Another year, and another Gayo Daejun performance exactly on Christmas day. This year, the Pinks were putting on a special stage with Jennie starting with Solo, then the three other members coming out for a dance break leading into Ddu-Du Ddu-Du. They were all excited for it, but Lisa couldn't help feeling a little bit of apprehension, as her presence at this show also meant a risk of seeing Jungkook again. Deep-down, it thrilled her a little to be able to see him again, but as she had learnt at MMA and the after-party, he could still find ways to easily distract her and consume her thoughts just by being in her presence. She was finding that this constant pining attraction for him wasn't doing her willpower any good! It had almost shattered completely on the balcony when she had been so close to kissing him again!
As if the fates were playing a cruel game with her, they announced Blackpink onto the introduction stage directly after BTS. Rosé walked first, her head held high, despite the embarrassment she faced the morning after her fateful tabletop dance. Her mobile had blown up in the morning by friends who took the advantage to tease her. She had never been more mortified but was just glad that she hadn't proceeded to throw up in front of everyone at that party by the end of the night - she had saved that particular spectacle just for the Pinks and the iKon boys that drove them home, as the car ride had turned her stomach and she had thrown up everything as soon as they had stopped in front of their dorm building.
Rosé led the girls to stand next to the BTS members, leaving a wide gap for safety. All the girls acutely felt the awkwardness - they had heard about the fans shipping them and it made any interaction with them in public a little unbearable. Lisa felt particularly sorry for Rosé and Jimin in that moment as they were both stood next to each other looking stonily ahead and ensuring there was no eye contact. 
"Lisa, come stand at the back next to me," Jennie whispered to her. "You're taller than Jisoo so let her be in front." 
Lisa acquiesced and swapped places with Jisoo gladly - at least this way, she would be a bit more hidden from the audience's scrutiny. As they waited for all the other artists who were performing that night to join them on the stage, she could feel eyes boring into the side of her face. She made to look around at the audience while sneakily trying to check who was staring at her so intently. When she turned to the right, she spotted the culprit - Jeon Jungkook quickly looked away at the eye contact. Lisa quickly fixed her eyes back on the ground too.
Her face remained stoic as the rest of the introduction stage took place. They left quickly when it was over, all the artists heading to their respective dressing rooms to get ready. Lisa still needed to be sewn into her costume, as they didn't have time to change before the introductions and she was still in her red carpet outfit. She could see Jungkook from the corner of her eye, but she hurried off to the dressing rooms before she could do something rash. 

