Chapter 6

"So, Tenth Knot sent me this link to a video of Nine Knots with a penis plushie, and I'd like to have the actual whole context behind that idiotic thing," I tell my cousin as a greeting the second she picks up her phone.

"Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You can't say that shit. You can't start a sentence saying Tenth Knot sent me this link! YOU TALKED TO TENTH KNOT!" she yells in my ear.

Oh right. She's a fan of hers too.

"Yeah, things were getting out of hand so I reached out to her," I explain.

I had wanted to deal with this all on my own, but clearly I wasn't equipped for it.

"OHMYGOD. And she replied? You had an actual answer from our Queen?"

I snort at her outburst again. "I guess I did."

"Why are you sooo blessed? Life is truly unfair," my cousin whines.

I wouldn't call myself blessed though. I am getting death threats. Kissing Jae-sang will not bring anything good to my life. It's not giving me a boyfriend—I'm never seeing the guy again. It might give me unrealistic expectations, like I can go on kissing superstars now.

And well, once again, it's also brought me death threats.

So yeah. I am not blessed.

I don't whine about this with my cousin though. I don't want to hurt her. Nine Knots and Tenth Knot mean something to her.

It does not for me.

"Sorry, I can ask her to say hi to you if you want," I offer.

"No, no, I don't want that. I want us to become friends organically. I want her to want to talk to me and I want us to become best friends and then share our fanfics, and I want to know how the hell she knows everything she knows."

I don't know everything she knows, but if she's so important in their fandom, she must know a lot.

Her message didn't indicate anything about who she is. She did mention someone's wedding though. Like, she knows their schedule. Is their schedule public?

"Maybe she's a crazy stalker fan. She follows them around. On Wattpad, she says her location is under Jae-sang's bed," I offer.

"Yeah, but did she make a big deal out of the fact that you kissed the guy she says is her bias?" Dot asks me.

"No, not really."

"Yeah, because she's not a crazy stalker, she's a devoted fan," Dot defends her.

We've strayed from the actual problem at hand though. "Anyway, that's not the point. I want to know about the plushie."

Dot laughs. "Oh, honey. That's how it starts."

"What?"

"I'm so proud of you," she croons.

"Shut up."

"What are you doing? I don't have class right now. I could come over."

I shrug. It's not like I have plans today. I never have plans. My mother will be happy for me to have some human interactions. "Sure."

"On my waaaaaay."

Half an hour later, I buzz her in.

"Pierre is the lucky plushie," Dot explains the second she walks in our place.

"What?" I say, closing the door behind her.

I checked the hall before I did. Because I'm becoming paranoid, but no one was here.

I really wish all of this was a bad dream, seriously.

"During one of their days off, Jae went out and saw the plushie, god knows where, and he bought it. And then he came back and started to say they had to rub it for good luck. And then that turned to having to kiss it for good luck."

"Whyyyy?"

Dot shrugs, chuckling, "Why does Jae do anything? No one knows. He's a crackhead."

"How can anyone take him seriously when he does stuff like that?"

"That's probably because you never say him perform. It's like... wait, why am I trying to explain any of this. Come on."

She drags me to my room and sits me at my desk in front of my computer before searching for a video. "So, this is like the most iconic moment of Nine Knots history. You watch and then I'll FANGIRL."

I watch the video. The notes to Duncan Laurence Arcade start to play. Spots of light start shinning one after the other one lighting the members. There are only eight guys on stage.

One of them starts singing. I kinda get chills.

I don't know why but it feel super dramatic.

They're all dancing around, ethereally, moving with the beats of the song, impressing me with their singing. I hadn't realized how good they actually were live.

When one of them starts singing the "I spent all of the love I saved" part, there's like commotion in the crowd, the camera changes angles and you see a guy running towards the stage.

It's Jae-sang. Like a younger Jae-sang.

He just runs all the way while the judges I assume are freaking out, and then he literally jumps on the stages, while one of the members throws a mic at him, just in time for him to sing the "oooooh, oooooh" part.

And now they're nine on stage, all dancing throwing a mic around so they can all sing parts.

Finally, Jae-sang has the mic again, and he kinda just crouches down, staring at the judges, and sings "How many pennies in the slot, giving us up didn't take a lot, I saw the end before it begun, still I caried them, carried them and carried on."

And their dance sort of explodes, and they're all singing, and dancing in sync and I've never seen anything like this.

My rock bands don't do stuff like that.

Like the stage presence on that guy. I get chills again. It's fucking eerie. He wasn't that intense when I met him. He was all happy and bubbly. This is a different guy.

They add a rap part to the song, and the two guys that rap are really good. It was sort of unexpected but it really works.

And then the song ends, and they all sort of huddle together hugging and you can see they're crying too.

And then one of them says in his mic, "It's the nine of us, or none of us," and they just leave the fucking stage.

I just kinda gap at my screen.

"The fuck did I just watch?"

Dot is grinning like a lunatic. "Nine little motherfuckers. Okay! Okay! Context! This was towards the end of the show. The group the Netflix show wanted to make was supposed to be with seven members. So at that point of the competition, the guys had to make teams of eight for their showcase of the week. The nine guys were already best of friends by then, but they knew one of them wouldn't be with them. So, Jae-sang told Luan not to pick him for his team. They decided that they were going to make an ultimatum. They practice together with Jae all week long in secret. No one knew they were going to do that. Jae had actually done his show with his other group. So they did that. And they almost broke the internet. And they won because of that. Like the show didn't end there, but from then on, when they let them stay the nine of them together, everyone knew they were gonna win."

"It must have been awesome to follow that when it happened," I admit.

"Fucking nerve wrecking you mean. For all we knew they were all going to be sent home that night."

"He's very different on stage," I trail.

"Huh?"

"Jae-sang."

"Oh yeah, captain duality. He always dances like rent is due, but then the second the music drops he's a ray of sunshine. Literally everyone loves him. He's basically the one that got all the guys together."

"I never saw them perform on stage before. They're good," I acknowledge.

"And that was before they were an actual band you know. They're better now."

"Better?"

"Oh yeah. Wait, let me show you something else," she leans beside me, and types something on YouTube. This time it's a performance of Failed Fairytale. It's like the whole thing is a musical. I'm smiling and laughing at some of the parts even though the song is kinda sad and slow.

When the song is over I can admit that these guys are actually talented. I'll give them that much.

"Oh, by the way, here. So you can fangirl," I hand her my phone with the conversation on Instagram between me and Tenth Knot.

Dot starts reading it and squeals. "She's soooo cool. She's just so goddamn cool. I want to be her bestfriend. I want to date her really. I mean, imagine, we could fangirl about Nine Knots all the time together, and she'd be okay with it. She'd understand."

I laugh. "You're getting ahead of yourself."

"I didn't know it was Ibrahim's sister's wedding this weekend. OHMYGOD, that means they're still in town! You could see him again," she says and shake my arm excitedly.

I snort, rolling my eyes. "Oh, yeah, yeah, right, like that's ever going to happen."

"Imagine how romantic that would be," she swoons.

I just laugh at her.

I think I've had my crazy movie-worthy moment already.

I won't have a second one any time soon.

_____________

Hey guys! Sorry, this chapter came on late, I was waiting for È to have the comment thread done, but she didn't have it on time. Sooooory. This shouldn't happen again.

Here's the transcript for a Twitter thread and I'll put it up later on.

Jae-sang: When we say small things matter, we actually mean Kiaan.

Kiaan: You want to see something small bitch slap you?

Matias: It's true when they say that small people are angrier.

Aleksey: It's because they don't have enough room to store it

Kiaan: Blocked. All of you. Bye.