#chaelin

Grace had come offstage Friday night, stumbled through the door half-delirious, and woke up Saturday to a house full of reunited BTS members: loud, affectionate, chaotic. Not that she minded; they were eight again. But she had forgotten what it felt like to share oxygen with seven grown men who acted like overexcited puppies. They also hadn’t remembered that, sometimes, their noona needed tea in total silence before she could tolerate being breathed near.

Monday finally came empty, no call time, no rehearsal room, and no cameras. Just quiet. She padded around the house in socks, hair tied up, and makeup forgotten. Jin had gone to a filming schedule in the morning and came back an hour ago, humming as he tidied their takeaway boxes and cleaned dishes they could’ve easily left until morning. 

Grace was stretched across the sofa, fingers tapping lazily at her phone screen, the kind of relaxed that only comes after months of not remembering what relaxed felt like. The room was soft, sun dipping low, Jin clinking around the kitchen, the hush after months of arenas still settling into her bones.

Then her phone pinged. And then pinged again. 

Her eyes drifted towards the notification from where she had been watching a TikTok and saw it was the girls' group chat that Chaelin had named: ‘Queens of KPop.’ 

Chaelin: I fancy sushi, wine and gossip. Anyone free?

IU: I literally got home, but I can be ready to go in 10 minutes!

Grace glanced at the group chat, then towards the kitchen, where Jin was finishing up cleaning. 

“Jin?” she called.

“Mm?”

“Hypothetically,” she began, “if two hurricanes in human form asked to descend on our living room with sushi and gossip… would you object?”

Silence long enough to hear typing, then a soft ding. “Yoongi has approved the escape plan,” Jin announced, sliding his phone into his pocket.

“You don’t have to leave,” she protested, sitting up to peek over the back of the couch.

He snorted and disappeared into the bedroom. Thirty seconds later, he remerged like a man departing for a week-long expedition: cap on, backpack stuffed, and air of wounded nobility intact. He dropped the bag by the door just as Min-ji padded over to investigate.

“I’m not wedging myself between three of the most powerful women in K-pop discussing men and skincare,” he said gravely.

Her phone buzzed.

Chaelin: Grace, don’t you dare pretend you’re busy. Your tour just ended. IU: We can come to you. We’ll bring food and leave our chaos at the door. Chaelin: I will not leave my chaos at the door. My chaos is designer.

Grace snorted, thumbs flying.

Grace: I’m horizontal. That’s my status.

 IU: We’ll peel you off the sofa gently. Chaelin: Do you have wasabi, or should I rob the convenience store?

The chat kept sprinting without her as Jin packed a second bag - snacks, obviously, Yoongi’s tax.

“Text me when it’s safe to return,” he said, wandering back to the couch.

“IU will vanish by tomorrow afternoon, knowing her. Chaelin,” Grace trailed off, fully aware of her friend’s staying power.

“Exactly,” Jin laughed. He bent to kiss her forehead. “I love you. Have fun. Don’t terrify the cat, don’t redecorate the kitchen, and please make sure no one spills wine on the carpet again.”

He hoisted the bags, gave Min-ji a solemn nod, and headed for the door. He had been a minute before the group chat pinged again.

Chaelin: Just saw Jin downstairs. He told me to behave.

Grace: He knows you too well, that’s why.

The doorbell chimed. Grace exhaled, rolled her shoulders back like she was about to walk onstage, and padded to the door. She unlocked it to find her two favourite kinds of trouble.

IU stood there in full glam, eyeliner winged like it could cut glass, soft waves cascading, outfit perfectly curated like she'd just stepped off a magazine set. A walking fairy-goddess mood board.

Chaelin, meanwhile, looked aggressively comfortable: oversized tee, cargo shorts, hair in a bun that had given up halfway through the day. Zero makeup. A tote bag full of convenience-store snacks clutched in one hand and a bottle of wine dangling from the other like a threat.

“Emergency board meeting,” IU said sweetly, lifting a bakery box like a peace offering.

“I brought the essentials,” Chaelin said, shaking her convenience-store haul. “Sugar, chips, and the energy of a woman who hasn’t emotionally processed anything since 2016.”

