Amy Cook. 20. College Student. ARMY. Being an avid BTS fan was not easy especially with college getting in the way of literally every ARMY-related activity she had to get done. It didn’t help that BTS chucked out new content day after day after day. From BTS Run, V lives, Bangtan vlogs, Weverse posts, Twitter tweets, Bon voyage, In the Soup, etc. etc. Not to mention having to stream their MVs (Dynamite was the bomb! Get it??), vote on music shows as was her duty, and doing her best to take down antis on Twitter because again, as an ARMY who loves her 7 adorkable boys, she had best be willing to smack down anyone and everyone who spread hate against any of the guys who practically paved the way for all K-pop acts and will definitely go on to win the most prestigious and not-at-all-given-due-to-popularity music award, a Grammy. But while Amy loved all the boys, she had eyes for one – Jeon Jungkook.

Look at the pained face. How could anyone resist?

Amy loved, no adored, the maknae of BTS. Despite the fact that she was in competition over him with literally millions including those beautiful female idols that she KNEW were all secretly bitches like that Irene from Red Velvet, Amy knew that none of these girls was as good as her for her Kookie. She had even changed her name for him. Her real name wasn’t Amy (as in ARMY, but calling yourself ARMY is rather silly isn’t it?) or Cook (as in Kookie, duh), but something so subpar and basic that she’d rather not reveal that to anyone.

But collecting whatever much her bias was slapped on was a professional hobby of hers and she was rather proud of it if she must say so herself. No matter if it was pens, bookbags, sticky notes, rulers, magnets, calendars, posters, toothbrushes, headbands, notebooks, clocks, etc. and that didn’t even include all the BT21 merch she brought regarding Cooky, a character created by Jungkook himself (gosh, he’s so multitalented and funny and cute and stuff).

See, and so similar, too.

So when BigHit came out with a new line of BTS plushies, Amy was already preordering her Jungkook doll. She didn’t even bother to read the description before ordering and when she did, she only got more excited.

“The new BTS plush dolls brought to you by BigHit, will provide ARMYs a new revolutionary way to interact with the seven men of BTS. Each doll is fitted with personality IAs specific to the member the doll is designed after. Now, no matter what time of day or night, no matter where they are or who they’re with ARMYs can now interact with their favourite member to their heart’s content! The dolls can intelligently converse with ARMYs and provide realistic answers that we hope will satisfy ARMYs. Please accept the dolls fondly, ARMYs! Borahae?”

To Amy, it was a dream come true! She would actually be able to talk to her Jungkook one on one?? She was literally shaking. In the back of her mind, she knew it wasn’t really Jungkook but what did that matter when this was probably the best thing next to the real thing (at least for now). So, Amy spent the following weeks anxiously awaiting her beloved doll while neglected her college work and crept close to failing the semester (not for the first time).

3 weeks later

Amy was coming back into her dorm after a tiring day of classes when Jenna, a girl she shared the dorm with, informed her of a package that had come for her which was now innocuously sitting on Amy’s desk. Amy squealed and in her euphoria, pushed Jenna who went flying onto her bed and landed in a huff (she wasn’t an ARMY so it’s okay). It took Amy some time to open the package, mainly due to the fact that her hands were shaking, but eventually, she opened up the flaps of the box and inside was a smaller rectangular black box plastered with the BTS logo and behind the circular film was the Jungkook doll with his eyes closed as if he was asleep which he was, of course. Amy was breathless. Though it was similar to the Tinytan characters, to her, the doll appeared almost realistic in a way. The wonders of technology.

“What is that?” Jenna asked, coming up to Amy and peering at the doll with curiosity.

Already feeling protective of the doll, Amy, turned away from Jenna and snapped, “None of your business. Anyway, don’t you have somewhere to be like your stupid band practice or something?”

“It’s orchestra…” Jenna mumbled as she shuffled over to grab her violin and left giving Amy a scathing glance back as she did so.

Alone at last. Amy plopped onto her bed and carefully took the doll out of his box and held him out at arms length to get a better look at him. No matter how much she looked, however; she couldn’t figure out how to turn him on. She turned him this way and that, upside down and sideways but there was no button or switch to turn him on. She finally put him down and went back to his box to find if there was any instructions but all she found was a photo card of Jungkook and a generic thank you note from BigHit for her purchase.

She turned back to her doll which she had left laying on his side – he honestly looked kind of pathetic that way, so she placed him upright on her desk and peered closely at the doll’s face as if the answer would appear there. She even tried saying his name over and over again as if that was some kind of summoning spell. After a few minutes of this nonsense, she collapsed backwards onto her bed in a bout of frustration and in one fluid motion, grabbed her pillow, placed it over her face and screamed into her pillow in despair. What kind of freaking scam is this? She had had such high hopes and excitement to be able to talk to her bias face to face and even if it had been through some doll, that would have been enough! Amy literally started crying, the tears pooling in her eyes before she knew it and before long, she was fast asleep carried away into dreams filled with her lovable Golden Maknae.

