It Ain't Just Fame || BTS #BangtanAwards2018 #Wattys2018

SUGA

I was this close to murdering him. There was quite a wide gap between his seat and mine owing to the three other people between us but my limbs were aching to strangle his smug face. "GRAB HIM BY THE COLLAR! CHOKE HIM TILL HE'S PURPLE! PUNCH HIM IN THE GUT! CHALLENGE HIM TO A RAP BATTLE! DO SOMETHING!" my brain wailed.

But amidst the soul-crushing agony and the intense rage that took over my senses, I vaguely felt Joonie's gentle but firm hold on my knee under the desk, the message to which was pretty clear. Don't do anything rash, hyung.

He was right. I took a long deep breath. This wasn't Daegu. I can't do what I wanted here. I'm an idol. An apparent failure of one, but still an idol. And he was my sunbaenim. I can't talk back to my seniors. We were already judged in so many levels. I didn't want to hurt the kids more than they were just because my brain wanted to shut him up.

" But, oh, the look on his face if I kicked his ass...." , my mind continued to tempt me.

But I did no such thing. My vision was searing red-hot with rage but I managed to keep a calm profile and let Joonie answer all his confounded questions.

"Is it BTSD?" he wanted to know.

"BTS!" the interviewer near me clarified. I glanced at the poor hyung who absolutely regretted being in that place then.

" BTS...BTS...." He let the name roll around in his tongue, like a predator playing with it's dead prey before sinking it's razor-sharp claws into it's flesh. "Isn't there supposed to be a D? You're bangtan sonyeonDAN right?", he asked with an amused smirk. He was patiently chewing his gum, enjoying every single second of our humiliation.

I was tired and my muscles were jelly but I wanted to use all my remaining strength to tackle him to the ground and beat him to a pulp. There was only so much I could do to keep my body in check. Before either of us could say anything however, the uncomfortable interviewer nim declared he wanted to move on to the next question with a half-hearted laugh. Seriously, I felt a little sorry for the three stuck between us. This was our battle not theirs.

But the sunbaenim seemed incapable of taking a signal.

"Ah, but I really like talking to these chingus."he said casually. "Can I ask just one more question?" The hyung-nim looked at us once, then turned back to him and gave a weak nod. "Thank you", he said. "So...I have seen your performances on stage. You're a hip-hop group, right?" He paused momentarily, choosing his words. It dawned on me that he had already been bashed in Twitter after he let everyone know that he "wanted to bitch-slap BTS". One would expect him to step down after such a brutal media thrashing. My mistake. "But being a hip-hop artist myself, I don't think you are quite doing justice to the genre." He shifted in his seat and adjusted the mic closer to his mouth so that everyone could take note of his verbal knife-stabs. "No offense, but what I actually saw was not a cool gang but a group of children skipping about a stage and not having any idea what they aredoing. You're debut song was...tsk tsk". His mouth contorted into a wide grimace as it formed the sounds. "People say you guys aren't hip hop...and I agree." He set down his mic, waiting for a response.

Something died in me when he said that. All my rage left me like air from a deflating balloon and something worse took it's place. The feeling when I realised I wouldn't last long... not just in the kpop industry but in the world, in life, that unexplainable pain that crushed my heart like an iron fist. I watched my hands start to tremble in my lap. But I still kept a silent demeanour. For the boys, do it for the boys.

I saw that it was dark already through the windows at the back of the crowded hall. Jin hyung would probably be in the kitchen with Tae and Kookie, supervising the two as they practiced their harmonizing, feeding spoons of whatever he was cooking as small rewards when one hit a note perfectly. I imagined Jungkookie chewing his prize in the exact fashion of a bunny, or Taehyung, relishing the food with a giant smile on his face, all oblivious to the fact that Joonie and I had our heads bowed in embarrassment, as our bulletproof ship slowly sank to the depths, soon to be dismissed as worthless wreckage.