Happier | BTS | [Eng]

II - A breath of fresh air

Seoul, Big Hit Entertainment, spring 2020

Standing on an unstable metal platform, an old man in a blue uniform was clumsily standing in front of the window. Wrinkles cut deep furrows around his eyes and the sunrays did not help to reduce the number of folds on his face. He cleaned the glass while whistling and once he had finished rubbing, he dried it with a large white cloth. His gestures were fast, precise and skillful: he did not make any unnecessary gestures, as if he had internalized these movements. He cleaned the glass like when you brush your teeth in the morning. A real automaton.

Inside the building, a man was watching him, coffee hot and sweet by hand. He was wondering by how many windows he had to pass through before he could reach his office on the thirty-seventh floor. The businessman turned on his chair, giving his back to the cleaning agent, tapped on his rounded belly and sighed. Did he really need his desk to be perched at the top? Did he really need the agency to be 37 stories high?

Today, technology was making tremendous strides, but no one was able to invent anything to prevent old people from breaking their backs when cleaning windows...

He put his cup on his desk where everything was in order: every pen, every sheet of paper and every file in its place. He scratched his head and realized that he was missing a handful of hair right in the middle of his skull.

- I can say that I have aged well...

Bang Si Hyuk leaned more comfortably in his chair and took one of the photo frames placed near the right end of his desk. He looked at the picture as if it was the first time he had seen it. In the center, the leader proudly held a golden trophy, a smile of gratitude on his lips and tears in his eyes, and at his side all the other members had the same expression of extreme happiness that made you want to cry too.
The very first Daesang of the BTS...Oh! He still remembered it as if it was yesterday. The agency was only a small two-story building: one for the administration and recording studio and another for the training rooms. That year, the demand for albums had a small surplus that surprised everyone and they had to use his desk to store them. It was the beginning of their flight, he had felt it. And that evening, at the awards ceremony, when the name of BTS was announced, he himself shed tears of happiness. Now it was a totally different time! His office was spacious and elegant. There was even an all-leather lounge to welcome guests. Next to his desk he had a large glass cabinet with all the boys' albums and some trophies. Their albums sold in the millions and bookings exploded. It was a long way from the two-story slum and even more from the crappy garage they had to settle for at the very beginning to record their very first album. Everything was going perfectly well, business was profitable and yet he couldn't help but ask himself the same question over and over again.

- How would the boys have lived if it hadn't worked?

It was impossible to know, of course. And even if the music would always have followed them, he couldn't help but wonder what that music would have looked like. He got up from his chair and adjusted his glasses with his index finger and then happily walked to one of the training rooms. He took the elevator down to the twentieth floor and watched the poster stuck to the wall. It was a poster for tonight's concert, he had totally forgotten! He was going to have to make a few calls to make sure that the preparations were completed.
There was a "Ding" and the doors opened. When all the employees saw him, they stopped everything to greet him in bow. He waved with his right hand to say that they did not have to stop the work just for him and he continued on his way. Once the pretty untidy offices had passed, he followed the long corridor filled with photos and posters of the group and stopped in front of a large grey door. The music was beating like crazy inside. It was one of his favorite songs, probably to him and millions of other people.