like because they were dating or anything. Just like in case.

He shook his head. “Hey, Jordan.”

“No, mom.” Jordan muttered.

Namjoon chuckled. “I have to go get the pizza …”

He gently got up from the couch, rousing Jordan, but also Jin. They both sleepily blinked their eyes at each other as Namjoon took a call from the very impatient pizza delivery guy, and stepping out of the room.

“I totally never fall asleep, don’t let Namjoon tell you otherwise.” Jin chuckled, rubbing his sleep swelled eyes.

“Sure, sure. And you probably don’t want to watch House Hunters either, right?” Jordan flicked back from Netflix.

Jin squinted at her. “Maybe just one episode.”

———

Date 2 (Tawkie)

The movie never actually ended because there was a power bump that fried the DVD player and therefore the movie could not be played nor even removed from the decaying piece of machinery. This left everybody in a sour mood.

No refunds were given.

So Tawkie decided to roam the mall in search of Kobi. Tawni thought maybe taking Jungkook to a Theta Chi party would loosen them up a little bit and be better than waltzing around an oddly labyrinth like shopping center. It quickly became apparent, however, that they were going to end up hopelessly lost.

To their right they passed an arcade, the only place that had its gates closed down in the whole mall as if it were closed. Which, judging by the darkened interior, lit only by a single DDR machine left running in the back, it probably was.

This was where they paused.

“Well, I suppose we have some time.” Tawni shrugged.

“What do you want to do?” Jungkook asked.

They both looked up and down the lengthy halls until they saw one of those trampoline areas. A couple of kids were jumping on it, doing cute little flips as their parents tended to text messages and ignored how close their children ere to breaking their skulls open on the floor. The underpaid attendant didn’t seem to mind either, but Tawkie was intrigued.

“I usually don’t love heights, but …” Tawni looked to Jungkook.

“I love jumping.” Jungkook smiled, taking her hand and practically bolting down the hallways towards the trampoline set up.

It looked way safer after Tawni had half-run, half-been-dragged skidding across the tiles to the setup. While it actually looked really far from the state of the art trampoline equipment, rust included, there were netted areas to catch you if you fell. Which with Tawni’s abilities was a serious possibilities.

Jungkook shelled out a couple of dollars to the attendant with a smile, his accent coming across broken and adorable as he said a couple of the words. The attendant waved them in lazily and Tawni took precarious steps to get in.

Jungkook, however, took no time climbing up on the trampoline and doing a couple of tentative bounces.

“Tawni, come on!” He called, pushing down further and jumping up much, much higher than before. He was already tall so when he pushed himself off of the trampoline with his insanely toned calves and thighs, he spiked up incredibly higher in the air like some sort of korean superman that had literally no kryptonite. JK he plays McCree so everything is his kryptonite.

Tawni walked up to the edge of the trampoline. She placed her palm on the cushioned ring around the trampoline, but still felt hesitancy in the face of it. When she looked up, Jungkook was already performing aerial feats, flipping over and over and over again. He did a little ballet flip, pointing his toes as he spun on pure oxygen particles.

She rolled her eyes, watching him put his hands on his hips as he popped back up in the air. He laughed and stuck his tongue out, taunting her as he leapt back up into the air again.

That was enough.

She climbed up onto it and immediately fell over in the wake of his bounce. When she tried to regain her footing on the trampoline, Jungkook rocketed himself down, using every ounce of energy her had to land right next to Tawni to send her rolling back across the trampoline before she could even get back on her feet.

“You fucker!” Tawni called out, scrambling back up.

“What? Can’t hear you?” Jungkook cupped his ears mockingly as he continued to jump.

“You’re gonna hear me when I beat the shit out of you.” She laughed, starting to get a good bounce going as she headed towards him.

“Not if you can’t catch me!” He ejected himself off of the trampoline and landed onto another one, laughing at her from afar as he did a back flip, his hair bopping along against gravity.

“Yeah okay—” Tawni began to bounced herself up and down, getting enough strength to shove herself onto the next trampoline.

The minute she touched down on that one, Jungkook did a cartwheel onto the next.

Tawni walked against the bouncing, catching herself off balance and having to walk on the cushions to catch up to him. Again, he was way faster, shoving himself off again and making finger guns once he landed on the next one in the circle, almost making it full circle.

But Tawni was not about to lose this round. She did a couple of bounces before bending into the dip as she landed, immediately straightening her legs out and launching herself like a fucking missile towards Jungkook who was heading back to where they started. He was a bit too focused on his aerial stunts to notice her.

And they collided, Tawni grabbing onto the fabric of his t-shirt. He was entirely caught off guard, confused and disoriented and ending up horizontal with Tawni, their stomachs dropping. Then their bodies.

When they landed on the nets, Jungkook had wrapped his arms around Tawni, making sure that he landed on his back with a really ridiculous look on his face. She tumbled off of him into to netted area, her arm over Jungkook as he did so.

Then eventually they regained their composure, laughing as they realized just how tangled they had become on the way down. One of Tawni’s legs was stuck under Jungkook’s farthest leg. and it was evident that both of them were actually entirely sweaty and out of breath.

Hot damn, just a little jumping right? Tawni promised in that second to go back to the gym.

“I think—” Tawni chuckled, “I think you might have fallen there.”

Jungkook turned his head towards her, their faces just close enough that he could see the blue dabbles in the gray of her eyes. He smiled, “Yeah, I think I have fallen a bit …”

Tawni chuckled, meeting his eyes that were smiling way more than his lips somehow.

“Hey!” The attendant yelled. “Time’s up! The mall is closing for wall to wall polishing.”

“Ah!” Jungkook rolled over. “Okay, time to go.”

———

Date 3 (Jorjin)

“I’ve seen this one.” Jin pointed to the TV. “They say they want the one with the granite countertops but really they go for the one outside their budget and 45 minutes from where they want to be because they liked the paint colors.”

“But you can—“ Jin sighed and leaned forward on the couch, taking the bottle of red blend wine and pouring himself another glass, “You can change paint colors but location, you know? And a good kitchen is so so so important.”

“Right!” Jordan sighed, leaning back on the couch and making a screeching pterodactyl noise. “Fuck that too the walls were ugly af.”

“You want—“ Jin held the bottle up.

“Momma needs her wine.” Jordan watched the newly weds smile in their home in the three months later portion. “Or say yes to the dress.”

“Please. I need to watch that.” Jin leaned back sipping at his wine and leaning on Jordan. “I need to watch people make bad decisions to feel better about my life.”

Jordan flipped the channel over with a sigh. She slipped her feet behind Jin’s back since he was scooted so far forward on the couch and leaned over, laying against the back of the couch as she watched.

“Oh she’s not gonna look good in anything like that.” Jin sighed. “It’s her waistline. I guess she could get it tailored, but honey everything you picked out was ugly to begin with.”

“So right.” Jordan slipped into the crease of the couch, slowly becoming one with the cushions.

The TV buzzed, following the previews of the episodes and the voice of the young woman: “What do you think mom?”

The both shook their heads. Jin kicked off his shoes and swept his feet up onto the couch, leaning back across Jordan.

“That’s bad cuddling procedure.”

“Okay Jordan Queen of Cuddling what do I do?”

Jin slid forward, assuming a more proper little spoon procedure.

“That’s better. Accept your place.” Jordan joked.

Just then, Namjoon stepped through the door, “Hey I found some in the—what the fuck?”

Jin lifted his head up and smiled. “Cuddle puddle, join up!”

Namjoon didn’t seem interested, waving them off as he turned and headed out of the room again, “Uh … yeah. Cool. I’ll pass.”

———

Date 4 (Minten)

Yoongi landed on his feet, hearing the echo of his landed bounce off the cavernous emptiness of Kennywood in the off season.

The park was cold, and quiet, and lifeless as he followed Bria through it. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his suit and watched as Bria navigated through the park guided all by only the stars at this point.

“I’m surprised the cops aren’t anywhere.” Yoongi muttered.

“The cops in Pittsburgh are too busy ticketing cars to worry about people breaking in to Kennywood.” Bria shrugged, taking a few turns.

“That sounds really backwards.” Yoongi chuckled. “Where are we going?”

“The Phantom.” Bria informed him. “This ride is dope.”

Yoongi nodded. Actually, neither of them were extremely talkative people so they had spent most of the night in silence. Comfortable silence of course, because two people who have no interest in talking would prefer it to the alternative. So they strolled through the park, taking in the silence and how interesting it was to walk past the looming structures of the roller coasters, full of cold steel and no movement.

Which was odd because normally there’s like at least 50 people chilling talking about potato patch or something.

Just then a flash light reflected off one of those cold structures, sending light fractures that put them on edge.

“Shit. It’s security.” Bria looked around quickly.

A gruff voice called out. “Hello?”

“Fuck.” Yoongi took off instantly.

“Wh-” Bria looked after him but his short legs had carried him behind a build already and he wasn’t stopping so she took off at a much more leisurely pace.

He saw the security guards back and ducked under a couple of bars, making a quick exit through a line and hoping that his dress shoes weren’t causing too much clacking. He checked behind him, but couldn’t see the guard anymore and opted to hop over the wall of the Haunted House ride, immediately squatting down and putting his back against the half wall so nobody could see him.

“Nice spot.” Bria said, walking up beside him. “But I think we’re good.”