Grace snorted and stepped aside. “That could be all of us,” she said, locking the door. 

Chaelin bee-lined for the kitchen; IU glided straight to the bathroom to take off her glam; Min-ji took one look at the incoming storm and fled under the bed like a tiny survivalist.

Grace let them move the way they always did here, like the place knew their footsteps. She drifted back to the sofa and reclaimed her dent in the cushion. In the background: bowls clinked, snack bags rustled, a cork popped, the kettle began its soft rattle.

Her phone pinged again. This time, not the girls’ chat but the BTS one.

Jin: I’ve been kicked out of my house. Someone save me. Attached: a photo of Yoongi holding a whiskey in one hand and the TV remote in the other, face expressionless, captioned with a single skull emoji.

Namjoon: Why has Gigi kicked you out? What did you do?

Ping. Ping. Ping. The thread exploded. Grace sighed, flicked her phone to silent, and slid it onto the coffee table just as the girls returned.

IU handed her a steaming mug of tea with one hand and balanced a wine glass in the other; her eyeliner was gone, hair up, face soft and clean. Chaelin followed with a bowl of chips under one arm, a plate of sushi in the other, wine glass riding precariously on top like a circus act.

“So,” Grace said, accepting the tea and immediately stealing two sushi rolls, “what called this board meeting?”

Chaelin dropped the bags on the coffee table like she was slamming down evidence. “Because,” she announced, “men are stupid.”

Grace’s eyebrows went up, “Oooh bold. What’s brought that on?” 

IU sat beside her with her glass of wine and two pastries that she brought. She was trying to eat them delicately like she was still on camera until Chaelin gave her an odd look, to which IU shoved the rest of the pastry into her mouth and got an approved look.

Chaelin exhaled. “It’s him.”

The situationship. The man who texted “miss u” at 1 a.m. and disappeared by noon. Producer-adjacent. Non-committal. Grace didn’t need more context, because this man had been around for a while, in and out and everywhere else. 

“He,” Chaelin began dramatically, “asked if we could keep things quiet a little longer.”

Grace blinked. “Quiet. As in secret?”

“As in,” Chaelin stabbed a piece of salmon maki with chopsticks like it had personally wronged her, “he doesn’t want his fandom to ‘feel weird.’”

IU made a tiny disapproving noise. Soft, but lethal as she filled up Chaelin’s wine glass even though it was already full. 

Grace leaned forward, elbows on knees. “So he wants you but only in the shadows.”

Chaelin took a huge gulp of wine. “Apparently I shine too brightly and it’s ‘intimidating.’” She threw up finger quotes violently. “Men only want an empowered woman until she actually is one.”

Grace snorted. “He couldn’t handle your carry-on baggage, let alone your career.”

IU choked on her tea, snickering. “Grace.”

“What?” Grace shrugged. “I support women. And I support cutting men off like split ends.”

Chaelin threw her arms out. “See? Exactly. Emotional support empress.”

IU rested her cheek on her palm and gazed at Chaelin. “Do you want him?”

“No,” Chaelin admitted, voice going small just for a moment. “I don't want to be alone in hotel rooms after shows.”

All three women knew what that felt like, in one way or another. Grace, surrounded by men who loved her either as a partner or like a sister but felt alone in hotel rooms especially in the early days when the title of ‘Only female of BTS’ was getting too much. IU, Korea’s little sister, had so many titles thrown on her and was bigger than she lived, but always alone in the room after standing in front of thousands. 

And Chaelin, one of the biggest and baddest ladies in Korea, was seen as too bold, too loud, yet underneath all that, she was simply looking for that someone who could see past all that posing and see the Chaelin, not the CL. 

IU reached and squeezed her hand. “Alone isn’t unloved.”

“I know,” Chaelin said. “I just forget.” Chaelin nodded to herself, and then pivoted. “Okay. Jieun, your turn.”

IU hesitated. “It’s not a crisis. It’s logistics.” She exhaled, eyes softening. “You know I’m with Jong-suk. He’s wonderful. So respectful. We’re just,” she searched for the word, “learning how to date while working constantly.”

Grace’s expression warmed. “Two careers, one calendar. Brutal maths.”