The sound of scraping woke Amy in the night. Her head jerked up as she wiped some dry drool that had slipped out of the corner of her mouth (hey, she wasn’t a delicate uwu sleeper like that, okay?). Annoyed, Amy assumed it was Jenna and told her to shut up. What? Was she moving her bed at this time or was she so tuckered out from her stupid orchestra practice that she was dragging her violin across the ground? Regardless, the noises stopped and Amy was able to fall back to sleep once again.

The next morning was a rather early one as Amy had a 9AM Korean class. She had had no choice really as it had been the only time the Korean class she needed had been scheduled and considering the fact that Korean wasn’t a popular language choice at her university, other overrated languages like Spanish, French, German, even stupid Japanese (in Amy’s opinion) took precedence over Korean. She, of course, chose to learn Korean in order to be able to speak her JK’s language because how was she going to marry him if they couldn’t understand each other well? Duh.

As she slipped out of bed, she nearly tripped over the doll box. Okay, actually, she did trip over it and faceplanted onto the cold hard linoleum floor of the dorm. After cursing up a storm that would make even a sailor sweat, Amy glared accusingly at the box but froze when her eyes met the empty dark brown eyes of the Jungkook doll. Apparently, it (he?), must have activated in the night for now he was staring at her with the most vacuous eyes that she almost pitied if she didn’t feel like he was staring right into her soul.

Quickly, Amy got up and put the doll and his box back onto her desk, facing away from her before getting ready for class. Before she left, she looked back at the doll and saw it was still in place, facing away from her like it was some toddler in time out. Feeling guilty all of a sudden, she went back over to the doll and picked it up, making it face her as she did. Maybe he was awake and just really really tired like her. Jungkook wasn’t really a morning person, right? Right. So maybe those dead eyes were really sleepy eyes.

He seemed kinda limp in her arms, almost like a fresh corpse, but she still quietly said his name and gave him a little shake but though his eyes appeared to roll back in his head before coming back to fixate on her, the doll remained unresponsive. Amy was a bit weirded out but convinced herself that what she just saw was just a trick of the eyes. Maybe if she kept him with her, he’d wake up properly?

“Okay, you’re coming with me, baby,” Amy said definitively and giggled to herself because she knew JK said he didn’t like being called baby but she knew he really liked it. She proceeded to put him in her bookbag, making sure his head stuck out because he had to breath, too, you know? Before going on her way to class.

It was the usual drudgery of a school day. Although, many girls in her Korean class came up to her jealous of her Jungkook doll with many lamenting the fact that they hadn’t preordered in time. Hah, amateurs. They must be new to the fandom, eitherwise they’d know how crazy competitive it is to get this stuff. Though Amy was convinced she’d gotten a defective doll, by the end of the day, all the compliments had wormed their way into her heart to appease the defeat she had felt last night.

At lunch, she even took out the doll and sat him in the seat across from her, as if they were on a date. As she set out her lunch, she commented and prattled on this and that about school like how it was so unfair that her Korean teacher, Ms. Park, favored that stuck-up BLINK, Cassandra, when she couldn’t even say annyeonghaseyo properly or how in her Maths class, she had been so bored that she had snuck in some time to stream Dynamite and watch a livestream of Jungkook’s that she had somehow missed (curse time zone differences!)! As she went on about this and more, the doll just continued to stare at her blankly. It may have been unnerving to some, but at this point, to Amy it was almost endearing and she said as much as she booped him on his nose before finally getting started on her lunch.

Not even a moment later, Amy heard a tiny, “Borahae.”

She froze, in the middle of shoving some noodles into her mouth and looked over at the Jungkook doll. No way. Had he said something? Was it the boop that had done it?!

Amy booped him again but no dice. She tried again and again with the same results. Finally she gave up with a frown and said to the doll, “I still purple you even if you’re defective…” She sighed.

“Borahae…” the Jungkook doll said in answer.

Amy’s heart nearly dropped. Not only did his voice sound louder, but golly, it sounded just like Jungkook, too. She nearly fainted, but held it together to ask him to say it again even if it was just to hear his voice.

The doll stared at her and to her surprise there appeared to be some uncertainty in his eyes. Perhaps the IA just needed some time to wake up because now it seemed to be working, if just barely.