“Holy—” Yoongi looked around, “How did you get here so fast?”

Bria shrugged. “Why did you run so far? You went in a circle basically.”

“It would look pretty fucking shitty if I got arrested for trespassing in the US.” Yoongi rolled his eyes. “That’s career-ending shit right there.”

Bria leaned against the wall. “Okay, so wait, you’re famous or?”

Yoongi let out a little breath. He might be able to do some of Hobi’s best choreography, but straight running is not exactly his forte so he was still a little winded from the experience. “Define famous.”

“Twitter followers.” Bria said decisively.

He thought for a second. “More than a million, but less than two.”

“You say that like it isn’t literally 1000x the amount I have.” She rolled her eyes. “So like what do you do though? Sing?”

He laughed. “I’m gonna need a drink for this conversation.”

“I know a guy.”

———

Date 5 (Kobi)

Kate stepped off the raised dance platform and raised her arms triumphantly. She had won another battle.

Yet it was hard fought. She laughed, nodding to the girl who had just lost, but she didn’t seem to be very excited about the experience. She dropped her head in shame and watched as Kate turned away.

A crowd of sweaty people separated her and the bracket.

Somewhere amongst the people in the crowd she saw the bald man from earlier, pushing his way along. Kate glanced at the bracket, only vaguely registering that it was nearing completion, but having way more interest in finding her boyfriend at this point.

Then she saw him.

As the bald man stepped to the side she caught the glimpse of his gorgeous jawline and single drop of sweat slipping off of it as he danced back and forth, sneakers slamming against the pressure pads with precision timing.

The other guy never had a chance.

Kate scurried her way through the crowd, using her concert sense to slip through people until she was practically at the bar, watching Hoseok’s feet slam down on a final split as the song ended. His whole body was practically breathing at this point as his lungs expanded and collapsed.

He smiled though, seeing that he had received an A while his opponent had a B. However, their scores were very close overall.

“Hoseok!” Kate hissed, leaning against the bar, “Turn around, dumbass.”

“Ah, Kate!” He leaned over the bar. “I can’t look. Tell me if I win.”

Kate leaned over and away from his face. (How she did that idk bc there was no way that I would be able to look away from that, but I guess this Kate is stronger than me)

The scores began to rise, his opponent’s eyes glued to the screen with rapt attention.

“Hobi.” Kate breathed.

“Yeah?” He asked.

The scores continued to grow and grow until in one second one stopped and the other stopped.

“Yes!” Kate cheered. “You did it!”

“Heyyyyyyy!” Hoseok lifted off of the silver platform, jumping for joy as the other man hung his head in shame, looking excessively disappointed in the results.

However, Kate and Hobi continued to dance, grabbing each other’s hands and jumping for joy as they shouted nonsense phrases as the couple tended to do. The other man stepped off the platform and into the abyss of people screaming and chanting and raising drinks. It all seemed so loud and exciting until another bald man, not the one from before, came up and nodded.

“I’m assuming you two are ready then?”

They paused, looking at him confusedly. “Ready?”

“Well, you guys are the finals round.” He stated gruffly.

Hoseok paused, letting go of one of Kate’s hands to gesture, “Us … against each other?”

He nodded again.

They both shrugged. “Guess it’s time to figure out who the better dancer is.”

The guy seemed perplexed, and also did his best not to outwardly react. The whole experience was a bit sobering despite all of the hundreds of people screaming and jumping around in the back. As Kate parted from her boyfriend, letting their fingers slip apart in the process, the man stepped up on the platform.

Hoseok kept his eyes on the man, and his feet at the ready as Kate stepped into the staging area as well, one foot on the left arrow and one foot on the right.

Slowly … painfully, the bald man pressed random select.

“And …” He bellowed, low and deep in his voice. “The song that will decide their fates is …”

Hoseok cut his eyes over and let out a chuckle, “Fate?”

“BLOOD SWEAT AND TEARS BY BTS!” The man yelled.

The crowd literally erupted into screams and yells. More drinks were passed around and people crowded ever closer to the platform, watching intently.

“Think I have the upper-edge, here?” Hoseok taunted, leaning forward as the count down began.

“Think again.” Kate smirked back at him, also readying herself.

The count down came to a stop, the screen fading to total blackness and seeming to suck the noise out of the room as it did so. “May the best dancer win this game!”

The room erupted into cascading sounds of cheering and yelling and screaming. Hoseok and Kate looked at each other as the music faded in, Jimin’s face appearing on screen along with the HUD of empty arrows ready to be filled with step directions in no time.

In a loud bellow the bald man raised his hand: “Two hundred dancers entered. And now one of you will leave with your life.”

They looked at each other. “What?”

Then the song began.

[btsburgh]

Chapter 8 - The Five Dates (Part 1)

Date 1 (Kobi)

The movie theatre Tawni spoke of was approximately 18 hours away from West Minster. This is the closest civilized area to the College that is also outside of the Amish Circle. It seems logical for them to have to drive this far because The Amish don’t believe in movies and therefore having a movie theatre so close to the inhabitants would be deeply disconcerting. After the day’s journey they arrived, none the wiser, and with no horse and buggy in sight.

Kate parked her car and hopped out, Hobi and Tawkie in tow. They chatted excitedly about which movie to see together. The options were pretty sparse since it’s 2017 and the world officially ran out of ideas the minute that they decided to go ahead with a fourth Transformers movie. However there were a couple options:

Paranormal Activity: The W8ing room. Which was the 8th installment in a riveting series about ghosts dragging various people down several flights of stairs.

Boats: the much awaited additions to the Cars franchise.

The Gorgeous Spider-man: a reboot of the spider-man series starring an actual infant.

and Justin Bieber: Never Say Rehab, a long awaited straight to DVD concert that Justin Bieber put on after successfully completing rehab for the sixth time. It was never actually run in theaters but one of the employees had a DVD so they decided to run it off a projector that afternoon.

Obviously, there was a heated debate about which one to watch. Tawni desperately wanted to see Paranormal Activity but nobody else seemed keen, meanwhile Hoseok thought Boats would be an easy watch after their flight and not too time consuming. Nobody else cared. Kate was more interested in Spider-man, but it seemed everybody else was too attached to Tom Holland or the superior actor Andrew Garfield to give this new guy a chance.

Eventually, they decided to split off and deliberate separately for a moment before coming back to make a final decision.

As Kate and Hoseok split off, they immediately forgot about what they were supposed to be doing because they were both really ADHD and bad at things like this. Instead they started to wander the illustrious mall.

And got a touch lost.

“Haven’t we passed two Starbucks?” Hobi asked cautiously.

“I think the first one was just a place to change your screen if you cracked it.” Kate offered in response.

They pressed onward, looping back around to try and find the theatre. Yet, everything looked different. No two stores were alike and if they were, they seemed to have changed positions. Honestly, that Victoria’s Secret was definitely next to FYE … right?

After too long of wandering Kate sighed. “We should find a directory.”

“I haven’t seen any. Let’s ask an employee in here.” Hobi pointed to an arcade not too far away.

They entered into the flashy room full of pings and buzzers and sounds and lights. There were lots of people playing arcade games, but no employees in sight. Both halves of Kobi shrugged, deciding to look around for them, and passing a DDR machine in the process.

“I love DDR.” Kate commented. “Especially the Korean ones.”

“Shouldn’t I be the best at Korean DDR?” Hoseok joked.

“Psh, as if. It’s not real dancing, Hobi.” Kate said assuredly.

“Wanna bet?”

They both looked at each other, but knew what was about to happen.

Thirty minutes later they had only completed a few rounds and were sweating their asses off, all muscles on fire as they were not going to let the other one win.

“Giving up?” Hoseok panted.

“I’ll give up when Ariana Grande puts out good music.” Kate rolled her eyes.

A voice from the side broke their banter. “You guys are good.”

They looked over to see a tall bald man with his arms crossed and wearing dark athletic clothing. They exchanged glances before nodding at him thankfully.

“We try.” Kate smiled.

He didn’t smile back. “You here for the tourney, then?”

“Tourney …” Hoseok repeated, squinting his eyes. “I don’t think-“

“He’s scared I’ll whoop his ass.” Kate informed the bald man.

“Am not.” Hoseok defended. “No way. Hell yeah, I’m here for the tourney.”

The guy just nodded in response. “This way.”

They gave each other taunting looks as they followed the stranger to a door not too far from the DDR machine. The minute they crossed over the threshold, they knew they were in over their heads. A short hallways lead to a huge room. How on earth it fit into the confines of the mall they had no idea, but it looked more like a club than an arcade. Rich looking people and toned muscular ones were walking here and there in the flashing lights and sounds of tens of DDR machines running. There were too bars, lots of couches, and a layout that generally lead to a huge bracket in the center of the room.

Now hushed and bewildered, the couple followed the bald guy all the way to the bracket where he scrawled both of their names in different spots.

“You ready?” He asked gruffly. “The short girl is up first.”

———

Date 2 (Tawkie)

Okay, so there was no way Kobi was showing up. Getting stood up by your date is one thing, but getting stood up by the other couple in a double date is another. It had been almost an hour and most of the movies were starting their one matinee for the day. The movie theatre only really ran 2-3 showings of a movie a day. Anything more than that was a lot of like effort and cleaning and employees aren’t about that nowadays while making $7.25 for their work.

