Priceless

7

Later, with wire-tight nerves and two bickering boys beside me, I managed to get my mind occupied with a violin dubstep song called Shatter Me. I was lost in that song until J-Hope pulled me back to reality and asked me where we were going.

"We are going shopping. I don't know about Nam Joon, though. Nam Joon, what are you doing?"

Nam Joon proceded to roll his eyes at me and scoff under his breath, "I'm following you to provide protection from this homeless creep."

I imediately countered with a killing glare, "Stop talking like that. I want you two to be firends. I have a feeling you're going to need each other in the future."

I had no idea the future I was talking about, was within a few feet of us.

Walking across a street to the other sidewalk, Nam Joon and I stopped to look at a poster board on the wall of a shop ofering competitions, rallies, side-jobs, business promotions and such.

Nam Joon tilted his head to the side, put his hands in his pocket and half-heartedly looked over the pages taped to the wall.

I noticed one in particular that had a microphone picture on it and I took it off the wall to read it.

Part of the words were in English and I sort of freaked out as I hadn't needed to read anything English in a long time.

"Guys look. It's a rap competition. At a park near my house."

I was standing between them and when both leaned their heads tward my shoulders to read. Then they proceeded to lean toward the paper at the same time until I could see the back of both of their heads.

Nam Joon and J-Hope both paused, looked at each other, looked at the paper, then looked at me,  a mix of "can we please" and  "we gotta try this" vibes in their eager eyes.

"How about no,"  I said, turned around.

Nam Joon put his arm around my shoulders, "But look at the benefits you could aquire. There's a 600 dollar reward for winning all three levels of competition and if you win the final round, you get to meet and perform with a DJ in a night club."

"You'll get good publicity, exposure to crowds who think and feel just as influenced by music as you are," J-Hope said, chiming in.

"You're repeating the article, aren't you?" I asked annoyed.

I hadn't even read it yet and already they were pressuring me into potentially doing something really really bad.

I read the article. Twice.

"And if we lose?"

"If we lose, well, it was an experience. I'm fairly well known underground anyway, so I can ask my friends to come and supprot us," Nam Joon suggested, looking me right in the face.

He was challenging me, seeing if I had courage or not.

"What if I don't want to perform anymore?" I asked.

Nam Joon just looked at me.

He knew I still wanted to.

Five years ago, we would have performed together at this competition without even reading the page completely. But now... I was just a little bit hesitant. Mostly because this was all happening way too fast for me.

"Just try once. It requires three or more to a group so we can ask Yoongi if he wants to perform with us."

I stepped aside and looked at both J-Hope and Nam Joon and sighed, "But we need music and a song and all kinds of stuff."

"I can write lyrics," Nam Joon said.

J-Hope seemed to zone out and then after a minute of staring at the concrete between us, he muttered, "I think I can rememeber how to write music. If not, I can probably learn how to make "demos" online."

I sighed again and reluctantly accepted the proposal.