Archive of Our Own

I was 24 the first time I listened to BTS. It was a performance on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon that just kept showing up in my YouTube feed. So one day, tired of work, I clicked it. Then I clicked another. And another. The content seemed infinite. That day I watched performances, interviews, tv appearances, and compilation videos. To say I was completely addicted would be an understatement. I was hardly the only one. The comment sections in the videos were littered with people claiming every age and demographic declaring themselves hooked. I'm a journalist, an investigative journalist to be exact, so I started reading articles next. I tried to make sense of my obsession, tried to figure out the secret sauce, but the articles I read were superficial at best and insipid at worst. None seemed to make it past the veneer of the group. I was still curious, and as the weeks went by and my Spotify playlist shifted further into the realm of K-pop, my curiosity only grew. So I shot my shot. The magazine I was affiliated with had some clout, and though I didn't think it would get me very far, I pulled some strings to get my email into the inbox of someone at Hybe, the company behind BTS. To my surprise, I got an email back. 

It wasn't easy but within the month I'm flying to Seoul to shadow BTS for the foreseeable future. My interpreter, Julie, meets me at the airport and we get acquainted as we drive to the company headquarters to meet the band for the very first time. At the time, I think I'll be writing an in-depth exploration of seven artists. I want to understand what drives them, what truly made them succeed, the toll of that success and the exposure it brings them, and the pressure it puts them under. I don't expect the direction this story will take.

Nervous is an understatement. This is without a doubt, the biggest musical act in the world right now, and without a doubt, the biggest opportunity of my career so far. We are ushered into a conference room. "Have you done anything like this before?" I ask Julie.

"Hell no. I usually interpret at boring business meetings, this is way cooler," she answers with an almost manner of fact professionalism.

I settle in my chair, I can hear voices in the hall. Someone singing a line from a song I don't know in a comical falsetto. A shot of laughter. A lower voice saying something in a grumbling tone. I turn to Julie, she looks a little amused. Later, I ask her what they were saying "Yoongi said he was too hungover to deal with Jungkook's singing," she said with a laugh. I can't ask her just then though, because the door has already swung open, the man who had escorted us here now ushering in a line of seven men I recognize.

I should probably take a moment to introduce BTS to those rare few who haven't heard of them. They're a South Korean boy band, BTS standing for Bangtan Sonyeondan, Bulletproof Boy Scouts in English. Over the past ten years, they have broken all kinds of records and won all kinds of prizes, first in Korea then internationally. The group is composed of seven members, four in the vocal line, Kim Seokjin (stage name Jin), Park Jimin, Kim Taehyung (stage name V), and Jeon Jungkook, and three in the rap line Kim Namjoon (stage name RM), who is also the leader of the group, Min Yoongi (Stage name Suga), and Jung Hoseok (Stage name J-Hope). As K-pop groups often do, they sing as well as dance incredibly well, with Hoseok, being their dance leader, Jungkook, Taehyung, and Jimin the main dancers.

They're not quite what I expected though. In-person, they seem smaller, more ordinary, they don't walk in with the kind of ego I expect from superstars. They're dressed in various iterations of casual clothes, Yoongi wearing grey sweats and a white T-shirt, Seokjin in a slightly more fashionable lilac sweatsuit, and Taehyung in a pajama set that wouldn't seem out of place on a runway. They stop their conversations as they make their way across to their seats and settle in. I would have expected Yoongi to be the least forthcoming, but I'm surprised to see that it's Seokjin, Taehyung, and Hoseok, that have their arms crossed as they look back at me. Jungkook glances over at Taehyung to his left as he sits and fidgets a little in his seat. Jimin is leaning in to whisper what must be a joke to Yoongi, who scoffs as he looks down at his phone, giving it a decisive swipe before putting away and turning towards me. Namjoon pulls in his chair, and as he places his hands in front of himself on the table, begins to speak.

"Hi there Daniel, thank you for doing this, we're really excited to see what you come up with," he smiles.

The look in Hoseok's eye doesn't seem to agree.

"I'm honored to be here, I think we can do something great."

We don't get very far on that first morning beyond introductions and banalities. I tell them exactly what I'll be doing: I'll follow along on their daily schedule. I'll also join their entourage for any events. I stress that the more they let me in on, the more authentic the piece would come out. I tell them that they should act as though I'm not there. I tell them I'm excited to get started. They all shake my hand as they made their way out of the room, though I plan to follow them to their dance practice that day. After that first meeting, I can't truly describe them as anything beyond polite, attentive, and professional. I don't expect us to become fast friends, and I expect them to have their guard up, but I'll admit that I worry that I may have bitten off more than I can chew.

As we walk down the hallway, Taehyung takes the lead, Jungkook draping himself across his back, giggling as he shakes him off, prompting Jimin who is walking beside them to laugh. Yoongi, Seokjin, and Hoseok take the middle, chatting quietly, Seokjin showing them something on his phone. Julie and I find ourselves in the rear beside Namjoon.

"Why'd you agree to this?" I can't help but ask, "I never thought you or your company would want to be so exposed."

"I won't lie, we didn't come to the decision easily and some of us are more excited than others. Myself, I liked your questions and your goal. People prefer not to consider that our success might be our own doing, and no one want to consider that success takes a particular toll. I think you're willing to consider both. Besides, you've seen the contract we gave you, it's so restrictive and we get the final say on what you write. I'm surprised you wanted to move forward with it at all."

It's true, the contract is beyond restrictive. I can be a spectator to the daily lives of these guys, I can get the kind of unrestricted access many would dream of, but what I can publish will be entirely dependent on what the members and the company approve. For all I know, they could approve nothing and I'll go home empty-handed. Nonetheless, the opportunity is just too good to pass up.

"I still wanted to give it a shot."

"So did we."

And so we're off. That first day and those that followed aren't particularly exciting. The group is in the thick of preparing a comeback, in layman's terms, the release of a new album. In a few weeks, the title track will drop, followed closely by the full album. There will be showcase performances in Korea, late-night performances in the USA. Then back to Korea to finish prepping for the world tour. Their incredibly busy days are divided between dance practice, recording sessions, meetings to talk about concepts, press, photoshoots, and brand deals. There are always people around, managers guiding them to their next stop, hair, wardrobe, and make-up people jumping in periodically. There always seems to be a camera nearby, filming a constant flow of behind-the-scenes content. Having watched these videos myself, I have an idea of how this would go but it is far more overwhelming to find myself in the thick of it. I wonder how things changed when cameras are off, but judging by the occasional wary glance in my direction, I'm not sure I'll get to see that change. As much as these men are going about their daily lives, they are always aware of a stranger taking notes, always careful of their image.

Today, the room is dark, the concept of the photoshoot something along the line of Underground Art Scene. The current set is an alleyway between two brick walls, painted with elegant graffiti referencing their new album's songs. The boys have streaks of gold, silver, and purple on their bodies and in their hair. While Jimin, Namjoon, and Taehyung do a unit shoot (a shoot where only a few members participate), Jungkook is wielding his own video camera, currently pointed at Seokjin who is making silly faces and talking excitedly. From across the room, I can hear Jungkook's delighted laugh ring out. Yoongi sits in a foldable chair, taking a sip of iced coffee. I almost feel bad disturbing him.

"What do you think makes BTS so successful?" I ask, settling in the chair beside him.

 It's a question I'll ask all the members of the group over the next few months, but I chose to start with Yoongi, who seemed surprisingly amenable to my presence.

He ponders for a moment, but Hoseok, who's wandered up behind him, cuts it. "What do you think makes BTS so successful, reporter-man?"

Hoseok has eyed me with undisguised suspicion over the past few days, and I've come to suspect that he's gotten rather wary of reporters doing bad jobs. This feels like a test.

"In short, I think you have something for everyone to connect with, be it the music, the friendship you share, or the messages you spread. But that's just the beginning really, and I'm here to learn the rest of your story."

He nods, beams, any previous suspicion seemingly gone, then prods Yoongi's shoulder, prompting him to answer.

"There's a lot that goes into it, but for me, it always comes back to the music. Sure, we do pop, or K-pop if you prefer -but let's be honest, a lot of that kind of vocabulary is othering more than anything else- we also rap, sometimes we do R&B, sometimes ballads, some songs are really paired back and some have crazy beats. In the course of a single album, you have all these genres, all these voices, but they're telling a cohesive story. I think that draws a lot of people in because as you say, there's something for everyone to connect to, something for everyone to enjoy.

"And then I think there's something to be said for the structure of k-pop songs. Obviously, all our music isn't like this, but in those songs that all of us sing together, the mix of the rap and the singing, there's always something surprising around the corner. And I think we figured out how to capitalize on everyone's talents. Jimin, and Taehyung have such unique timbers, Jungkook's a great singer, he can easily keep up with the rap line and his ability to harmonize is stellar. Jin has this gravitas where he can pull off these really big dramatic songs. Hoseok has this fantastic melodic rap. Namjoon, well he always blows me away with the verses he comes up with. So our best songs play into that and you end up with a final result that has so much range in just a few minutes."

From somewhere near where the cameras are, Yoongi and Hoseok get beckoned over.

"Don't forget yourself!" Hoseok adds. He pulls Yoongi into an unreciprocated hug, planting a kiss on his cheek before turning to the set, "We wouldn't be anywhere without the best rapper in the game!"

Yoongi has a little smile tugging at his lips as he gets to his feet, but he does his best to hide it.

There are always cameras. Cameras on photoshoot sets, cameras to film behind-the-scenes content, cameras given to the members for vlog-style recordings of their lives, and cameras waiting around every corner as soon as we leave the Hybe building. These cameras aren't easy to spot, but I can tell by every move the seven members of the group make in public, that they are aware that there might be a camera watching. When they leave Hybe, it's in cars with tinted windows so as not to be easily followed home. When they go out for dinner, they wear masks and hats until they make it to their private room. Sometimes, restaurant owners and employees have to sign NDAs. They had to stop taking commercial flights because they would draw too much attention. When the address of their hotel is leaked, they have to change hotels. It's not always been this way, and I suspect that the boys would like some of their freedom back, but they've adapted.

Today, though the schedule is full and will continue late into the night, Julie and I meet Jimin, Namjoon, Yoongi, and Jungkook at the crack of dawn. We're at a cross-fit gym where they do near-daily workouts, supervised by a trainer. For a full experience, we've decided to participate, though as soon as we start the warm-up, I regret it. Taehyung, Seokjin, and Hoseok are not exempt but prefer to exercise at the in-house gym in the Hybe headquarters.

