Taehyung decides after Sowoozoo that he wants to work from home for a while, so I head over to his condo instead of the Hybe Building. The gateman salutes and opens the gate as soon as I step out of the taxi, without even checking my ID. I have to think for a second to remember the elevator code, since it's been a while, and then I decide to hit the buzzer anyway.

Taehyung has had a couple of post-concert rest days, and he looks and sounds surprisingly awake even though it's only 10:30 a.m. I smile and tell him, "I remember the elevator code, but I wanted to give you some warning that I was here, just in case."

"Oh, don't worry. You can just come up from now on. If I'm still sleeping, come shake me." He gestures toward the back of the house. I raise my eyebrows and give him a 'yikes' face, and he laughs. "Really, I don't mind!"

"Hopefully that won't happen, but OK!"

Taehyung gestures for me to follow him into the kitchen. He puts a couple of slices of bread into the toaster oven. "Would you like toast, too, Eunen Sae?"

"Oh, no thank you, I actually had some already this morning."

He nods, grabbing some strawberry jam and milk out of the fridge. I look around to see if there's anything I can do to help, but he seems to have everything in hand. Taehyung takes down a coffee mug and pops a pod into the brewer. "I didn't get a chance to ask you yet, how did you like the second Sowoozoo show?"

"It was wonderful! I'm so glad I watched it. I was expecting you guys to do Daechwita again, so Chicken Noodle Soup was a wonderful surprise! Jin was so funny with the "poppin' poppin' poppin'" and your rapping was great! Oh, and your cartwheel! You pulled it off! You looked amazing, too. That was one of your favorite outfits, right? And Yoongi and JK killed, as always, and then Namjoon and Jimin rapping in Spanish, holy cow..." I grin at him. "Oops, I just fell right into ARMY fangirl mode there! Sorry!"

He boxy smiles at me. "I'm glad you liked it. I was so pumped after the first show that I didn't sleep at all before Day 2. I think a lot of the members had the same problem."

"I couldn't tell. You all seemed really energetic and ready to go! It was even better than Day 1. You... ah..." I stop and grin at him uncertainly.

"What? You can be honest." His eyes are really big now.

"You guys sounded a little nervous and pitchy on the first couple of songs, the first night. But it's totally understandable, since you were performing for the first time in a long time!"

Taehyung nods. "Yes, we didn't hit all the notes at first. It was hard to do the choreos after so long, too. I think Jimin-shi stayed up all night monitoring, because he was worried about it."

"Aww, sweet Jimin," I say, shaking my head. Taehyung shoots me side-eye through the edge of his fluffy caramel-colored hair, and hands me a cup of coffee made just the way I like it. "Oh, wow, I didn't know you were making this for me. Thank you so much!" I beam at him.

He winks and shoots me with two finger guns, cracking me up, then turns to spread big spoonfuls of jam on his toast.

__________________________________

On the fourth morning, I let myself into the condo around 10:30, but Taehyung isn't up yet. I go ahead and quietly set up at the dinner table and start working, but after an hour, I decide to go check on him.

His bedroom is dim with the black curtains closed. I can see a tall dark quilted headboard and Taehyung sleeping face-down in a nest of scrambled bedding. I hesitate, not wanting to disturb him when he's sleeping so hard, and back out of the room. After about twenty minutes more, I go back in and sit down on the edge of the bed. I stare at Taehyung for a few minutes, but he's still dead to the world. I very gently shake his shoulder and quietly say, "Taehyung-ah. Wake up!" He doesn't move. I shake a little harder and say, "Taehyung-ah! Wake up!" at a conversational volume. No response. I smooth his hair away from his face and make sure that he's breathing, then shake him pretty hard and raise my voice. "Kim Taehyung! Time to wake up!"

He groans and cracks one eye open, then closes it again. "Oh, Eunen Sae. Is it morning already?"

I laugh. "It's going to be afternoon in a few minutes, actually. Are you ready to get up?"

He just lays there silently for a few minutes, then reaches over and grabs my hand. "OK," he rasps. "Just give me a minute." I sit quietly, feeling a little odd about the fact that we're holding hands.

"Are you feeling OK?" I ask.