“I guess their votes are useless. Justin Bieber it is.” Tawni turned to the box office window. “Two for Justin Bieber.”

Jungkook did a mini-celebration with himself over this as the elderly looking woman slowly took Tawni’s money and placed it into the register. She very carefully laid each bill in its slow before closing the register.

She then looked back up and smiled.

After a couple of seconds Tawni said something, “Uh … so my tickets?”

“Yes. This is where you get tickets.” The woman responded, her gummy smile showing through.

“I …” Tawni looked back at Jungkook, “I know. Girl, I just paid for them. Can I get my tickets?”

“Oh, dear me. I’m sorry. Ever since Trump got elected I’ve been too excited to hear anything. What movie did you get tickets for?” She asked.

Tawni laughed nervously. “Justin Bieber.”

“Alright then.” The woman gingerly reached over and picked up two blue raffle tickets that were sitting beside her computer monitor. She slipped them through the opening in the glass.

There were no marking besides the numbers on them and the word TICKET.

“Uh …” Jungkook hummed.

“It’s fine. Just, take it and go.” Tawni pushed him along into the movie theatre.

Once they were seated in the chairs that had no cupholders and were in various states of disrepair, the movie began to roll, only featuring a short reese’s cup commercial at the beginning that had no sound and very little imagery in a orange void before flashing the logo.

The projector clicked to life, opening with a lot of shots of Justin Bieber and booming through an obviously blown out speaker. The narrator explained Justin’s rise back from rehab and his concert, lots of images of fans waiting flashing by as it went.

After about ten minutes, Jungkook glanced over at Tawni who seemed entirely enthralled in the documentary, taking in each detail with unblinking eyes. He shifted in his seat a little bit before yawning and stretching his arms out wide above his head. As he finished his stretch, he came down in an arc, very very very gently laying his right arm over the back of Tawni’s seat and letting his fingertips rest against her shoulder.

“Hey!” a voice from behind them yelled. “Move your arm, bitch. We’re not all tall like you and I can’t see.”

“Oh.” Jungkook looked back apologetically before recoiling his arm into his seat and sitting like a stone statue for the rest of the movie.

———

Date 3 (Namdan)

“So you’re saying that they just … have entire festivals full of just food trucks?” Namjoon asked, walking through the area next to Jordan.

Jordan nodded. “Yes and it’s wonderful. I’m poor and don’t have the money to afford these, but luckily some blind rich person in Mt. Lebanon tipped me a $100 so I have a little money to spend.”

They didn’t spend long walking around and looking at the food trucks. Most of them were pretty boring minus the Po Boy Truck which is the best food truck in Pittsburgh and I’m still really mad they weren’t at the pierogi festival because tbfh I really wanted a po boy and life just isn’t fair I know that but don’t say you’re going to be at a festival then not show up Iw anted to eat fucking po boys I don’t deserve this treatment.

Anyways, they decided to eat at Oh My Grill, a very delicious food truck that grills bread and cheese together. It’s extremely effective.

Namjoon got something that had like a lot of meat on it and began eating it right away. Meanwhile Jordan got something that had like lettuce on it because she thinks she’s a rabbit and kind of picked at it.

They were sitting on a little bench between some of the trucks, the umbrella set above it doing nothing to shade them at all as most umbrellas above tables are apt to do. This meant that they spent a lot of time trying to shield their eyes from the sun when they looked at each other.

“And that’s how I got my name Rap Monster.” Namjoon nodded.

There was no response from Jordan who had her eyes on her phone.

“Jordan?” He asked.

“Sorry.” Jordan looked up then back down. “Jin is asking me what sock and tie combo would be good for Yoongi’s date.”

“Ah.” Namjoon put his grilled cheese back in its little dish. “Well, I suppose that’s pretty damn important.”

Jordan laughed. “He’s never coming back to America, is he?”

“Oh no, literally never.” Namjoon joked back.

———

Date 4 (Minten)

Min Yoongi was not a man of complexity. He liked to pick one thing and continue to say it over and over again until people thought he was funny. Mainly Hoseok because he was obsessed with getting validation from that man.

He was otherwise a pretty grumpy fellow who only wanted to go back to bed at any given point in time. Really, if Jimin and Taehyung hadn’t already booked him a ticket then he wouldn’t have even come in the first place. Staying in the dorm with nobody else there sounded like an absolute dream to him

But nope.

Here’s a list of things Yoongi is not:

In his bed

Sleeping

In sweats

Wearing a face mask

Making fun of Jimin

Having fun

Her’s a list of things Yoongi is:

Waiting for his blind date to arrive

In a suit

At a restaurant

One that he didn’t pick out

Number 4 applies to numbers 1,2, and 3.

Having no fun

The waitress passed by again, “Are you sure you don’t want to go ahead and order?”

“Ah, can I get a drink actually?” He asked.

“Sure. What do you like: cocktails, wine, beer?”

“Yes.” He nodded.

The waitress stared at him for a couple of seconds before deciding it wasn’t worth it and slowly retracting her presence from the table.

Once she was gone Yoongi picked up his phone and dialed Jin.

“You’ve reached Mr. Worldwide Handsome. How can I direct your call?”

“Yeah, how fucking long do I have to wait until I can go back home?”

“It’s been 14 minutes, Yoongi. There’s a thing called traffic.”

“It’s like 8 PM fuck traffic I want to go home.”

“Give it six more minutes and then if she isn’t there I’ll come pick you up.”

Yoongi rolled his eyes. “Fuck. Fine.”

And then, as if on cue, Bria appeared. She was looking pretty dope as per usual dressed in all black. She sat down across from him and picked up a menu, gently grazing over the options. Yoongi watched in anticipation for a couple of moments, unsure of whether he was supposed to say something or not.

“You’re Bria?” He asked.

“To some.” She responded to the menu. “I have many names. Depends who’s asking. Who are you?”

“Uh, Min Yoongi to most … Suga to a lot.” He frowned. “Agust D as well.”

“Interesting.” Bria picked up and sipped on a glass of wine that had not previously been there. “I heard that you’re often called Slug.”

Yoongi furrowed his brow. “Who told you that?”

“I know a guy.”

“Yeah okay.” Yoongi sighed, tapping at the menu. At least now he could order his food and get this over with. But on some level, he felt an obligation to keep the conversation up. Jin would probably kick his ass if he didn’t try at least. “So are you into music?”

“Into music.” Bria put the menu down, sipping at her wine again. “Into is a weak word. I find most of the music today very limiting in terms of creativity. Therefore I think into is the wrong prepositional phrase.”

“Totally.” Yoongi nodded, “It’s the same with kpop. Everything is the same. Nothing heavy hitting. All saranghae hajima so beautiful I’m the lucky one.”

“American music isn’t that different.” Bria sighed. “But honestly it’s just so boring.”

“Everything is boring.” Yoongi stated, glancing up at her briefly. “Sorry, I don’t mean to be a downer. I didn’t exactly want to go on a date tonight.”

“Me either, but I know Taehyung from my international animal recuse squad so I owed him one.” Bria explained.

Yoongi slid the menu forward a little bit and tipped himself back in his chair. This place looked a little too expensive for his liking. Not that he didn’t have money, it’s just that he despised over paying for food that was going to be bad and small portioned.

“Let’s go then. Neither of us want to be here at least we can do something fun and tell Tae and Jin we just sat here all night.”

“I’m down.” Bria finished her glass of wine. “What did you have in mind?”

“Don’t you guys have a theme park or something?”

Bria shrugged. “Yeah but it’s closed.”

“Fuck.”

“But I know a guy.”

Yoongi raised his eyebrows. “Alright. Now we’re talking. Let’s go.”

———

Date 5 (Vean)

[btsburgh]

Chapter 7

After losing Kim Taehyung in the airport four times (two of which he was in quaker steak n lube), forcing Namjoon to ask for their bags like eight times because nobody else wanted to do it, finding out that Jungkook’s bag got classified as overweight because he had to pack like six hundred white shirts, and Jimin being too busy taking selfies to direct them to the house, THEY FINALLY MADE IT.

Upon pulling up to the BROthel, they all emptied out of the taxi and thanked the driver for dealing with them, especially Jimin’s selfies. It came as no surprise to Kate that they were there because Hoseok loves her very much and always keeps her updated without smothering her with information. The other two residents however were a bit surprised.

“Hey, Jordan!” Namjoon called, smiling as he entered the living room.

“Oh my god.” Jordan stood up and grinned. “It’s Jimin!”

Jimin smiled and waved at her from across the mass of Korean boy band members now on the first level of their house. Namjoon’s smile, however, was only slightly stilted by the interaction.

“Who’s Jimin?” Lauren asked, bouncing down the stairs.

That’s when their eyes met.

Across the room, Jimin swept his recently blond bangs from his face and saw Lauren. Lauren’s bangs were already up and away from her forehead because she’s all about the gel life, but she still felt the connection. A deep, primal connection that bonded their souls. The ground quake beneath them and it was if time had halted just for them to look at one another.

“We need to work out together.”

The fact that they both said this in unison and simultaneously was off putting, only added by them being frozen in place and locking eyes. They didn’t move at all for a few minutes, so everybody decided to ignore them and go about their business.