IU nodded. “We set a dinner date last night. A last-minute script session popped up for him. We moved it. Then my drama team added an early call. We moved it again.” A tiny laugh, more fond than bitter. “By the time we landed on ‘Let’s just do ramyeon on FaceTime,’ we were both asleep.”

Chaelin pointed with her chopsticks. “That’s not men being stupid. That’s fame being rude.”

“He sends me little voice notes when he wraps late,” IU added, cheeks colouring. “I write back in the morning with coffee photos. It’s good. It’s just, hard not to feel like we’re disappointing each other when schedules win.”

Grace leaned in, forehead to IU’s for a beat. “You’re not disappointing each other. You’re protecting each other’s work.”

IU’s shoulders dropped, grateful. “I needed to hear that.”

Chaelin grinned. “Tell him I approve. He looks at you like he knows he got lucky.”

IU’s smile turned shy. “He’s steady. I can breathe around him.”

“Sold,” Grace said. “Keep him. And block ‘situationship man’ for sport.”

Chaelin brightened. “I could mute him for a month.”

“A century,” Grace corrected.

“Done.”

Chaelin swivelled. “And you, Glow Demon. What’s your drama? Is Jin too considerate? Too handsome? Too emotionally literate?”

All three burst out laughing, because if Jin was anything, it was gloriously himself, not a walking therapy workbook. Grace knew she was lucky: with him, with the boys, with the orbit they’d built together. Nothing she’d trade. But luck didn’t stop clocks.

“No, none of that,” she said, settling back, shoulders loosening with the choice to be honest. “I think its age. I’m thirty-five, thirty-six next year. He’s thirty-three in December. We both want a family; it’s always been on the cards. But the big BTS comeback is right around the corner and as much as we’re a hundred percent behind it, there’s that small percentage whispering, ‘Okay, but when do we make space for a baby? For sleep? For us?’”

The room went gentle-quiet. Not awkward; attentive. IU’s hand found Grace’s knee, warm and steady. Chaelin’s bravado softened at the edges as she handed Grace some snacks.

“It’s never left my mouth like that,” Grace admitted, voice lower. “We said it to each other after he got back from service, put the relationship on the table, looked at it from every angle, and asked what we actually wanted. It felt good. Clear. But then schedules started stacking, and every time we carve out a plan, a new date drops in the calendar.” She huffed a laugh that wasn’t quite a laugh. “It’s like trying to build a nest on a moving train.”

IU squeezed once. “You don’t have to justify wanting both.”

Chaelin nodded, unusually gentle. “Career doesn’t expire at thirty-six. Love doesn’t either. We’re allowed chapters.”

Grace breathed out, the kind that releases a knot you didn’t know you’d tied. “I know. Most days I believe that. Some days I look at the year, and the comeback, and I do the maths, and the maths does not care about my feelings.”

“Then don’t do it alone,” IU said. “Do it with the person who makes the math irrelevant.”

“Jin will succeed at fatherhood the way he succeeded at being the group’s designated chaos containment,” Chaelin added, deadpan. “He’ll label the nappies and roast a chicken between naps.”

Grace snorted the tension cracking. “He would label the nappies.”

“And he will leave the house when summoned by the Board of Women With Plans,” Chaelin declared, lifting her glass.

Grace let herself imagine it for a second: tour schedules negotiated with nap schedules; airports with a stroller; Jin’s laugh in a smaller room; a life where the stage didn’t have to swallow everything. The image didn’t scare her. It steadied her.

“We’ll figure it out,” she said at last, not as a promise to perform, but as a choice to keep choosing. “Together. Even if the train’s moving.”

“And when the time comes, we’ll be the aunties and help lay the tracks,” IU added as she stabbed a sushi roll. 

“I am not being in the bedroom while they,” Chaelin yelped.

IU choked, hands waving, mouth full. “That’s not what I meant!”

The room cracked open with laughter. Grace fell back against the couch, tea still in hand, wheezing as Chaelin and IU fake-argued about “auntie duties” and door policies. The tension evaporated; the air went warm again.

Some days they were idols with timelines, scripts, choreography, and cameras. Some days they were just women, messy, loud, soft, needing each other when the world outside pressed too hard, when the rails kinked and the route changed.