It was probably the weirdest hour of Hoseok's life.
After they had been ushered into the small mirrored gym area of the hotel, cleared of the workout equipment, they were introduced to a small chubby blond girl who looked like she might just pee her pants with glee. Although her English was pretty solid, she seemed to quickly understand their general lack of communication skills, and expressed herself almost exclusively in squeals and excited gesturing. She gave all of them a fierce hug and then waved her hands wildly around and beamed uncontrollably to let them know, in case they didn't notice, that she was very excited to meet them.
"I will just leave you to it," Eva smiled affectionately. "You will get your hair and make-up done afterwards, my colleagues will help you get around," she added to the Bangtan members and left the room, leaving two suited men behind.
"Erm…" Namjoon started unsurely, glancing over at the gorillas by the exit. "So what do you want to do?"
"Everything!" the girl cheered, jumping excitedly up and down. Hoseok thought she looked younger than the 14 years Eva had mentioned.
"Uh, everything?" Namjoon seemed to be taken aback; they were used to excited fans but this was like excited on ecstasy.
"Yes! I want to play a game! I want to learn how to dance Fire! Sing with you guys! I wanna touch Jimin's abs! –"
"Alright, alright," Namjoon hurriedly interrupted her, a mildly frightened look on his face. "Um, we could play a –"
"I dance the choreography and you guess the song!" the girl screeched. "And if you get it wrong, I say who has to kiss whom!"
The boys exchanged worried looks. As they suspected, the girl's dancing skills were not that great and even though they did their best to guess which pseudo-version of their dances the girl was trying to do, sometimes they were just hopeless. After about 30 seconds of the girl waving her hands around in a dance that had nothing to do with K-pop and was probably closer to the rain dances of the aboriginal African tribes, the girl demanded that they got it wrong and that Yoongi and Jimin had to kiss. They were no strangers to such fan service so Jimin quickly pecked a kiss on Yoongi's cheek.
"What was that?" the girl frowned. "That doesn't count, I want a real kiss!"
Namjoon shifted uncomfortably on the floor. "Um… what do you mean?"
"I mean a real kiss, mouth to mouth!" the girl ordered.
The boys exchanged looks.
"Does she want us to like kiss for real?" Jimin asked in Korean, probably doubtful that he understood correctly. Namjoon nodded and then he turned to the girl.
"You know," he said carefully. "Maybe you would like to play a different game. Or practice the dances with us?" he added sounding hopeful.
"Yes!" the girl grinned to everyone's obvious relief. The situation was getting weird. "But first I want the kiss," she folded her arms across her chest and looked hard at Jimin and Yoongi.
"Look, I don't think they are really into that, let's –" Namjoon didn't finish because from the corner of his eye he caught a movement as the two bodyguards etched closer when they sensed the disagreement. "Just do it and we'll do something else," he quickly said to the two boys, motioning subtly to the suited men.
Jimin and Yoongi looked at each other hesitantly. If this was shot for some kind of video, they would probably be doing the whole laughing and flinching thing, but everyone felt too uncomfortable for that. With one more awkward glance at the other members they exchanged a light peck on the lips. The squeal that followed made everyone jump. Hoseok would have sworn that he saw tears shimmer in the girl's ecstatic face.
"I always knew," she almost sobbed.
As the main dance teacher of the group, Hoseok took it upon himself to ease her into the choreography of Fire that she said she wanted to learn. He couldn't help but wonder if their staff and managers were looking for them right now. If they would even be aware that something went wrong. Maybe Taehyung or Jungkook would alert someone if they tried to reach them and they didn't respond. But Hoseok found he was somewhat calmer knowing that the objective of the group of their kidnappers was to just make money of some fan signing. That seemed harmless enough. As long as they would comply, everything would be fine. Hoseok rather did not think about how the people planned to prevent them from filing a lawsuit later.
When he entered the observation room as they had nick-named it, he found Eva sitting by the table leaning her head onto her hand, looking at the screen in front of her thoughtfully. When she noticed him she smiled.
"When I see you in that waiting outfit, I wonder if you maybe picked the wrong job, going into the surveillance business," she smirked. "You look cute."
He laughed. "Turns out, I'm much more handy with the cameras. Waiting is harder than I expected."
"Yeah, I saw," she returned. He walked over to the tiny sofa where he had discarded his clothes before and unbuttoned his shirt.