"I'd rather run," Jungkook tells me during a water break, "but these days it makes me a little nervous, if there's someone taking pictures, I can't get away so easily. Seokjin and Namjoon like to bike, that's a little easier. Fast getaway."

Jungkook, in particular, has been the victim of invasive photography. In 2019, security camera footage was leaked of him hugging a female tattoo artist at a karaoke bar. The backlash was enormous, with some people sending hate messages to both Jungkook and the artist. The official statement released by Hybe, named Big Hit at the time, said that Jungkook and this woman were friends and were not dating. Jungkook had had to apologize for causing a scandal.

"It was horrible. These people who called themselves our fans destroyed her life. Big Hit decided that I shouldn't defend her, they thought it would make things worse. I apologized instead. What's most screwed up though, was that I actually did feel like I had let the fans down somehow, I really felt like I was the one who had done something wrong. Looking back, that was a huge invasion of my privacy, and my only mistake was that I didn't stand up for her.

Now, everywhere I go I feel like someone could be taking a picture. It's hard for me to act normal when I'm at home or around my friends that aren't in the industry. I have to make a conscious effort not to let it take over my life."

As a surprise, Taehyung, Seokjin, and Hoseok, who have all warmed to Julie and me considerably over the past few weeks, come to the cross-fit studio at the end of the workout, bearing coffee for everyone ("We've got one for you too, Julie and reporter-man. I've done this workout before and I know how hard it is" says Seokjin). I'm walking out of the studio behind Jungkook, who has an arm slung around Taehyung's shoulder, happily sipping his coffee when I notice men standing across the street. They're probably just talking, but Jungkook notices too. In a swift motion, he pulls his hat down, releases Taehyung, and strides towards the waiting car. He's the first to get in. Hoseok, who's walking beside me gives a sigh.

"He's our youngest and he really grew up in the public eye. It shaped him," he tells me later, "plus, he's garnered some obsessive followers. I'll call them followers because I don't think you can try to control the life of someone like they try to and call yourself a fan. For a long time, every time someone would criticize him, he would apologize. I think we kind of had him in mind when we wrote So What, a reminder to him that the people who police every little thing he does don't matter. He's just recently come to accept that no matter what he does, someone will be upset, so he might as well tune those voices out and do what he likes." he chuckles, "still, I think he worries about cameras more than the rest of us…"

I ask Hoseok how he managed to keep his own record so clean when scandals can erupt over almost anything.

"It's tricky, but I have some advantages. For one thing, I have a bit less of an avid following, which means I get a little less scrutinized."

I've always wondered how these differences in popularity play out in the group dynamic, but Hoseok doesn't sound the slightest bit upset.

"Really early on, I realized that if I wanted to live a bit of a life," he wiggles his eyebrows comically, "I would have to be stringent with how I behave, where I'm seen and who with. It's a lot of work, and it gets more difficult all the time, but so far, I've managed."

The lead single of the album launches at midnight, Korea time. For the occasion, the boys have gathered in their dorm living room, someone has decorated the background with balloons, someone else has gotten food and there's a bottle of champagne and seven glasses on the table. They're dressed in deceivingly casual outfits that all call back to the music video theme. A few days ago, in a meeting, the launch night had been finalized. Two ideas had been floated around, the first was just to drop the song and follow up with a launch night reaction video. The argument had been to let the song speak for itself. The second is a Vlive, a live streaming with interactive chat on V app, a popular platform among K-pop artists and their fans, allowing for live reactions and the fans to feel like they were celebrating with the group. The meeting had lasted well over an hour. The V-live option had won out.

The camera is set, and the boys have gathered up on the couch. Though only moments earlier, the apartment had been a flurry of activity, now only a technician and a manager are left. A few minutes to midnight, they start the stream and viewers immediately pour in. Jimin prompts the group with a "Hello we are…" and everyone choruses "BTS".

"In just a few minutes, at midnight, we are going to be releasing our new song and music video, and we decided we wanted to celebrate with all of you!" Explains Namjoon.

"I think it's probably our best song yet, and we really hope you like it!" Adds Seokjin.

"Jungkook, can you give the audience an idea of what they're in for?" Asks Hoseok.

Jungkook pretends to ponder.

"Well, I don't want to give too much away, but expect to see BTS throughout the video."

They erupt in laughter.

At midnight, it's Yoongi who pops the champagne, to celebratory shouts. Taehyung, looking down at the tablet on which viewer comments pop up exclaims "Wah, everyone is already giving so much love to our new song! You guys are the best, ARMY"

Sometime later, when he complains of having run out of champagne, Jungkook, who's sitting on the opposite side of the couch, walks over to tip out half of his glass into Taehyungs. At some point, Hoseok puts on their new song and he and Jimin start doing funny dances. Surprisingly, Yoongi joins in, leading everyone to crack up. The laughter turns hooting when Sokjin attempts to do Yoongi's rap. Bang Si-Hyuk, also known as Bang PD, long-time CEO of Hybe and now producer, calls in to congratulate them, and everyone talks over each other, passing around the phone.

They end the live after a little less than an hour. The manager tells them they've done a good job as everyone falls back on the couch, decidedly less energetic than just a few moments before. I can't help but wonder how much of their reactions, enthusiasm, and thankfulness are played up for the camera, but I'm quickly put in my place.

"For real though, the support we have is insane," Namjoon says looking at his phone. "Look at the number of views on the video," he turns the screen towards Taehyung beside him.

"Insane. Sometimes I wonder how we got so lucky." He says.

The others nod intently. With the cameras off, the technician and the manager stowing away the gear, and Julie and I getting ready to go, I see the boys from the corner of my eye gather up in a hug.

"The seven of us forever," Hoseok says.

"Bulletproof grampas!" is Seokjin's reply.

"I love you guys." Yoongi mumbles and everyone coos.

"I'm proud of you guys," Namjoon says. And they're quiet for a moment. When I look over, they're breaking apart from the huddle. I'm pretty sure I can see a few of them wiping away tears.

Needless to say, the single and the following album release break all kinds of records.

I have never liked airports, though I love flying. I have this nagging fear that I'll miss my plane, every cue I stand in seems unending until I'm boarding my flight, I'm convinced I'm at the wrong gate, that I won't hear my name being called and the plane will leave without me. Flying with BTS, these fears are replaced with the fear of being stampeded by the crowd. We cannot miss our chartered flight but with crowds pressing in, I'm worried we just won't make it. No one, of course, is flashing their camera at me or calling my name. I'm a tallish guy, but, as my venture into cross-fit reminded me, I barely ever hit the gym, I'm lanky and would probably lose in a fight against most people. Nonetheless, as I walk beside Jimin, I find myself lifting an arm to shield him from the crowd as best I can, looking back, Julie is doing the same beside Jin, though he's taller and obviously stronger than her. He's looking a little amused by her attempts, no doubt he's far less overwhelmed than she is. The boys look mostly at ease. Taehyung leads the pack, giving dignified nods that contrast with Jungkook's shy waves. At some point, the crowd presses in suddenly. Jimin flinches imperceptibly, Yoongi shifts ahead of him, blocking him from the rush of people and the real security pushes back. Jimin, I know, has received death threats before, and though years have passed, I can't imagine that the anxiety quite leaves.

I breathe better when we arrive in the private boarding area. Hoseok behind me is giving a last wave to the crowd.

"I'll never quite get used to it," Jimin tells me.

I'm surprised, everything about Jimin screams superstar and I expected him to be totally in his element.

The plane is luxurious, to say the least. I sit in a seat that is better described as a sofa chair or a bed, since it can go fully horizontal, the food is amazing, the blankets and pillows better than the ones I have at home. Across from me, Namjoon is shuffling through notes.

"I kind of hate these interviews," he says, putting the papers down on the table between us. "I know it's part of the job, and I know that it helps connect us to fans everywhere, but I still kind of hate them."

We're headed to the US for some press; there will be performances and interviews on all the main talk shows, first in Los Angels, then in New York. Namjoon speaks to me in Korean, something we settled on early. Julie doesn't translate what I say back to him, of course, but I wanted to hear his thoughts in his own language. Bilingual myself, I have always felt that my personality shifts a little depending on the language I'm speaking.

"What about them do you hate?" I ask though I suspect I know the answer.

"I think, especially when all of us are trying to speak English, it ends up quite rehearsed, and not so meaningful. At best, we have an ok interview, if a little surface level. At worst, I feel like we're portrayed as these cutesy funny guys, not like artists. It's not all bad though, and we've had some really great experiences," he generously amends, "Plus I don't think most of the hosts mean to demean us or our accomplishments or anything. If they do, we just won't come back on the show. But we get asked one more god damn time what our favorite American food chain is, or about chart manipulation…"

He sighs. Seokjin, sitting beside him pats his shoulder.

"We never expected the kind of global fame we got. Namjoon is a great leader and this is a huge burden on him. Though we have a team and translators, a lot of the moment-by-moment stuff falls on him. For us, as much as we try to learn the language and are working on it, a lot of what we can express directly to the fans is simple stuff: I love you ARMY, World Wide Handsom Jin, little jokes. It's not like that stuff isn't true, and it's not like these kinds of cheesy gimmicks aren't things I'd do anyway, I love cheesy gimmicks (Namjoon chuckles), but it's hard when that's the only thing I can contribute. It's such a simple thing, to have an interview with good questions and someone to translate what we're saying, or captions or whatever but it makes such a great difference in how we can express ourselves and interact. Even for Namjoon, it takes away that responsibility of checking that we're all on the same page. I think we all wish we were more fluent so we could take some of that responsibility off his shoulders even when the show we're on doesn't"

Namjoon smiles and squeezes Seokjin's knee.

"You know I'm happy to be the go-between. And we're all doing our best."

"Our leader, always so gracious." Seokjin smiles.

This isn't a side of Seokjin I see often. He's the oldest member of the group and generally takes care of everyone's wellbeing with teasing and laughter, much like an older brother. He more than anyone, I think, tends to group morale, keeping everyone happy and entertained even on the most stressful of days. Nonetheless, this more serious, thoughtful side is always brewing underneath the lightheartedness, pulled out when his fellow bandmates need it the most.

The conversation meanders, Namjoon drops to sleep, and Seokjin pulls his blanket up around his shoulders.