"Yeah. I was up until about 5 a.m. Jimin-ie came over and we drank a little and played video games."

I laugh quietly. "Oh, OK, I understand. Do you need a painkiller and some water?"

"My head doesn't hurt, but water would be nice, actually, if you don't mind."

"Sure, no problem." I squeeze his hand and let go, then go out to the kitchen. Taehyung is sitting up by the time I get back, but his head is hanging and his eyes are still closed. I pick up his hand and set the glass of water in it, laughing; he opens one eye to look at me and smiles.

"Thanks, Eunen Sae-shi." He drinks it all in a single go. Yawning enormously, he starts to climb out of bed but suddenly looks down for an instant and then up at me, alarmed, pulling the covers back over himself. "Oh, uh, I think I will take a shower first, so..."

I nod and turn away to give him a little privacy. "I'll be in the dining room, working," I say over my shoulder, hoping he can't hear the smirk in my voice. 'I feel bad for men sometimes,' I think. 'Their body parts are so unmanageable and have minds of their own.'

I am looking over some notes from PD Bang on Dubai when Taehyung comes out, freshly showered and fully conscious. "Do you feel better?" I smile at him.

"Yeah, thanks," he nods. "What are you working on?"

"I'm just looking over Bang PD's notes, but most of this stuff is above my paygrade." I eye-smile up at him, and he nods again.

"I'll have a look in a few minutes here. Does he have a lot of notes?"

"I'm not sure how many is average for him, so it's hard to say," I chuckle. "It's mostly good stuff, though."

Taehyung raises his eyebrows, grabbing a drinkable yogurt out of the refrigerator and sitting down beside me to read over my shoulder.

_________________________________

It's Saturday, and BTS are busy today shooting long-form ads and doing promo photos for Coway and Samsung, so I am on my own. I decide to call my parents and see if they are available to chat on a Friday night, Pacific time.

My mom picks up after just a few rings. "Hello?"

"Hi, Mom, it's your elder daughter."

"I figured that out when your name popped up on my phone, honey," she laughs.

"You're a smartass, mama," I scoff. "What are you guys up to?"

"Well, it's still hot outside, so we are inside watching The Great British Bake-off. Once it cools off a bit this evening, I'm going to go out and water the gardens so they don't shrivel up on me."

"So, in order to stay cool, you're watching British people operate multiple ovens inside a tent?" I laugh.

"Yes!" my mom replies, with dignity. "Yes, we are." We both laugh. "What are you doing? It's Saturday morning there, right?"

"Yeah, the guys are filming commercials and doing a photoshoot, so I have nothing to do today. I might go to a bookstore and buy some more books in a bit here. Other than that, I have no plans!"

"So your guy, what's his name again? V? He's busy being a model today, huh?"

I scoff again. "He's not 'my guy,' mama, he's the artist that I work with, primarily. You make it sound like we're dating or something."

"No, I didn't mean romantically 'your guy.' Just out of the whole band, he's the one you work with the most. They are all very good-looking, I can understand why companies want them to model their products."

"Yep, they're handsome. They're actually really nice people, too, at least the four I've met so far. I mean, you can kind of tell that from all their behind the scenes and Run BTS videos and stuff, but even when the cameras are all off, they're super-nice."

"Oh, that's so good, honey! I'm glad that you're enjoying working with them."

"Get this, when we work at his condo, Taehyung just automatically makes me coffee every morning. Isn't that sweet?"

There's a longish pause. "You work at his home?" my mom asks, sounding suspicious.

"Well, yeah, sometimes. When we aren't doing heavy-duty recording or production stuff. It's just more comfortable and there are fewer interruptions."

Another pause. "Well, OK, I'm sure you know what you're doing," mom says. "Emily is getting ready to move down to Colorado for grad school. Have you spoken with her lately?" 

I try to pay attention to the rest of our conversation, but a section of my brain is hung up on my mom's surprise about me working at Taehyung's place. 'Is it weird that we do that? I feel like it might be weird if we were engineers or neurosurgeons or something, but artists often work out of their homes, right? But it might be weird that he makes me coffee. And the hand-holding the other morning was strange. But he's just a nice and touchy-feely sort of guy, I think, isn't he?'