#the whole crew knows what happy jingling and miserable jingling sound like

[introspectivememories]

100% roger saw a jester outfit on on of the islands they stopped on and bought it for buggy as a gag joke but buggy ended up loving it and wore it everywhere!!! all this to say, buggy has definitely jingled miserably across the oro jackson

[looneyllama-archive]

Fixing Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure

I recently discovered this gem of a film, and I’ve fallen in love with these funky little rag dollies! Raggedy Ann and Andy: a Musical Adventure has stunning animation, incredible music, and charming characters. That said, I can certainly see the flaws in the story, characters, and musical structure of the film, so I’ve written up what I would change to make it stronger.

Under the cut, because this got looooong.

• Theme: this film is actually not far off from having a solid story, if you think of the film being about love and happiness, rather than about the literal adventure. Every character’s goal is to find happiness. The captain thinks that claiming Babette as his bride, as if she’s a pretty trophy to show off, will make him happy. The Greedy follows a similar line of thinking, as he believes finding a sweetheart to add to his collection of sweets will make him happy. Even though both are desiring people, they demonstrate the idea of finding joy in ownership, rather than in interaction. Babette and the Camel are both trying to get home, with the former wanting to go to Paris and the latter wanting to join a camel caravan. They place all of their hopes for happiness on finding a certain place, instead of trying to make the best of where they are. Sir Leonard Looney thinks that joy comes from playing pranks on others and laughing at them. Finally, Raggedy Ann and Andy know that happiness comes from being with your loved ones.

• Characters: to start, notice that I left King Koo Koo off the list of characters discussed in the theme section. This decision is due to the fact that his goal is confusing; he also tries to find joy in the misery of others, but that’s to serve another goal, making himself bigger (which just ends up being disturbing in the film). I say that this character should be scrapped entirely. In terms of theme, Sir Leonard makes him redundant, and in terms of plot, it’s not difficult to write him out (more on that later). The other major character that needs an overhaul is the Captain. I get what they were going for; he’s supposed to be desperately lonely inside his snowglobe—even though he seems to have an entire pirate crew—which is why he kidnaps Babette. At the end of the film, he’s supposed to be redeemed, but he still comes across as acting creepy toward Babette, and he never even apologizes! I would tweak this character. First of all, he should be entirely alone in the snowglobe save for Queasy; this doesn’t justify his actions, mind you, but it at least makes him a little more sympathetic. Most importantly, he needs to come to the realization on his own that what he did was wrong. Instead of having him complain to Queasy in the brig about losing his “prize,” have him admit that he messed up; he can’t cure his loneliness if he treats other people like trophies, rather than showing them respect. The Captain also needs actually apologize for his actions—it’s hardly fair to have Babette apologize for causing trouble, but then for the person who started the whole mess to get off scot-free! Additionally, to lessen the creep factor, I would also have him no longer be “in love” with Babette at the end of the film, but instead show him respecting her as a friend.

• Songs: I love most of the songs in this film, but there certainly are too many—there’s 19 songs on the soundtrack! The first fix is to eliminate all of the Twin Penny jingles. These mini-songs are unnecessary, always bringing the story to a screeching halt and interrupting the flow of dialogue. Also, the Twin Pennies get the first song of the film, which hardly makes sense! That brings us down to 16 songs. The second obvious fix is to get rid of any background songs, or any songs that aren’t actual musical numbers in the film. That scratches “A Miracle” and “the Abduction & Yo-Ho,” which are both played behind dialogue during the kidnapping scene; the latter song doesn’t even end properly! I would also include “Camel’s Mirage” among these songs, and change that to an instrumental version, since the lyrics don’t contribute much impact anyway. 13 songs now. If we apply the change I made under the characters section, the elimination of King Koo Koo, we can get rid of "Hail to Our Glorious King” and "It's Not Easy Being King,” bringing us down to 11 songs. The final fix would be to combine songs whenever there’s two back-to-back. The film already does this anyway, having the final song “Home” transition into a reprise of “Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers,” so it wouldn’t be difficult to do it for a few other songs. The first instance of this is “Rag Dolly” and “Poor Babette.” Since “Poor Babette” is a pretty weak tune anyway, let’s just make Babette’s lament into another verse of “Rag Dolly!” Just switch it to a more dismal sound and change the lyrics—I’m thinking something along these lines: “Oh, I’m just a poor dolly, stranded so far from Paris / such a miserable dolly, trapped in this strange nursery / I feel melancholy, knowing I can’t get away / so this French dolly, scared and alone, has no choice but to stay.” The other two songs I would combine would be “Hooray for Me” and “You’re My Friend.” This one is even easier, since both songs are already call-and-response; just rearrange “Hooray for Me” as follows: “Hooray for me! Hooray for she! / Babette of Paris! She’s captain, see! / What joy, what glee! What joy, what glee! / When our voyage ends / once we’ve crossed the deep blue sea / we’ll reach Paris! We’ll reach Paris!” That makes our final count 9 songs: “I Look, And What Do I See,” “I’m No Girl’s Toy,” “Rag Dolly,” "Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers,” “Blue,” “I Never Get Enough,” “I Love You,” “You’re My Friend,” and “Home/Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers reprise.”

• Setting: now, I love how surreal the settings are, but I’ll readily admit that it doesn’t make much sense. The film says that Ann and Andy just go into the woods, and yet they run into a Taffy Pit and a Looney Kingdom out there! To help with suspension of disbelief, I say that instead of going out the window to chase the Captain, they go into Marcella’s drawings.

• Plot: with all of these changes in place, let’s play out the story! The beginning goes the same until we get to the Captain’s escape. Ann still helps him get out, but instead of him already having a ship and a crew inside the snowglobe, he goes up to one of Marcella’s drawings, a pirate ship on the sea, and orders the crew to jump out and help him kidnap Babette. The pirates then escape into a drawing of a starry sky over a desert sticking out of Marcella’s backpack. Ann and Andy follow them in, and the meet the Camel. He was abandoned in the lost-and-found at the school and ended up climbing into the drawing to look for his caravan. He agrees to help Ann and Andy, but gets distracted by the camels in the sky; the three ride right off the edge of the page and into a different drawing, this one showing candies and sweets galore. The encounter with the Greedy plays out as in the original film, and the trio escapes into another drawing, this one showing a castle. They run into Sir Leonard Looney, who intends to keep them in Looneyland for his own entertainment, but they get him and the other Loonies distracted by throwing pies and escape into the sea drawing. Sir Leonard is the one who calls up Gazooks to pursue them, hoping to get the last laugh. The three use the H.M.S. Koo Koo to get onto the ship and find Babette has become Captain. Crucially, we see the Captain showing remorse for his actions while he’s in the brig. While Babette is tying up Ann, Andy, and the Camel, the Captain spots Gazooks sneaking up on the ship through a porthole; he breaks out of the brig and gets on deck to warn Babette. Babette realizes she’ll have to give up on reaching Paris to keep her new friends safe. She commands her crew to turn the ship around. Gazooks attacks, tickling all of the crew as well as Andy and the Camel. While they’re being shaken around, Andy and the Camel drop joy buzzers and gum balls that got caught up in their clothes/wrinkled knees in the Taffy Pit and the Looney Kingdom. Ann, Babette, and the Captain pick up these items, and use them to load up a cannon and fire at Gazooks. The explosion knocks the toys out of the drawing. The Captain lands on a shelf by his snowglobe, but the Camel goes out the window and lands on the ground. Ann, Andy, and Babette nearly fall as well, but manage to hang onto the curtain. Ann is terrified for Babette, who will shatter if she falls. Just as the three think Babette is going to drop, Marcella comes in. She grabs her silly dolls, scolds them for playing near an open window, and puts them back in their proper places before leaving again. (I’m writing this scene with the original stories in mind; the original Marcella always seemed fairly aware that her dolls were getting into trouble behind her back, and would just scold them and save them as necessary.) The dolls are relieved to be home, and we get the Captain’s apology, and show him respecting Babette as a friend, as well as quite an impressive pirate Captain herself! Meanwhile, the Camel is left outside. He sees the caravan once again, but unlike in the original film, it leads in the opposite direction of the house. He stares at them longingly, but forces himself to turn away, and goes for the playroom window instead. Of course, he’s welcomed into the family, and we get our happy ending at last.