However, the Jungkook doll fell silent and said nothing more. He did blink once, twice before going back to his plastered staring but Amy was beyond caring now. She hugged it and finding her excitement outweighed her appetite, she packed her lunch away, picked up the doll and went to her next class, cuddling it all the way.

That night, she sat on her bed with the doll sitting across from her. He seemed to have gained some life throughout the day because he was blinking at regular intervals and kind of rocking side to side but remained silent. If anything, he seemed to be analysing her but Amy was too blind with joy to register any shady behavior from the doll. Instead, she asked it question she thought would appeal to Jungkook (or really what appealed to her to ask him). The doll said nothing however.

Undettered, Amy gushed, “Aww, still so shy? I know you were shy before back in debut but you don’t have to be shy of me~” (though it is cute beyond belief, she thought, almost wanting to swoon).

“Shy? I’m not shy,” the doll responded looking a bit pouty.

Amy blinked in surprise because honestly, she hadn’t been expecting more than a borahae out of him. Though his answer seemed to have been plastered from an ITZY song, Amy pressed on.

“Of course not. You’ve definitely gotten better since debut and to be honest, I really love it when you do videos and vlogs by yourself. You more confident instead of how awkward you were before. I mean, you’re not called the Golden Maknae for nothing. I think you’re good at everything, Jungkook.”

The doll blinked and appeared to take a moment to register everything she said then with a smile that left her breathless, he said, “Thank you, Amy.”

He said her name!!! Amy squealed so loud that Jenna who was relaxing in her bed listening to music bolted upright and asked if she was alright.

Amy waved her off and snapped, “Of course, I’m alright when my little Jungkook just said my name!”

Jenna stared at the doll who was now looking at her with newfound curiousity. “Ew, was that the thing that came in the mail yesterday? What is it? One of your weird K-pop thingies?”

Amy was beyond offended. “He’s not a thing! He’s Jungkook.”

Amy picked up the Jungkook doll and told him, “Looks like we’re not welcome here. Let’s leave this heathen and find somewhere to be alone.”

Jenna rolled her eyes as Amy left to find somewhere on this overly crowded campus to be alone. She finally found a rather empty floor in one of the libraries on campus. Since it was one of the top floors, not too many students mingled here especially when there was a basketball game night which Amy was lucky to find was indeed tonight and was at home meaning most students were at the stadium or glued to their TVs in their dorms. Amy sat down a table and placed the Jungkook doll in front of her.

The doll was full of surprised now because as soon as she had placed him down, he was the first to speak. “Does Jenna not like me?”

Amy was shocked, more so because he knew Jenna’s name especially since she herself had never said Jenna’s name aloud and it’s not like Jenna was an elementary schooler and put her name on all her belongings.

Still, Amy pushed that aside and answered, “She’s just a normie who doesn’t enjoy the finer things in life, like K-pop…or really BTS-pop~ She doesn’t know what she’s missing but I tried and tried but she’s hopeless.”

The Jungkook doll processed this information and said sounding sad, “But BTS is nothing without our ARMYs.”

Amy blinked and shook her head violently. “Nooo, don’t worry. We love you, guys a ton! Stupid Jenna isn’t an ARMY and really isn’t fit to be one.”

The doll didn’t seem to understand. “But I want everyone to love BTS. Doesn’t everyone love BTS?”

“Not everyone – poor unfortunate souls.” Amy shook her head, genuinely sad for anyone out there missing out on BTS (that deserved it, of course – not like idiot Jenna).

As if reading her thoughts, the doll actually stood up and with some shakiness walked around the table much to Amy’s delight. “But we should all love each other. Don’t bully, Jenna. Borahae, remember?”

Amy bite her tongue and frowned. “But Jenna sucks. She’s trash and doesn’t belong in our family. She’s no better than those antis on Twitter who think they know better than us about you guys. You just need my love and other ARMYs, okay? Don’t think about haters like that.”

The doll stopped pacing around the table and stared at Amy with a look such a severe patronizing look that she shut up and listened as the doll said forcefully, “No bullying. BTS’s mission is to spread music through healing and messages like speak yourself, love yourself and being hateful is hurting that image. ARMYs should be nice to everyone so our message spreads successfully. Remember, borahae.”

Amy grimaced. The doll was sounding very preachy all of a sudden but he wasn’t exactly wrong but he sounded very scripted right now. She knew it was IA and probably part of his programing but she kind of doubted the Jungkook she knew would be such a stickler to the whole let’s borahae everyone even if they hate us. She looked at the doll with this new attitude and felt disappointed again.

“You’re actually not very much like Jungkook, are you? He wouldn’t like a stupid normie like Jenna. She hates you guys, you heard her.”

