Priceless

8

Convinced we were doomed to fail, I was whisked away into the somewhat embarrassing an at times nerve-wracking job of getting supporters.

Nam Joon gave me a list of contacts such as his friends and important people whom he'd discovered 'underground' in Japan. I felt that maybe this was unfair to the other participants of the rap battle, but Nam Joon suggested the impression that the most harm we could possibly do with all of his friends being there to vote for us, would be to show the others that his friends have good taste in finding talent.

I didn't argue. We were young, barely 22 so I just went with it. J-Hope was lost in his own somewhat-still-confused memories, trying to force his brain to make itself recover his lost memories. It was giving him a headache.

At one point, sitting in front of my couch, J-Hope was sitting in a pile of paper looking over them frantically. He threw some on the floor and rubbed his hair with his hands in frustration before just quitting and covering his face with his hands.

"Jung-ah? What's wrong?"

"I know-I know how to read music. I remember learning the sheet music as a child. I have no idea what happened to me, but I now am virtually useless."

I sighed, "Don't say that. You were in an accident. Your memory will return. Remember, you have a concussion. it'll take time, but you'll be okay."

He didn't look at me and I was okay with that. I felt bad for him.

After a few seconds, he went back to trying to read the papers which I assumed were sheet music.

Yoongi showed up about two hours later, became acquainted with Jung, and was all good about the contest.

I figured Nam Joon was doing it because he didn't think I would go along with it. I made up my mind to ride it out and perform.

The deadline crawled towards us and the four of us worked hard to come up with a hip hop song and Yoongi and J-Hope came up with music for. All I had to do was sing the chorus with them and smile whole time.

Simple...right?

Nope. The day of the concert arrived and I was so scared.

Standing on stage was the most surreal thing I had imagined. It was strange and enlightening at the same time. The kind of exhilarating vibe your could get high off of. It was like we were there where nobody could ignore us. They had to listen to us. I had faith in the boys and we'd practiced so hard we could sing in our sleep, but Nam Joon is not the greatest dancer. So we warped it to where he moved around a little but mostly used his hands when he rapped. I didn't have a part except back-up and vocals.

The bass-line that Yoongi and J-Hope created by themselves rumbled through the speakers and the crowd that had come to watch in the park cheered. And we- went to work.

Moving our arms and shoulders to the beat, changing formation as Nam Joon rattled off his verses, I was too excited to worry about the score.

Then it was J-Hope's turn and I could see the passion in his face as he approached the edge of the stage and did his part. He put his whole heart into it and never slowed for a second before motioning Yoongi up to finish the song as Nam Joon, myself, and J-Hope continued dancing in sync in the background.

At the end of the song, we all ran up to the edge of the stage, turned to our sides, and pointed up.

The crowd went nuts, blurred out by the stationary stage lights. We stood there in that formation for a second longer, soaking in that feeling, out of breath from the dance and the nervousness, but happy all the same.

Later, during another team's performance, the last one before judging, actually, someone asked Nam Joon what our group was called.

"Hak-saeng," Nam Joon replied spontaneously and coyly.

We all looked at him.

"We've wanted this opportunity since then. Now we have it."

"Ah. That childhood ambition. That's creative."

Then he went away and Nam Joon turned to meet our eyes, staring at him.

"What?"

"That was a nice story," J-Hope said and pat his shoulder.

"That music was sweet. Dabaek!" Nam Joon said smiling at us.

"Sweet like sugar?" Yoongi said in clumsy English.

"Suga. Hey. That's it! J-Hope and Suga!" Nam Joon replied, suddenly excited.

"You need a name too Nam Joon."

"Well... I rap..."

"And you break things. All the time!" Suga replied, happy about his new nickname.

"Rap...Monster. Rap Monster. Ta-da!" J-Hope said suddenly.

"Rap Monster, Suga and J-Hope. Yeah. I like it!" I said and pulled everybody into a group hug.

We stood in a circle, our heads together and our eyes closed, reliving the events in our minds that had taken us this far.

If I hadn't found Jung in the park, none of this would have ever happened. If it had, it wouldn't have ended like this, at least.

An announcement went over the speakers as; "The announcement of the winners has been post-poned for a little bit. Please wait patiently."

"I'm starving though," Nam Joon said letting go of us.

We opted to walk through the parking lot, after telling a staff member that we would be back, and we wandered away from the huge crowd, into the shadows between cars and across the park to the street to go find food.

As we walked, Nam Joon and Suga spoke happily about what they would would do if they got famous over-night. Jung walked quietly beside me, not really paying them any attention. He just kept his head down.

In the shadows, he took advantage of the opportunity to grab my hand. My first act was to ask him if he was trying to act out a drama or something, but the moment I looked at him, I could tell he wasn't playing. He refused to look at me, but loosened his grip on my hand. I stared at him, before taking my hand back and putting it in my pocket as we walked.

No. Mianhe, but no.