"He works too hard," he whispers, taking out his own notes to begin reading through the interview questions for the upcoming days.

Across the aisle, Jungkook and Hoseok are jokingly rehearsing English dialogues ("Jungkookie, how are you today?") Jimin and Taehyung are playing some kind of phone game together, Jimin leaning over Taehyung's screen and tapping intermittently to Taehyung's dismay. Across from them, Yoongi has his headphones in and is tapping at his laptop, occasionally bopping his head when I assume he's hit a beat he's particularly pleased with. Staff fills the rest of the seats, chatting and working. Later, a camera will come out to film some behind the screen content and things will get noisy and animated but for now, it's quiet, peaceful. This 14-hour flight, I realize, is probably the longest amount of unscheduled time any of them has had in weeks.

The tour starts in Korea. "Hometown concerts are the best concerts," Yoongi tells me from his makeup chair. A team of makeup artists and stylists is moving around him with impressive speed and coordination, but he seems as comfortable as if we were speaking over a cup of coffee in his living room. Over the past few days, I had seen the last details of the concert come together. Fittings, dress rehearsals, stage blocking, choreography drilled until the boys would collapse, panting. Now, for Yoongi at least, the hours invested in practice seemed to translate into calm. For Jimin, jittering in the chair beside him, not so much.  

"This group, this opportunity, I've been able to travel the world and do what I love to do. Some part of me though is still that underground rapper and for him, this whole world tour, makeup, outfit changes thing feels weird. But when it's here in Seoul, or anywhere in Korea, really, I dunno, I feel like the idol and the underground rapper coexist a little more easily."

Jungkook and Seokjin come sprinting by then. Both are already in full hair and makeup. They seem to be fighting over some snack, cackling as they do so. Yoongi rolls his eyes, though he looks a little amused, Jimin momentarily stops jittering, turning his attention to predicting who will win out. From across the room, Namjoon says something about having to be ready in fifteen minutes.

"We're ready, you guys are the ones being slow," comes Seokjin's breathless reply.

"They'll regret spending so much energy fighting over that snack when intermission comes around," Hoseok muses, munching on his own, uncontentious snack.

Moments later, the seven of them are hustled under the stage. Already, the energy from the arena above is electric. The boys gather up in an embrace, Namjoon says something inspirational about being a team and being proud of everyone no matter what. Jungkook says "Let's get it!" Taehyung says "BTS Fighting!" Everyone cheers. Then they're each in place and the music cues. The crowd is thunderous.

What follows is an impressively timed choreography of stagehands. Julie and I do the best we can to stay out of the way as people run past us. There are dancers, the members come in and out depending on the number. Quick changes and makeup touchups so fast I'm convinced there's magic involved.

Hoseok's prediction turns out to be true when all seven of them crumble as soon as they're down in the understage at intermission.

"The first show is particularly hard," Seokjin tells me between puffs from an oxygen mask. Someone is blowing a hairdryer set on cool, someone else is mopping his face and fixing his makeup. Moments later, they're back up on stage.

At the end of the show, there are fireworks. More cheering. Then seven exhausted men in a green room.

"You sort of feel like a god out there," Namjoon tells me. "All these people in one place, here to watch you perform. You feel invincible, you don't feel the pain or the exhaustion. Then you come down here and you remember your just human."

He's sprawled out on a couch, patting himself with an icepack, face flushed and sweaty.

Jin rolls his eyes, "He always starts philosophizing after our first performance."

Later, as we drive away from the venue, vans slowly making their way out past the crowds of fans yelling out, then onto the highway, Namjoon turns back to me.

"it's true though, you do feel like a god while performing and crashing back down after, it's a strange experience. It fucks with your sense of self. I think if you're not careful, you sort of forget to become a human again. When we started getting really famous, I got lost a bit in that, I think the others did too. From the outside, you'd think that that meant we became divas, expecting everyone to do everything for us, maybe we did to some extent. But more than that, I sort of stopped feeling totally real, does that make sense? I certainly didn't feel like me. Plus, I was a bit of an adrenalin junky. I felt so alive on stage that everything else felt dull in comparison. That's when I really understood why so many people turn to drugs."

He shakes his head a little, and I realize that he has likely seen people he knew, maybe even people in this car, go through such things. I don't ask though, it doesn't feel right to pry.

"Anyway, it didn't feel great, but I found a way back to myself. Family, hobbies outside of this, art, notably. I started going to art galleries, letting the emotions of the pieces I was looking at wash over me. Maybe that's weird, but when I look at a beautiful painting or sculpture, that's when I'm reminded that there is something bigger, more powerful. I'm not saying a God or anything like that necessarily, but just something bigger, bigger than me, bigger than BTS, bigger than humanity, maybe. It's comforting."

We talk about art, about biking along the Han river. From the backseat, Yoongi and Jimin pipe up to make fun of Namjoon for not having a driver's license and having to bike everywhere. If I didn't know we were driving from a concert venue where tens of thousands of people had been watching these guys, if I hadn't known that they were going to do it all over tomorrow, I could have believed that this was just a group of friends, on their way home after a long day of work. Just an ordinary, human moment. Tomorrow, they'll be gods once again.

I never gave the dating rumors any heed. Fans of all ages and every kind are wishful thinkers. They believe the artist they like have more input in the art than they do. They believe that the stars they see falling in love on screen are only reflecting their real-life chemistry. They believe that celebrities are showing their genuine, unfiltered selves. So of course, they might believe that two band members were secret lovers. It's a compelling story, forbidden love. For BTS like every other band, the members had complex and intense relationships, a byproduct of this very specific kind of shared experience, the perfect breeding ground for such theories.

It's not particularly out of the ordinary when I watch Jungkook collapse to the floor as soon as the stage elevator brings the group back down after the final bow. It's their 7th concert in Korea, one of the last before the world tour starts outright. So far, at least one of them had collapsed at the end of each show. It's not particularly out of the ordinary to see Taehyung rush towards him, crouching down to take his head in his hands. We happen to be close to them, close enough to hear Taehyung speak, repeat Jungkook's name a few times. Jungkook's broken answer. Taehyung leaned down to kiss Jungkook's forehead, Jungkook unwinds his arms from around himself, winds them around Taehyung instead, face in his neck, both these men on their knees, embracing. I've intruded on an intimate moment, and Taehyung's eyes, when they crossed mine, are full of warning. We walk away.

"What did they say to each other?" I ask Julie. She had been quiet during the exchange. While she usually stood by translating in hushed tones, she had not this time. Now, she didn't immediately answer.

"I'm not sure I should say… " Julie has almost a protective look in her eyes. These were, after all, the sweethearts of the world and the pride of Korea. " Taehyung asked him what was wrong. Jungkook said he wished he didn't always have to pretend they were just friends. That everyone sees it like acting and that it hurts. Taehyung said 'I'm so sorry, my love.'"

The next day in the green room, Jungkook is the first to approach me, plopping down on the couch, carefully cupping his Styrofoam cup of ramyun (Korean ramen). Though he has regained his composure since I had last seen him, he seems a little nervous, his fingers pinching patterns in the edge of the noodle bowl

"You know."

"I do. I won't tell the world, though. For one thing, my contract wouldn't let me if I wanted to. For another thing, I don't want to. This is your relationship to share or not to share, not mine."

He watches me intently as I speak, watches me intently as Julie translates. He beames when she finished.

"I'm glad, Taehyung will be glad too. He thinks some people will be angry when they find out. It's good that you're not." He turns to Julie, "you didn't tell him, not until it became too obvious," there's a little smile playing across his lips. 

She returns the smile, complicit.

"It's the way they speak to each other when the cameras are off and the public isn't there," she tells me later as were making our way home. "I didn't always give you direct translations, I know your job is to get into the details, but it didn't seem like something I should tell you if they didn't."

 I understand Julie's protective nature. To be around these people day in, day out, I also find that I want to offer them the little protection I can.

Taehyung approaches me the following day, a break day spent mostly in a hotel conference room. He starts without preamble.

"Jungkook, he's so trusting and honest. He would rather not have to deceive everyone. He knows why we have to but he hates it. It gets to him sometimes. We didn't mean for you to know, but it was bound to happen. Now we're trusting you with this. Do not let us down. Do not let him start to doubt the people he chooses to trust."

I tell him I won't. He nods, satisfied.

I notice the shift after that, though it is very subtle. They're a tactile and affectionate group of people. Even Yoongi and Namjoon, perhaps the least tactile, will put an arm around someone else's shoulder, or accept the legs being thrown over them as they sit on a couch. And they certainly all support each other when someone is having a bad day. But I see a subtle shift now that their guards are down. More often than not, Taehyung and Jungkook will come to work together in the morning, fingers loosely laced together as they amble through the door. In quiet moments, I watch as their eyes snag on each other, the quick complicit smile they share. In a way, these displays of love are far more subtle than the ones they show to the public in what is known as fan service. They're more intimate, more vulnerable too. 

Having finished their Korea shows, the BTS members have a few days of meetings and fine-tuning the performance before jumping into full tour mode. At the end of one particularly taxing meeting, as soon as they make it back to the dance studio, Jungkook opens his arms for Taehyung, who immediately lets himself be wrapped up. He hadn't seemed tired before then, talking animatedly throughout the meeting, but now, held by Jungkook, he lets the exhaustion show. 

"Can we go home?" he whispers into Jungkook's neck.

The others make their way into the studio without giving the pair a second glance. Hoseok and Jimin are already talking through the day's choreography work, dancing little bits of the routine as they're getting organized and throwing back and forth suggestions, Yoongi and Namjoon are reviewing some notes from the meeting, Jin is tapping at his phone. When, moments later, they come together in the center of the room with Son Sungdeuk, their main choreographer, standing in front, the momentary exhaustion seems forgotten and the professionalism is back on.

At the time, I planned for my writing to carefully skirt around Taehyung and Jungkook's relationship but now that I knew about it, it seemed impossible to discuss life for the BTS members without discussing this too. Later that day, while Taehyung pulls on his mask and hat in preparation for his journey home, I ask how he feels about the amount of exposure his life has. He replies with a sigh.

"I was 17 when we debuted. At the time, I don't think I could have understood what it meant to give up my privacy like this. Suddenly, everything I did was a performance to some extent and it took a while for me to figure out how to be myself on camera while keeping some of me out of the public eye. At times, I think I played a role, but that felt disingenuous. Other times, I was completely myself, but to put all of me on display like that was to put all of me up for criticism and scrutiny. It was exhausting in its own way and also led to my losing a bit of a sense of self. So eventually, I found a balance. When Jungkook and I started dating, we knew it couldn't be public; our image is so delicately calculated to make as many people happy as possible. Mostly, I like it that way, it means our relationship stays in that part of our life entirely to ourselves."

