BEHIND THE SCENES

chapter 20: her softening heart

<OST: I Wanna Say To You - Suzy>

"I was watching you using your phone earlier..." Jieun said casually as they walked towards the studio where the Cultwo show was supposed to be filmed. "You have Twitter?"

Jungkook didn't respond and kept walking.

"Mm..." Jieun hesitated for a while before continuing. "I didn't mean to peek but I saw that you had 381k followers on Twitter? That's pretty insane."

Still no reply from Jungkook.

"Ya-" Jieun frowned as she waved a hand in front of Jungkook's face. "Are you even listening to me? Can't you at least respond or something?"

Jungkook didn't even glance at her - he just kept walking on in silence.

A cheeky smirk appeared on Jieun's face as an idea popped into her tiny little head. "Do you know how many Twitter followers V-ssi has?"

Finally, Jungkook halted in his tracks.

It worked.

Jieun stopped at once, a triumphant smile spreading across her face as she turned to face him. "461k... ya!"

At that moment, Jungkook collapsed right into her very arms, leaning his entire body weight on her. Seokjin rushed forward to support him immediately, preventing Jieun from falling over. But Jieun was stunned, as she glanced at Jungkook, wondering why he would just collapse all of a sudden.

"Ya! Jeon Jungkook!" Seokjin threw Jungkook's arm around his shoulder, supporting him. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine."

Thankfully, Jungkook was stiol conscious, as he managed a nod. His face was pale and his lips were slightly purple. And all this while, Jieun had been talking to him, thinking that he was perfectly alright and was just ignoring her on purpose. She felt so horribly stupid in that moment.

"Shall we bring you to the waiting room to get some rest first?" Seokjin steadied him and helped him back onto his feet. "You look awfully pale. I can tell the show host to wait for a bit-"

"No, hyung-" Jungkook shook his head as he took the bottle of water from one of the staff and sipped at it slowly. "I can do it... My eyes just lost focus a little back there. I'm fine, let's not keep them waiting."

Jieun watched on, unable to believe what she had just seen. She always knew that k-pop idols trained up to 12 hours a day before their comeback and always had their schedules packed to the brim but somehow, never did she realise that it was so tough. And no matter how little Jieun barely even knew about Jungkook, as his eyes rolled back and he collapsed into her arms earlier, she genuinely feared for him. This wasn't healthy - no, it couldn't be. How could someone just collapse while walking?

"I'm going in, hyung-" Jungkook turned to Seokjin. "Wait for me outside."

Jungkook glanced at Jieun for a couple of seconds, but without saying a single word, he turned and entered the room.

"Does this happen often?" Jieun asked Seokjin as they stood by the glass window, watching Jungkook greet the hosts with a smile. "Fainting for no reason... I mean."

"Oh, JK fainting?" Seokjin pursed his lips, watching Jungkook with a small frown. "Well... it ain't uncommon, I guess."

"It ain't uncommon?" Jieun furrowed her eyebrows. "Why? Does he have some health issue or...?"

Seokjin sighed. "Unfortunately, I'm not allowed to share that much, since this is concerning his private information. But to put it in vague terms, he faints often because he doesn't manage to sleep well."