-&-

Jungkook had been pacing back and forth restlessly in the BTS dressing room for most of the evening. His hyungs had told him more than once to calm down and take a seat but he was worked up and waiting for one particular performance.
When he saw the rest of the Blackpink members finally join Jennie on stage, he sat down, poised at the edge of the sofa, intently watching the performance. Their dance break transitioned into the opening notes of D4, but not before a camera close-up of Lisa pivoting on her feet to face the camera, giving an intense, fierce look straight down the lens. Jungkook felt his throat run dry at that look.
"Oh they're good," J-Hope said, singing along.
Jimin joined him and whistled lowly in appreciation at Rosé's bridge - her vocals were always impressive.
The nice thing about Gayo Daejun compared to the other end-of-year award shows were that it was purely a performance show for the fans. The artists weren't part of the audience and therefore, it was the one event where a lot of idols came together and could catch up backstage.
After the Blackpink performance, the BTS members split off and explored the backstage area. There was a communal area for idols with a TV, large sofas and other bits of entertainment to keep them all preoccupied while everyone waited for their turn on the stage. Jungkook found his '97 liner friends gathered on bean bags in a corner of the room.
"Mr. Jeon," Bambam shouted out, holding open his arms to receive a hug from Jungkook. "Merry Christmas!"
"Merry Christmas to you guys too," he greeted back to Bambam, Jaehyun, Mingyu, DK and Yugyeom. 
"Did you catch Blackpink's performance?" Bambam asked with his knowing smirk. "My girl Lisa burning up the stage, amirite?" he nudged Jungkook in the arm with his eyebrows rising up and down. 
The other '97 liners just knew Bambam could be weird, so didn't think much of it, but Jungkook wasn't really sure if they knew about Lisa and his relationship or not. He played it safe and just shrugged in response. "Yeah, I guess."
"Ahh, it must feel good to be part of the two biggest k-pop groups right now. BTS and Blackpink are really blowing up in America," Jaehyun said, who heard about it constantly from his old American buddies. 
"Not just America - I swear the Thai people love you more than me, Kook," Bambam joked. 
"Well it's not hard, is it?" Jungkook teased right back, to which he earned a punch in the arm. 
"Have you heard? There are rumours Blackpink are playing Coachella too," Yugyeom said conspiratorially. 
"Oh come on, who even trusts rumours in this industry?" Mingyu chimed in in disbelief.
Yugyeom shrugged. "Well if it's true, that's pretty fucking cool."
"Oh yeah, don't get me wrong, Coachella is the standard in the West."
Jungkook listened silently but couldn't help but be surprised. If him and Lisa were still going out, she would have told him such monumental news, even if they hadn't signed a contract yet. To be asked to perform at Coachella was a big deal. He felt a bit saddened that he was missing out on her telling him all these great achievements. 
"You okay, Kook?" DK asked, probably picking up on Jungkook's weirdly silent and brooding state. 
"It's alright, Kook, BTS will get a Grammy instead!" Mingyu joked cheerfully, slapping his knee in comfort. 
"It's not a competition, guys!" he reassured. "And plus, a Grammy?! Don't plant hope in me for something that would never happen!"
"Well you never know! If any Korean artist can do it, it's you guys!" Bambam said optimistically. "And speaking of, here comes your members now."
He turned around and saw a couple of his members walking over. "Hey, hyung," he addressed Suga, who was walking between Jin and Namjoon. "Mingyu said we'd get a Grammy one day."
Suga weighed it up in his mind for a second. "Yeah, he's right." His tone and expression were entirely serious.
"Really?!" Jungkook said. He would take it serious if his hyung said it, but when Mingyu said it, it had just sounded like a well-meaning pleasantry - like what your parents were obligated to tell you when you asked them if you were ugly or not.
Namjoon slapped a hand down on his maknae's shoulders. "If Suga said it's to be, then it will be."
"But first, a Billboard number 1!" Suga said with his whole chest, crossing his arms over and nodding his head, manifesting it into BTS's future by sheer force. 
"Ya, aren't we demanding too much," Jin said, exasperated. "The gods will be angry if we keep asking for more."
Suga didn't care about asking for more and was ready to get into a theological debate with him about it if Namjoon hadn't stepped in.
"Yo, Jungkook, it's our time to perform soon."
Jungkook nodded and got up, receiving good lucks from his friends before heading to the stage.

-&-

BTS had closed the evening with a spectacular performance. The members headed backstage again to cool down and refresh themselves before all the idols gathered on stage for the closing ceremony to thank fans.
As they stepped off the stage, the BTS members congratulated themselves, gathering in a circle to clasp shoulders and bow their heads down together.
"Well done, everyone," their leader said proudly. "We did well. Let's continue this momentum into the new year."
The six others cheered and also thanked their leader.
When they split apart, Jungkook grabbed a water bottle and towel from an awaiting staff member.
"That felt good, one of our best performances this year," Jin said with a relieved smile.
Jungkook agreed, taking a large, much-needed gulp of his water. He patted his forehead of the sweat that had gathered at his temples.
They started to move back towards their dressing room for some make-up retouches but on the route back, Jungkook had spotted a fairly large group gathering when he passed by the idol common room. He stopped and peeked his head in, and noticed that it was all YG idols. It was probably the blonde hair tied in a high ponytail that had gotten his attention first. Lisa was with her members, Winner and iKon, all of them chatting and gossiping.
He only saw Lisa's side profile from his angle but she had one arm self-consciously gripped around her waist, hiding the slither of skin at her midriff that her outfit didn't cover. Her feet were shifty and her eyes were drawn to the ground.
Jungkook knew she was always a bit shyer in big groups. She would tend to invert in on herself, and especially when everyone else was talking in Korean. He knew she could keep up with the conversation easily but she couldn't always find a way to express herself properly in her third language and that difficulty to contribute to a conversation shut her off from participating in it.
He wanted to rescue her from the situation by dragging her away and letting them talk privately. He wanted her to open up to him instead and talk about how she was doing and what she was up to these days.
However, he couldn't, and a nudge from Namjoon at his side reminded him that he needed to get back to his dressing room.
He walked away slowly, his feet deliberately dragging.
Before he could get far enough away down the hallway, he heard her familiar voice, heading out of the door.
"Can't you tell me what it is?" Lisa asked. Her form appeared then at the entryway, but her back remained to him as she turned down the opposite way to him.
"I have to show you." Another voice joined hers and at the sound, Jungkook instantly tensed. He could faintly tell Namjoon stood beside him, confused as to why Jungkook had stopped again.
"Trust me, you'll be so excited!"
Jungkook watched helplessly as Kim Hanbin's retreating figure ushered Lisa down the hallway.
"JK, come on. We don't have much time."
Jungkook was torn between following his hyung's orders or chasing after Lisa and Hanbin. The issue, he retrospectively realised, had been bothering him a lot these past few days. He felt irritation whenever he was reminded of the name Kim Hanbin and all the interactions with Lisa that Jungkook had witnessed. First there was the Melon Music Awards, where Hanbin couldn't stop staring at Lisa during the ceremony. Then Jungkook had spotted them talking backstage and Hanbin's attentions had yet again been strangely fixated on Lisa. It had then been insanely bad timing on Hanbin's part to interrupt Jungkook and Lisa on the balcony at the after-party when Jungkook was sure he could have leaned into kiss Lisa and she wouldn't have pushed him away. He had seen Hanbin's social media post after the YG idols had left the bar and had gone on to have their own after-after party at their dorms. What was even more annoying on top of all of that was knowing that they lived in the same dorm building and had probably had millions of other interactions Jungkook didn't know about, which let his imagination torturously fill in the gaps. And now Lisa was once again being left alone with Hanbin as he went to show her something in his dressing room?
"Seriously, JK, we've got to go, man," Namjoon urged, pulling at Jungkook's shoulder to get him to budge. He managed to twist Jungkook enough to face him directly. "They're most definitely just friends. Trust Lisa, okay?"
Jungkook tried to wipe the anger that was showing in his furrowed brows and tensed jaw from his face, and nodded stiffly to his hyung. Namjoon was of course right. He needed to calm down. Maybe when the night was over he would allow himself to think about this more and maybe he could logically find an alternative reason as to why Hanbin and Lisa seemed so close all of a sudden. 