So far, in my time with BTS, I had seen them in every kind of professional setting, but I didn't have a true window into their home life until they invited Julie and me to dinner, one last celebration before the next leg of the tour begins. Part of the charm of BTS is a carefully crafted image of brotherhood. The key to this image is that officially they live together, in what is better described as a sprawling apartment than a dorm. This, however, I had quickly come to understand was not the case. It was true that Hybe did own an apartment for BTS, I had myself been to the dorm many times. It was fitted with a kitchen to make every chef envious, a living space made for entertaining large groups of guests, and bedrooms fit for kings. But this space functioned more like a cross between the living quarters at a fire fighting station and a studio. It was a place to rest and relax during busy days when work finished late in the night and began again so early that sending everyone to their separate homes and getting them back together again was too complicated, or for those days with an awkward break of a few hours before another commitment. It was also a great set for virtual content. In a way, the dorm served as an essential buffer between work and private life, when the kind of work these men did intrude on almost every aspect of their private lives.

We did not go to the dorm to have dinner, instead, we went to Taehyung's apartment. For the sake of his privacy, I won't say where it was or describe the building and home with any defining characteristic. I will, however, say that the lobby had an understated but luxurious decor and sufficient security to suggest that countless celebrities would choose to live here. Indeed, I learned that Taehyung wasn't the only member of BTS to own an apartment in the building, and though I knew that Jungkook officially lived elsewhere, it was his dog, Bam, not Taehyung's who greeted us at the door. All the boys moved around the space with a familiarity that suggested they had spent plenty of time here.

"We often do this at Taehyung's. It's central and he has the best kitchen, which is ironic, he's the worst cook." Seokjin tells me as he makes his way to said kitchen. He, Yoongi, and Jungkook seem to take over the cooking, the others setting the table and milling about. "We barely ever cook for ourselves anymore, almost always, we're eating at work, and when we have a night off, we're seeing friends or resting up with some takeout. And we really don't spend a whole lot of time all together after work like this. But we try to make dinner together once in a while, for old time's sake. And it gives us a chance to connect away from the cameras and staff, which really we hardly ever have the chance to do."

"Enough shop talk," Hoseok interrupts. "As you say, we hardly ever get the chance to do this, so tonight, reporter-man, you're not a reporter, and Julie, you're not the interpreter to some reporter. Just some friends hanging out!" He hands us both a glass of wine and raises his own, "to friends and food made by mostly Seokjin!"

"Hey! Just because you're not helping, doesn't mean the rest of us aren't either!" Yoongi mumbles over the top of his glass, setting it down to continue cutting the meat.

I offer to help cook, eager not to be lumped in with in the group of the unhelpful, though Julie has to stand by my side with instructions and I'm not sure whether I'm being more helpful or a nuisance.

I think that one of the things that attracted me to BTS was their chemistry. These seven men reminded me of my own friends, and in the first steps of my adulthood, suddenly in a job and a city that pulled me away from those friendships, BTS made me feel like I wasn't so alone. In some ways, the illusion is made more real by their carefully calculated image. Sure, they have friends outside of BTS, and interests outside of music and each other, but in every interview, in every interaction, they present their group as the most important thing in their lives. I remember when my own friends were the most important thing in my life, and in this way, BTS stands in a sort of perpetual youthfulness that is sometimes hard to reconcile with their age.

I pose here the theory that their true success doesn't have anything to do with this image of brotherhood but rather with their talent and the true chemistry and friendship that sells that image. As we had dinner that night, the conversation was not unlike that of my own childhood friends on those rare occasions that we still get to see each other. They talked about politics, the movies they had seen on their days off, they talked about stress and exhaustion. Namjoon had gone to an art exhibition recently. Jimin had managed to go out to a club with a friend on his day off and they commiserated over the difficulties of doing such things unrecognized. They talked, of course, of their relationships.

Later, Seokjin and I find ourselves in the living room, the others finishing the dishes or milling about. Leaning opposite me on the couch, he's sat thoughtfully for a few minutes, before turning towards me.

"Speaking purely hypothetically, of course, relationships are a tricky thing. Part of me understands that we maybe should talk about these things openly, as part of being genuine with the fans. And as much as people say our image is very calculated, which it is, we do try as much as possible to be genuine. At a time, I was eager to keep up this idea that we were all the perfect available boyfriends, but now I don't think that that's what attracts the bulk of our fans, nor do I think that we should keep up that facade. On the other hand, I have become much more aware of my privacy and that of the person I'm hypothetically dating. 

"Every interaction I have with someone results in rumors and scrutiny, subjecting a partner to that is cruel, especially if that person hasn't necessarily signed up to have the life of an idol. I would like us to get to a place where we can date publicly without that kind of publicity, and I'd like to think that we are working towards that. But, and I'm not sure I can say this so I'll be vague, in the position we're in, it's not as simple as saying 'we're adults and we're dating people,' there are other people involved in those decisions."

Just then, Taehyung walks in from the kitchen, Jungkook draped over his back and matching him stride for stride, giggling in Taehyung's ear. "He's a little drunk," Taehyung says, sounding amused and maybe a little drunk himself as he settles across from us in a chair, Jungkook quick to plop down on his lap.

"Ah, young love!" Seokjin smiles at then and turns back to me. "Add into the mix of course, that not all of us are straight, and the situation is even more difficult. These two, we just want to protect them as best we can."  

We're in London, England, a little before noon, and we're sitting on a stage, at the center of an arena. I'm intimidated. From down here, the empty seats seem endless. Even with no one around, I feel exposed.

"I honestly don't know how you do it," I tell Jungkook who's sprawled out to my left. They just ran through the choreography, blocking it on this particular stage that's set up a bit differently from what they're used to. In a few hours, fans with VIP tickets will start pouring in for the soundcheck.

"It's really beautiful," is his answer, "sometimes, I stand here singing, and I think we have the best seats in the house. The ARMY bombs are like twinkling stars. And the crowd is so electric. It's intimidating, sure, I want to do a good job, but mostly it's exhilarating and a bit magical."

ARMY bombs refer to Bluetooth lights held by audience members but controlled by the light technician so that they pulse in time with the music.

I ask Jungkook, as I've been asking everyone, what makes BTS as successful as it is. He doesn't answer for a moment, and I wonder if he's so lost in his thoughts he didn't register me, then he speaks.

"hm, I don't think it's just one thing. The first thing that comes to mind is the idea of eras. Look at our early days, it was all dark eyeliner and basketball jerseys. Then we had the much softer Spring Day era. We had the Blood Sweat and Tears era that was kind of sexy but in an ethereal way, IDOL era that was vibrant colors, rich textiles with Korean influences, Black Swan, which was all dark and sexy. That's not an exhaustive list. The eras though, they're so much more than the clothes we wear, it's the photoshoots, the product releases, the merchandise, the music videos. It keeps the audience engaged, keeps them wondering what the following come back will look like. It keeps things interesting for us too, we're always reinventing ourselves, reinventing what we're doing, pushing the limits, and each new release becomes a kind of world of its own. I'm always excited to see where we're gonna go next and I think that's also true for the audience.

"But it's more than that too. When I was a trainee, I thought, if I sing well and I dance well and I act cute then that will be enough. But they kept telling me I needed to work on my facial expressions while dancing, I needed to work on my acting, and I didn't quite understand why. Then we started recording and making music videos and I came to understand the scale of what we were doing.

"We were a small company, you know, but Bang PD-nim, he was always thinking big. By the time we were recording The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, there was this incredibly complex world we had built. A world in which we had fictional versions of ourselves living these stories that fans could see through the music videos, webcomics, videos games. All these little clues for them to put together. We made something that was so much more than music, there was this whole world for the audience to explore. When those fans watch the music videos or play the BTS games, they're looking for the clues that add to that bigger picture. I'm on the inside, but if I was a fan, I would totally love to be the detective and figure this stuff out."

"Jungkook would make a good detective," Yoongi looks up from where he's sitting a few meters away, tapping on his phone, "always watching and absorbing everything."

"Hey! Don't make it sound creepy, I'm just observant," Jungkook sniffs.

Taehyung walks up, extending his hand down to Jungkook, "Well, Mr. Observant, please observe that the break is over."

"Ha. Ha," Jungkook grabs Taehyung's hand to pull himself to his feet in a swift motion, "let's get it!"

The third show in Lima, Peru starts off like every other. Tonight, Julie and I sit in what we have come to call the war room, where TVs show the live broadcast of the show. Here people are always rushing in and out in the fast-paced dance that is the behind-the-scenes work. If I hadn't watched the show so many times by now, I wouldn't have caught it. We're three quarters into the performance, in the middle of a dance number. It's a stadium show, and a little earlier there had been some rain. Hoseok slips imperceptibly, but the angle of his left foot seems wrong. There's a flash of pain on his face, his composure immediately regained, but I hear someone suck in a breath behind me. The number goes on, ends, then there's a song without choreography. It's one of the more dramatic slow ones, so it isn't noticeable that Hoseok barely moves at all, weight shifted onto his right side. There's a little bit of choreography at the end, leading to the members transitioning off, with the exception of Jin, who will start his solo. Without even talking about it, Julie and I are moving towards the stage entrance, as are considerably more people than usual.

Hoseok is coming down the stage elevator, braced by Jimin and Namjoon. Their eyes are wide with worry, his are closed.

"He slipped!" Jimin says anxiously, "His left ankle…" 

Jungkook, Yoongi, and Taehyung are hovering. Someone brings a chair, two people from the hired medical team are rushing in. They're asking questions in Spanish-accented English. An interpreter steps in. A manager comes to get Jungkook, Jimin, and Taehyung to get ready to join Seokjin on stage for the vocal line number. They're resistant, Jimin brushes off the hand on his shoulder.

"Jimin, he'll be ok" the manager's voice is calm. Jimin lets go of Hoseok.

With the vocalists gone the manager squats beside him.

"The medical team says it's a sprain. You shouldn't move it."

"We're almost done the show," Hoseok pants his response, wincing as the medic moves his leg. "I can ice it now and they can wrap it. We have a few minutes. Then, we do the rap-line number. I won't move around too much. Then we're closing. I'll be fine."