“Alright, motherfuckers!” Kate announced, pulling out a binder and slamming it down on the coffee table, crushing three glasses of miscellaneous liquids as she did so. “This is the plan. We’re splitting into two teams. We have Strike Team Delta, whose primary objective is to get Jungkook to Tawni’s front door without arousing suspicion. I have to drive, so therefore Hoseok is coming too.”

“Oh and ice cream.” Jungkook added. “Tawni likes cookies and cream ice cream. I want to bring her some.”

Hoseok did a little jig, “Stike Team Delta, yes. Very best team.”

Ignoring both of them, Kate continued, “Then there’s Gold Team. Gold Team will stay here and help Yoongi prepare for his blind date.”

Jin clapped his hands together in excitement. “I’m so ready for this makeover.”

“Me too!” Jordan fist pumped, already mentally preparing several outfits in her mind. “Joonie, you can help us.”

He shrugged in agreement.

Kate surmised, “Okay, so Strike Team Delta is Me, Hobi and Jungkook. Gold Team is Jin, Yoongi, Jordan, and Namjoon. That just leaves Taehyung and Jimin.”

Taehyung shot his hand up the air so quickly that Jordan was probably triggered and blacked out for a second. After she recovered, however, she caught a glimpse of Namjoon rolling his eyes. “You don’t have to raise your hand to speak.”

Taehyung lowered his hand. “I’m going to West Minster. Kristen sent me a snapchat of her cat and I want to see him.”

They all nodded in agreement. However that still left the question of Jimin.

“I go really early, though.” Lauren said, finally breaking her frozen trance.

“I go before dance practice and Hoseok is always early so I work out at 3 AM.” Jimin assured her. “Plus I need almost an hour of warm ups.”

“Me too!” Lauren bounded the rest of the way down the stairs and landed in front of him. “Actually I fucked up my shoulder so I need an extra thirty minutes of warm ups beforehand.”

“Is tomorrow cardio or weights or what for you? Leg day?” Jimin peeked an eyebrow.

“Everything. Cardio in the morning followed by high intensity interval training focusing on the lower body. Then I usually go eat three un cooked eggs mixed with coffee grounds and immediately hit the weights and do some light ninjutsu for core stabilization.” Lauren explained.

Jimin’s eyes widened. “No way. I’ve barely been able to master Taijutsu because my chakra just simply doesn’t align with my anaerobic activities. I’ve been doing more sprinting lately to try and up my heart rate so I can burn more and take in just protein too, but it’s hard on the diet we have.”

They continued to ramble on for a couple more minutes, everybody in the room sort of watching with rapt intent as they did so. It was like seeing two deer try and communicate across a road, neither one wanting to cross and potentially get nailed by a drunk pittsburgh driving on his way home from a steeler game, but also not being able to communicate properly because they’re deer. Honestly have you ever even heard what a deer sounds like? Do they have a sound even? Anyways that’s just an example don’t live by it.

“So Jimin is Gold Team.” Namjoon finished. “Cool, let’s get cracking.”

———

STRIKE TEAM DELTA

“Captain’s Log. Friday. It’s midnight in Korea, but late morning here. This has confused young maknae Jeon Jungkook who normally sleep at 9 PM because he is still a growing boy. If he doesn’t, the gods will not continue to bless him with the magic of the dancing spirits that—”

Jungkook snatched the camera out of Taehyung’s hands, immediately ejecting his foot into the singer’s stomach so he could leap across the back seat of Kate’s car to fight back.

“Are you going to do this the whole time?” Jungkook asked, fumbling with the camera to turn it off.

“I have to finish the flight log!” Taehyung whined, squabbling to get closer through jungkook’s arm and foot pinning him back. “What will the other captains think if I don’t log our mission?”

“Nothing because there are no captains-Hey!” Jungkook had the camera snatched from his hands by Taehyung’s flails.

It clattered to the ground and Taehyung let out a scream. “My baby!!”

“No!” Jungkook went for the camera, both of them yelling in unison.

“STOP.” Kate yelled from the front seat. “Hoseok is already bad at paying attention to a screen long enough to give directions without you two fighting in the back, okay?”

They both gave each other little death glares before sighing, “Sorry, mom and dad.”

“We’re almost there.” Hoseok tapped the screen. “Shit, it went to Canada.”

“Yeah, the new apple maps has 4D touch so it senses your finger tip before you’ve even formulated the thought. Takes some getting used to.” Kate explained.

Hoseok looked at the bottom, “But still no headphone jack?”

Kate shook her head. Everything was run by bluetooth now anyways. All Hail The Bluetooth Overlords. Amen.

Eventually Hoseok got the screen re-centered. “Ah! Ice cream place on the right if we still want to stop.”

“Yes please!” Jungkook called out.

———

GOLD TEAM

“You sure you’re good, Joon?” Jin asked, pulling some duct tape free from the roll.

“Yeah, it’s no big deal. Like one night. All casual and stuff.” Namjoon responded, nonchalantly, holding onto Yoongi tightly.

“Mmpphhprffrphphpmmm” Yoongi’s muffled voice came through the sock they had shoved into his mouth.

Jin wrapped the duct tape around Yoongi, effectively latching him onto the kitchen chair as he sighed. “I just know how you are. Don’t want you to be all bogged down when we go back to Korea. Bad for writing.”

“Nah man, it’s just netflix and chill. I swear I’m not gonna catch feelings.” Namjoon patted the struggling rapper in the chair on the head, before pulling the sock out of his mouth. “Isn’t that right Yoongi?”

“I hope you catch the plague.” Yoongi spat, the minute the sock was out of his mouth.

Jin rolled his eyes, putting the tape down on the kitchen table. “Yoongi, chill. Don’t you want to look nice for your blind date?”

Just then Jordan appeared looking like the Martha Stewart of make-overs and holding an assortment of make-up and tailoring related items organized in a trendy, yet functional utility belt across her waistline. “You ready, Jin?”

———

STRIKE TEAM DELTA

“Captain’s Log. Still the same day but slightly later. I’m about to make contact with Bean the cat. I have been looking forward to this for some time now. Please anticipate.” Taehyung flipped the camera around.

He and Hobi and Kate were plastered behind the corner of Tawni and Kristen’s townhouse, watching intently as Jungkook went up to the door holding two ice cream cones that were a tiny bit drippy. He took in a deep breath, prepping himself to ring the door bell.

“Wait.” Jungkook looked over at them. “I can’t ring the doorbell with these in my hands.”

Hoseok sighed, sneaking up along the side of the house and readying his finger over the doorbell. “Hana … Dul … Ses!”

He effectively ding dong ditched the college town house, breaking out at full speed to meet his cohorts behind the corner. Jungkook stood at the ready, a bright smile on his face as he waited for Tawni to open the door.

They heard a voice from the house. “Kristen! Get the door!”

“No, Tawni - You get the door! I’m trying to conjugate french cities!”

“Fine, bitch!” Tawni responded.

After a couple of seconds, the door swung open and Jungkook extended an arm, offering the ice cream out to her. And at first Tawni’s eyes just got wider until something in her began processing information once again.

And then she just screamed, literally leaving the ground and just flying over to embrace Jungkook, almost knocking the poor boy over in the process. When she did so, the other three jumped out from behind the house and all yelled.

“Surprise!”

Tawni had no response, only sobbed directly into Jungkook’s shoulder out of shook, but eventually his laughter about how the ice cream was going to melt got her to release her vice like grip on him and take the cookies and cream ice cream. Though I’m sure she’d prefer the kookies and cream … if you catch my drift.

But Jungkook sure didn’t, smiling at her as he ate his ice cream. After Taehyung had finished pretending he was a professional vlogger and Kate and Hobi had quit being literally as extra as possible, a plan was formulated.

“Oh my god.” Hoseok pointed a finger to the sky. “We should do a double date! Go see a movie, yeah?”

“I like movies.” Kate nodded.

Tawni was entirely on board. “There’s one not too far from here, let’s go.”

Taehyung clapped, “I love it. It’s like five dates all happening at the same time!”

“Five?” Hoseok counted mentally in his head.

“Gold Team too.” Kate counted with him, “Us and Tawni and Jungkook. Namjoon and Jordan. Yoongi and Bria.”

“Then where’s the fifth?” Hoseok asked.

“Me and bean!” Taehyung exclaimed.

And thus started the absolute adventure that was The Five Dates. Well … it started as an adventure at least.

[btsburgh]

[btsburgh]

[btsburgh]

Chapter 5 - Interlude

It had been a long ass day of everybody doing things that normal human beings can’t do such as dancing like Jung Hoseok or … being famous in Korea. Anyways, they came back to their little dorm feeling like sponges that had just taken in a lot of information or something. And they all piled through the door, looking beat and tired, but excited to start their day off tomorrow strong.

“Hey! We’re going to get a drink. You in, baby-face?” Namjoon called out, pausing in the doorway to Jungkook’s room (he did win rock, paper, scissors after all and yes Namjoon is still salty)

“Ahh …” Jungkook swiveled in his office chair, pulling his eyes from the monitor to Namjoon, “Nah. I’m just gonna stay in and game.”

Namjoon rolled his eyes. “So you’re going to play Overwatch until midnight and then FaceTime Tawni like every night, right?”

Jungkook scoffed, “Uhm not true. It’s just that she doesn’t like getting up before 11 AM so it’s the best time to call her is all.”

