#gracechuasks

It started on a random night after a long day of schedules. Dinner hadn’t landed right, even if it had been a five-course meal with the rest of Bangtan. Seokjin had retreated to a late-night gaming session with Jungkook, headset on, laughter echoing from the spare room. Grace set herself up in bed with a book, a cup of tea, and a K-drama being dramatic in the background.

Then the hunger nipped. Not hunger hunger, more like an itch under the skin. A little something was needed, the something that had been dogging her all damn day. 

She slid out of bed, padded down the hall past the “gaming room” (technically a box room that had given up being anything but) and drifted downstairs to the kitchen. The cupboards were full: crisps, biscuits, rice cakes, every kind of snack they had bought because who knew which member would appear. But none of it called her name.

“Ooh, peanut butter,” she muttered, spotting the jar. She twisted the lid, scooped a reasonable blob with her finger and popped it into her mouth. 

Warm, salty, creamy and good…but not it. 

Something was missing. 

Her eyes flicked to the fridge and she opened it, blinking at the light. Milk, leftover soup, sliced fruit, pickles, and meat wrapped up and defrosting, and then on the middle shelf, an innocent jar of kimchi.

She stared at it. The kimchi stared back.

“No,” she told it. 

But the idea took hold anyway. Spice and crunch with cream, absolutely unhinged to anyone else. Absolutely perfect for a pregnant woman. 

Two minutes later, she had a slice of bread with a layer of thick peanut butter and a good amount of kimchi. It shouldn’t work; it technically didn’t work, and no heavens opened, and no choirs sang, but her eyes did close, and a noise escaped her that she would later deny making. 

This was it!

So she made a small pile of sandwiches, added a separate amount of kimchi and settled herself at the kitchen counter because there was no way she was eating this in bed. Down the stairs, Seokjin’s voice drifted: “Kook, left! No, your other left!”

She could just about hear Jungkook’s laugh. “Hyung, I’m carrying you – focus!”

Two small sandwiches had disappeared, and she could hear Seokjin’s footsteps down the stairs and towards the kitchen, headset still on, and he was halfway telling Jungkook about snacks when he spotted Grace.

“What are you eating?” he asked, glancing towards the plate.

“Peanut butter and kimchi.”

“Together?” he blinked.

“Mm-hmm. Want one?” 

He opened his mouth, then closed it again as he looked at the sandwich in her hand. “I think I’ll pass on that,” he said just as Jungkook shouted down the headset, “What is she eating?”

“Don’t ask,” Seokjin replied and went to the cupboard to get his own snack, an instant ramen and a packet of crisps. 

“It’s what the baby wants,” she justified after finishing her last sandwich, and miraculously, the craving had settled as she spooned up the last of the kimchi from the plate.

Seokjin deflated, as there was no counterargument to that. “Right, the baby.” He mixed his ramen. “Is the baby happy now?”

“We are, but we’re going to need more kimchi and peanut butter, and probably more bread,” Grace noted as she left her plate in the sink but spooned up another mouthful of kimchi and shoved it into her mouth. “Night!”

“Hyung,” Jungkook questioned over the headset.

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.

There were at least five cameras pointing at the stage, two were following the group around to film behind the scenes and then they had the BANGTAN BOMB cameras as well. Everywhere Grace looked, there was a camera and there was no space where she could go for five minutes and just breathe. 

The boys already knew and god bless them, they were tripping over backwards to get anything she wanted but even they couldn’t help with the cramps and even they couldn’t get her five minutes spare. Jimin had already done his duty of spot checking her, Jungkook had been there to hold her hand when she needed to squeeze something and the others had gone backwards and forwards to get her water, a heat pack or to discreetly escort her to the toilet.

It was just going to be one of those days and one of those days she was just going to have to battle through. 

Letting out a low breath, Grace counted to ten in her head and then let out another low breath. A technique Namjoon had found online to help her essentially breathe through the pain, though it was more used for childbirth and if this level of pain was going to be anything like childbirth, then she wanted to skip that part. 

She closed her eyes and listened to the noise in the background, ARMY talking amongst themselves while the crew finished setting up whatever was causing the delay and the rest of BTS were playing around on stage.

“Do you need a hug?” Taehyung muttered, having reached her side when he noticed his noona was set apart from the usual group shenanigans. 

Grace opened her eyes and looked at her bear questioningly, wondering where this was coming from all of a sudden.

“I’m not sure it’ll help with the pain, but it might cheer you up a little,” he shrugged with that bashful smile of his and she couldn’t help but chuckle. If there was anyone who was keeping a quiet but close eye on her, it would be Taehyung. He was a bit more intune with her pain levels than most of them. 

She didn’t have time to nod when she felt his chin on her shoulder, warm arms around her waist in a tight but comfortable embrace. Whether it was the warmth of Taehyung or the comfort, Grace didn’t know, but it made her instantly relax and she leaned against him as Jimin wandered over to get in on the hug, wrapping his arms around her from the front to create a sandwich. 

“A noona sandwich?” Jungkook questioned, pouting a little when he realised he had been left out of the hug.

“I’m cheering her up and Jimin is keeping her doubly warm,” Taehyung grinned, knowing his mission was complete the moment he felt his noona lean on him. 

