the friendship code

|tension|

Joel's POV:
We left the studio full of enthusiasm. The next few days should be the best in Lee's life. Unfortunately, we also knew that this was going to be a difficult mission. In the car to the place where we were staying, there was definite tension. But what worries me the most is that Lee doesn't say a single word during the whole trip and seems to be completely spaced out. This is really striking because in the studio she was quite talkative and always smiling. But there is no sign of that now. Is the whole thing too much for her? Should we have brought BTS in later? Unfortunately, we can't turn back time. Too bad I don't know how to help her feel more comfortable. After a good half hour through New York night traffic, we reached our destination. Immediately upon our arrival, it was Lee who literally jumped off the bus with Jojo. It seems like she couldn't wait to get away as soon as possible. Oh My. This whole thing is going to be rougher than I thought. On the way into the house, I tried to silently communicate to JK and RM that we need to be gentle with her. Yashua told us ahead of time that Lee suffers from depression and an anxiety disorder. Would be pretty dumb if we became the trigger for a panic attack.

So we followed the rest of the guys into the house. There was already total chaos. Everyone strolled through each room to claim the best for themselves in the end. After a lot of back and forth, the room assignments were decided. To give Lee some privacy, she got one of the master bedrooms. The other was assigned to RM. According to the reactions of the guys from BTS, he snores terribly, and accordingly, no one wanted to share a room with him voluntarily. The remaining six of the eight rooms were finally divided into pairs among the rest of us. The final pairings were: the Camacho brothers took a room, Jungkook, and J-Hope, Jimin and Suga, Jin and Taehyung, Erick and Zabiel, and finally Chris and I shared a room. Thankfully, there are separate beds in the rooms. Chris has the annoying habit of taking the whole bed, including the blanket, for himself when he sleeps. To the dismay of the others.

As soon as the luggage in the appropriate rooms was transferred, we all lounged in the living room. Since most are not yet tired, we decided without further ado to order pizza and watch something on the TV. While we waited for our order, a heated discussion broke out about what we wanted to watch now. A couple of the guys from BTS really wanted to see the latest Marvel movie that had just been released on the streaming services. Zabiel insisted on the documentary about Puerto Rico, which is on FOX today. Which, however, was met with backlash from Erick, Richard, Yashua, and Chris. They felt anime was a good choice. But Lee doesn't seem happy with it. Finally, we switched to the finale of the Mask Singer, at her suggestion. Almost everyone reluctantly agreed, but we didn't want to upset Lee anymore. In the meantime, our pizzas arrived. But we hardly managed to eat. Either we were tied up in the performance or in debates about who was hiding under the mask. Some are quite quickly discovering the first guesses. But some are real mental baffles. The whole thing is not made much easier when someone throws a name into the room that most of us have never heard before. Some of the unmasked really surprised us, because we didn't have them in mind at all. Again, the joy was all the greater when our own tip turned out to be true. But I had the feeling that Lee did not feel very well. Since our arrival, she has talked barely. As she did in the car. In the beginning, when the first shock was over, Lee seemed relaxed and happy. But now it seems to be just the opposite. Rather sad and deep in thought.

Slowly but surely, sleepiness took over. Lee was the first to go to bed. Seems like the day had demanded much of her. Not to mention the long flight from Europe to New York. After she disappeared into the room with Jojo, we all took a deep breath. We made it through the first evening. It remains to be seen how the coming days will go.

Jin: "went pretty well, didn't it?"
Joel: "Well. I don't really know. Lee doesn't seem that excited about the whole thing."
Yashua: "She just needs time to get into it. Be a little patient with her. After all, she agreed to give you guys a chance. Don't fuck it up. She very rarely does that."
Jimin: "Oh dear. I suspected it would be hard. But it's not that hard."
Chris: "Ok enough for today. We should really go to sleep now. Tomorrow we'll look further."
With that, the matter was off the table for now. One after the other got ready for bed. It wasn't long before everyone was in their beds knocked out from today's events. Only Lee's behavior that evening gave me no peace.
Somehow, it troubled me a lot. Without really thinking about it, I sneaked up to her room. Carefully, I opened the door a crack. Just wide enough to get a good look at the bed. Phew. It seems that she is sleeping peacefully. Jojo also seems laying down peacefully. Curled up, he sleeps next to Lee on the blanket. With a clear conscience, I could enter the land of dreams that night