“Yeah, sure. You really gonna stay in?” Namjoon pointed a finger.

“Don’t let him peer pressure you.” Yoongi groused as he passed by in the hall. “I’m not going either.”

“Seeya later!” Jungkook waved as he looked back at his computer.

———

———

“You really have to go?” Jungkook smiled to Tawni across the screen.

“Yeah if I skip class again Kristen will probably actually kill me.” She sighed.

“Okay, well … do well.” He waved to the camera, “See you soon!”

Just as the call disconnected there was a loud noise in the hallway. A couple of clattering sounds, a few hushed voices, then a light came on.

“They’re back.” Yoongi informed Jungkook, passing by his room with a warm cup of tea in his hands and look of serenity unfazed by the sudden intruders on his face.

“I’m too drunk for this.” Hoseok muttered, slowly creeping into view of Jungkook’s door as he shut his computer off and began to go about getting ready for bed without paying them any mind.

As got changed he heard Jin respond, “Not as drunk and Taehyung and Jimin. Can you lift him up more?”

“He’s so heavy though.” Hoseok whined, “What did he even hit?”

Jin grumbled something in response and Jungkook watched from the corner of his eye as they slowly dragged a comatose Namjoon down the hallway to Namjin’s room.

“At least your room mate is still up.” Jin said.

Hoseok grunted in response.

Then came another set of footsteps and the distinct sound of Jimin’s laughter as Jimin and Taehyung headed towards there room assumedly. However, Jimin, while more responsive than Namjoon, was a total mess. He was stumbling, drunk, and looked to be a bit worse for wear than Taehyung.

Eventually they stumbled right in front of Jungkook’s door just as he was about to close it.

Taehyung and Jimin both looked up at Jungkook and gave him a smile before he shut the door. They then looked at each other.

“Race you?” Taehyung rolled over and clambered across the floor until he was up on his feet and heading down the hallway to their room.

Jimin, however, being about 50% alcohol at this point in time, did not have similar luck as he got up, found himself a bit woozy, snagged a hold on the wall, but fell down almost instantly, the whole room spinning as he landed flat on his back. He laid there for a moment trying to get his surroundings in order, but everything seemed to get worse as the seconds ticked by.

After a minute or two, he heard a door and some footsteps, seeing Yoongi pad his way down the hallway with an empty cup of tea. He politely stepped over Jimin’s body, headed to the kitchen and disappeared. There was a sound of clattering as Jimin assumed Yoongi was putting his cup in the sink, and then the boy reappeared, still looking as calm as ever.

“Hey,” Jimin hiccuped, “Whass-dup yoongs”

“Oh.” Yoongi nodded, “So you really are that drunk.”

“Am not.”

“You so are.” Yoongi began to walk again before his little conscience pulled him back. “Do you need help?”

“I want to take a shower.” Jimin stated.

“You can’t do that.” Yoongi sighed, “You’ll drown yourself.”

“Then come in with me to make sure I don’t.”

Yoongi looked down at the boy on the floor and locked eyes with him. The smaller boy looked so helpless laying on the ground. He was vulnerable to the cruelties of the world and his little lopsided smile told Yoongi everything he needed to know. In that moment, they made a connection.

“Guess you’re going to drown.” Yoongi smiled. And then left to go to bed.

[btsburgh]

Chapter 4

They were all sitting in the back of a black SUV, feeling very out of place in probably the nicest car they had ever been in in their lives.

"There's chilled bottles of water in the mini cooler." The driver said, "Feel free to help yourself."

"Oh." Jungkook reached over and opened the mini fridge, helping himself to a bottle of water. Namjoon shot him a look and he mouthed, "What?"

"No, it's fine. Just take water from a stranger." Namjoon reprimanded in a hushed voice.

"So ... how do you know Bria?" Jordan called the to trench coat wearing man up front.

"We do business together sometimes." He responded with a chuckle.

"If that's what you like to call it." Bria laughed, "This guy is the best croquet player in Pittsburgh. Nobody plays a clutch poison ball like him."

"Aw, don't flatter me. Bria is my number one customer for black market photocards so she's just talking me up."

Tawni leaned over to Jordan, "I feel like that gave me more questions than answers."

Jordan agreed.

"We have a big problem." Namjoon sighed, "Take off has been moved up a couple minutes. I don't know what we're going to do. We can't possibly get through security in time."

"What if ..." Jungkook shook his head, "No that's stupid."

Namjoon rolled his eyes, "We survived two car crashed I think everything is kinda stupid so pitch it."

"They can't take off if ... something stalls them." Jungkook said slowly.

Namjoon narrowed his eyes, "You're not saying ..."

"I am." Jungkook nodded, "It's our only option."

"Okay. Make the call.”

———

Jimin picked up the phone, "Hey, it's the guy who was born in Busan before you, what's up?"

"I hate you Jimin." Jungkook said from the other side of the line, "I need your help."

"Yeah when are you guys getting here?" Jimin nodded to Hobi who settled into the aisle seat on the row across from them where Yoongi and Jin were already sitting.

"Uhh ... soon hopefully. But not soon enough." Jungkook admitted.

"What are you saying? You're going to miss the plane?"

"No. Not if you guys could ... stall for some time."

Jimin paused. His eyes gently swept over to Hoseok who was untangling his headphones from his pocket and settling in for the flight. He responded somberly, "Are you saying what I think you are?"

There was a bit of silence on the line before Jungkook spoke, "We need it."

"Understood." Jimin ended the call.

He looked over the aisle to Hoseok who caught his gaze.

"What?" Hoseok asked, raising his eyebrows.

Jimin gave him a serious look, "It's time."

———

The SUV was going quite fast. Bria was sitting up front with her mysterious friend while everyone else was in the oddly spacious car back. Jungkook was sipping on one of the water bottles he had gotten out of the cooler while Namjoon sat, anxiously tapping his foot and biting on his finger.

Jordan was probably still playing an eighth play through of Stayin Alive in her mind.

"We're not gonna make it." Namjoon mumbled.

"You have to quite worrying." Jordan consoled him.

"We're going so slowly." Namjoon shot back.

"Don't snap at me." Jordan rolled her eyes.

Bria calmed their fears from the back, "Don't worry ... I know a guy."

Just then the deep tinted windows became a little less black and they saw that they were no longer on 376-W towards the airport. In fact, nobody had any idea where they were at all. They were passing a bunch of people in various military uniforms and colored suits. They glanced into the car as they passed through serious looking buildings and even more serious looking cars.

"How many guys does she know?" Tawni whispered.

———

Hoseok and Jimin hadn't been gone to the bathroom long when the cabin lights suddenly dimmed and something came over the speaker system that wasn’t their captain nor any of the plane staff.

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.” Came the telltale voice of one Jung Hoseok.

Jimin followed after him, “We’d like to invite you to a little pre-flight entertainment.”

“Brought to you by the world famous Bangtan Boy’s Dance Line.”

“Everyone, please put your hands together, for …”

a low bass track came over the loud speakers, and everybody else seemed just as confused and disoriented as the rest of said Bangtan Boys were. The low bass track grew louder and oddly familiar as lights came out of nowhere to focus two circles on the front of the plane.

“The BTSendales!” Hoseok and Jimin shouted, appearing out of the bathroom suddenly, wearing sparkly red suits buttoned up and looking like they had managed to get a full face of make-up on in their short time in the tiny one person bathroom.

The track suddenly became what we all know as Get Low by the wonderful artist know as Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz.

They began to strut up the center aisle of the plane to the track, pausing to throw winks and kisses to various people who were sitting in their seats just trying to catch a flight to Chicago. Without a moment of hesitation, they brought into a perfectly choreographed dance, moving side to side as they made their way up and down the aisles. They undid their ties and tossed them to one woman who seemed particularly excited about how her flight was going right now.

“Excuse me!” A flustered flight attendant appeared, patting at Jimin’s shoulders to try and get him to stop, “You can’t do this, sir. We have to take off and you’re delaying the flight.”

“Hey!” Jimin called, “Our first audience participation.”

“No! No, audience participation. Please.”

He turned back to her and reached for his lapel, yanking at it and undoing the strip of velcro that kept his suit jacket together (as opposed to the usual buttons) and pulled it off one shoulder fully to reveal himself to be entirely shirtless minus the suit jacket on just one arm.

The flight attendant looked at him, “Oh boy.”

———

“I can assure that all of the people on board are not aliens.” The Trench coat wearing driver assured a third military looking man.

He glanced back at all of them gruffly, nothing that each of them looked quite anxious and confused, but not necessarily extraterrestrial. He stared for what was in no way a sensical amount of time before eventually nodding.

He stepped back from the car and motioned them to head inside to the tunnel. Once they were inside it began to get darker, and darker, and darker and darker.

In fact they were eventually in total blackness.

“I love this.” Bria commented, “It’s my favorite part.”

Nobody had the heart to respond as they continued to drive forward into the pitch blackness with no lights to guide this car. Perhaps the driver knew the way. Perhaps they actually died at Sheetz and this is just the afterlife.

But then they saw a light, it was just above them.

“Alright.” Bria nodded, “This is it. Thanks, Jebediah.”

The driver nodded as she got out of the car. The four friends in the back all looked around to where they assumed the other ones were since it was too dark to tell, and just stumbled to their feet, reaching along the wall of the huge SUV until the found the handle to the door.