"Let's change the setlist," it's Namjoon, voice measured, "pull out an old classic. Life Goes On or We Are Bullet-Proof: The Eternal We practiced them recently and we can all walk a bit then stand in a line over the stage elevator. No dancing."

"No, I can do the planned number. It's just a little dance before we end and people will be expecting it!"

"We can't afford this to get worse. Namjoon is right," Yoongi speaks up, the manager nodding.

"We're making this call." 

As soon as the manager says it, people are in motion. They only have a few minutes to pull it off. Hoseok now has his ankle bandaged, boots ready to hide the injury are beside his chair, he'll ice it until the last minute. Someone has stepped in to help him change his shirt while Namjoon and Yoongi are doing full outfit changes. The vocal line is halfway through their song.

They pull it off. Watching from the war room, if I didn't know something was wrong, I wouldn't have noticed. In the green room after the show, however, the mood is low. Hoseok has gone to the hospital. He was full of apologies as he got ready to leave, tears in his eyes which I suspected had nothing to do with pain. The rest of the boys are talking about a contingency plan.

"Luckily this is our last show here. We have a few days before the next ones, so hopefully, it's not too serious and he recovers." Yoongi says reasonably.

"And if he doesn't? He's our lead dancer. Without Hoseok in the dance numbers… something will be missing." Jungkook sounds anxious.

"We'll make it work, we always have. No point worrying now. Let's see what the doctors say." Namjoon sounds tired, he came in moments before from seeing Hoseok off.

Later, as everyone is getting ready to leave, Jimin sits down beside me.

"With how intensely we dance, it's surprising that this hasn't happened more, but it still takes a toll. Jungkook got injured and had to sit out on the dance numbers for a bunch of shows a few tours ago. I've had leg cramps so bad I need injections, Namjoon has had knee pain. Tae, muscle pain. Yoongi's shoulder got so bad he needed surgery and was out for months. It's stressful. We try to do better, take better care of ourselves especially as we get older, but these things happen." 

He's looking down at his hands.

"Now, this is how it'll play out," he continues. "Hoseok will want to dance in the next show, we'll tell him that he should focus on getting better. Jungkook will dance twice as hard to compensate, and we'll tell him that he needs to pace himself. That it won't help if he's hurt too. That'll worry Taehyung, so he'll be twice as anxious. And then none of us are acting like ourselves. Emotions will run high." He sighs.

"In a way," he adds, "injuries, I think are a bit of a physical manifestation of the stress these tours put us under. It's fun. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't want to do anything else. But here are people who have chosen to take hours, sometimes days out of their lives, paid a ton of money to see us. For some of them, it's the only time they'll get to see us. So we want to put on the best show possible. We want to make it the best night ever. Every little mistake kills us. It kills me. I always want to be better, to do better. No matter what, no matter how good the night, some part of me feels like it isn't enough. I think we all feel that to some extent. Sometimes it leaves us exhausted. That's when we get hurt, I think."

It's true, in my time on tour, I had seen the way little missteps and missed notes weighed down on them. Just a few days ago, Jimin had folded over himself in the green room. Hoseok and Taehyung petted his hair, telling him that the voice crack he'd had was hardly a mistake.

"It's what makes you human," Hoseok had said, "it's what shows them that it's really you."

 "You sang beautifully," Taehyung added, "best voice in Korea."

"That's Jungkook, not me" was Jimin's tearful reply, "I'm not good enough."

"Well don't tell him, but tonight it was definitely you," whispered Hoseok.

Jimin gave a shaky laugh

On this night though, in the green room, Jimin's concern is entirely for Hoseok. "I wish they would give us an update," he says, checking his phone, "Hoseok is really the glue that keeps us together, he doesn't deserve this," Jimin's voice is surprisingly raw.

"You should get some rest," Julie tells him. 

He smiles at her, "You're an angel, sacrificing reporter-man's content for my beauty sleep."

Watching Yoongi and Namjoon compose is an honor, to say the least. There are a few days off between performances and they have rented a studio. They're currently sitting in front of the computers, headphones in, playing around with some ideas. The remaining member of the rap line is back at the hotel, resting and hopeful for a full return at their next performance. A while ago, Jungkook came in to record guides and some backup vocals, nailing the vocal runs in impressively few tries.

This morning, when we came in, Yoongi explained, "I write when I'm bored, really any downtime we've got I'm writing something. Most of it doesn't make it to an album, but after a while, I've got this stuff building up and it's good to get in the studio, play around and see if I can get it to go anywhere."

What's obvious, as I sit here watching them is that they are having fun. Technically this may be work, but I'm not sure they would want to spend their day off anywhere else.

"Yoongi is a little more structured in how he approaches these things," Namjoon swivels in his chair to tell me, "he starts with a beat, then the melody, then the lyrics. Recently, I've tried going about things more holistically. I start with an abstract feeling, a vibe, and then sort of build everything up from there."

He's been doing just that for a little while, flitting between the beatbox features and keyboard, occasionally typing things up.

"I think it comes from starting out as a rapper," Yoongi is still typing at the computer while he speaks." It's so rhythmic, when I'm writing rap, I'm also writing beat to some extent. So when I do more melodic things, it makes sense to me that the beat is what comes first."

He looks through some computer files and plays a variety of beats, Namjoon bops his head along.

"This is some stuff I have stockpiled. I'll go to the studio, or even on the plane or whatever, and just play around with the beatbox. Then I don't think too much about it and that gives me the room to be a bit more experimental. If there's a beat I really like, then it'll stick in my head, and sometimes without really trying the melody will start to develop."

"When it comes to lyrics," Namjoon adds, "I think we both have the same attitude, it has to come from our feelings, our perspectives. I think I tend towards the slightly more metaphorical, Yoongi the slightly more concrete, but I love that contrast, it's what makes us work well as a team. It's also important to us that the rest of the members get input, write a bit for themselves. We're in this cool position where we sometimes get to have seven unique perspectives on a topic in a single song. It's a bit of an old hit, but Spine Breaker is a great example of that. Each verse switches up the perspective a bit."

"We've gotten to collaborate with so many great people too. There are our in-house producers, of course, Pdogg, Bang PD, which is fantastic insight, because they spend so much time in that realm that they're tuned in to all the little things. But recently, getting to collaborate with people outside of that too, Ed Sheran, Coldplay, gets us out of our usual groove, makes us look at the music we're doing a bit differently. Plus, it's one of the great parts of touring and working out of other studios like this. We get to meet collaborators while we're here, work for a few intense days and see where it leads us."

As he speaks, Yoongi has switched over from the computer and is tapping at the electric keyboard, as though it's a reflex.

"Play that again? I think there's something there," Namjoon says, turning as Yoongi plays out a particularly catchy riff.

They're suddenly reabsorbed in the work, trading ideas back and forth, while Julie and I are entirely forgotten.

Of all places, we're in my hometown, Toronto, Canada. We've just made it back to the hotel after the show when Seokjin pops up behind me.

"Reporter-man," he says conspiratorily, "I hear you know the neighborhood. Think you can find us some good late-night ice cream?"

"That, I can do."

"I'll wrangle the boys, meet us in the car park in 10."

Julie and I find Seokjin, Taehyung, and Namjoon in the car park.

"the others say they're too tired or on a diet," Seokjin explains, rolling his eyes.

 I'm surprised to see Namjoon here, the usually responsible leader bending the rules, but I remember an old story of him and Taehyung sneaking out for ice cream as trainees. Old habits die hard, I suppose.

I call us a car, so as not to arouse suspicion. In these parts, the facemasks would make the famous trio stand out, so Seokjin, Namjoon, and Taehyung have opted for a bucket hat, baseball cap, and golf cap respectively. I can tell that they've made a conscious effort to blend in too, wearing plain jeans and khakis, with T-shirts or sweaters that wouldn't look out of place at Target. Clothes I have never seen them wear. It almost makes me laugh.

We catch the van a little way down the block, the boys sticking to the shadows and spreading out as we walk there. Namjoon and I in front, Seokjin, Taehyung a Julie a few paces behind. The man driving the taxi is old, he's playing Bollywood music, and I think it's safe to assume he doesn't know who BTS is. Still, they keep their hats on and exchange few words. We drive to the west of the city to one of the ice cream places I frequented as a kid. Julie and I make the orders, the three others waiting around the corner on a residential street. From there, we amble through the quiet streets down to the lake. At this time, the boardwalk is nearly empty and I feel us breathe a collective sigh of relief. I feel like a secret agent that has just completed a top-secret mission.

We make our way along the water. Ice creams done, we take off our shoes and wander with our toes in the sand. Namjoon and Taehyung run ahead, dipping their feet in lake Ontario. I don't think I've ever seen Namjoon so carefree. When I say this to Seokjin, he laughs.

"Ice cream puts us all in touch with our better natures."

Sitting on the sand with Seokjin, I ask him what he thinks brings BTS' success.

"Hm. I think it's the way we interact with fans. The music, of course, but also that we do more than music. It's the virtual content, the Vlives, Bangtan bombs (short video clips with lighthearted moments from their day-to-day life), RUN BTS (a web series where they play various games). People really get to understand our personalities and interact with us through those things. I think a lot of celebrities do live broadcasts, but not with the same frequency we do. 

"Then of course there's the community. I think, to call our fans ARMY, to have an official fandom, it makes a lot of people cringe a bit when they don't understand it. But to have that label, and to have official fan clubs and things like that, it allows people to build a sense of community. ARMYs all over do tons of really incredible things. They share art, they raise money for charity, hell, they even help each other with homework. There's an ARMY organization for just about everything, people forming true connections, true friendships. I like to think we catalyze that, but all that potential for good is already there.

"When I say I love ARMY, that's what I mean. Of course, I don't know them individually, and of course, people will say that there are some sides of the fandom, the sides that I think don't quite understand what it means to support a group like us, that are toxic. But they're a real minority and the true fans, the true ARMY, I see as a tremendous force for good. They really do incredible things."

Namjoon and Taehyung come running back towards us then, they have their hands cupped with lake water so that they can throw it in our general vicinity, mostly missing us. They're laughing as they sit back down.

"To think so many people idolize these fools," Seokjin says with a shake of the head.