If you made it this far, please let me know what you think of my fixes, and what you would change about the film!

[gukyi]

a heart full of love | myg

summary: people say that actors are the most dramatic people in the world but those people haven't met a certain min yoongi.

{enemies to lovers!au, high school!au, actor!au}

pairing: yoongi x female reader word count: 10k genre: fluff, angst so light a feather weighs more warnings: bad references to les miserables and memes, in that order. yoongi being outrageous. lots of caps lock. unrealistic portrayals of the arts. musical directors that are way too chill to be high school teachers. possible megaphone misuse.  a/n: how long have i put off this fic? too long, honestly. but here it is, finally!! i wrote the majority of this between the hours of 10pm and 5am. forgive my mistakes. happy birthday to one of my closest irl friends, who literally requested i write this in april. i’m so sorry. it’s finally here. also happy birthday, but i said this already.

If you lived in some Black Mirror-esque alternate universe where every single human being lived their life and interacted with others as though they were merely profiles on a social media website, the first thing you would do is use the Block feature in your everyday life. And you would use it on none other than Min Yoongi.

It’s a massive shame that there’s no real life unfollow, blocked, reported feature because Min Yoongi, Unnecessary Nuisance Extraordinaire, is quite deserving of all three. Especially considering there is no occurrence in your life more unfortunate than the fact that Min Yoongi just had to waltz into the drama club interest meeting in freshman year, sit his ass down at one of the desks, and sign his name in ugly penmanship under the words Interested in Stage Crew? written in Comic Sans.

You didn’t know it yet, no, not when you barely knew his name and could barely see him under the massive black hoodie he was wearing, but Min Yoongi wrote his name down under the Stage Crew interest line and you wrote yours down under Acting interest line and it was like you signed off your soul. Like you said “I do” to the personification of the word irritation, committed yourself to a thorn in your side for the next four years. A thorn that seems to have a particular penchant for the dramatic arts. It’s a shame that Min Yoongi isn’t interested in acting, but then again, you think that if you had to stand on a stage next to him, there’s no telling what could happen.

🅱️rama 🅱️lub 🅱️officers

you (12:46PM): are you guys good for the meeting this afternoon? you (12:46PM): in the choir room

namjoon (12:48PM): I still don’t have dues from half of the drama club

you (12:50PM): threaten them

namjoon (12:51PM): With what?

you (12:52PM): idk you (12:52PM): the wrath of kim namjoon ig

seokjin (12:54PM): i wouldn’t exactly call the wrath of kim namjoon particularly threatening

you (12:55PM): no one asked u seokjin you (12:55PM): you’re in love with him

seokjin (1:01PM): love is a great and wonderful thing y/n

min (1:03PM): yeah y/n ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

you (1:05PM): do not start with me min

min (1:05PM): i just want to love you y/n

you (1:06PM): fuck off you (1:07PM): i didn’t ask

namjoon: (1:07PM): Can you not make declarations of love in the drama officers group chat?

you (1:08PM): i am not the one making the love declarations here

min (1:09PM): <3

you (1:10PM): i hate you

seokjin (1:34PM): I will forever be shocked that Park and Bae let the two of you be officers in the same club

When the bell rings you dash out of your last class of the day, making a beeline for the choir room so you can get there before the rush of the other drama students. It’s very unprofessional for the President of the drama club to be late to her own meeting. You quickly weave your way through the hordes of other students and arrive at your destination, earlier that mostly everyone else.

Mostly.

Min Yoongi is sitting at the shitty piano right by the door, the one that’s always out of tune no matter what your poor choir director does to try and fix it, playing a distant melody of a tune you vaguely know but cannot name. It would probably be nice if it weren’t for the fact that the piano itself sounds terrible and the fact that it is Min Yoongi who is pressing those keys.

He seems to perk up when he notices you’re here, just because he thrives off of your displeasure as any guy as dramatic and obnoxious as he is would. He begins to play the melody more forcefully, passionate and strong, like he’s trying to tell you something. The only thing is that you already know what he’s going to say.

“It’s called Liebestraume,” Yoongi says aloud as he continues to play, knowing that your eyes are trained on him.

“And?” You prompt.

“It means love dream,” he begins to explain, making you roll your eyes as you start heading over to the chalkboard obscured from your vision at the present moment. Though beautiful, you don’t want to hear any more of Min Yoongi playing it on that poor, mildly broken piano. It sounds off and with his fingers on the keys it makes you feel even more aggravated than you already are when you’re in his presence. Which, during drama season, is always.

As you round the corner in this L-shape of a choir room, you are greeted with the sight of a perfectly Not Blank chalkboard. In fact, there’s this horrific scrawl in all capital letters on it. It reads:

Y/N,

WILL YOU GO OUT ON A DATE WITH ME? CHECK ☐ YES ☐ NO

— MIN YOONGI

You turn around to glare at a wonderfully guilty-looking Min Yoongi, who’s smiling proudly at the monstrosity he’s written on the board. He’s always fucking like this, and it’s ridiculous and out-of-hand but you are powerless to stop it. The worst part is that he’s written your name and his so there’s no confusion whatsoever as to who this message is addressed to and who it’s from. Such blatant call-outage makes your cheeks heat up, both in mortification and fury.

“Are you serious, Min?” You ask, speechless. The rest of the drama club trickles in, including your fellow officers, Seokjin and Namjoon, and each person gets a nice good look at the chalkboard as they sit down in the choir chairs. By the time the room is half-filled, most people are looking at you, waiting for your response. You swear you can see Taehyung over by the director’s desk with his phone out. He’s definitely recording this whole thing to put on his Snapchat, because he’s one of those people that has ten minute Snapchat stories like the heathen he is.

“When am I not, Y/N?” Yoongi asks in response, cruising on up to where Namjoon and Seokjin stand, waiting for the meeting to begin. He takes his sweet time, relishing in the attention he’s receiving and the press he’s focusing on you. Your misery seems to fuel him.

Pretty soon all of the officers are standing up at the front of the room, ready to start the meeting and cover all of the bases before sending everyone home for the afternoon. Well, all of them besides you. You’re still staring, flabbergasted, at the message written on the chalkboard.

“Well?” Seokjin prompts, looking like he’s about to keel over with laughter. Him and Namjoon seem to be enjoying themselves quite a lot up there. “Aren’t you going to respond?”

The ever-growing drama club crowd laughs, looking at you expectantly. Half of them probably think you’re going to check YES and the world will end because it will be the first time you have ever accepted a date request from Min Yoongi, and the other half probably think you’re going to brutally circle NO before moving on with the meeting entirely. Taehyung’s filming you no matter what happens.