-&-

The closing ceremony had come and gone quickly. They had all congregated on the stage with the other performing idols and thanked the fans. The confetti had been a nice touch. Jungkook thought he had probably stared at Lisa a little too often, but he couldn't help himself when she looked so perfect tonight, almost like a Barbie doll. Their eyes had even accidentally met, but they had looked away quickly, both worried that the fans might have caught it on camera. 
At the end of it, Jungkook followed his members backstage again. They loitered a while in the hallway, discussing the evening and their schedule for the rest of the week.
However, Jungkook was distracted again by a sight that had reluctantly become familiar to him as of late. Blackpink were stood with iKon, chatting with them further down the corridor. Jungkook's fist instictively clenched when he witnessed Hanbin pick out a piece of confetti from Lisa's hair, his fingers lingering for a few seconds longer than necessary. Lisa also didn't stop him and even thanked him with a warm smile.
Jungkook's members soon noticed that their maknae was being uncharacteristically quiet and they all turned to see what had caught his attention. When Jungkook suddenly strode away from the group without warning, five pairs of expectant eyes fell on their leader.
"What?" Namjoon said irritably.
"Well you're our leader," Suga snickered back.
Namjoon gave a great heave of a sigh. "Fine, fine, I'll go deal with the maknae. He's nothing but trouble, I swear."
He followed Jungkook, jogging to catch up to him and stopped him with a firm hand on Jungkook's shoulder.
"JK," he said cautiously.
"Hyung," Jungkook replied back surprised. However, it soon morphed into irritation again when he saw the girls laughing at something the iKon members had said. His eyes were particularly trained on Lisa, whose whole head tilted back with her mirth. Her laughter was always so open and infectious to others around her but now Jungkook wished selfishly that it was something reserved only for him.
Jungkook wanted desperately to go over and claim his girlfriend, to show that Kim Hanbin could never have her. Namjoon must have felt his muscles tensing, ready for a fight, as his other hand came up to place itself firmly on his chest.
"Yo, hot-head, take it easy," Namjoon said lowly in his ear. "Don't make a scene here."
Jungkook could have growled in his displeasure. "I can't stand seeing it, hyung. I really hate that guy."
"Yeah, yeah, it's just your jealousy talking," Namjoon replied back, ever the pacifist. He probably didn't believe that humans were capable of hate, and that Jungkook's words were just spoken in the heat of the moment.
"Why do they look so intimate then?"
Namjoon ran a tired hand through his hair, not sure how to answer. Even he had to admit that Lisa and Kim Hanbin did look like close friends - as they were from the same label, he guessed it was highly likely they were friends even as trainees. But as someone who had witnessed first-hand Jungkook and Lisa together, he knew that what he saw with Lisa and Hanbin was platonic - at least from Lisa's side.
"They just look like friends to me," Namjoon tried to placate. "Come on, we should get going."
However, to Namjoon's surprise, Jungkook shrugged him off. Lisa had split away from the group and looked to be heading back to their dressing room.
"I'll be right back, hyung."
"Jungkook, wait!"
Namjoon's plea was ignored as Jungkook followed after Lisa, sprinting away around the corner.
He had found his opening to finally get some answers.
When Lisa was within touching distance, Jungkook gently grabbed her arm and dragged her around a corner to an empty alcove where the emergency exits were located.
She jumped upon the contact and didn't relax even after seeing it was only him.
"Jungkook, what are you doing?!"

