Glow

Details and devils

Honestly I can say airports suck. In general and in specific, there's no redeeming qualities about them.

From standing in queue to get verified that you are who you say you are, that you aren't someone suspicious... to the awful chairs, ventilation, and even the food options. There is nothing worthy of note in any airport I have been in.

That being said, I guess I can make an exception for Singapore's airport. I mean, who puts a garden/forest/waterfall in the middle of an airport?! I think with all the rushing I missed the greenery. Seeing it in passing as we go between secured locations does nothing for my inner flying monkey. I need trees. I need to hug them, listen to them whisper in the wind, to smell them, to sit in their shade and just relax. Heck a nap under one would do wonders for my sanity at the moment.

Namjoon had gotten the okay from management to let me have a copy of the daily schedule on my new phone so that I am aware of what is happening, and feel some type of control over my situation. In return I have been taking the most random tests ever. From a half dozen different ways to say hello, thank you, goodbye, or whatever, to my cooking skills, my strength in both math and accounting... which I found out can be very different. Heck I was tested on my mental acuity and physical strength! 

I now have my Meyers-Briggs personality type, my blood type, my IQ, how much I can press/lift in each independent body part... it seems never ending, but they stopped asking me for anymore tests the day before yesterday. Fingers crossed...

Hoseok and I have taken up learning stretches from Jimin... who does everything he can to show off. It's adorable, flustering, and more than slightly distracting, at least to me, but we are both feeling the burn of the stretches as we are able to do things that were just out of reach a few days ago.

Jungkook and Seokjin drag me along to the gym whenever there's a chance to go and I am working on my stamina. Sitting in the room each day while they are going to their shows hasn't left me many options for physicality like I used to when I was working and living alone. While I don't hate the treadmill or the stair-climber, there's a healthy dislike for them. It's just so... boring.

Yoongi and Namjoon are still going over which language to start off with. I think Yoongi is pushing for Korean because they all speak it, but Namjoon thinks Portuguese or Chinese might be better because more people speak that and they are both wildly different from English. There's been shouting matches over this. Taehyung has even tried weighing in, only to be told to back off, causing him to pout and look for consolation from either one of the rest of the group or from me.

Taehyung has been a bit of solace in all the changes. His ability to just be, to sit and enjoy my company, not asking anything of me while we share the same space is just refreshing. He'll show me the photos he took that day, and I'll point out the ones I like, saying why. I'll help him with the dishes or cleaning up after the guys who have the dropsies after a long day, sharing a set of wireless earbuds to listen to some music. He'll introduce me to a kpop band or let me hear a sample of what he's working on, and I will pull up a playlist of music my family raised me on, classics that were underrated or became cult hits after the fact. The one time I even got to sit next to him on a plane I showed him The Rocky Horror Picture Show and we giggled and gasp-mocked the Tim Curry iconic over-the-top acting. He says he wants to be Dr. Frankenfurter next Halloween, with me being Columbia, but I don't know if he'll get that idea past management. It's a funny visual though!

There hasn't been another lapse in contact requirements since that time in Denmark, and while the glows around both Jungkook and Jimin are very different from the rest of the guys... no one seems to need more, so I guess the issue of why I am here has been put on a back burner for when they have more time. From what I can guess that's likely after the tour concludes in Seoul and they get to go back home... so another week or so yet.

Singapore is so... hot. It's not exactly unbearable, but then we are pretty much at the equator, and  the furthest south I have ever been was on a family trip to Disney World in Florida. I was curious, so I checked out the difference... 28.5 degrees. It's roughly 69 miles for each degree, so there's no chance that I am likely to acclimate to this kind of heat. I thank all the goodness in the world that I live in times where air conditioning has been invented... and vaccines.

I had to get so many shots. I'm not even sure what for, but I know that some of them was because of the dinosaur-like bugs outside here. The swarms hunt down anyone they haven't tasted yet, and the guys and I do our best to hoof it between the vehicles and the next enclosed spaces so as to stay off the local menu.

I think I am coming to feel like the guys are family. I miss home, but when I try to figure out my feelings I know I would miss each of them too if I had to leave. I'd even miss Manager Sejin, several of the noonas, and I'd likely feel less secure without a half-dozen guards looking away from me at all times. It's a weird feeling... I've never been in a spotlight, I'm still not really in one, but this level of attention to my safety was never a thing until that fan-meet.

Oh yeah, there hasn't been a fan-meet since I met them either. I guess it really was set up to figure out what was going on when I went to the concert. No one has really come out and said it, but I think it was an anomaly, and they seem to be in a groove now, one that they know by heart.

****

By the time we're on a plane again several things have happened, none of them big, but it seems almost overwhelming in the details involved. 

I am hired to tutor all of the guys in English. Yes, even Namjoon. His fluency isn't complete, and some of his terminology is outdated, likely from reading textbooks rather than absorbing it like he did watching tv. 

I am being tutored in Korean by all the guys. Yep, Yoongi won that argument finally. I am going to get an in depth experience, learning from both immersion into the language once we get to South Korea as well as standard quizzing and tests from using a program on a new laptop I was given. There was a 50/50 chance I would get Yoongi's old laptop while he got a new one, but in the end he didn't want to part with it so I wound up with a piece of tech that put my old desktop tower to shame.

Actually there's several language programs loaded onto it, and I am expected to try each one to see which works best for me. All but a couple are fully paid for, and those that aren't are freeware programs. Korean/Hangul has already been loaded in each program, and I'm not sure if I'm excited or slightly fearful to open them and start. 

I check the schedule daily, and while not all the words translate to English via the interwebs programs I have access to, enough do that I have noticed there have been a few things removed from upcoming dates. When I texted Namjoon about them he said not to worry, it wasn't anything big, but that's all he said.

A lot of American interweb stuff hasn't always been accessible, though I've been told I'd have access to Facebook and Twitter from this point on. I should probably get in touch with sis and let her know that I am okay. She worries about me sometimes.

****

This time on the plane I am put in between Jungkook and Jimin. It's not like I am avoiding them, but there's seven guys that I need to keep track of. Taehyung was my walking buddy through the airport and sat next to me on the way over so these two claimed the seats surrounding me. It didn't seem to bother him though as Taehyung shrugged and smiled as he sat next to Hoseok.

With Jimin stretching as he gets comfortable in his seat before liftoff Jungkook waives down a steward and requests several bottles of water and blankets. He receives them just before the announcement that we are taxiing to liftoff, and after passing each of us a couple of bottles he situates the blankets so that we are all snuggled together.

It's not until after we are in the air and I'm taking a sip that I feel the hands.