You reach down for the eraser on the ledge at the bottom of the chalkboard, and wipe the whole damn message away, word by word, line by line, until all that’s left is:

☐ NO

and that’s that. Not the best way to turn him down—you’ve definitely done better—but good enough for now and certainly good enough for Taehyung, who is absolutely laughing his entire head off in that back corner. When you turn back to the front of the room where the rest of the drama club officers await you, Yoongi’s pouting, puppy dog eyes on full display, pretending to be heartbroken at your rejection.

“Oh, stuff it, Min,” you chide, marching over to stand in between Seokjin and Yoongi as you clap your hands to begin the meeting.

It goes fairly well. Yoongi gives his instructions to his neck of the woods: the stage crew kids gathered in the top right corner of the seats, all of whom are on their phones and not paying attention to anything that the rest of the officers are saying. Quite frankly, you’re not even sure if they’re listening to Yoongi either. He’s their only representation in the republic known as the Drama Club Officers and they’re barely giving him even a margin of their attention. Namjoon manages to get dues from a couple more people. Seokjin is loud and reckless and everybody loves him, as per usual. You manage the whole thing, switching slides and relaying information from the musical directors.

When the meeting is over, Taehyung hangs back with the officers, partly because he’s your best friend and partly because he’s also your ride. Namjoon records the names of all of the students who gave him money and Seokjin waits around because they always leave school together.

Yoongi grabs his stuff and pulls on his black beanie, letting the thick wool cover his platinum bangs, looking longingly at the ☐ NO still left on the chalkboard. He stuffs his headphones into his ears and begins to head out, but not before shouting, “Don’t forget about me, Y/N!”

You wouldn’t be able to even if you tried.

Seokjin and Namjoon head out soon after, leaving you and Taehyung alone in the choir room as you pull on your jackets and adjust your backpacks. Taehyung’s keys jingle on the lanyard he’s got wrapped around his hand.

“I’d say that was a pretty successful meeting, wouldn’t you?” He asks on the way out, headed towards the exit that leads to the parking lot where his busted old car waits.

“Other than the Yoongi fiasco in the beginning, yeah, I think it went alright,” you say, only the slightest bit (more like a medium amount) bitter. Min Yoongi always has to be so… Yoongi.

Taehyung rolls his eyes. “I know you hate his guts, Y/N, but seriously. You’re playing Eponine in Les Miserables and yet when a love confession comes knocking on your door, you turn the lights off.”

“He doesn’t really mean it,” you insist like it’s obvious, because it is. No way in hell does Yoongi actually want to go out with you. He exists to torture you, nothing more, nothing less.

Your best friend sighs. His car beeps as he unlocks it. Some days you wonder what your life would be like if you had never met Min Yoongi, but then you remember that not even the kindest goddess could have prevented the firestorm known as your relationship.

You’re leaning against the stage, rehearsing your lines in your head when you hear the heavy stage door opening then slamming shut, heavy footsteps ringing out throughout the theater.

There’s just enough time to spot Taehyung marching in, proud as ever, jumping from the stage ledge to the carpeted pit below, and shouting, “Guess who just failed his calc test!”

Nobody applauds. In fact, nobody seems to take any note of him besides you and the director, who is shaking his head as he writes something down on his clipboard. But you have to take notice of him because he’s your best friend.

“Don’t sound so enthusiastic,” you chide as he strides up to you. You don’t need to move your eyes from your script to know that he’s smiling. He reaches into his bag to show you the proof—a fucking satchel that cost him an arm and a leg at Urban Outfitters because he is a piece of shameless hipster trash and extremely proud of it—pulling out a crumpled looking thing stapled together in the top left corner. On the front, right next to where Taehyung’s scribbled his name (it looks like a goose has written it), a bright red 36/100.

“Look at her, Y/N,” Taehyung says, shoving the thing in your face. You fumble with it, trying to balance it between your fingers along with your thick (with two C’s) script. You leaf through it. There’s one page where Taehyung just drew a game of hangman. He didn’t even try to write anything down. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“What were you trying to spell out?” You ask, showing him the hangman page.

“I suck at calc.”

“You weren’t even gonna like, beg for an A?”

Taehyung looks only a little affronted. “I may be shameless but I’m not that shameless. At least I have the dignity to know when even I can’t schmooze my way to a good grade like Cher from Clueless. I just don’t have that kind of skill, Y/N! Or a rotating closet! My life is awful.”

“You know what, I think the role of Marius will be a good reality check for you. It’ll teach you to be humble. And to cherish what you already have. And to sing your feelings away.”

Taehyung scoffs. “I do that regularly.” He’s not wrong. You’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve found him singing a Billboard Top 50 song as a form of self-expression to achieve some sort of fake deep catharsis. He once broke out into a ballad version of Justin Bieber’s Never Say Never after missing a question while you were playing Kahoot in chemistry two years ago.

“So what do you have in calc now?”

“A 69.7%,” Taehyung declares like it’s an achievement.

“You scammed your way to a C? How?” You ask in shock. You can’t believe that Taehyung somehow managed to score enough points for him to not be failing that class. You’ve seen his test scores. His grades. He has used his un-handed-in calculus homework as a tissue before.

“My charm,” Taehyung boasts, making you cough up a laugh. At your skepticism, he adds, “and this extra credit review game we did.”

“You’re unbearable,” you tell him in disbelief, your voice still fond. You know that Taehyung doesn’t really want much to do with math, not when he happens to have a penchant for the arts. He’s just selectively studious.

Taehyung smiles to himself as he pulls out his own script, the edges of the folder bent and wrinkled and torn from being stuffed into and roughly pulled out of his satchel. “Bet my team members thought that too. Can’t say they were pleased with being paired up with me.”

“Who were you with?”

“Joy, Hana, and a certain guy whose name rhymes with Sin Boongi.”

“Very funny,” you deadpan.

“Yeah, I’m not really sure who that is either.”

His sarcasm makes you roll your eyes. It’s not so much that you can’t stand the mention of Yoongi’s name as it is you can’t stand him existing, specifically near where you exist. If living on Mars were possible and feasible and if you were as wealthy and scandalous as Elon Musk, then you would either send Min Yoongi on the first ship to the red planet or jump on yourself.

Bitterly, you realize that even if a whole fucking planet separated the two of you, he’d still probably find some way to bother you.

“I mean, Joy and Hana probably greatly dislike me for mooching off of their genuine hard work but I know for a fact that I am not the primary target of Yoongi’s attention,” Taehyung tells you pointedly, crossing his arms in front of you as he gazes at you. You roll your eyes, roughly handing back his crumpled test and going back to your lines. You don’t need a reminder as to how much of a pain in every muscle in your body Yoongi is.

“Don’t look at me like that! It’s not like I chose for this to happen.”

“Ah, yes, it’s not your fault that Min Yoongi has been trying to confess his undying love for you since freshman year and you’ve done nothing but brutally reject him each time.”

This is the part in the story where you’re supposed to say that it wasn’t always like this. You’re supposed to reminisce about some time where you and Yoongi were childhood friends, neighbors, lovers who kissed each other on the kindergarten playground. A montage of your past together is supposed to play and make everyone in the audience watching the movie coo at how close the two of you used to be. And you’re supposed to be narrating the story of your life before the music takes a dark turn and gets all dramatic and you reveal this friendship-crushing event that destroyed your relationship and is meant to make the audience feel sympathetic towards you because you’ve painted yourself as the poor, helpless victim while Yoongi is the evil and malicious person out for your blood.

The truth is is that Yoongi isn’t out for your blood. He’s just out for your mild embarrassment, the kind that makes blood rush to your cheeks and a little frown to etch itself onto your face but the same kind that makes you realize that there could be worse things he does to you. That if this is the price to pay, you’ll take it.

