You probably wrapped the cord around my neck to get out first-” “You can’t just thwack me, I’m older than you-” Clearly, the two of you remembered your seventh birthday very differently. “It chased me for 15 minutes and I spent our party with dad,” you remind him. “It made us balloon animals and sang us happy birthday!” “That clown was a menace to society, just like you are.” “You’ve been scared of clowns since we were 7-” The two of you spoke so fast that it even spun the heads of English speakers around. “You know I’m scared of clowns,” you bicker, the two of you switching back to your native English. “Did you just thwack me?” He asks incredulously as a hand raises to rub his forehead. It was a trick you’ve been pulling out since you were kids but it seemed to surprise him every time. You immediately reach over and thwack his forehead. Mark manages to get on his knees and pull you into a hug, his laughter not ending as you rub the back of your thigh where you hit something. Jisung, the poor boy, looks like a deer in headlights as he silently retreats back into the dressing room. “It’s okay Jisung, don’t worry about it,” you wave your hand dismissively. Mark told me Haechan was coming,” Jisung apologizes immediately, bowing a perfect 90 degrees, looking as if he might throw up from the guilt. He can’t stop his laughter, some other people poke their heads out to see the commotion but quickly retreat back in when they realize it’s nothing but a good old practical joke. “Mark, what’s wrong with you?” You sigh as you sink down and toss the mask aside.
You reach forward and take off the mask, and find who you suspected. Rosé and Lisa both looked spooked as well, clinging to each other, eyes wide as they look down at you. He, too, looks shocked as he tries to decipher what just happened. The person you hit looks to be Jaehyun, who was, unfortunately, leaving his room with a couple of friends at the same time you walked by.
When you open your shut eyes, the man in the clown mask has fallen to his knees in front of you as he laughs, and above him, Jisung stands like a fish out of water as he looks down at you. Your other hand slaps itself over your mouth and wonder if you just had an actual heart attack until a burst of familiar contagious laughter fills the air. “Stop, stop, stop,” you plead as a hand clamps over your beating heart. As if the situation couldn’t get even better, as you stumbled back you bumped into someone and instantly fell to your knees. Lisa doesn’t think you’ve ever been this loud before. You scream, so loud and high pitched that glass could break, and scream even higher when someone in a clown mask pops out. You jog ahead, trying to peek around the corner, completely distracted when someone yells “boo”. Somewhere along the way you had lost Jisoo and Jennie. Currently, you were trying to find your dressing room and were very, very lost. “I think it was down this hall,” you tell Rosé and Lisa as the three of you wander around backstage of one of those end-of-year award shows.