It's late and we have to get back to the hotel, but for just a moment, we all look across the water to the lights of downtown Toronto, their mirror image reflected on the calm water. We're in my backyard, where I first discovered BTS, but the four people sitting beside me are across the world from where they grew up. Here they played the second of four sold-out concerts. Though they sang mostly in a language the crowd didn't understand, I heard them sing along to song after song in unison. I hope ARMY is a force for good because they certainly are numerous and united. I'm not worried though, I think Seokjin is right.

They each go to therapy individually and have a group session every two weeks. They never invite me in.

"It's like couples therapy, but make it seven guys instead," Hoseok tells me once as he packs up his bag before leaving for their appointment.

 It's a virtual appointment since the therapist is back in Korea but they never miss a session.

"This life we have," he goes on, "this group day in day out, not enough time off, not enough time spent with other people or on other things, emotions get built up."

"Did you always do therapy?"

"No, but we probably should have. Individually, we sort of started one by one. We all had our rough patches, our moments when things weren't so peachy, and so we each got help in our own time. These things are stigmatized of course. I think Yoongi and Namjoon were instrumental in getting us each to accept help, me certainly, Jimin too. Then we started talking about these things more and everyone eventually was seeing a therapist. In 2018, when we were going through a hard time adjusting to our new level of fame, we were all tired and burnt out causing us to not work well as a team. That was a pretty dark time. Some of us even thought of leaving. When we decided we wanted to give it at least a shot, we also decided it was time we see a therapist as a group. It's been a game-changer."

During a fitting for a new costume, Jimin tells me about his experience with therapy. He's wearing a beautifully tailored suit, silk in a deep purple color, decorated with flowers. He has no shirt on underneath and I can already hear the fans screaming.

"I had a really hard time with my body image. I've talked about it a little, and I'm sure the fans saw the change even if they didn't know about the issues behind them. When we debuted, I was supposed to be this 'manly man'. So I was always trying to be tough and muscular and cold in a cool way, the last of which I failed at spectacularly. But I didn't feel like myself. What I wanted to be looked a lot more like this," he sweeps his hands down to accentuate his words, "And more than that, I realized that the person I was didn't fit the 'manly man' mold either, nor, to be honest, the mold society puts on men in general. That scared me, so instead I focused on being more muscular and tough. It destroyed me. I wasn't eating enough, I was exercising too much, I was exhausted, I was anxious.

"Then Yoongi stepped in. Here was this guy that I really admired who exuded cool and tough like I wanted to, telling me that whoever I was, whatever I looked like or chose to wear was ok. Telling me that those things had nothing to do with toughness or manliness or whatever I was after. And he made me realize that strong and sensitive weren't opposites. Then there was Namjoon who was so poised with his words and so thoughtful. And when they told me about their own experiences with mental health and getting help, it didn't seem like something to be ashamed of. I went to therapy and eventually these things that felt like me but that I was pushing away seemed exciting rather than scary."

The stylist making the last of the measurements on him adds "We like him better this way. He's happier."

"Thanks, Noona," he beams.

"Just before I started dating Jungkook, I was in a really dark place," Taehyung tells me one night, as we sit in a van on our way back to the hotel after a day of press. We're in Los Angeles again and though this is technically a break day, there have been countless interviews. So, it had been a particularly taxing day on everyone, as press days often are. "I hadn't come to terms with the fact that I wasn't straight. I grew up in a rural community, it was pretty traditionalist and I thought I was going to have what my parents had. I adore kids and want some of my own. Having a wife seemed like the only way to do that. Plus, society was telling me that homosexuality was wrong. Gay marriage isn't recognized, for god's sake. Then I came to Seoul, I started this life and I learned a lot, I was exposed to a lot, and as much as I became certain that there was nothing wrong with being homosexual, I still had this idea of the life I would have.

" When I fell in love with Jungkook, I didn't even notice it at first. The life we lead is so intense. The experience, it's hard for anyone outside of the seven of us to relate to it. We were far from our families, so we were each other's family. Jungkook and I, it felt natural that those things would bring us together. Plus he was shy, and brilliant, and funny, sometimes cocky but in such a sweet way…" He seems a little carried away but catches himself, "Jimin and I, we went to school together and we're best friends, but the bond with Jungkook, even at the time I couldn't describe it. Sometimes it felt like we were our own little world. I saw him go from shy and awkward to brazen, charismatic, and, if we're being honest, hot. When he's on stage, it's like every spotlight is shining on him and I was in awe. At that time, every interaction we had was the highlight of my day, I probably knew something more was brewing, but I was just so happy.

"Then, I put a name on that feeling and it all came crashing down. This life I had wanted, I still wanted. What was I doing? And I was dragging Jungkook into it. This sweet, kind man hadn't asked for any of it. Admitting to this would mean losing everything else. It's not like I hadn't had crushes on girls before. I thought I could find the right woman and everything would fix itself. It made me miserable. I drank. I closed myself off. This wasn't my only issue, of course. I had all this other stuff suddenly bubbling up. I was plagued with insecurity. I didn't feel worthy of love at all. I pushed Jungkook away, I thought I was protecting him.

"The boys, they all saved me, I think. In a way, Jimin went through a similar journey and we talked a lot about that. He, Hoseok and Yoongi, Namjoon, and Seokjin really helped me accept myself for who I was. They were all here saying that they loved me unconditionally and they were leading by example, showing me all these different ways of being and loving that were alright. It wasn't just them, of course. I started opening up to friends from home, friends from my time on Hwarang (a TV show Taehyung acted in from 2016-2017), and everyone was supportive. Well, not everyone, as these things go. But the people who have far outweighed the people who weren't. There was lots of therapy.

"Then, Jungkook. I had hurt him. I owed him an apology. More apologies than I could possibly give in this lifetime. At that time, my focus was on rebuilding our friendship. Jungkook, I learned, was on his own journey of self-acceptance. We talked a lot, grew closer than ever, and eventually started dating."

We get to the hotel then and Taehyung seems to pull out of his thoughts. He had been looking out of the window for most of the trip, the car dark, the streetlamps outside intermittently illuminating his face. Now, it's the steady, bright lights of the indoor garage.

"Ah, I'm not sure why I'm telling you all this," He says with a bit of a laugh, "it's not like you'll be able to use any of it. I guess it's these press days that make me think about everything I'll never be able to tell our fans."

"No worries," I answer, "It helps me understand you, even if it never makes it into the article. And I'm sorry, you know. It's not an easy journey that you've been on."

"Bah, it's good song inspiration now, even if it's all neatly tucked away in metaphors. Plus, I'm glad of where I ended up."

We get out of the van, join up with the others, emerging from their own vehicles. Jimin puts an arm around Taehyung's shoulder as they make their way inside, he says something, they both laugh. I catch Jungkook looking over at them, eyes crinkled by his smile.

Tonight, Namjoon suggests that we view the show from the audience. These tickets are expensive, but more than that, they're almost impossible to come by, selling within seconds. They seldom make it to general sales either, often gone in the fan-exclusive presales. I'll admit, I'm excited, I can tell Julie is too. I've never stood this close to the stage at this scale of a concert. I suspect I never will again. We've decided to embrace the experience fully. We're holding up signs, we're both armed with an ARMY bomb, and sporting headbands, mine with pink bunnies in the place of ears, a cartoonish character designed by Jungkook, hers with a red-heart-shaped character designed by Taehyung. We're wearing tour shirts. Julie laughs as she takes a picture of us, saying "We blend right in!"

The opening sequence begins. On the large screens, the faces of the members flash in rapid succession. Then the BTS icon. The music picks up. The stadium is thrumming with energy, forty thousand people all in wrapped attention. Smoke pours out on the stage, catching the light of the stage lights. Behind me, the thousands of ARMY bombs shine purple in unison. Even having spent months with these men, having watched their rehearsals, photoshoots, and countless concerts from behind the scenes, I barely recognize them. On the stage, with lights blazing, they seem superhuman, I understand why Namjoon says he feels like a god.

After the first number, a dance number where at times, forty or so background dancers join the stage, the band members line up and banter a bit, then they're on to the next song. The concert is fast-paced, with perfectly choreographed transitions between numbers with just enough breaks for audience interaction. At some point, on an upbeat song when giant balls are thrown into the audience and the boys are freestyling on stage, Jungkook comes to crouch directly in front of us. Maybe he recognizes us, though I'm not sure how much he can see over the bright lights, his smile is radiant. When he winks before getting back up, even my heart flutters a little.

"We Know that guys," Julie nudges me.

 I laugh, remembering that just a few hours ago I had watched Jungkook in a toothbrush swordfight with Jimin.

Undeniably, they are incredible performers. I had seen them transform a little whenever there was a camera on, but this is beyond anything. Perhaps transform isn't the right word. It's more as though different parts of their personality would come to shine. When Hoseok dances, he steps right into the music itself. Taehyung flirts with the camera so compellingly that I can't help but cheer with everyone else. Seokjin and Jimin flip easily between funny and seductive, Jungkook between seductive and sincere. Namjoon and Yoongi rap with such power and conviction, that though I don't understand the words they used, I feel them. In all their eyes as they dance past us, I can read the passion.

 I'm sad when the show is over. My throat is dry from yelling and my feet hurt from dancing. When a staff member comes to find us to bring us backstage, I find myself excited at the prospect of sitting down on a comfy couch in the green room and stealing a drink and snack.

I plop down beside Hoseok and Taehyung, who are both chugging water. "That was AMAZING."

They laugh.

"You've been asking us all what it is that makes us so popular," Hoseok tells me between gulps, "and I think it's this, or that this is part of it at least."

Taehyung is nodding.

"I'm not saying that we're the only artists who do this," Hoseok continues, "Certainly, I think that if you look at the Beyonceys, the Lady Gagas, you'll see we're in very good company, that there are people who even do it better. But certainly, I don't think that everyone approaches concerts like we do. We offer a full package. Sure, we sing. But we dance too, we act, there's production, we're telling stories. From the backgrounds to the lighting to the ARMY bombs, it's an immersive experience."

"He's totally right. In our concerts, we want to draw you in with all of your senses. And we want it to be a collective experience. I'd like to think that we give the kind of concerts where even if you're not a huge fan of the music, you want to experience the concert because it's an event in itself.

"Plus, it's what we like to do and I think it shows. The lot of us, we're performers. We feed off the energy of the crowd, we love the one-on-one connection. I think that comes through"

I think back to their 2019 MMA performance which I had watched on YouTube. Even for an award show, the performance had been an event in of itself, including danced solos by each member and culminating in a rendition of their hit Dionysus that included an army of about a hundred people, live horses, and giant inflated golden tigers. Though it wasn't even a BTS concert, the audience had been flooded with ARMY bombs. I dare say that if their goal was an immersive storytelling experience, BTS had succeeded.