The truth is is that it was always sort of like this.

“Well, how else am I supposed to reply? It’s not like Yoongi means anything by it,” you huff out.

“Gossiping about me, are we now, Y/N?”

You whip your head around to find—speak of the Devil and he shall appear—Yoongi marching across stage with a bucket of nails in his hand for the set construction. If you didn’t know any better, you’d think that it was there for him to toss at you. He’s wearing paint-stained clothing, black covered in red and green and brown and white, a beanie sitting atop his bleach blonde hair. He looks so… infuriatingly good.

“Only about you,” you say sharply. Min Yoongi is your one and only nemesis in the entire drama club. Not even that kid Jungkook, who, despite his sheer size, is about as clumsy as a butterfly with a broken wing. He has, multiple times, run into you because he is too busy looking in the opposite direction when in motion. You don’t really blame him, though. He’s the only one who seems to know anything about filming things, which means that the directors put him in charge of anything to do with a camera. Which is a lot.

“I’m honored,” Yoongi tells you, one hand over his heart. He places the bucket down by the wooden planks on stage, a drill already waiting on top of them. “Keep an eye out for me, will you?”

“Min Yoongi, what are you planning now!” You shout, but he’s already beginning to drill, the noise of the drill bit pressing into the wood overwhelming your cries.

They’re the only words he speaks to you for the entire afternoon, leaving you fuming in place once more. Taehyung does absolutely nothing to help besides suggesting that you should put one of the frogs that the freshman biology kids have to dissect into his backpack, a plan that would perhaps work if it weren’t for the fact that it is equal parts hilarious and disgusting. Go big or go home, and you would rather sleep.

The only difference between before and now is that then Yoongi was a scrawny kid who wore all black and played basketball in the gymnasium alone and now he is, apparently, none of those things. Somewhere along the line Yoongi turned from a freshman into a senior and you don’t really know how you feel about it because the boy you are decidedly mortal enemies with is not supposed to look that good. That’s the problem here.

Of course, you could never voice this concern to anybody. Not even Taehyung, because Lord knows you would never hear the end of it from him. Taehyung’s wonderful, but he’s a bit of a blabbermouth, and when Taehyung finds out something the entire drama department will soon follow.

“People’s Song, folks!” One of the directors calls. “Everyone into the choir room!”

On your way over there, you lock eyes with Min Yoongi. He grins.

Ugh.

“Seokjin, are you even listening to me?” The choir director asks with a pointed look on his face, hands on his hips. Seokjin is too busy eating one of those snack packs of Nutella and breadsticks, turning around like a deer caught in the headlights, cheeks puffy and lips chocolate-y. Where did that come from? Is he even allowed to be eating in here?

“Vaguely,” he responds, making the director roll his eyes. “Can’t hear you over the sound of me quenching my hunger.”

All of the students in the room laugh over the sound of Seokjin’s teeth crunching down onto the snack.

Namjoon, with a tie around his forehead for some unknown reason (you know for a fact that the kids in charge of costumes did not put him up to this), strolls up to his boyfriend, disregarding the seating arrangement entirely to snatch a breadstick from the container. Seokjin takes notice of the accessory tied around his head and tugs on it slightly, making everyone close their eyes to shield them gross display of public affection.

The director sighs, paging back a bit in the score before hitting the pitch on his piano. “We’re starting at the top.”

He begins to play, the thick sound of the piano echoing throughout the room from the dinky speakers behind his desk. Seokjin clears his throat, coughing a little before starting.

“One day more,” he sings. “Another day, another destiny…”

Namjoon rests his head on his boyfriend’s shoulder as he sings, peering down at his lines every now and then just to see when his entrance is coming up.

“One day more,” Seokjin ends his phrase and the director continues to play, waiting for Taehyung to enter.

The only thing is that Taehyung’s been absent from school for the past two days after coming down with strep throat. You have no idea where he contracted that from, especially considering you’ve gotten strep every year since you were eleven.

“Marius?” The director stops on a clunky note. “Where is he?”

“He’s sick,” you inform him. “Strep.”

“Fine,” the director sighs, rubbing his temples. He definitely doesn’t get paid enough. “Anyone willing to fill in? You don’t have to be any good, you just need to sing.”

No one seems to be willing to take Taehyung’s part. Not that you blame them, because Marius has a fairly decent range and everyone in high school cares too much about their reputation to be willing to sacrifice their own pride for the greater good.

Well, everyone except one person.

“I will,” Yoongi volunteers from out of nowhere. You furrow your brows in disbelief as you watch him stroll over to the front of the choir room. Where the hell did he come from? Has he been here the whole time? Yoongi has almost no business being in the choir room during a practice for one of the songs when he is 1) not a choir student and 2) in stage crew. It’s like he just manifested from the dust particles floating around.

“Alright, fine,” the choir director says gruffly. “Need a script?”

“No, it’s alright,” Yoongi says, cruising over and taking the seat right next to your own. He smiles casually at you, like it’s no big deal that he just volunteered to take Taehyung’s part for this one particular song.

“What the hell are you doing,” you mutter to him.

“Using my resources,” he hisses back.

“Okay, we’re starting from the beginning again. Seokjin?”

Seokjin looks up at the call of his name with half of a baby carrot sticking out of his mouth. There’s a Ziploc bag full of them sitting on Namjoon’s lap. He chews the offending vegetable like a rabbit, quickly and furiously, before swallowing down what’s left and clearing his throat once more.

He gets through his verse with relative ease and for a brief second you think this might actually just be a normal fucking rehearsal when—

“I did not live until today,” Yoongi sings in his rough voice, gravelly yet smooth all at once. It shocks you a little bit, how decent of a singer he is. He really does have a calling for the dramatics. “How can I live when we are parted?” You can feel his gaze on your figure, even if he is glancing back and forth at the lyrics he’s pulled up on his phone. He’s waiting to see how you’ll react.

“One day more,” Seokjin continues, but you can see the way his eyes are trained on the two of you. He’s trying to be subtle about it.

“Tomorrow you’ll be worlds away, and yet with you, my world has started,” Yoongi continues, even as Eunbi—Cosette—joins in from across the room. She doesn’t seem to care that Taehyung’s not here and that Yoongi’s taken his place. You don’t really blame her—she thinks that Taehyung is the baboon of the music department and quite frankly, her thoughts are not at all misled.

“One day more, all on my own,” you begin to sing softly, barely audible over the sound of the piano keys clunking throughout the room. You don’t really know if you have the guts to look up at Yoongi.

“Will we ever meet again?” He sings, except his words aren’t directed at Cosette.

“One more day with him not caring,” the lyrics come naturally to you but the feeling of everyone watching you will always be foreign, even if you were born to be a performer. Born to be on stage.

This is different than being on stage.

“I was born to be with you,” Yoongi declares more than he sings, reaching his arm out towards you. Slowly, you begin to look up at Yoongi, who looks just about as expressive as Taehyung is whenever he serenades the goldfish in his room. He’s got his arms outstretched towards you and is singing like his life depends on it, kind of because you have the slightest feeling that you’re about to end it when you’re done with this song.

“What a life I might have known,” you sing through gritted teeth, glaring daggers at Yoongi. He is, to put it simply, wholly undeterred. This is supposed to be a romantic and wistful and hopeful tune and because of him, the entire damn song has gotten flipped—turned upside down. Marius isn’t even the one in love with Eponine. That’s the whole reason her character exists. Because he doesn’t love her.

