Closer than Ever

Chapter 77 - Questions of Forever

On May 27, Korea time, the White House officially announces that BTS is coming to speak with President Biden, and two days later they are on a flight to Washington, DC. Tae didn't try too hard to convince me to come along, since he'll only be gone for four days this time, and it's a high-security event so it would be hard to sneak around and spend time together.

Their schedule is relatively open, since they don't have to prepare a performance. They will speak at a press conference, and then talk with the president in the Oval Office, plus some other press events. This trip, they actually have quite a bit of time to relax, and Tae vowed before he left to take full advantage of it.

True to his word, it seems like almost as soon as they land, he sends me videos of himself and Jin from an indoor sky-diving place. He looks absolutely thrilled as he floats around in his flight suit. I giggle, and send him back a video clip of Rocky the Flying Squirrel from the old cartoon show.

The very next day, he video calls me just as I'm starting to think about going to bed. He is at a driving range somewhere with Jin, Hobi, and Jimin. I'm a little bit surprised that he wants to talk instead of focusing on his golf swing - he's kind of fanatical about the game. It's another of his pursuits, like fashion, that I support as best I can despite my total lack of interest. But today, he seems to be in a very chatty mood, getting me all caught up on the flight, sky-diving, and hotel shenanigans. He even passes the phone around so I can greet the other three, while he takes his turns swinging a club.

The next day, the guys get dressed up in extremely dapper black suits with white shirts, white pocket squares, and black ties. Each of them only speaks at the press room podium for about 10-15 seconds, but I feel so proud of them all for nailing their parts of the speech. I chant Tae's along with him; I swear I've heard those two sentences roughly 1.3 million times over the past couple of weeks. 'That's my boyfriend, speaking at the White House. All of those handsome men are friends of mine, and they are speaking to the international press corps from the White House podium.' Although I tell myself these things over and over, I still don't fully believe it, even though I'm looking right at them on my laptop.

C-SPAN doesn't follow the guys out of the briefing room, so I turn it off and go back to bed. I know that video of their interactions with President Biden will be released soon, but I will watch that in the morning, when I get up.

I sleep in a bit, and Tae calls while I'm still in bed. He is riding an adrenaline high from the way they pulled off this White House visit. The whole group is thrilled with the reception they received in the halls of American power, and he tells me proudly that the president even played a bit of Butter in the Oval Office itself. "Birdie," he laughs, "your president dances like Yoongi-hyung! Except he's really tall." I crack up.

He is leaving Washington the next day, ahead of the other members, because he has a solo music video shoot for Dubai scheduled on the way home. He will be stopping off in Abu Dhabi to do that, and I'm glad to say that he will be back even before the rest of the guys.

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Taehyung's happiness over the trip to DC, and the smooth video shoot in the UAE, fades pretty quickly when he gets home. As June 13 approaches, a grim stoicism takes hold at the Hybe building, and we're all bracing for impact.

When the Festa Dinner video is posted, I watch it on my laptop in the studio. Tae rolls over in his office chair to watch with me, at first, but when Suga introduces the subject of the team taking a break, he abruptly stands up and leaves the room. The video hits hard on my first viewing, even though I already knew about a lot of what they are revealing. 

To me, the worst part is that even though the members seem like they are bound and determined to keep BTS going as an active group for years or decades to come, Namjoon sounds truly burned out. He reveals that after Dynamite and Butter, he feels like he doesn't know what their message is anymore. I feel incredible sadness for him, even as I also feel vindicated in my attitude about those songs. 'They're fun, dumb songs that any group could have done, written by other people. I always thought that they were beneath BTS, even though they were so commercially successful. The only redeeming quality was that they brought so many new people into ARMY, who discovered BTS's own self-written masterpieces. I'm sure the company is very happy with how that gambit played out, but at what cost? Those stupid songs broke RM!' My eyes well up with tears. As Tae mentioned a few weeks ago when they filmed the video, the guys don't talk about military service. I wonder how many international ARMYs and baby ARMYs will completely miss that key subtext, as I watch.