"How are they doing?" he asked, nodding to the screen that was turned away from him.
"Pretty well, I'd say," she replied. "They fell asleep in each other's arms, it's adorable."
"Are you going to fill me in on the details, now that we have a moment?" he asked. They hadn't had a chance to talk since that morning and he was curious how their plan was turning out.
"Sure," she leaned back in the chair. "Well… I had the guys install the cameras when Taehyung and Jungkook were having breakfast. We ran into some technical difficulties so it took a bit longer than I expected. Fortunately, Kristen called me from the reception that Taehyung was heading upstairs and I was able to hold him by the elevators so that the guys could finish and get out of there. He actually asked me for a wheelchair for Jungkook, would you believe that?" she laughed.
"I would, actually. He was always… thoughtful," he replied.
"Well anyway, I was able to get him one just for the fun of it, you know. I thought it would add a nice emotional touch to Jungkook's… well, unstable mentality let's say."
He wondered why she would speak so politely about it, even though she knew Jungkook meant nothing to him. When they had bribed the boy's shrink into talking, they came away with some fairly disturbing information on Jungkook's mental struggles to cope with the idol lifestyle. He suffered with depression, emotional outbursts, fear of loneliness, and though he was fine among other people, he apparently hung onto his friends and his artwork just to keep from being alone in a room. They devised the twisted ankle thing on that basis, so that he would have to stay alone in a room for a few hours before Taehyung came back, heartbroken from his fight. He remembered how Eva had said, 'Take an empty room, add some mental instability, mix it with relationship heartbreak, let it broil for a bit and voila! Delicious fan service, ready to be served.'
From the way she gazed lovingly at the computer screen, he assumed that her manipulation broth was indeed ready to be served. He finished buttoning up the dress shirt he had changed into and tucked it into his pants.
"After Taehyung got back to the hotel, he found Jungkook in a wonderful state of mental distress and, as expected, offered him his shoulder to cry on," she finished with a satisfied smile. "Tell me something," she looked up at him with searching eyes, as if she were trying to read his mind.
"What?"
"Do you love him?" she asked, her eyes narrowed with interest.
"Don´t be ridiculous," he huffed in response.
She shrugged. "Okay, just curious," she said, smirking as if she knew something he did not. She did that a lot. He remembered how nervous that used to make him in the beginning when he first met her, a green college boy he had been. Over time, he figured it was just a kind of attack mechanism she used to get under people´s skin and he liked it so much he made an effort to learn how to do it himself.
"I love the idea of him," he said after a while when he finally put on his watch, stuck the radio piece in his ear and came around the table to look at the two boys, who were peacefully sleeping on the bed.
"Yeah, I get that," she nodded and he knew she was probably the only person who would understand what he meant. "So is there any deeper reason to why you didn´t want him involved in this?"
He shrugged.
"Okay. Because I thought of something brilliant and I need to know if you´re down," she smiled and it looked like a predator baring its teeth. He felt the familiar pang on excitement and terror in his chest.
"How about instead of getting them here for the fan signing as planned, we do a bit more cooking?" she suggested mysteriously.
"Elaborate," he prompted and leaned onto the wall behind him, folding his arms.
She turned halfway around on her chair. "We got some nice cuddling action from just from the plain ingredients. If we add some spices too, maybe the dish could get a bit hotter, if you know what I mean."
He knew exactly what she meant. "Even if we drug them, how do you know they will do anything? Is Jungkook even gay? Even the shrink didn't know," he pointed out.
"Jungkook is primarily a virgin made into a sex symbol. I don't know how much predisposition he has for sucking cock but what I do know is that he wants to get rid of that label as soon as possible and if it's someone he trusts unconditionally, then even better. Besides, I have stuff that would make him hump the door, if he was alone in that room."
He forced a laugh. "That would make for quite the video." He knew she could sense his unease even before her smile faded and her expression turned serious.
"What I need to know is whether you're okay with it or no. I cannot do it alone."
He felt a little swell of pride in his chest and mentally scolded himself for feeling like a little boy praised by his parents. He looked at the screen again, namely at Taehyung's peaceful sleeping face. He looked young. Somewhere from inside a little voice called out that the boy would be happier if he got to share his life with someone who could give him what other people couldn't. Someone who understood.
"How are we going to do it?" he turned to Eva and watched her face light with excitement. He felt like he was agreeing to work with the devil. Yet again.