Not that you’re implying that Yoongi feels any sort of romantic affection towards you. Impossible. There are plenty of reasons that Yoongi does shit like this but you doubt any of them are “because he loves you.”

“And I swear I will be true,” Yoongi promises, belts out with more emotion than you think you’ve ever seen him. This feels like it’s about to turn into a High School Musical scene from how dramatic Yoongi’s being.

“But he never saw me there.” It’s turned into a staring contest between you and him. Yoongi’s grinning wildly as he continues, making the tense press of your lips grow even tighter.

“One more day before the storm,” Namjoon jumps in, and it seems that he’s following Yoongi’s preferred plan of attack which is to sing like it is the last time he will ever sing. He jumps up like he’s literally part of the June Revolution, his fists curled in a power stance.

Yoongi joins in, leaping to his feet. Since when is Namjoon the instigator? “Do I follow where she goes?”

“At the barricades of freedom,” Namjoon follows, raising his arm in solidarity to whatever cause he stands for. Seokjin stands up as well, adjusting the tie around his boyfriend’s forehead as he does.

“Shall I join my brothers there?”

“When our ranks begin to form?”

“Do I stay, and do I dare?”

“Will you take your place with me?”

There comes a point where suddenly you are the only one who is still sitting in your chair, your feet rooted firmly to the ground in protest. Everyone around you is beginning to belt out the lyrics, even if it isn’t their part. You hate drama kids. Oh goodness, you hate them.

You think you might actually make it through this whole rehearsal without dying of embarrassment, but then Yoongi reaches down where he stands next to you and pulls you to your feet, making you gasp slightly at the tug. He’s gotten quite strong. It must be all of the carrying he does during stage crew.

“The time is now, the day is here!” Everyone shouts rather than sings. Yoongi looks right into your eyes as he says the lyrics and you wonder if he can see the disdain lacing your irises. If this is his attempt at another confession, it’s exceedingly poor.

“One day more!” Seokjin practically yodels before everyone dissolves into a fit of laughter. Even the choir director has a smile on his face.

“Won’t you love me, Y/N?” Yoongi asks you, closing his eyes dramatically as he opens his arms.

You look at him in disbelief. You hope he can’t see the way the fondness bleeds into your expression. “In your dreams, Min.”

It ends there.

you (7:03PM): how dare you

yeontan’s daddy (7:03PM): what did i do

you (7:04PM): be sick

yeontan’s daddy (7:04PM): well excuse me for getting strep from a certain someone

you (7:04PM): idk what ur talking about ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yeontan’s daddy (7:05PM): Okay™ yeontan’s daddy (7:05PM): what happened today yeontan’s daddy (7:05PM): did i miss something

you (7:05PM): yoongi

yeontan’s daddy (7:06PM): omg noooooo i missed it!! yeontan’s daddy (7:06PM): i wonder if jk filmed it

you (7:06PM): im distressed and the only thing you can think about is if jungkook filmed it???????

yeontan’s daddy (7:07PM): are you questioning my priorities

you (7:07PM): i hate you

yeontan’s daddy (7:08PM): just like you hate yoongi

you (7:06PM): you are the worst best friend i have ever had

yeontan’s daddy (7:08PM): what did he do this time

you (7:09PM): he SANG TO ME you (7:09PM): SANG!! WITH HIS VOICE !!! you (7:09PM): HIS LIPS MOVED AND MADE NOISE

yeontan’s daddy (7:10PM): that is typically how people sing

you (7:10PM): HE SANG !!! IS THAT EVEN ALLOWED !!!!! I DON’T THINK SO !!!!!

yeontan’s daddy (7:10PM): i didn’t know yoongi sang

you (7:10PM): HE DOESN’T

yeontan’s daddy (7:10PM): you seem very emotional about this

you (7:10PM): IM ANGRY

yeontan’s daddy (7:11PM): is he at least a decent singer

you (7:11PM): YES

yeontan’s daddy (7:11PM): wow you’re mad

you (7:11PM): IM RAGING!!!!!

yeontan’s daddy (7:12PM): what did he sing? imo he definitely should have serenaded you with take on me

you (7:12PM): HE SANG YOUR FUCKING PART

yeontan’s daddy (7:12PM): mine????

you (7:12PM): BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T HERE TODAY

yeontan’s daddy (7:12PM): I DON’T HAVE A VOICE yeontan’s daddy (7:12PM): MY DOCTOR SAID IM CONTAGIOUS

you (7:13PM): IM MAD AT YOU

yeontan’s daddy (7:13PM): marius isn’t even in love with eponine??? it’s the other way around???

you (7:13PM): I KNOW

yeontan’s daddy (7:14PM): what were you even singing

you (7:14PM): ONE DAY MORE you (7:14PM): AND HE SANG ALL OF HIS LINES you (7:14PM): WHILE LOOKING AT ME you (7:14PM): AND IM ANGRY ABOUT IT

yeontan’s daddy (7:16PM): im going to be extremely disappointed if no one filmed this

you (7:16PM): EVERYONE JOINED IN you (7:16PM): HE GOT UP TO HIS FEET AND SUDDENLY IT WAS LIKE SOME HSM BULLSHIT you (7:16PM): I HATE THIS

yeontan’s daddy (7:19PM): i just double checked my lines for one day more and that’s like? very romantic? a 10/10 even if the delivery was a bit off

you (7:19PM): ARE YOU TAKING HIS SIDE!!!

yeontan’s daddy (7:19PM): is your caps lock button just… perpetually on

you (7:19PM): YES

yeontan’s daddy (7:19PM): you can’t possibly be this mad about being serenaded

you (7:20PM): IM DISTRESSED

yeontan’s daddy (7:20PM): is this because you literally have no idea how to navigate your feelings for yoongi

you (7:20PM): my only feelings for yoongi are disdain and general disgust

yeontan’s daddy (7:20PM): i really do not think that is true

you (7:20PM): what else could it be

yeontan’s daddy (7:23PM): hmmm yeontan’s daddy (7:23PM): i wonder

you (7:24PM): what the hell are you trying to say you (7:25PM): i know you fucking got this text you (7:26PM): do not leave me on read!!! you (7:34PM): taehyung!!!! how dare you!!!!! you (7:40PM): im calling the police !!!!! you (8:45PM): taehyung!!!!!!

It pains you to say so, but the set looks fantastic. As much as your petty grudges and general pride hate to admit it, Yoongi and his gang of gangly, uncoordinated, My Chemical Romance-listening stage crew students do a wonderful job each year, and this musical is no exception. On stage right now, in front of the background design of an unspecified French city in the early-to-mid 1800s is a pile of apparent rubbish. But it’s meant to be like that, old tables and chairs and even the damn piano from the choir room all mashed together, glued and nailed and enforced with random wooden planks here and there, meant to look like a real French barricade built haphazardly by students who most definitely aren’t gifted in the arts of engineering and invention. And if Namjoon, king of standing on top of things he shouldn’t be standing on top of, can climb to the top without either toppling over or bringing the whole construction down with him, then it must be sturdy as hell.

“You’re rousing, Namjoon,” the director tells him. The student in question is wobbling as he makes his way up the mountain of random household objects, Seokjin standing a couple of feet away on the sidelines and looking on fondly. “Be more… revolutionary. You’re calling everyone to action, right?”

“Right,” Namjoon nods, but the action makes him lose his footing for a quick second. He regains it nearly as fast, but not before Seokjin’s darting over, instinct telling him to protect the one he loves.

“Okay, so act like it,” the director says.

“Red, the blood of angry men!” Namjoon cries, his voice the slightest bit melodic that it needs to be. Seokjin looks on like a very pleased boyfriend.