“I’ll go and get chocolate then,” Jungkook announced and dashed off the stage, ignoring the ‘five minute’ warning from the staff. 

Namjoon had gone into teacher mode because he had a sister, just as Hobi did and Taehyung, so he knew what to expect. For the others, it had been a long and hard lesson. The shared calendar had been set up in the early days so they knew who had what lesson, who had what training, who needed to be where, how long Jungkook was away in Los Angeles, etc. And when Grace was introduced to them formally as a group, her lady days were added to the calendar.

Yoongi stared at the phone as his calendar alerted him to ‘Code Red - minus 2 days away.’ His brain went completely blank as he stared at the words, taking an embarrassingly long time to try and compute what it even meant until something clicked. Code Red - Grace’s period was due soon. 

They didn’t need to know as a group but it helped explain why sometimes she didn’t want to be touched, why she was grumpy when she was normally cheerful, why she needed to disappear for an hour or two to go and lie down because her cramps were borderline childbirth level. Plus it also alerted them to the fact that they needed to be on standby.

‘Shit,’ Yoongi thought to himself. ‘Does she even have everything she needs?’ 

This was the first alert since they moved to the new dorm with its bigger bathroom and they had created a cupboard especially for Grace’s stuff. And Yoongi was pretty sure that it hadn’t been stocked up. 

What the hell did women buy?

It was a question he asked himself as he stood in the aisle, looking at the various products, masked up and the bucket hat sat firmly low so no one could see any of his features. They didn’t need Dispatch catching a glimpse of one of their members in the feminine hygiene aisle when they were just getting started.

And the price?! 

How did Grace afford this in the early days?

Also, how did she know what to get?

There were pads for heavy flow, nighttime, light flow, day time. Then there were tampons for similar things and then there were wipes and other bits that had his cheeks burning. Why did he think this was a good idea?

But he was a man. And he was going to take care of his female member, even if she was three years older than him and clearly knew what she was doing.

Grabbing two packs each of pads for heavy flow, nighttime and light flow and grabbing Grace’s favourite chocolates on the way to the checkout, Yoongi felt like he had accomplished his mission. He didn’t know much and maybe he’d do a bit of researching later on because while the safe sex talk had been important, he clearly hadn’t been paying attention to the other parts.

Thankfully, he found Grace on her own in the living room with her feet on the coffee table and a book in her lap. 

She glanced up at him and raised an eyebrow, surprised to see him home so early. 

“I thought you were going to stay locked up in your studio,” she said as she marked her place with her finger. 

Yoongi didn’t say anything but handed over the bag as he slipped off his shoes. 

A quick glance inside had Grace looking at Yoongi with a startled look. 

“Uh, I'm not sure what kind of things help with this- so I got everything I could think of,” he said while scratching the back of his head. “I hope this week won’t be too bad.”

The corner of her mouth twitched upward as she held onto the bag. Of all her members, he had been the only one (so far) to step up and take into account her bodily needs.

“Thank you, Yoongi. I won’t say a word to anyone else.”

He felt guilty as his noona worked even harder than he did and he hadn’t really done anything important but she was stubborn and he knew better than to argue with her. So off he went to the couch he stole from the dorm, jumped over it and settled against the cushions. He grabbed the TV remote and flicked on the large screen, scrolling through the options. 

It was nice to have his noona here. 

After having to leave the dorm and live in their separate spaces, Jungkook missed the days when he could crawl into his Noona’s room and have her undivided attention. And while they did dedicate time to each other, she lived twenty minutes away instead of being in the next room. Not only that, Seokjin was taking up much of her time as was her solo career. 

But tonight she was all his and a sleepover organised.

He grinned at the sound of her humming in the kitchen as she did the dishes by hand (don’t trust dishwashers) and he settled on the couch, tucking his legs up to his chest. It was the perfect night until it wasn’t.

Security rang at the intercom and Grace had beaten him to it, asking who it was and what was going on. 

“Really? That’s odd as we’ve already eaten and haven’t ordered anything. Is it from someone we know or a local restaurant?” she asked over the intercom, wiping her hands on the cloth. 

“No? Right, okay. Bring it up then please.”

“Noona?” Jungkook asked from the couch.

“Don’t worry, I’m just going to check something. You stay here.”

She was being stubborn again. 

He heard the voices outside his front door as he sat up right, his fingers tossing the remote control up in the air then catching it and fiddling with the buttons. 

“Jungkook, did you have any food ordered for tonight?” Grace asked as she closed the front door behind her and made sure it was fully locked.

“No, I haven’t ordered anything in over a week.”

“Hmm, we need to inform the team then,” Grace sighed as she came over and handed him the receipt from the order. It was clearly from a fan who had found his address and had ordered him food. 

Jungkook groaned and covered his face with his hands. “No way,” he sighed. 

“Come on. You’re packing up some clothes and staying at mine tonight. Seokjin’s waiting for us,” Grace nudged Jungkook towards the bedroom. “I’ll call the managers.”

As promised, Seokjin and a manager were waiting outside the main doors to Grace’s building and Seokjin didn’t relax until both Jungkook and Grace were tucked up in her bed, covers tight around them.