092021

We were gathered around a small circular table for dinner, our last night in Santiago being celebrated. The boys were all in a great mood.

"Yeah! Good job." Hoseok said, raising his glass of wine for the others to share a cheers. I was sitting with my back to a camera that was filming our dinner for the documentary. That meant I had to keep quiet about my findings and doings of the day, and if the subject of Suho came up, I'd have to play the part of his dating partner. But I'd begged the boys not to even learn that direction during any conversation. It was bad enough that we had the cameras going.

I raised my glass of Sprite and shared the clink. Seated to my right was Jimin, then going around the circle counter-clockwise was Jin, Taehyung, Hoseok, Yoongi, and then Namjoon who was to my left.

"There's always one missing," Jin said as everyone raised the glasses to their mouths, leaning back from the table stuffed with fast-food cartons that had been our dinner.

Namjoon raised his glass once more. "Cheers, Jungkook."

"To Jungkook," the others repeated before taking another sip.

Namjoon spoke again after a few moments. "We really need to do our best. We have to do a good job in Brazil."

"I know," Hoseok said with a smile.

"Only two days in Brazil," Namjoon continued. "Have time to think about that."

"I'm worried about Jungkook," one of the boys muttered, and then Hoseok laughed.

"I was worried. I was a little..."

"I was worried, too. You're not the only one," Yoongi added. I glanced around the table. I had been worried as well, if not more than the boys. I had more time to worry about one of them. They had to worry about themself. And I was still worried about Jungkook.

"Well, I got really worried," Jin said with a slight chuckle. Not as worried as me, I thought.

"Honestly, I even cried." The table went silent and our heads shot towards Yoongi. He'd been so careful not to even let me see him cry that night when I caught him in the bathroom, because I'd cried too. It still seemed I had done the same amount of grieving as the worst member here did about Jungkook in every situation. Not that it mattered.

Hoseok laughed. I raised an eyebrow at him wondering if the alcohol was hitting him already. How was he laughing at the subject that had pulled me to tears- The others were still silent.

"Did the camera capture it?" Namjoon asked as if they were discussing something casual.

I was shocked at how Yoongi smiled slightly as he explained, "No, it didn't. I cried in the bathroom." He eyed me, making me look away. He was giving that information up awfully fast.

"I saw it when we were performing 'FIRE'," Namjoon commented, talking about the symptoms of Jungkook's exhaustion.

"That's when it was the most serious."

"Something was wrong," the boys kept piping.

"I asked him why he kept going," Jimin added, taking a piece of fried chicken to munch on, "And he said, 'it's our last show in Chile'."

"Yeah," I said, finally speaking up. "That's what he told me. That's what he kept telling himself even afterwards."

The boys 'awed' slightly, voicing their disapproval.

"Let's say another one collapses, and this time it's during the first show," Yoongi said animatedly. He leaned back in his seat, clutching his chest and mimicking an exhausted voice, "It's our first show in Brazil." The boys laughed.

I was starting to realize this was how they were coping. And maybe they were feeling better about the fact that we were past the Jungkook drama for the most part and now he was getting help. Maybe making fun of the situation was how we were going to get through it.

I figured it worked to some extent, because the next thing I knew, the boys were on the topics of how they went on starving diets when they were trainees and Namjoon was reenacting a scene where truck from the agency was behind him and somehow the story ended up with him getting ice cream in his pocket and he was running to the bathroom saying his stomach hurt. I sat back, listening, wondering how they could have lived such full and eventful lives before I became a part of it. They'd done so much and there were still tons of stories and information about my seven brothers that I didn't know. They were too busy and it was only precious times like these that I was able to peek into their past lives that I struggled to remember existed.

"I bought one lottery ticket every week," Yoongi said, moving his arms around for emphasis as the boys chuckled at his tale. "But every week, I wouldn't win. Didn't I tell you this story?" He asked, motioning to Hoseok. Without a reaction, he continued anyway. "A pig appeared in my dream and told me the numbers in Korean." The boys giggled more. "Twenty! Six! Ten! And I go like, 'Yes, I won!'" Yoongi was getting up from his seat, practically yelling as he told the story. I was starting to smile, sensing the spirits of the boys lifting as the subject came off of Jungkook and our stories meant less to the future that we were always worrying so much about. "I get the first number right. My heart starts throbbing. I get the second number right. Yes! My life turned around! Twelve! When I got to the third number, I'm almost losing my mind. I go like, 'whoa! Whoa!'!... And then the numbers don't match."