“More! Angrier!” The director encourages. He’s been working on getting Namjoon to act more like a revolutionary in France in the early nineteenth century for a while now, most as a result of Namjoon’s insecurity of his ability to act like one. The thing is, you’ve seen Namjoon in debates in your political science class. And you’ve seen the way he protests the way that student minorities are always punished more severely than those that aren’t. And you’ve read his essays about the oppression of women’s rights in modern society. Namjoon’s about as revolutionary as they come, powerful, intelligent, noble—he just doesn’t know it.

“Red, the blood of angry men!” Namjoon says, getting provoked by the director. All of the students on stage are feeling the June Rebellion coursing through their veins, angry yet determined expressions lacing their features as they all engage in various revolutionary activity.

“Good, good!” The director emphasizes.

“Black, the dark of ages past!” continues Namjoon, getting a bit daring and moving to stand taller. He’s nearly at the top of the Mount Everest of rubbish. “Red, a world about to dawn!”

Namjoon takes one giant step, knee knocking into the edge of some table, and reaches the very peak of the trash pile. He balances himself on some sort of ledge and triumphantly raises both of his fists in the air, and with a great big, empowering grin, shouts, “Black, the night that ends at last!”

At this exact moment, ironically enough, all of the lights on stage shut off. The ones in the pit soon follow after a split second, and then the entire auditorium is shrouded in darkness.

“What the fuck,” you can hear Namjoon mutter to himself. He doesn’t dare move for fear of misplacing his foot and crashing to the stage floor.

“Go, Yoongi, go!”

The director doesn’t even have time to shout Hoseok’s name before you hear some random scuffling, rushed and quick and very disorganized. You whip your head around, hoping to spot the offending stage crew manager and the entourage he has somehow gathered to do his dirty work, but then the lights flicker back on, one by one from the back of the auditorium all the way to the stage, where Min Yoongi stands in the center with the megaphone held to his mouth.

Fuck. Oh, fuck. You already know exactly what’s about to happen and you try and hide yourself, sinking into the sweater you’re wearing as you quickly scan for any means of escape or disguise. Maybe you can go hide behind Jungkook, since he’s standing in the middle of the seats with a fat camera in his hand, filming the whole thing. You’re about to make a mad dash before Yoongi can do anything when you hear a crackling sound and—

“Y/N!” Yoongi shouts into the megaphone, his voice mildly unintelligible and cracked around the edges. He doesn’t really need to shout, not when he’s got a megaphone in his hand, but here he is.

“Oh my God,” you say in shock, your head slowly sinking into your hands. “Oh. My God.”

“IF I HAD TO CHOOSE BETWEEN GOING TO HARVARD AND GETTING TO DATE YOU, I WOULD DATE YOU,” Yoongi continues, voice blaring. “SORRY FOR CAUSING ALL OF THIS RUCKUS, DIRECTORS, BUT YOU KNOW I HAD TO DO IT TO ‘EM. SPECIFICALLY Y/N. BECAUSE I LOVE HER.”

“Christ almighty,” you continue to mutter, knowing fully well that Jungkook is panning back and forth between where you stand in the pit and where Yoongi stands on stage.

“I DON’T KNOW HOW MUCH GRANDER I CAN GO WITH THESE, Y/N. I’M RUNNING OUT OF IDEAS. YOU SHOULD BE WORRIED.”

Taehyung snickers somewhere next to you.

“IN ANY CASE, NOW THAT I’VE CAUSED ENOUGH DISRUPTION, PLEASE DON’T FIRE ME AS HEAD OF STAGE CREW. WE FINISHED ALL OF THE SETUP. I DON’T HAVE ANYTHING LEFT TO DO. I HAVE ONE FINAL QUESTION.”

It’s a wonder that Yoongi hasn’t auditioned for any sort of drama show because he’d almost be guaranteed a main role. What with all of this nonsense.

“WILL YOU, Y/N, DO ME THE HONOR OF GOING OUT ON A DATE WITH ME?”

Yoongi then proceeds to hand the megaphone off to Jimin, who has seemingly appeared out of nowhere, who grabs it in his baby-sized hands and rushes towards you with it. He hands it over to you and points to the button you’re meant to press to get the thing to turn on.

“Is this the best you can do, Min?” You ask in response, a challenge that he’s definitely going to accept. You’re digging your own grave here but you don’t have the heart to just straight up reject him, especially not when he’s managed to corral all of the kids in stage crew and the tech kids up in the light and soundbooth to do this for him. This is like some twisted promposal gone completely wrong. “Step your game up and then maybe I’ll consider it.”

With that, you hand the megaphone back to a very disgruntled director and continue on with your day. On stage, Yoongi is handing out high-fives to his entire crew, considering this endeavor a success. Or at least, a not-failure. The directors are trying to wrangle everyone up again to rehearse but consider their efforts fruitless and give a ten minute break.

“I can’t believe you didn’t say no,” Taehyung says in disbelief as he comes up next to you, arms crossed over his chest. “I thought Yoongi was a goner.”

“I’m being benevolent,” you inform him. “Next time he pulls some shit like this and I’m locking him up in the catwalk. When they tear this school down they will find his skeleton, still wearing that goddamn black beanie.”

“Wow, you really thought that out,” Taehyung comments, mildly impressed. Then, because he’s got the attention span of a puppy in a park, “I can’t believe you said you’d consider it. Since when do you consider anything to do with Yoongi?”

“I told you I was being benevolent.”

“Don’t tell me you’re actually warming up to the idea of going out with him. I’ll die of shock.”

“You sure that strep throat didn’t infect your brain?” You tease, ruffling his head.

“I think it might have, considering I just had a dream where you said you might actually consider going on a date with Yoongi.”

“I’m getting his hopes up so that I can crush them with my bare hands,” you say, glancing towards Yoongi. He seems to notice your gaze upon him and sends you some classic finger guns and an incredibly greasy wink, neither of which you return. “Like a grape.”

“I have never seen you crush a grape with your bare hands before.”

“Bring grapes tomorrow.”

“Regardless, you’re not that cruel, Y/N. You told Yoongi to step his game up and he will and if you reject him, I won’t be able to figure out if it’s all in good fun or not. It’s a fine line to cross, Y/N,” Taehyung warns cautiously, giving you a pointed look. You sigh. This isn’t how you pictured this conversation with Taehyung going. You thought he would just applaud you for not being so heartless but now he’s off preaching.

“I don’t know why he keeps doing it,” you think aloud. It’s never-ending, the confessions, over and over again without any sort of break in between. They’ve become so common that it’s a part of your routine at this point, something you just expect to happen despite their general spontaneity. It’s not so much that they’re predictable as it is they’re nice surprises.

Taehyung frowns. “Have you ever told him to stop?” He asks you with his eyebrows raised, a valid point to be making. “You know that if you told him to stop he would, right? He’s not that much of an asshole.”

You open your mouth to defend yourself when the realization hits you. It’s never occurred to you that you’ve never told Yoongi to stop with all of this nonsense, even after year after year of it. You know Yoongi well enough to know that if something he was doing made you feel truly uncomfortable, he wouldn’t continue doing it. He’s a decent guy like that. Taehyung’s right. Yoongi would stop the moment you asked him to.

But why haven’t you? Even after four years of having to hear him proclaim his undying affection for you in elaborate and schemed ways, you’ve never once told him no. You’ve accepted it as reality and continued on with your life.

It’s come so far that now you just expect them.

Like you’re waiting for the next time.

“You’re thinking awful hard about this,” Taehyung notes as he pops a piece of white cheddar popcorn into his mouth.