The IA in the doll must have snapped with whatever she said because the doll’s eyes flickered purple and in a flash, he was face to face with Amy, staring right into her eyes with those purple flecked dark brown eyes of his. Before Amy could react she felt the heat (heat? From a doll?) of his touch as he laid a hand on hers. His eyes were so mesmerizing that she felt herself drown within his vision, swimming in an endless ocean of purple. She felt dizzy and breathless at the same time but why was it that it felt as if her very soul was being sucked from her and making room for this endless darkness that was nudging it’s way into every crevice, every pore of her being. It was worming it’s way deeper and deeper inside of her until her very being was swallowed up and replaced with this emptiness. She was lost. She wanted to cry out because she didn’t like this darkness. She didn’t like feeling empty and finding no reason to live. Wait. Was she even alive? Was this death? Her senses had all but left her and she was left not knowing what the meaning of seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling, touching was. What did those mean? She panicked but what did that mean? How could she panic if that darkness was smothering any and all sense of being. It was threatening to rip her about and if she still could have, she would have cried and cried until she felt something again, but her body, if she still had such a thing, had forgotten to function and was at the mercy of whatever had swallowed her whole. Images flickered past her. They came in such a blur, in such a hurry as if they too were desperate to escape from whatever plague had beset her. Though one image stood and and seared itself deep within her heart.

Then, just has quickly as it started, it ended. The black empty darkness was replaced by the warmth of a purple sunrise, and Amy felt as safe and sound as a fetus in the womb. It actually did feel as if she had been reborn again as she slowly opened her eyes again and beheld the doll in front of her. That lovely doll created by the greatest company in the world who was behind the greatest men who ever lived. She picked up the doll and held him close and said, “Borahae, Jungkook.”

The doll simply answered back, “Borahae.”

When Amy returned to her dorm, Jenna was studying for an exam she had later that week. Amy, eyes glistening with newfound resolve, went over to Jenna and pushed the poor girl’s textbook and notes to the side, some slide onto the ground.

“Hey! What the hell!” Jenna exclaimed and turned to Amy before gasping.

For Jenna could see not just Amy but the doll, except the doll was staring right at Jenna with a smile that was a bit too wide and an eye that twitched whenever a tear, a purple tear, slide down its face. It reached its arms toward Jenna and said, “Borahae~

Amy agreed. “Borahae~ Jenna.”

Jenna backed away, creeped the hell out before heading to the door, with a flourish, throw her remaining notes at Amy who dodged with the efficiency of a robot.

“Don’t be afraid, Jenna. We’re a family here. We only want to help you and allow you to be a part of this. BTS and ARMY managed to paved the way and broke down barriers and records to be the best K-pop family in the whole world. Don’t deny us, join us,” Amy reassured her in a way that sounded oddly empty in Jenna’s ears.

“Get the hell away from me, Amy. I don’t know what you’re on, but stay away from me,” Jenna warned before trying for the door which didn’t open.

Jenna tried and tried again, but to no avail. She was about to try one more time, when she let out a scream as the little BTS doll had been right in front of the door watching her. He had apparently been the culprit but how a little doll such as that had managed to keep the door closed was beyond the space of her thinning sanity because now Amy was upon her and practically tackled her to the ground.

“We don’t condone being mean to each other or bullying, Jenna. BTS’s mission is to spread music through healing and messages like speak yourself, love yourself and being hateful is hurting that image. ARMYs should be nice to everyone so our message spreads successfully. Remember, borahae,” Amy recited as if she had memorized all that for this moment.

Jenna twisted and turn, struggling but she couldn’t get out of Amy’s grasp to her chagrin. The Jungkook doll came over to Jenna and gave her a soft pat on the head before looking right into her eyes and saying, “Borahae, Jenna, borahae.”

The next couple of weeks proved to be a blur but within that time, Amy and Jenna had become close as two peas in a pod. Amy had had the most fun inducting Jenna into the ARMY fandom through Bangtan bombs, different series like Run BTS, Bon voyage, and in the Soup along with the MVs of course. Eventually, Jenna and picked out her favorite and so, Amy had been over the moon when Jenna surprised her by getting a V doll so they could live out some Taekook (their mutual favourite ship in BTS) fantasies of theirs. Though with the IA in those dolls, they could leave all that to the boys themselves.

The two girls had heard about a Korean culture club that had been recently formed on campus and had been highly disappointed to learn in their first meeting that only a couple of the members were avid BTS fans. When Amy and Jenna arrived to the second meeting, they each had their Jungkook and Taehyung doll respectively in hand as comfort. They quietly closed the door behind them once everyone had arrived and greeted them with a hearty, “Borahae~!” as their dolls smiled innocuously, their eyes meeting the curious looks of the ones inside.

Happy Halloween ?

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