"The machine checked or you chose?" Hoseok asked.

"I chose the numbers," Yoongi explained. "The pig told me the numbers in Korean." The boys were all bursting out in laughter and I giggled, finding the story funny.

"How did it tell you the numbers in Korean?" Hoseok asked through laughs as the boys doubled over.

Yoongi continued, "I didn't win anything. I wonder what would have happened if I won that lottery."

"Suga, remember that?" Jimin asked, scooting up in his chair. "We had a room down there. You fell down the stairs there and hurt your shoulder."

Yoongi put a finger to his chin and thought for a moment before pointing at Jimin. "I told you that I fell down the stairs, but actually, I had a car accident."

"Right."

"Yes, you told us," the boys chimed in.

"I had a car accident."

"Really? How?" Taehyung asked, clearly not in on the details of that story.

"Oh, that appears in your song," Namjoon said. That made me realize we didn't always know each other as much as we thought, even the boys who were bandmates for years previous. Even they didn't always know what every line of lyrics meant to the member who created them.

"It's part of the lyrics in 'The Last'," Yoongi explained, "I was delivering, riding the bike when I got hit at the intersection. I was delivering when I got hit. Bam!" He made a sound impression. His hands came to his chest. "I open my eyes and I see the wheel here," he motioned towards an invisible tire above the right side of his face. "Right in front of my eyes." The boys were watching carefully.

"That was dangerous," one of them comments.

"I got drawn under the car. The next day, I couldn't move my shoulder because it fell out. It had already fallen out and it got even more serious," he explained, motioning to his left arm. He still complained about it hurting every so often and sometimes it seemed like it was getting worse as the months passed, even though the accident he spoke of was from a long time ago. I was now finding out how it had happened.

Talk of surgery wasn't often but it lingered around us. I had heard manager Sejin and Bang Shi Hyuk talk about it being a possibility. It would put Yoongi out of all shows or promotions if they did it, but in the long run it'd be worth it. Especially if we could do it before his military service.

"That's why you mention it," Hoseok said, voicing my thoughts.

"If I went under the car completely-"

"You stopped b-boying after that, right?" Taehyung interrupted.

Yoongi nodded.

"Did the agency know?" asked Namjoon.

"They didn't," Yoongi stated as if it were as simple as he probably hoped it'd be. "I didn't tell them." The boys looked at him with awe. "I thought that they'd let me go if I told them."

I sighed. How did he keep such an injury from his agency, the people who owned him? Especially during their early trainee days.

"I hurt my shoulder working as a delivery boy. I told them I honestly didn't want to keep going. I had talked to them about that. And what I remember is that they told me that they'd wait. They asked me to try one more time. I remember that, I can't forget that. So I told them I would." His voice pepped up. "That's how they decided to pay for my college. I was really worried about that, about my tuition, you know? My family couldn't afford it." His statement was a reminder to all of us that we'd all come from very different family situations. How we were all standing here as equals awed me sometimes. I felt, though, that Yoongi shared my situation more than the others who'd grown up with normal families who more easily supported themselves. "When I told them, they said I should've told them earlier," Yoongi continued to explain about the agency.

"No kidding," I commented, "I would have been way too scared to keep something like that to myself."

"Yeah," Yoongi agreed, "they told me that they'd have helped, had I told them sooner." Everyone went silent and looked thoughtful.

"That's why I'm-"

"So that's what you were talking about," said Namjoon. "I had no idea what 'holding onto my broken shoulder' meant."

With a part of Yoongi's past revealed and the boys reminiscing about their early days, the band kept the light mood alive as the chatting continued through the night.

This was what vacation was supposed to feel like. I was finally starting to enjoy it.

--------

"Ya, where's Sujin?!"

