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MARCH 12, 20XX THURSDAY 'Taehyung'
It feels wrong.
It feels wrong being here and not with her.
"Taehyung!" Irene rushes over to me, grabbing my arm to hang onto as she leans over to catch her breath.
"Irene?" My eyebrows scrunch up, concerned.
Irene smiles before lightly flicking my forehead. "It's starting!"
My stomach flips and I suddenly have to use the bathroom really bad.
"I-' Before I could back out, she drags me to the side of the stage where I'm in direct view of Sungjae standing on the opposite side.
His hand curls up into a fist at the very sight of me.
I gulp hard.
We're really going to do this, huh?
I scan the auditorium from where I stand, amazed at how packed it has gotten.
"Ready?" Irene asks me as she places the camera strap over my head.
"Not quite...where's Jimin? He's supposed to be my assistant..."
Maybe Jimin wasn't a solid choice.
He probably went out again last night.
"I'm here!" Jimin runs over to stand beside me, fixing his hair.
I relax just a little bit, returning my attention to the host on stage.
"...and so the competition officially begins. Kim Taehyung and Yook Sungjae to the stage, please."
With a few strides, Sungjae and I quickly become face to face.
"A pity you actually showed up." Sungjae fakes a sad face.
"The only thing you should pity is not having enough money for the return flight." I retort.
Sungjae scowls at me before Bogum turns him around to pull him to his station on the stage.
Jimin pulls me over to mine.
The curtain goes up between us and I angrily place my hands on the table, leaning in.
I'm seeing red.
Jimin comes into my view. "Hey! Concentrate. You have a competition to win."
Right, this can't all be for nothing.
I clutch my hand close to my heart, thumb running over my wedding band, feeling more at ease.
The competition moves fast, every round under pressure as we struggle to change our camera settings and snap as many photos as we can. We then had to quickly edit them on our computer before submitting them to the host's computer, where they would be projected at the end of 10 minutes.