Today is what we might call a normal day of tourism, or as close to it as BTS can get. It's a day off and we're in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam. We're in a van on the way to the private room of a restaurant, Hoseok and the younger band members ride with me, Namjoon, Seokjin, and Yoongi having opted to visit an art gallery before joining us for dinner. Jungkook, Jimin and Taehyung sit at the front. When Jungkook drops onto Taehyung's shoulder, Taehyung presses a kiss to the top of his head and threads his fingers through his hair. He does it absentmindedly, still chatting with Jimin. It's one of the quiet intimate moments I've become accustomed to seeing.

Beside me and Julie in the back seat, Hoseok looks at them warmly. He's older than them, and the affection he has for these three younger men is visible in their every interaction. It's often to him they go for comfort.

"They always follow me around," he once said in an interview. Having watched them interact, I have to say it's true.

Today, he tells me, "Jungkook and Taehyung are so comfortable now, I love seeing it. Before they started dating, there was this weird time where I think everyone saw it except them. They would flirt non-stop, and they were magnets, always gravitating towards each other. Then, they started dating, they didn't tell us at first, they were still figuring it out, but we all knew because all of a sudden, they were so much less touchy as soon as they thought someone was watching. They're terrible at acting, and they have such honest eyes, so everyone could see that the affection was still there. I think it took a week and everyone had figured it out.

 "Plus," he chuckles, "I walked in on them once. They weren't doing anything really, but they were just so absorbed with each other. They didn't even see me come into the practice room, they didn't hear me leave. It made me happy. Here were these two people in this crazy life that had found something good, reassuring, and entirely their own to hold onto.

"They told us after a few weeks. The two of them are so aware of their career. Jungkoook especially takes his relationship with the fans very seriously and both of them are very intent on the fact that it's the seven of us together. So they felt like this thing they wanted, this relationship, we should all weigh in. Obviously, we told them that we should have no say in their relationship, that we supported them no matter what. I think we all cried that night. I've never seen Jimin so happy. 'My two best friends are in love!' he kept saying.

"I won't lie though, I was worried. I love them so much and I know that when people find out about it, they'll have so many opinions. I want to shelter them from that and I will, we all will when that day comes. I want them to be able to go public one day, I want us all to be able to speak about our relationships. It's the only way to make us as an act durable. We need to be able to grow up, fall in love, be heartbroken, fall in love again, have families if we want them. Love and aspirations outside of Bangtan. I think that stuff is what will keep us fresh as a band, I think it's what will drive us forward. For now though… I just want to let them live this beautiful thing with as few worries as possible. Let us all live our youth a bit, we've had so little opportunity to."

When we get to the restaurant, everyone slips out with hats on and masks up. The rest of the group is already inside. Laughter is abundant, the mood is playful. They joke and banter. The food is amazing, the drinks flow easily. They talk about going to a club, the logistics of the outing give me a headache, but I see what Hoseok means, these fleeting moments of youth they really have to work for, they should make them last as long as they can.

When everyone is piling back into vans headed into the clubbing district, Hoseok asks if Julie and I will come along. The prospects of more drinks and pounding music are appealing, but this night, I think they deserve to have without my watchful eye, notebook, and pen. Tonight, they should just enjoy being young and carefree.

"No, I think I'll turn in," I say, but Julie agrees to go.

The next morning, I ask her over breakfast how the night was. She's dressed a little more casually than normal; glasses instead of contact lenses, hair in a ponytail. I suspect she slept in until the very last minute.

"Amazing," she tells me "it was a wild night. Too bad the NDA will never let me talk about it," she adds with a playful smile.

Even from the war room, we hear the thunderous screams as Jimin puts an arm around Jungkook during one of their more emotional songs. They sing a few verses turned toward each other, smiling. Jungkook squeezes Jimin's shoulder before they break apart.

When the concert is over, I find myself beside Jimin as he wipes away his makeup, scrolling on his phone with the other hand. I've come to recognize this post-show ritual of his where he looks at audience reactions to the concert under a pseudonym. He once tells me it's to learn where he needs to work on his performance, but Yoongi later says with some concern that he worries when Jimin finds negative comments "He's so sensitive, even now he takes them to heart."

Jimin scrolls past a picture of him and Jungkook staring into each other's eyes while singing. It's captioned "Kookmin", their ship name, with a heart. Shipping refers to fans who want two people to be in a romantic relationship, though some use ship names to refer to deep bonds of friendship.

"What do you think of ships," I ask.

He glances over, laughing a little.

"I wondered when you'd ask one of us that. Took you a while."

"I had more important things to ask about."

"Fair enough. Ships… it's complicated."

He shuts his phone and turns towards me before continuing.

"It would be naive of me to say that ships didn't play a part in how our fans interact with us. In a way, it's a natural extension of being human, I think. You have two friends, you like them both and you like them together. Everyone plays cupid once in a while, nothing wrong with that. Of course, these kinds of things lead to audiences being more engaged. You think two members would be good together, hell, you might even suspect that there are actual feelings there. You might even be right," he says slyly, glancing over to where Taehyung and Jungkook are sitting pressed together, sharing an instant ramen cup.

"So you watch the behinds the scenes content," he goes on, "to see them laugh and play together. You might go to concerts, get a front-row seat to see them interact live, be able to play detective yourself, and figure out the nature of that relationship. Plus, people read fanfiction, make fan art or compilation videos, find people who have the same opinions. In some way, it helps build community and it's economic to play into that to some extent. 

"In the industry overall, the thought is that there is some advantage to play into those theories. That's where fan service comes in. You sort of concoct these moments of interaction so that people shipping two bandmembers have something to look at and be excited about. Add to that skinship and cultural differences, so that for international audiences, we seem especially touchy. You play the line carefully though so that everything is left safely in the realm of speculation, and so that no one ship wins out over the other. You keep everyone happy and engaged.

"I won't lie, even now, to some extent, we do fan service. Everything we do on stage is a little played up, it's what makes concerts entertaining. It would be boring if we didn't come in with a whole lot of energy if we didn't interact with each other. But overall, I don't want to act emotions that I don't feel. Take this moment," he turns on his phone again and shows me the picture of him and Jungkook, "I'm an affectionate guy and I've known Jungkook a long time. So I put my arm around him and we sing together. It was nice, we were having fun. Of course, people read all kinds of things into that, but it's just me being me."

"Does it bug you?"

"Not really, the way I see it, these kinds of things, these speculations, they stem from a very real, very strong bond of friendship, and the ship theories are a manifestation of that. Plus we get a good laugh from it. Of course, it feels a bit weird, knowing that some people would rather see Jungkook with me, or Taehyung with Yoongi or whatever have you. But at the same time, in those theories, Taehyung and Jungkook's relationship and real-life interactions get a little more leeway, because they're lumped in with the rest. 

"So it's complicated, I guess," he amends, then sighs, "what I really cannot stand though, is when people get angry when others disagree with their ship or promote hate of one idol because they're perceived as getting in the way of the relationship of two others, or when they would be unhappy if the people they ship would date anyone else. What people have to realize is that most of the time, these things aren't true, so as much fun as it is, if you really care for that idol or actor or whatever, you'll be happy when and if they come out with a relationship with someone else too. I might like playing matchmaker with my friends, but I'm not upset if it doesn't work out, you know?"

He's a little emotional, I realize. He and Taehyung have been particularly victims of this, both are often accused of getting in the way of the relationship between Jungkook and the other member of the trio. I cannot imagine how taxing that would be. I vocalize this and he nods.

"At times, I even thought I should tone it down, I know Taehyung did too. Once Jungkook read a comment so seething he said he would stop interacting with us both just to stop people from saying this stuff. It feels awful. But at the end of the day, I don't want to censor who I am, nor do Tae or Jungkook, and it's only a very small minority of people who act like that. Plus, I would hope, and I think this is mostly true, that fans are fans first of our music, our concerts, the seven of us, and all the rest is secondary. If that's not the case, I'm not sure you can really call yourself a fan."

He gives me a small smile.

"Why are you making Jim sad, reporter-man?" Taehyung has popped up, pointing an accusatory finger at me and squeezing Jimin's shoulder.

"He wasn't, just doing his job!" Is Jimin's answer, smiling a little more now and pulling Taehyung's hand off his shoulder and into his own.

"If you say, so, but I've got my eye on him," Taehyung squints his eyes in exaggerated suspicion.

Jimin burst out laughing.

"My protector," he says eyes full of affection as he looks up at Taehyung who beams back at him.

"You guys ready to go?" Namjoon is calling from the door, where everyone else is gathering.

They bid me goodbye and amble back towards the group, where Seokjin wraps an arm around both of them, pretending to dose off on Jimin's shoulder as they wander out.

This idea of what it means to truly be a fan is one I've heard a lot from these men over the past few months. With an avid fanbase much larger than many countries, the power they yield is tremendous, and I think this refrain is indicative of the responsibility they feel towards these people to promote love and respect above all else.

 Hoseok's birthday is a lavish affair. There's a dance floor, a DJ, and a very fancy restaurant rented out for the occasion. The people here are so pretty, so well dressed, leaning against the bar, nursing my drink, I stick out like a sore thumb. Julie fits right in. It isn't actually Hoseok's birthday, of course. On Hoseok's birthday, they were all working. This is the next closest day off. Currently, Seokjin, Namjoon, and Yoongi are further down the bar, knocking back shots with a few friends I don't know. Namjoon spills part of his last drink on his shirt, a pretty girl pulls a napkin off from the bar and pats him dry. Everyone is laughing. Hoseok, Taehyung, and Jimin are standing on a table and dancing, all three of them dropping and twerking, faces flush. Jimin is wearing a silk shirt in rose gold, buttons all the way undone. Taehyung is wearing leather pants, Hoseok has bedazzled sunglasses in the shape of dollar signs and someone has given him a crown. Now, he's pouring champagne into Jimin's mouth. Around them, people are jumping, pounding their fists in the air. For people who have no free time, BTS certainly have a lot of friends.