"Her manager had her a second ago!"

"Sujin! Sujin- for goodness' sake, I can't scream through the entire airport for you!"

"You won't need to! You won't-" I stopped and sighed as the back of a guard came closer to my face as he backed up to keep a fan out of my way. I moved my head over his shoulder and peered out. The top of Yoongi's head was visible as it switched sides frantically. "Yoongi! Ugh-"

I slipped past the guard in front of me, tapping Yoongi's back a second before I met his side. "Stop calling him my manager, too. I don't appreciate that."

"I don't appreciate losing you every time we go through an airport."

"Sorry-"

"Don't be sorry, let's move."

Keeping up with the boy's long and easy strides was not a simple task. It seemed they always forgot how short I was compared to them, and that I was a part of the gang now. It made me appreciate some of the female staff members who had to keep up as much as I did.

Once we had travelled through the depths of the airport more the crowd died down. One of the security areas had been previously cleared for us, waiting for all the staff to flood with their belongings. We'd have a clear entry to the plane gate.

The opening came with minimal struggling, distracting me at moments from the throbbing headache that'd been attacking on and off throughout the day. But when you have an airport full of screaming fans, it either makes it worse or stresses you out so much you forget about it. It seemed to be the latter for me.

The flight was only four hours long, definitely in our favor. From early morning when we were getting our stuff ready to move, to noon when we left for the airport, to late afternoon getting onto the plane, I knew it'd be evening by the time we got to Sao Paulo, our next destination. Not to mention staff would be busy all night getting things set up. Especially since we had a concert the following day, with a fan meeting in the lineup this time.

I found my seat on the plane and flopped down. With a shorter flight like this one, the seats were small and compact, and services were small. Jimin and Hoseok took seats to the right and left of me in the middle row of the plane. Jungkook, Yoongi, and Taehyung were in front of us, with Namjoon and Jin behind.

As passengers got their luggage situated around them, Hoseok noticed me rubbing between my brows tenderly.

"Your head again?"

I nodded.

"Do you want something to drink?"

I nodded again.

"What sounds good?"

I sighed. "Sprite? With ice? Lots of ice?"

He chuckled and turned to the next attendant he saw to ask for two glasses of Sprite once we took off.

As I was turning my phone on airplane mode, I noticed a notification. A text from Suho.

My heart leaped a little as I drew down the bar and clicked on it, letting it send me to my messaging app.

Suho: My phone is being taken away for a little. Stay safe, I don't want to hear something bad happened, okay?

Huh, that was interesting. When did Suho get his phone taken and by who?

Beyond my curiosity, something warmed my heart when I thought about the fact that he'd at least been thinking about me- and that he went through the trouble to text me about it.

And I really did miss Suho. I was moving to another location but he was still home, thousands of miles away.

It made me laugh a little, to remember the fans who thought we were dating now but didn't know we hardly spoke anymore for the same reason.

I struggled figuring out what to reply with, so I sent a 'thanks Suho, we'll be alright' and shut off my phone as the plane got ready to depart.

I watched as much as I could out the windows of the airplane as we took off. I really enjoyed Santiago. As our first international tour destination, it was going to hold a special spot in my heart. The people here introduced me to the fan commons outside of Korea and though it was challenging at times, I had gotten through it.

A weird feeling I couldn't shake from me as the flight wore on was how it seemed we were switching worlds again. Like Suho had told me when we'd arrived, we were part of a world these people didn't see all the time except through media and the internet, and vice versa. To experience so much in a new place was enough to make it all feel like a dream, but to leave so quickly really made me feel like I was living it all behind. Part of me felt like the situation with Suho would dissolve behind me and stay in Santiago. It was tough to remember it was following me wherever we went until we could settle it a bit more.

My first concert, Jungkook's struggles with breathing, the situation with Suho and all the people I'd met. It was time to move on from all of that and prepare for what I was going to meet.

Belated because author-nim's life if crazy. Aish where would I even start?

But here you go! And there will be another one on schedule in two weeks. Thanks for being patient with me. I'm still loving this story!!

Don't die.

-Rose