Eventually Namjoon managed to open the door and he and Jordan piled out. It didn’t take Jungkook too long to find the opening either.

“Tawni.” He said, “Here.”

“I have terrible spatial awareness.” Tawni muttered, “I don’t know where you are.”

Jungkook reached out into the darkness and found her hand, taking it tightly, “Come on.”

Tawni swallowed the lump in her stomach as she followed him out of the car.

Once outside they all stepped into the light coming from the ceiling. It was obvious that they were all worse for wear. They looked around the circle. Jungkook had a cut on his forehead that the make up people were going to hate him for tonight. Tawni had a scarp on her elbows from bracing herself against the seat. Namjoon’s hair was a radical mess and Jordan was holding onto Namjoon’s shoulder to keep herself from blacking out after standing up too quickly.

“Okay, it’s time.” Bria called into the darkness, “Jocasta, we’re ready.”

No verbal response came from the blackness, but suddenly the floor shifted beneath them, beginning to raise them up to the light. It took a couple seconds for everyone to get their footing, but that was just enough time for them to get to the top, where they realized they were in fact just outside of the Pittsburgh International Airport.

———

Hoseok glanced over to Jimin who had just finished giving some now passed out girl an almost lap dance. They had managed to dance their way into only wearing the shorts they had on beneath their pants and they were starting to sweat. If anything else happened, the fan sites would surely find pictures of it, whitewash them, then post them before they could even set foot in Chicago.

“Where are they?” Hoseok hissed.

Jimin shrugged, nudging a twenty dollar bill somebody had hysterically thrown at him.

“Here!” Namjoon burst into the plane, holding his boarding pass up, “I’m here.”

“Oh thank god.” Jimin and Hoseok immediately darted into the bathroom, taking split seconds to change.

Namjoon turned and called over to Jungkook who was talking to Tawni just passed the security check point, “Come on, kookie! We gotta go right now!”

He looked over his shoulder and started to back up, “Tawni.”

“Yes?”

“Add me on snapchat.” He smiled, “Please.”

She held her phone up and used snapchat to snap his snap ID and add him as a snap friend. It was such a touching moment that a tear welled up in her eyes, “When will I see you again?”

Jungkook started to jog away from her, “Soon!”

[btsburgh]

Chapter 3

As the four of them crushed themselves into lil deb, they all pulled their doors shut, everyone yelling and hootin' and hollerin' because there was such a rush. Jordan took no time in throwing her little blue hyundai into reverse and careening down the driveway, almost taking out four cats and three cars parked too far out on the curb for comfort.

"Shit we need some jams." Jordan said, fumbling with her phone as the car slowly began to read the information through her lightning cord connecting it to the console.

However, when she looked up, the line to get onto the interstate was at a dead stop and she had to slam on the brakes, sending her phone flying into god-knows-what-nook-or-cranny of her car.

Fortunately, she managed to press play before it did.

Unfortunately, the first thing that came on was Stayin' Alive by the BeeGees.

"I love this song." Jordan said, "Fine by me."

"Me too." Namjoon agreed.

From somewhere in the universe, they felt the waves of Kate's disapproval in their bones.

"That's the least of our problems." Tawni said, looking out the window, "It looks like there's a hold up."

"What's the problem?" Jordan asked, stretching her neck to try and see what's in the distance.

They assumed it was probably a spot of construction. However, as perusual in Pittsburgh, it wasn't just construction, but also an accident. A three car pile up where ten to twenty people were screaming jagoff at one another repeatedly until they passed out from lack of oxygen. Further down the road was more construction. So much in fact that multiple construction zones had come together to form a Mega-Construction Zone™ which was blocking the path. And to make matters worse, two construction vehicles inside the Mega-Construction Zone™ had crashed, causing further backups.

"There's no way we're going to make it." Jungkook sighed, pinching his nose, "Jimin will never let me live this down."

"There's a flight leaving a little bit later. If we switch the booking now we can still make it to the concert, we just might miss soundcheck." Namjoon offered.

"No." Jordan said coldly.

Everybody looked to her as Jordan's long pale arm extended out, reaching towards the sunglasses sitting in the cupholders between her and Namjoon. All eyes were on her as she picked up the round grandma sunglasses and brought them to her face, unfolding them and pushing them over her eyes.

"Lil Deb." Jordan said softly, "Roll out."

She threw Lil Deb into low gear and peeled out from behind the line of cars. She ran down the ramp, just an inch away from the guard rail, and passing tons of people.

"We can't get up there, it's a dead stop." Namjoon exclaimed.

Jordan smirked, "Where we're going ... there are no dead stops."

Suddenly, she turned, crashing through the guard rail and leaping off onto the shoulder just beyond it.

Everybody in car was shook, but they didn't start actually screaming until Jordan pulled off to the side and into the woods. Lil Deb rolled effortlessly over the grass, rolling over the valleys without so much as a hesitation.

"Jordan! Tree!" Namjoon yelled, pointing.

Jordan shifted gears, no expression changing on her face as she yanked the steering wheel and swerved past it. They dodged in between trees, Jordan's laser focus only egged on by the screaming that was coming from the two people in the back of the car. It was sweet music to her ears.

Just then Stayin Alive began for the second time.

"Fuck!" Namjoon yelled, "You must have set it to repeat."

Jordan's face remained emotionless, "Perfect."

Just then a clearing showed up ahead, but it was obviously the edge of a cliff with only a couple of fallen trees around it, making everyone briefly wonder if Jordan had done this before. The minute Tawni and Jungkook realized what was about to happen they grabbed onto each other, their screams becoming even louder.

Jordan turned onto one of the fallen trees and used it as a ramp to shoot Lil Deb off the edge of the cliff. The screaming in the car got at least three decibals louder as it became airborne.

Lil Deb took flight, arching into the open air as Stayin' Alive played from the speakers, only muffled by the screams of terror from everybody in the car except for Jordan.

"We're doing to die and I don't even have McCree's golden gun!" Jungkook cried out.

"We're going to die and I never apologized for breaking Hobi's door!" Namjoon yelled.

"We're going to die and I haven't slept today!" Tawni sobbed.

Jordan didn't say anything but reached over and cranked the third run through of Stayin' Alive up three more cranks.

As they finally were pointed down, heading back towards earth, Jordan yanked at the wheel, turning them to the side as the somehow effortlessly touched down in a clearing of dirt. Jordan didn't think twice about it as she continued through the oddly industrial area.

Once everyone else in the car opened their eyes up, they saw that they were safe.

"We're safe." Namjoon stated in an obvious fashion, "I don't know how but we're safe."

"Thank God." Jungkook breathed out.

Tawni and Jungkook then realized they had been clutching each other very tightly and awkwardly released one another, shuffling to their respective sides of the back seats and putting on the seatbelts that I guess they took off idk I'm not very good at remembering what everybody has and hasn't done okay I'm sorry.

"Hold on, guys." Tawni rolled down the window, looking out at the dust clouds that were rising in the distance, "We have a big problem."

"What?" Jordan asked.

"I think we're in the ... Mega-Construction Zone™" She said.

Everyone gasped.

Just then a group of construction vehicles pulled up beside them blaring a loud speaker from atop them, "You are in the Mega-Construction Zone™ with an unauthorized vehicle. Pull over now."

"I can't get anymore points on my license." Jordan stated before slamming the gas.

"Not again." Jungkook was quickly cut off by the inertia thrusting him back into the seat.

There was one of those giant like hollowed out cylinders up ahead. Idk what they're called I guess like ... idek but you know what they are you see them in construction zones all teh time btu idk what they're made for and they're like white or gray and look like rock that's been shaped. I dunno but anyways there's one up ahead.

Jordan drove directly into it, followed by a couple of the smaller construction vehicles.

"They just won't quit." Jordan huffed, "But you know where they can't get us?"

"When we're dead?" Namjoon whined.

"Close." Jordan spun the wheel suddenly, "On the ceiling."

As she turned, Lil Deb began to climb the walls of the cylinder, still speeding ahead as Jordan lowered her foot even further onto the gas. Until all of a sudden, everybody felt themselves lifting off the streets, because they were in fact ... on the ceiling.

"God if you're up there ..." Tawni yelled.

Then all of sudden they were out of the cylinder, careening through the air once more, but upside down. Everybody was floating, just barely held in place by their seatbelts. Somehow, they managed to clear the airspace of The Mega-Construction Zone™ and zoomed over the fence and ... directly into a building.

The airbags deployed, but somehow everyone was alive because let's be real who am I gonna kill? Namjoon? Don't @ me okay

The car landed on the hood, Jungkook's head only a couple of inches from where they ceiling had been dented in from the landing and saving his skull from being crushed. Everyone else seemed to be fine albeit breathing very heavily and just thankful enough to be alive.

Somehow, Stayin' Alive was still playing in the broken and shattered glassy remains of Jordan's car.

They were all too shocked to speak when somebody bent over and looked into their car.

"Okay but you're in the lines of the parking spot." Bria said.

Jordan sighed, "Bria! What are you doing at the Robinson Sheetz?"

"I hang out here usually." Bria shrugged, "Do you guys need some help? Who are the nice looking Korean men?"