-&-

Lisa was on her way to the dressing rooms to pack away her stuff first.
She had almost squealed when someone grabbed onto her arm unexpectedly. When she whipped her head around and saw Jungkook's messy hair and the steel expression in his eyes, she was even more surprised.
"Jungkook, what are you doing?!"
He had dragged her to the emergency exits, in a isolated corner that no one would pay attention to.
When he fully turned to her, she could feel her breath catching in her throat. She hadn't been able to get a good look at him all evening, despite the temptation to drink him in and ogle shamelessly when he was standing so close to her on the stage.
When he didn't reply, and just kept staring at her with his intense expression, a minute crease formed between his eyes, she crossed her arms over her chest and gave him a strict look back. "Well? Aren't you going to say anything?"
She sounded angrier than she was, but her defenses had been automatically raised when faced alone with him. She needed to remind herself that she couldn't fall into his trap again, and to stay professional and aloof around him, or else she might just find herself in his arms again and back to square one.
"What's going on between you and that iKon guy?"
She hadn't expected the question and it hit her like a bucket of ice cold water.
"What?" she replied quietly.
Jungkook repeated the question through gritted teeth.
"Are you serious?" Lisa asked incredulously. "If by 'iKon guy' you mean Kim Hanbin..."
Lisa saw Jungkook flinch a bit at the name. It was her purposeful attempt to ensure no one disrespected her label sunbaenims by reducing him to such a vague title.
She crossed her arms over her chest. "What do you think is going on between me and him?"
Jungkook was annoyingly silent, scared to voice his thoughts and have them confirmed.
"I told you I would wait for you, didn't I? Does my word mean nothing?"
She saw the guilt pass over Jungkook's face without any satisfaction. He deflated and rubbed his hair agitatedly.
"Of course I trust you. I just don't trust anyone else," he said, his words coming out stilted.
She frowned. "If you can trust me, that should be enough. What even made you think anything was going on between me and Hanbin?"
Jungkook shifted uncomfortably. His concerns suddenly felt foolish and paranoid.  "You both just seem so... close?" he said unsurely. "I saw him looking at you differently, and you guys always seem to be talking. And he took you somewhere in private earlier and said he had something to show you?! That sounds pretty suspicious to me."
"He wanted to show me a vintage Biggie t-shirt because he knew I would appreciate it... That was it. And talking?! Really, Jungkook?! If you're going to act this way and accuse me every time you see me talking with another guy... then we're going to have bigger issues than what we originally thought."
"What else am I supposed to think when we don't even talk anymore, yet I see you looking so friendly with another guy?"
Lisa was about to make an angry retort but a noise from the hallway around the corner made both of them jump. Lisa whipped around edgily, scared someone would catch the two of them alone in this secluded corner. As she did, she lost her footing and reached out to grab the wall. Luckily, no one came running around the corner at the sound.
"Are you okay?" Jungkook asked quickly, his frustration transforming into concern as his hands came out to steady her.
His touch, after weeks of forgetting the sensation, assaulted her senses again, bringing back the memory of his embraces.
She quickly shrugged him off, clinging on to her prior feelings of annoyance.
"I'm fine. Look, I need to get back before someone notices I'm gone."
She turned away from him and hurried to walk away.
"Wait, Lisa-"
"Don't," she cut him off before he could accuse her more. She kept her gaze solidly on the ground in front of her. "We'll talk about it another time, but... not now."
She walked away then, glad to not have to raise a scene where anybody could have discovered them. She was still livid that he could accuse her of being disloyal to him. Even though they hadn't spoken in a while, she would never betray him and the promise they had shared.