An Azalea [AHS book 1]

- 13 -

Yoongi focus

Yoongi was prepping the piano case for the job. It had been quite hard to make enough space for the big box in his computer realm after he had decided to store the stage speakers, the monitor and the mixing panel here as well, but he preferred having all the equipment at his place. The reason for the lack of space was less the size of his tiny basement room but rather the fact that it was half filled by four server towers behind the wide desk that carried the giant computer station with the two 40-inch screens and his two-tower hybrid of a computer, a creation that had been necessary because of the four nvidia graphic cards and the four octa-core processors they were equipped with. The Bose sound system, the launch pads and the piano took the rest of the U-shaped desk, leaving him a one-square-meter space for his ergonomic office armchair.

On the other side of the room -leaving a one-meter path to get from the apartment door to the bathroom door- lied his mattress next to a small commode filled with socks, underwear, jeans, t-shirts and hoodies. That was all he possessed, all he needed. Taehyung always said he could smell when he had been here because he carried the scent of cigarettes and dry and dusty computer fan air, but what else was there to expect when your whole room basically is one big computer.

However, the piano box was now occupying his mattress in lack of a better place and he was working on the foam padding, cutting off two layers, one for protecting the panting from the box by being glued to the inside of the lid and one to remove and to make space for the Kyungkap itself to be placed in the lid like sandwich cheese between two slices of toast. He then would prep both 'bread' parts of the padding with a foil, so that the surface of the painting was protected from the rough foam. Like a bed with silken sheets, Yoongi thought.

To his distaste, the idea of silken sheets made him think of Tae and Jimin. Would he really have to endure the little blond idiot for the rest of his life? Would he even be welcome in his best friend's home anymore? The breakfast with the two had been more than weird. Jimin's eyes had flickered between him and Tae with this restless expression of being unsure what to make of it. The small man had obviously been insecure about something; but that had not stopped him from making out with Yoongi's best friend over a spoon of shared cornflakes or some other excuse.

Yoongi had known this would happen, so he should have been prepared, but Jimin had spent his fourth night at Tae's by now, and he could not handle it at all. The apartment that normally smelled like paint and poffee, now had this lingering cologne odor that itched his nose which was not particularly bad but not what he loved and wanted, so he had avoided the place for the last two days.

With a sigh, he shook his head to get off the useless thoughts. Foil, he thought instead, forcing his mind back on the task. Tomorrow, Hope would visit again. The dancer was already perfect, but tomorrow they would do the dance in the mission clothes and with a painting dummy to simulate the real circumstances. Doing all those bows and twirls with a one-and-a-half-meter long piece of art was completely different.

Namjoon would be there as well. The money bag had become quite bearable. He mostly just sat at the table and watched, sometimes even smiling, and barely put up a fight with Yoongi. The only irritating thing remained his shark-eyes. What had been the hard, attentive glint before, now was a something close to a hounted flicker, like Namjoon was hiding something, a secret that bothered him. It could be out of embarrassment, but still Yoongi did not like the unpleasant feeling this behavior gave him. He would check on this, should he get the opportunity.

The case was ready, so he put in the removable part of the padding and closed it, empty. He would have to play through the songs some more times before the show, so the e-piano would remain on his desk, but now he had the problem of stowing the case. He had bought it just for the job and his place was not made for a package of this size. Helplessly, he looked around, but the space under the table was blocked by the speakers, the cable box and the mixing panel, and the shower definitely was not an appropriate place for the key piece of their mission. Annoyed, he let himself fall on the mattress next to the box and pulled out his phone.