Jordan shrugged towards the ground because she was still hanging upside down, "It's a long story, but basically we're fucked because we need to get to the airport in like fifteen minutes so these guys can make a plane."

"Oh, that's easy." Bria shrugged up to the sky because she was right side up just squatting on the ground, "I know a guy."

[btsburgh]

Chapter 2

Tawni arrived at the Starbucks looking fly as hell. She was dressed in the outfit she had picked out for the concert the night before that got cancelled due to Stage AE falling apart from the Pittsburgh curse. After passing a collection of people just repeated calling one another “fleek” outside, she found Jungkook already waiting inside.

Since the outfit was originally for the concert, it was a good midway between free breathing/slutty and floral print. There’s no issues when Jungkook sees it I promise.

“Hey.” She greets shyly because idk why anyways

“Hey! I thought maybe you would oversleep your alarms.” He admitted, shuffling forward from where he was leaning against the coffee bar.

“I didn’t oversleep.” She said, which was entirely true because she actually hadn’t slept at all the night before and just decided to nap when she got back, “I just couldn’t find a non-parallel parking spot.”

That was also true.

“Great.” He smiled, tugging his black ball cap forward, the two silver rings hanging on the rim jingling as he did so, “What are you having?”

“Oh I got it don’t worry.” Tawni responded, falling in line behind him.

He cast a glance over her, looking all too wonderful dressed entirely in black and then said with a smile, “I’m kinda famous let me buy the coffee at least.”

“Okay I usually get (insert coffee order I’ll ask Kristen for under the guise of being eccentric later here)” Tawni responded, pushing her bangs out of the way.

Jungkook kept his smile as he turned, charming the barista as per usual as he ordered both of their drinks with extreme accuracy. He even quoted Tawni exactly saying, “The lovely lady behind me will have a normal coffee with as much sugar as you can reasonably put in it.”

“And your names?” The Barista asked.

“Jungkook and Tawni.” He nodded, speaking slowly so she could get it with his accent

“You don’t have to do that. I can get names.” She rolled her eyes and scrawled each name on the cup.

“Just making sure. People get it wrong a lot.” He smiled.

“Understandable.”

They moved away from the area and to that little counter area where the put your drinks that everybody crowds around. And like knowing starbucks they probably fucking stood there for like twenty minutes and watched some bitch like five people behind them in line go in front of them because she only ordered black coffee which I get that only takes a few seconds compared to my frappe but like I ordered it first so you should get to it this is America not China like please.

Anyways.

They waited a while and eventually the barista came up to the counter and yelled, “Ronnie and Lung-Shook?”

“Oh that must be us.” Tawni said, waltzing up to the counter and snatching their respective coffees off the counter.

“Have a nice day, Brawny and Hung Brooke!” The barista called back.

Tawni and Jungkook walked out of the starbucks and into lovely, bustling market square. Except it was early morning so there weren’t a lot of people there. A fleet of pigeons was sitting in the middle picking at remains of day old chorizo chipotle burritos and droplets of Moe’s queso. While quite pudgey, they were somewhat cute and in the distance Tawni could hear Kristen naming their Domain, Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species of each bird roasting about.

They didn’t speak very much, not entirely sure what to say.

“So do you go to school around here?” Jungkook asked.

“Just about an hour or two north of here.” Tawni said shyly into her cup of sugar, “In Amish country?”

“You guys have Amish people too?” He asked.

“Yeah. There’s a lot of them. It’s fun until you get stuck behind a horse and buggy.”

He chuckled, “Can’t relate.”

“Where do you live?” She looked at his from the side.

“In Seoul city. In a dorm with all the other guys.”

Tawni spit out her coffee, “Wait you’re in a famous boy band and you live in a dorm??”

“Well.” He was flustered suddenly, “Yeah. I mean I get my own bed since I’m the youngest.”

“You mean the others don’t??”

“Uhhh …”

Before Jungkook could finish a random busker with a saxophone suddenly appeared with a saxophone and started to play careless whisper. There were only two other people in the whole of market square, so it wasn’t easy to ignore him and also he was a bomb saxophone player like Lenny Kravitz or something. Idk but it was awesome and enough to confuse both of them.

Jungkook smiled, tossing some of his American money into the dude’s empty saxophone case. He then turned to look at Tawni and smiled warmly, “May I have this dance?”

———

When Tawni and Jungkook made it back to the BROthel, Kate and Kristen were playing Oregon Trail on the couch. They had been playing since earlier the morning and Kristen had actually completed the entire Oregon Trail, done three laps, and then set sail to go gentrify Hawaii as well by fording the entirety of the Pacific Ocean.

“Hey guys!” Tawni greeted, a little too buzzed from her sugar and jungkook-high.

“Damn it!” Kristen yelled.

Jungkook looked puzzled as he entered the living room, pausing to look around and see if he had knocked something down or done anything to piss her off.

She shook her computer violently, “LISTEN I NEED A FIN FOR MY UNDERWATER OXEN NOT A WAGON AXEL. GODDAMN IT RANDOM PASSERBY”

Jungkook let out an exhale, “Thank, God. I thought I did something.”

“Oh.” Kate looked up from her phone after evolving her Dragonite into an UltraDragonite and breaking Pokemon GO forever, “That’s weird, Hobi left a while ago.”

“He did?” Jungkook leaned up against the door frame just behind Tawni, “He probably had some stuff to pack.”

“Yeah, but like he left a while ago.” Kate added.

“ARE YOU SERIOUS??” Kristen chucked her laptop across the room, “THIS ISN’T A GAME. JAKOB DIED AGAIN. I JUST SOLD FOUR DAYS OF FOOD TO BRING HIM BACK TO LIFE!!!”

“Okaaaay …” Tawni said, backing up slowly.

She eventually backed into Jungkook who was a bit surprised and immediately jumped back into the dining room. Tawni spun around quickly to apologize, but as she did so, the lid to her cup of sugar flew off, spreading the crystals and couple drops off coffee forward and onto Jungkook’s shirt.

“Shit!” He exclaimed, tugging at the fabric of his shirt as the crystals embedded themselves in the stitches along with the tiny bit of coffee in her cup to make a really sticky mess.

“Shit!” Tawni also exclaimed, putting her cup on the table.

When she turned back, Jungkook had gotten his entire shirt off and was standing there, looking like some sort of Korean model in the golden light of the early morning. Tawni’s jaw was essentially on the floor as she stood immobilized.

“What?” He put his hand on his jaw, “Is there something on my face?”

“Ahh … ye-yeah.” Tawni stuttered.

“Can you get it?” He asked.

Basically perfect situation almost like I wrote it.

She stepped forward and reached up to his shirtless face, her hand extending towards something on his face that wasn’t there, but seeking to bring them ever so much closer together.

And as she did so, he leaned in a bit closer.

“JUNGKOOK!!” Namjoon yelled, bursting through the door wearing only sleep pants.

Jungkook snapped his head to look at Namjoon.

“W-What?!” He stammered.

“They left!” Namjoon motioned to his phone in a karate chop gesture.

“Who?” Tawni shouted.

“The rest of the fucking band left without us. They’re at the airport about to take off. Right now!”

Jungkook turned back to look at Tawni, his eyes widening and his mouth open to stammer out a couple of primitive syllables with no meaning.

“Hoseok’s calling!” Kate called from the other room, as if the situation weren’t already apparent.

Namjoon was now pacing, trying to get somebody on the phone as he muttered, fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck under his breath, but nobody was picking up the phone and he was becoming increasingly more flustered.

“Fuck!” Namjoon tossed his phone to the ground, “Nobody’s picking up what do we do?”

“I have car keys!” Jordan called, suddenly appearing as well, “And Namjoon’s shirt.”

Tawni perked up, “I’m coming!”

Namjoon took his shirt and started to pull it on over his head, “Well let’s go, take off is in 30!!”

[btsburgh]

Chapter 1

How exactly Kate met BTS and began dating their lead dancer is still a mystery to this day.

But that’s exactly what happened and it sparked the wonderful and perfect power couple known as Kobi. They are 100% the best couple out there and are untouchable and won’t be breaking up through out this story for any reason so don’t even think about it.

Anyways.

That’s how this all began.

They kept it quiet for a little while. Jung Hoseok was pretty famous and fans never seem to take well to finding out their idols are dating somebody who isn’t them. Since Kate is a really wonderful and understanding person who loves Hoseok very much, she agreed to keep quiet about their relationship for a little while. At least until they felt as though their relationship was a bit more sustainable.

It even became a little apparent to her room mates and friends that Kate was seeing somebody but she wouldn’t talk about it. Partially because she isn’t a very open person but mostly because she was a top secret bitch who was good at keeping things on the DL.

That was until one weekend when Tawni and Kristen rolled into town. They had come to see Set It Off performing at Stage AE and everybody had tickets, but unfortunately, Stage AE, like every other venue in Pittsburgh, randomly collapsed despite the fact that it was only 7 years old.

Upon hearing the news, everybody became very sad since this meant that the show was pretty much cancelled. Although PromoWest invited people to come see a small acoustic set outside of the ashened remains of their venue featuring The Clarks, nobody wanted to go anymore. Instead, everybody decided that it would be best to drown their sorrows in booze.

Initially they were going to make Lauren be the designated driver, but she had to be up at 2:55 AM to stretch before going to the CrossFit gym to wrestle bears, so another driver had to be selected. They decided the only fair way was to draw straws.