Jungkook sidles up to me. He's generally described as more reserved than the rest, and this may be true in some sense, but moreover, he has a sort of quiet charisma. Up until now, he had been milling around the room, chatting with innumerable acquaintances. Once in a while, stopping by Taehyung, checking in, sipping from his drink, joining in on whatever conversation his partner had been having. In this setting, they're somewhere between their public and private appearance. They're affectionate, but not so affectionate that any leaked photos could cause trouble. Now, Junkook leans beside me, intently watching the scene unfolding on the table.

"Have you ever been in love?"

There's no hello. His speech is loose, cheeks a little flushed. He's wearing one of his signature two-piece sets with tinted glasses. He looks cool, even for this crowd.

"Maybe once."

"I didn't think I'd ever fall in love. Then Taehyung came along. Have I ever told you about how I fell in love with him?"

"You haven't"

I'll admit I'm curious. Like I told Taehyung, it helps me paint a picture, even if it doesn't end up on the page, but more than that, I've spent a lot of time with these guys now. I like them. I want to know them better.

"It was a night like this. Jimin's birthday. There were tons of people I didn't know and I was still such a shy kid. This was 2017. So we're at this party and there are so many people I don't know and it's been such a stressful week and I'm exhausted and basically hiding in a corner. Taehyung comes and finds me there. He doesn't ask me if I'm ok or make a big deal of it or anything. He just puts his arm around my shoulder and chats away. All of a sudden, the party isn't so bad anymore. Taehyung asks me if I want to dance. I say that there are too many people out there and he says to just focus on him. He says we don't have to, but the music is kind of good and he's moving his head to the beat and I say ok. Now we're in the middle of the crowd and he has his hands on my shoulders and he's dancing kind of like that," he nods his chin towards the table where Taehyung is doing a kind of vertical worm, laughing his head off.

"And he looked like an absolute fool, but he also looked so beautiful. It was like he was glowing. At that moment, I felt like we were the only two people in the world and so I started dancing too. Then it all just clicked. All the feelings were already there, probably had been since the day we met. But then I knew. It was Taehyung.

"It's not like some big dramatic moment where we kissed or anything. Taehyung still had to work through a bunch of stuff and I had just had this epiphany that was about to change a pretty significant amount of my life. So that moment was great, and then there were about three years of doubts and insecurities. At the time, I knew I felt this love, but I wasn't quite ready to put a label on it. I think I tried to convince myself it was platonic soulmates, for a while. Which, fantasies about kissing your platonic soul mate should probably clue you in to the fact that platonic probably isn't part of the definition. But yeah. It took a while and there were bumps along the way, but we got there in the end."

Jungkook seems so happy, I don't want to ask about the time when Taehyung was in denial of his feelings, but he seems to be on that track nonetheless.

"In a way, when Tae pushed me away, it gave me a chance to examine my feelings. I had built so much of my life around Taehyung for such a long time, and now here I was without this essential pillar. I didn't know who I was without him. So I got to know myself, that's around when I started getting tattoos, started really expressing myself. This may seem to counter my big epiphany, but I even dated a bit. It ultimately helped me figure out my feelings towards Tae. When he started coming back out of his shell, when we started really truly talking again, I knew myself better, and I understood what I wanted from our relationship. I still thought it probably wouldn't work out that way though. What were the chances that this guy that I was in love with, that I also happened to live and work with, loved me too?"

"How d'you finally get together?"

"In a far less dramatic way, really. It was late, we were tired, he was at my apartment. We had just moved out of the dorms, but we had this habit of crashing at each other's houses. Not just me and Tae, but all of us, we weren't used to not being together. Anyway, that night it was just me and Tae on the couch and he just came out and told me that he was in love with me. I was so shocked, I didn't even say anything. So he told me that it was ok if I didn't like him back, that we would be friends and colleagues and he didn't mean to make me uncomfortable. He said he would get over it. I could tell he was panicking and somehow the first thing I said was 'I don't want you to get over it' and then we were kissing and the rest is history. I was such a fool for letting him panic like that. Should have kissed him right then and there as soon as he said he loved me."

Sometime during our conversation, Taehyung had hopped off the table, and just as Jungkook was finishing, Taehyung grabs his hand.

"Come dance with me!" He says, tugging Jungkook, who glances at me apologetically, but smiles when he looks back at Taehyung. "But you have to promise to dance badly because it's more fun like that!" Taehyung is adding as he pulls Jungkook away.

Jungkook laughs. I watch him as he climbs on the table behind Taehyung. Welcomes Hoseok embrace and Jimin's happy squeal and proceeds to dance like no one is watching. I've never seen Jungkook with so little composure. I've never seen him so happy.

Eventually, the rest of BTS make it onto the table. They're dancing and laughing. They've started a trend and now there are more tables with people standing on them than not. Julie glances over at me and soon we're both standing on the bar. This, I think, is the power of BTS. Beyond anything, they draw people in, they make you feel like you're in the fun not watching it unfold. Add to that some pretty killer songs, and it's a recipe for success.  

I thought that that was where the story ended for me. I go back to my normal life, set about putting the experience to paper.

I check my email on a grey evening a month after my return home. As soon as I read the message, I'm booking a flight. On my way to the airport, I read the news articles. Julie meets me at the arrival gates. I feel that she's as anxious as I am to get to our destination and we don't talk much as she guides me to the hired car. The dorm, when we get to it, is surprisingly calm. The dining room has become a bit of a makeshift board room, with some managers and higher-ups hunched over computers. As we walk in, one gets up abruptly, walking into an adjoining room to take a call. When Hoseok sees us, he gives us both a hug. Namjoon walks in. "Thanks for doing this, they're in the living room," he says.

Seokjin appears from the kitchen. "There's food in the kitchen. Joon, you need to eat something." 

Spotting us, he shoots over and pulls us into an embrace, cracks a joke, and disappears again, towing Namjoon along.

"I haven't seen this one eat all day," he tells us over his shoulder.    

In the living room, the scene is quiet. Taehyung is on the couch, head in hands. Jungkook is pacing behind him, he stops to lean over the back of the couch, wraps his arms around Taehyung, and bends to whisper something in his hair before resuming his pacing. They don't seem to see us. Yoongi and Jimin are curled up on chairs, here, I suspect, for moral support. They get up, Yoongi squeezing our hands, Jimin, coming in for a hug before quietly filing out. Jungkook and Taehyung are still in their own thoughts.

"Hi," I find myself saying. They're both look a little surprised to hear my voice. Then they're both embracing us as Hoseok, Seokjin, and Jimin did. Back on the couch, Jungkook grabs one of Taehyung's hands, studies his fingers, pressing them between his own, as if making sure that they still fit. Taehyung watches him for a moment then looks back up at us.

"When people hear the story, we want them to hear it our way. Everyone is speculating, which is no surprise, but we want to give them the real story. Daniel, Julie, will you help us do that?" His voice is steady. Jungkook squeezes his hand harder.

"Of course. "

We're there for a long time. We've filled in some of the details from the history of their relationship, but mostly, we've talked about how they want this story. Jungkook hasn't let go of Taehyung's hand.

"What made you do it?"

Last night, Taehyung and Jungkook had posted a sunset photo of them kissing each other. This morning, gossip sites around the world were speculating. Jungkook almost smiles, but it's Taehyung who responds.

"So yesterday, there was this tabloid who contacted Hybe with photos of us kissing in a back alleyway outside an event. They wanted us to pay to have it silenced, or they would publish it. Hybe would have paid, they were going to. We were obviously upset. As far as we knew, that alley was completely empty. But then we kind of decided that enough was enough."

Jungkook elaborates, "when you love someone for as long as I've loved Taehyung… that night, I just feel like we weren't doing anything wrong or to be ashamed of. We shouldn't need to hide. We knew Hybe wouldn't exactly approve, and it was a bit impulsive, but we just… we took back the narrative and posted a picture ourselves." Taehyung is nodding to Jungkook's words.

I can tell that the last twenty-four hours had been stressful. Taehyung and Jungkook had essentially gone rogue, certainly, they had acted impulsively, and I'm sure that still wondered whether they had done the right thing. Nonetheless, they're both smiling now. I ask them how Hybe and the rest of BTS reacted.

"They were upset that they hadn't been consulted, but ultimately, they were all supportive. The boys especially, they had always said that being able to express who we are is the most important. They were happy that we were choosing to live our truth. We all cried a lot. Plus, we all agree that we don't want fans that discriminate over sexual orientation, race, religion, or gender identity. So we were all united when it came to Hybe. We really didn't know what to expect from them. Obviously, as individuals, we know they support Jungkook and me, but as a business… this decision we made might be a financial hit to the company. We were happily surprised though, they didn't like our approach, but they supported us. They understood that this is part of promoting the values at the core of BTS."

"All that aside," Jungkook adds, "They could have dumped us for the PR nightmare alone, we definitely broke some contract agreements… so we're incredibly thankful for the support."

"Of course, it shouldn't have to be like this" Taehyung continues, his voice betraying his emotion. "We should be allowed to date who we want, all of us, without it being scrutinized. I'm willing to concede that part of choosing this life is to choose to have your life on every front cover and tabloid. I also concede that we probably could have taken a better approach to coming out with our relationship. But this, us, it shouldn't be groundbreaking or controversial. We shouldn't have had to hide, to begin with. I know we're getting backlash and there's more to come. What people have to understand is that my love for Jungkook doesn't diminish my love for the fans, and it certainly doesn't make me a bad person. That's all that should matter, and I think at the end of the day, it's all that will matter for our true fans."

"When I was young, so much was given to me. This life, I didn't feel like I had earned it, so I felt like I had this debt to pay. I felt indebted to our fans, to our company and I endeavored to live up to their every expectation. To be perfect," Jungkook glances at his tattooed hand, ARMY written across his knuckles, "for a while, I think I forgot to be a person outside of that. It consumed me and I didn't even know. When I say I love ARMY now, I mean it. But it doesn't mean I don't love other things too. I think, I hope, it makes me a better artist."

Taehyung nods, "I think, if there's one thing that I want people to remember is that nothing is new, nothing has changed. Jungkook and I, we love each other, we support each other. We love the rest of the group too and support them and vice-versa. We love and support our fans. We couldn't have made it here without any of those things, so we hope that our fans will still love and support us in light of this new information."

"And fuck everyone else" Jungkook whispers, squeezing Taehyung's hand a little harder.

So this is the product of that conversation. Taehyung and Jungkook trust me to share with you their relationship, as it is day-to-day. Nothing new, nothing groundbreaking, just two people who love each other in a group of seven people who love each other. One aspect of their lives among many.