“I’m distressed,” you tell him.

“Have you ever once considered the idea that you may, in fact, enjoy the attention you receive from him?”

You scoff as a knee-jerk reaction. “Don’t be ridiculous. I hate him.”

Taehyung frowns. “I don’t really think that you do.”

“Can you stop doing that?” You ask bitterly.

Taehyung raises a brow. “Doing what?”

“Being all cryptic and shit. Whenever we talk about me and Yoongi all you do is dodge my questions and be vague. Extremely unhelpful,” you pout. Taehyung’s your best friend—he should be the one telling you the things you don’t know. Every time you ask him to spell something out for you he jumbles up the letters like a child with a magnetic alphabet on his fridge.

“I’m not here to police your feelings for him,” Taehyung tells you.

“My feelings for him?”

“Tell me right now, to my face, that you hate him. If you can, I’ll believe you.”

You turn to him, glare into Taehyung’s deep brown eyes, and open your mouth. The words should come easily to you—after all, you’ve been repeating them to yourself for years now—but your tongue is dry.

You know you can’t say that you hate Yoongi. Because you don’t. You really, really don’t. Maybe he’s loud and obnoxious and spontaneous and outrageous but you don’t hate that about him. He cares deeply and works hard and always makes sure that the stage crew is organized and prepared and treats them with respect and you don’t hate him. You can’t.

“Knew it,” Taehyung says, shaking his head. “You’re awfully soft, did you know that, Y/N? Always have been.”

“I take personal offense to that.”

“You’re such a goner for him, don’t you know that?” Taehyung asks. He motions his head towards Yoongi, who’s laughing on stage with Jimin and Seokjin. They’re tossing Goldfish into each other’s mouth, and one hits Yoongi on the nose before falling to the floor. He’s laughing. They all are, but Yoongi beaming. He outshines everyone on stage even if he isn’t an actor himself. He’s wondrous.

You sigh. “Yeah. I know.”

After your final dress rehearsal, everyone’s deadbeat tired. It’s nearing eleven at night and you think you’ve set a record for how long you can be in your school building in one go. Even Taehyung’s about to fall asleep, and the man downed a venti Starbucks coffee during the last period of the day.

“Good run, folks!” Your director shouts. “You guys will be amazing on Thursday, I know it! Get some much needed rest. No practice tomorrow, so don’t show up here otherwise I’ll have to hear about it from management!”

Everyone groans out their response as they gather their bags, wiping off the makeup on their faces with dried-out wipes and dampened paper towels. Right now, there is no place more enticing to you than your bed back home, sheets crumpled and warm.

“See you tomorrow, Y/N!” Taehyung shouts as he’s bounding down the steps outside, jumping into the passenger seat of his older brother’s car. Normally he’d be offering to drive you home but his car’s in the shop. The damn thing was on its last legs anyway. It needed some repairs.

“See you!” You wave back, turning to go back inside the auditorium. It’s oddly cold tonight, and you underprepared with just a t-shirt, so you’re trying to conserve as much warmth as you can before your ride comes.

The auditorium’s mostly cleared out, lights dim and hazy. But there in the middle is Yoongi, leaning down to clean up the remnants of the nonsense on stage. He looks so alone, up on stage without anybody else. Nobody seems to have stayed back to help him.

Your ride can wait a couple minutes.

You drop your backpack down in one of the seats next to the aisle as you walk up to him, strides longer to get you there faster.

“Need some help?” You ask.

Your voice catches him off guard, and he looks up with his mouth in the shape of a small ‘o’. He blinks a couple of times, like he’s processing the fact that you’re here, standing in front of him, offering a hand.

“Me? Oh, yeah. That would be nice, thanks.”

“Sure thing.”

You come up on stage and Yoongi directs you to the broom hanging up on the wall so you can dust away anything left on stage—not that there’s very much. In his hands, Yoongi’s got a couple stray pieces of paper and some safety pins that must have fallen off some of the costumes. Jimin will need those.

You fall into this silence as the two of you clean up what’s left. Most of it’s just tidying up, organizing the props on the tables backstage so that everything’s in order for the show in a couple days, but it’s important. Important enough for you and Yoongi to be the only two people left to do it.

This is the kind of thing that’s supposed to be awkward and romantic at the same time. You and Yoongi are the only ones left in this dark auditorium as the moon waits above your head for some miracle to play out. You don’t know what to say to each other but your company is enough of an icebreaker. His mere presence fills up the space, even if he’s one lonely man on a giant stage. Yoongi’s exhausted, the bags under his eyes deep and dark, much like your own. Alongside being part of the drama club as a whole, you’re also officers of it, meaning the two of you take on responsibilities nobody else in the club would dare to. You love this, love being on stage and acting and entertaining others, but days like this are draining.

“You should get some rest,” Yoongi breaks through the layer of tension in the air. You didn’t even realize that it had settled until he waved it away. He walks up to you with a damp rag in his hand from wiping down the set for the last time to clean it of any dust that might have settled.

“You too,” you tell him softly, holding the broom close to your body to give your hands something to do.

“I’m not the one performing on stage in a couple days,” says Yoongi, smiling to himself.

“Just because I’m under the lights and you aren’t doesn’t make you any less important, Min,” you say to him, looking down at your feet because you don’t think you could bear looking into his eyes. It’s dark, everything’s dark, from his hat to his clothes to the stage to the auditorium to his irises. “Without you, we’d have no show.”

“I—I mean I just move stuff off and on stage,” Yoongi admits shyly. Why does he think so little of himself? Doesn’t he know how much he matters?

“You built the damn stage,” you tell him, finally mustering up enough courage to look him in the eye. You signal to the rest of the set, designed and constructed and decorated perfectly, a display of all of his hard work, right in front of him. There’s not a thing out of place. At least, it doesn’t look that way to you. “This was all you.”

“I had a lot of help,” he whispers.

“So did I,” you tell him. “What you do here matters, Min,” you stress, hoping he’ll understand. Hoping he’ll know how much his work means to you. How much he means to you. “You matter.”

It’s then that Yoongi looks up. He’s got his dark pink lips in that little ‘o’ again, but then they shift into a small smile, miniscule. You’d probably hardly be able to see it if you weren’t so close to him. His eyes crinkle up ever so slightly. God, he’s…

“I’ll see you at the show on Thursday, okay?” Yoongi asks, eyes hopeful. He doesn’t need to be hopeful, not when you and him both have to show up no matter what, but he asks it like he isn’t sure. He should be.

“Yeah,” you say, nodding. For some reason, you can’t wait to see him again.

“Eponine! Eponine, come on!”

Namjoon’s shouting your name as you rush backstage. It’s the finale for Act One and you barely had time to get yourself situated since your last scene, dirtying up your clothes a bit more and covering your cheeks with brown and black eyeshadow. Time passes by too quickly for this show, strange enough since it’s long as hell.

“I’m here, I’m here,” you whisper shout in response, coming up next to Namjoon. You look across the stage in the hopes that maybe you can catch a glimpse of Yoongi, but you’ve barely seen him at all since you arrived to get into your costume. Maybe a couple of glances, here or there, but other than that he seems to be entirely AWOL.

“One Day More, One Day More!” Namjoon tells you in a hurry and you rush on stage, hidden in the darkness as you stand, waiting for your cue.

The lights on stage come back on. Seokjin stands in the center in his Jean Valjean costume, looks out into the audience, and begins to sing. Soon enough, Taehyung and Eunbi join him on stage, standing a few feet away from him as they sing to each other. The spotlight’s on just them for right now as they share their song, but soon enough you feel the heat of the light on you and join in.