Unfortunately, Tawni ended up with the shortest and became DD for the evening.

And so Tawni, Kristen, Kate, Jordan, and Bria set out to the best bar ever: Steel Cactus.

———

“The estrogen level is hella high in this group.” Jordan complained, throwing her long fiery hair over her shoulder like she was Rachel McAdams.

“I’m gonna name my first born estrogen.” Bria commented.

“Oh there’s a spot!” Kristen pointed from the passenger seat to the side of the road.

“No way in hell am I parallel parking tonight.” Tawni responded, driving right past a perfectly good spot.

“I can fix that.” Kate noted, “I mean, I can fix the estrogen level. Not the parking thing. That’s on you guys.”

“This is why I hate Tawni.” Kristen sighed, pointing to another empty spot that Tawni promptly ignored.

“How can you fix the estrogen level, Kate?” Jordan followed up.

“I know a guy.” Bria answered for Kate who was too busy catching her 18th Dragonite of the day on Pokemon Go because she’s a Pokemon Master and has the highest high score on the app out of everyone in the world.

“Oh.” Kate said off hand, effortlessly catching her 19th Dragonite, “I actually know a couple guys. I think they can make a pit stop on their way through town.”

“I love men.” Jordan asserted, “Call them.”

“THERE’S A PARKING LOT!” Kristen screamed, “WITH ONE EMPTY SPACE TAWNI HIT THE GAS!”

“HELL YEAH!” Tawni screamed louder, slamming on the gas pedal and peeling off into the East Carson parking lot.

———

The bar was pretty poppin’ for a Sunday night.

They all grabbed one of the extra large booths and squeezed in, hoping that the guests Kate invited wouldn’t be taking up too much space. Some gentle banter went around the friends as they ordered chips, queso, salsa, and drinks.

“I need to go.” Bria said with a sigh, “There’s a convention for left-handed clowns tomorrow and I have to go hand out rape whistles as part of my internship.”

Everybody made little awwww noises and bid Bria a farewell as she closed out her tab and walked out the doors, disappearing into the cool night air and probably just teleporting back to her home or something. A few more minutes of Tawni and Kristen giving each other sass passed before Jordan stopped texting her friends from Scotland and looked up.

“So when are your male friends coming?” Jordan asked.

“Oh.” Kate checked her messages after catching a 20th Dragonite, “Right now.”

Just then somebody waltzed through the doors of the establishment. He was honestly the most handsome man on the planet with cute cheeks and dark hair. Obviously of Korean descent as well. He met eyes with Kate and gave a cheeky grin as he waved at her. He then motioned to a black van idling in front of the bar and six more men filed out after him.

The one approached the table and slid into the booth next to Kate, getting a little closer than a friend should. I mean you should all know that this is J-Hope by now and that they’re in love so I’ll just skip that, but yeah. Anyways.

After that came a smaller guy, but an older one. He had a cute round face and dark short hair. This one opted not to sit down when he got to the table. He was followed by one that was dressed in a sweater and looked pretty young. He was followed by another young one that instantly struck Jordan as attractive and beautiful bc he’s Jimin. A tall one came next that turned the heads of every single girl at the bar. He blew them a kiss as he walked past to the table. The next one to come out was very distinct looking and also quite blond. He had his hands in his pockets and goofy smile on his face.

This seemed a bit strange to Tawni but she didn’t say anything until the last one walked in the door. Perhaps the tallest of them with dark brown, almost black hair. He strode in on a cloud wearing nothing but a white t-shirt and jeans paired with a light tan pair of tims. His hair was parted in just the right way and Tawni’s jaw nearly hit the floor as she locked eyes with him.

Once all of them came to the table, Kate motioned towards them.

“These are my friends.” Kate said, “My boyfriend Hoseok. Then Yoongi, Taehyung, Jimin, Jin, Namjoon. Oh and Jungkook on the end there.”

“Jungkook.” Tawni repeated, wiping some drool off of her mouth.

“Jimin.” Jordan repeated as well, doing the same.

Kristen nodded and smiled, “It’s nice to meet you all. I’m Kristen.”

They all nodded and it was kinda awkward, but after a round of drinks everything was better.

“We’re actually in a boyband. We’re touring the US right now. Just stopped here on our way to Chicago.” Jimin explained.

“Please. Tell me more.” Jordan asked, her head in her hands as she stared at Jimin longingly.

Kristen raised a concern, “Katie, how did you meet a korean boy band?”

Kate shrugged, “Uh, just sorta happened.”

Hobi nodded in agreement and that was the last that was ever brought up because I don’t really know what to do with that plot point at all.

“Well I should go.” Jimin announced, “I have to get up at 4:30 AM to work out, so I’ll leave you all to it.”

“No.” Jordan whispered, reaching out for his beautiful face as he slipped away from her forever.

“I’ll go too.” Yoongi said.

Jin nodded in agreement, following the two as they went.

While Jordan was dramatically reaching towards her long lost love, however, she managed to knock over a beer that was sitting in front of Namjoon. It landed on the table and splashed out all over both of them, leaving them a sticky hoppy mess.

“Oh shit!” Namjoon exclaimed, standing up, “Come on let’s get some towels.”

They left the booth that I now decided is a table because let’s be real it’s annoying to have everybody get up so a couple people can leave so yeah they just stood up from their chairs and went over to the bar to ask for some cleaning supplies. This just left Kate who was intently speaking to Hobi, and the two room mates with Taehyung and Jungkook.

However Kristen was like five shots in right now and she brought up her cats as usual. This immediately drew Taehyung to her and they began to speak about cats in length. Just sharing stories about their cats. They were now like best friends.

“Hey.” Jungkook addressed the waitress, “Can I just get something on tap.”

She nodded, “I’ll need to see some ID.”

“Of course.” He pulled something out of his pocket, “Will a passport work?”

“Yep.” She affirmed, taking the passport out of his hands and reading it over. After a few seconds of deciphering the Korean’s passport she furrowed her brow, “Uhm, sorry, but we can’t actually serve you here sir.”

“What?” He looked puzzled, “Why?”

“Well …” She handed it back to him, “It says that you’re 19 here. In the US you can’t drink until you’re 21.”

“Ha!” Hoseok pointed a finger, “You may be cute but you’re too young to drink.”

“Okay, cool it hot stuff.” Jungkook waved him off before thanking the waitress and hanging his head in defeat, “Sometimes they let you get away with it because you’re foreign.”

“Not here. America takes that shit seriously.” Tawni responded, “But I’m sober too since I’m driving so we can be miserable together.”

“Sounds fun.” He said softly.

“I’m going to go check on Namjoon.” Hoseok said.

Kate patted him on the arm as he got up and left the table. Hoseok disappeared, leaving Kate to catch 250 more dragonites and break the Pokemon Go app so hard that she was awarded for her valiant efforts. When he returned he looked like he had seen a ghost.

“Is he okay?” Kate asked.

“Yeah … He’s great. Fine.” Hoseok said, sliding into the booth that is a booth again because I do what I want.

“He and Jordan are making out aren’t they?” Kate asked.

He nodded, “Yeah.”

“Hey.” Jungkook paused his conversation with Tawni, “Do you want to go to the roof?”

“It’s Sunday. The roof isn’t open, is it?”

“When you’re famous, everything is open.”

And so they went over to the stairs, telling the waitress that he was Jungkook and she of course let them go all the way up to the roof unsupervised.

Once they were up there, Jungkook leaned against the side of the building, looking out over the mass of drunken people stumbling through the streets of south side like little lost ants looking for their appropriate uber home.

His hair was gently blowing with the breeze and he smiled, pulling the corners of his lips back into tight dimples. Tawni was in awe of just how perfect he looked, leaning up against the side of the building like that.

For a second or so, he looked as if he was going to say something, turning his head slightly to look at her, but shying away almost immediately from it. Instead, he kept look out at the buildings of South Side. It wasn’t exactly a pretty sight, but everything looks a little bit cooler at night.

Tawni spoke up in his stead, “Thanks for being sober with me tonight. I couldn’t handle drunk Kristen. Last time she drank this much she convinced herself that there was an Amityville Horror 2.”

“I … don’t know what that is.” Jungkook admitted, glancing back over at her briefly.

“Well there isn’t a second one. That’s all you need to know.” Tawni assured him.

He chuckled, finding the way she spoke kind of funny. It had a sort of intensity to it like she really cared a lot about whether or not there was a sequel to Amityville Horror. He paused, “You guys are fun. I see why Hobi likes it here so much.”

“Well, thanks. I guess.” She responded, pushing her bangs back into place.

“Do you want to get coffee tomorrow?” He asked suddenly, turning his body towards her fully.

“Uh … in the morning?” She asked, “Aren’t you guys going to Chicago?”

“Yeah we are, but if we get it sorta early then it’ll be fine.” He nodded.

“Okay then.” Tawni agreed, “It’s a date.”

Just then Kobi as a unit came up the stairs. Hoseok addressed Jungkook, “Hey, we could use a sober friend bail out. Jordan and Namjoon are a wreck and Kristen won’t stop talking about somebody named “Mama” and Taehyung is too enthralled by her stories to say anything about it.”

“I got it.” Tawni sighed, “This is my speciality after all.”