ARROGANCE | m.yg

t h i r t y - y o o n g i

   "Ready?" I ask Rin, looking at her warmly as we stand backstage. This is it, our first stage.

   "I don't know if I'll ever be ready, Yoongi," Rin responds. "It's finally happening." Her face is flushed and she looks small— smaller than she already is. She's practically shaking, and I feel awful. As hard as she's trying to hide it, it's beyond evident that Rin is immensely nervous.

   "Hey, you're going to do fine," I reassure her, taking her hand. I fumble with the star bracelet on her wrist, feeling the charm between my finger and thumb. "You've got me, and I've done this a thousand times before. And you don't have anything to be worried about, anyway. You wrote this song. It's yours. You're going to be great."

   Rin smiles softly, looking up at me and squeezing my hand tightly. "Okay. You're right. We'll be fine."

   "That's the spirit. Fighting!" I pump my fist in the air and smile, watching as a semblance of real confidence overcomes Rin's worried expression.

   "Alright, you two are on," says a staff member. I nod, thanking him quietly, and Rin and I begin moving to our positions on stage. Rin nervously tugs at the legs of her black jeans, pulling them down. She's wearing a white sweater, too, and a snapback, which she also adjusts before she passes the threshold and ends up on the actual stage. I, myself, am also donning monochromatic garb: a pair of white jeans, a black t-shirt, and a black bomber jacket over it. The stylists went a little crazy with the black and white this time around.

   Rin and I take our spots on a darkened stage, standing back-to-back and waiting for the lights to come on. With mics in our hands, a track over the speakers, and the lyrics drilled into our brains, we're as ready as we'll ever be. The track begins and the spotlights come on, one shining on each of us. Rin has the opening lines, and I follow. Rin seems nervous still, but she does her part well. For the first half of the verse, we alternate telling small snippets of our stories; I talk about why I wanted to audition for Big Hit and Rin talks about how she wanted to make it underground. When we're done with this, though, we have the dialogue part for the pre-chorus. These lines are supposed to summarize our fight, and I'm the one who starts.

   "I'm sorry."

   "No, you aren't."

   "You know how much I want this."

   "I can't believe you'd do this." Rin and I turn to face each other here, no longer standing back-to-back as we had been. Rin continues the line from here, and now I'm the one who has to respond.

   "How could you betray me? I just want you to stay with me."

   "I want this."

   "Fine, I didn't care about you anyway."

   From here, it's the chorus. This part requires a little bit of vocal work from the both of us. Thankfully, not much, and Rin pulls most of the weight, but the first chorus is arguably the hardest part of the song for us. I keep my eye on Rin as she performs. Once she's done with the chorus, her body loosens up and I see the fear in her start to fade. She's finding that comfort zone, that euphoria that comes from just being on a stage. The rest of the song, once we're over that first hurdle, is smooth sailing. The build in the bridge is without a doubt the most exhilarating part. Rin and I stand facing each other again, pouring our hearts out and talking about how sorry we both are for how arrogant we both were, only to flood back into the chorus from a few beats of silence. Our roughly three-and-a-half-minute piece feels like the best kind of eternity, and when we're finally finished we're met with the uproarious cheers of fans. Rin looks over at me and she's beaming, the absolute picture of happiness. After four whole years, she finally got what she wanted. We take a bow and thank everyone for listening to us, then return backstage.