Just for now, any thought of Yoongi evaporates from your mind. You can’t really think of him, not as you stand on stage and sing for your friends, your family, anyone who has come to see this show on this rainy Thursday night. The Act One Finale is always your favorite thing to perform, just because it’s so energetic, inclusive, fun.

Soon the entire cast is on stage, each person singing their part as the pit plays beneath you. It’s your first showing but undoubtedly not your best, even as you accidentally stumble over your words when you spot Yoongi rushing around backstage, just a momentary glimpse of him. He looks awfully busy.

The song comes to a close and the lights turn off to a round of applause from the audience. The curtains close, the whirring of the machine that moves them barely audible over the sound of the cast members shuffling off stage. Intermission’s meant to last about fifteen minutes, just long enough for everyone to change and clean up and for the stage crew to set up for the next scene. You’re sweating from being under the lights, hair matted by your forehead where your perspiration collects, and you wipe away what you can with a paper towel as you head off stage to take a breather.

You’re barely out into the hallway when you feel someone grab onto your wrist at the same time a voice outside says, “Attention, everyone, could I just get your attention for a moment?”

It’s Yoongi.

Eyes wide, you turn to the person holding onto your wrist to find your best friend smiling guiltily at you, like he knows something you don’t. He definitely knows something you don’t.

“Taehyung, what on earth are you doing?” You hiss at him, but he shrugs.

“I’m being the best friend in the entire world,” Taehyung responds, before he pulls you down to the doors that lead to the pit, opening them and pushing you into the auditorium. Almost immediately, a light shines on you, and you wince as your eyes adjust to the glare. Taehyung waves up to Hoseok. “Go!” Taehyung shouts, motioning up to where Yoongi stands, rocking back and forth in his all black Converse, a microphone in his hand.

Your hardened expression softens into something grossly fond as you make your way up the stairs onto the stage, the spotlight following your each and every step. Yoongi waits at the top like a groom watching his bride come down the aisle. You can’t help but feel like that comparison isn’t too far off.

“Sorry to disrupt your, uh, intermission, everyone,” he says gruffly into the microphone. “This’ll be really quick.” You can tell that he doesn’t want to look into your eyes but he can’t figure out a better place to put his gaze. “Anyway, Y/N, you know that I do a lot of dumb sh—I mean, stuff to get your attention and then you said that I should step my game up so here we are.”

Even if this the most public any one of his elaborate confessions has been, it doesn’t feel that way. You’ve got an entire audience this time, both in the seats and backstage, everyone watching as Yoongi tries one more time. You can hear the doors leading to the pit opening as the entire cast tries to get a glimpse of what’s happening on stage.

This feels different.

It feels different because suddenly Yoongi’s the speechless one, cheeks bright red as he tries to curl into his clothing, sink into the fabric impossibly closer. You’re the one receiving whatever love confession is on the end of this but now he’s the one who’s unsure and embarrassed. It’s kind of endearing, really.

“You’ve probably heard me say this a bunch but I figured there was no better way to say it than in front of the audience for the first night of our show, right?” He forces a chuckle and it makes him cough a little. You can’t help but smile at him. “I don’t know, you’ve always been so wonderful and kind and strong and funny and you make everyone around you laugh, even me, and I make all of these elaborate schemes to ask you out on a date with me but I feel like doing this whole thing just for a date is a bit shallow, so I’ve decided on something else.”

It’s then that Jung Hoseok, decked out in a black hoodie three times the size of his torso and skintight pants, shuffles onto stage with a single rose in his hand. It’s a lavender purple rose. You didn’t even realize that they sold those.

“Anyway, what I’m really trying to say before everyone in the audience gets fed up with me for taking time out of their intermission is, well,” Yoongi teeters on his feet awkwardly, leaning his weight from one side to the other as he twirls the rose between his fingers. “Will you go to prom with me?”

You open your mouth to respond but Seokjin beats you to it.

“Say yes!” He shouts from the sidelines, making Yoongi laugh.

Yoongi looks so nervous. So unsure of himself yet so hopeful, wishing and wishing and wishing. You’ve got a four year streak of turning him down and for the longest time you swore you’d never break it but things are different now.

“I’d love to, Min.”

Yoongi lights up, not even like a Christmas tree but like the whole fucking Christmas display at the mall, the one with reindeers and snowflakes and everything. He lights up like Times Square on New Year’s Eve. He carefully gives the rose to you but you crush it between your fingers as you hug him, pull him close.

Everyone in the audience cheers. Taehyung’s shouting, “That’s my best friend! That’s my best friend right there!” Next to him, Jungkook’s got his camera up, filming the boy in all black with a pink tinge to his cheeks and the girl in tattered rags with dirt covering her face.

When you and Yoongi walk off stage to join your friends behind the scenes, he laces his fingers in between yours. You don’t anticipate on letting go for a long while.

“Can we banish them from the couch?” Hoseok asks loudly, over the music playing from the television. “They’re being all date-y and shit.”

“We are dating, you asshole,” Yoongi shouts. He’s got one arm wrapped around your side as the other holds the phone up in front of your faces, your body curled into him with your knees tucked close to your chest, leaning against him.

“That’s up to the man of the house, Hobi,” Jimin says as he hands Hoseok another root beer. He motions to Seokjin, who is entirely too busy laughing his entire ass off as he plays What Do You Meme? with Namjoon, Taehyung, Eunbi, and Jungkook on the carpet. They seem to be having a grand old time. You move your head over slightly to see them battling over who won the card with that blue button meme with the giant word NUT written on top of it. Namjoon eventually gives the round to Seokjin, prompting everyone else to accuse them of cheating because they’re dating.

“I hate this so much,” Hoseok says, sighing. “What are you guys even watching?”

“It’s this video of an owner dressing up as their dog’s favorite toy,” Yoongi says without taking his eyes off of the video. The dog starts smothering its owner in kisses. God, you don’t deserve dogs.

“You guys might not want to sit on the left side of that couch!” Seokjin shouts as a warning from across the way, eyebrows raised and cheeks tinged a hazy red in the dim light of his living room.

You and Yoongi look at each other, confused for a brief second, before the both of you start groaning, quickly getting up from where you were seated and searching for another place of lodging. Did you need to know what Seokjin and Namjoon do in their free time? Absolutely not. Did you find out anyway? Unfortunately.

“Hey, deal us in,” you say to Taehyung, settling down in between him and Jungkook. Yoongi takes a seat beside you as Taehyung hands each of you seven cards. Your boyfriend—God, that’s so nice to say—instantly laughs, hearty and loud and wonderful, upon reading the first one.

The next meme Namjoon pulls from the box is the one photo from when Obama gave Joe Biden the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Everyone laughs at the sight of it as they play their cards. It’s Seokjin’s turn to judge.

When he flips over the last card, it’s a freestyle one. Taehyung immediately claims it as his own.

“Go on, give us what you got, Tae,” Namjoon says.

Taehyung clears his throat before announcing, “When Y/N finally said yes to going out with Yoongi after four years of being too constipated in her feelings to realize that she liked him.”

The night fades out like the end of a film, the last scene of a play, with everyone laughing as you beat your best friend with your fists for being so goddamn awful. Yoongi presses an insistent kiss to your forehead as Seokjin easily hands that one to Taehyung, who takes the meme card with pride.

The curtain closes.

thank you so much for reading! i just learned that i can’t put links on my posts otherwise tumblr x-nays them for the search engine, so if you wanna talk to me, hit up my ask box!