Chapter Text
Namjoon woke up well past noon to a text from his manager:
With the heaviest thumb of his life, Namjoon clicked the link.
It was the BBC Live Lounge. Namjoon’s ex-boyfriend had just finished a set of his own two singles and now he was about to perform a cover.
Jungkook looked at the camera and spoke in Korean. Namjoon read the subtitles so he wouldn’t have to look at his face.
“I was really influenced by Billie Eilish’s debut album—which I thought was really good—and I listened to it over and over and over again. When she released her new album, I was really excited. I immediately liked this song the most. When a friend of mine translated all the lyrics for me, I realized that…” Jungkook paused. “I realized that every single lyric of this song—literally, every single one—applied to me and—uh—and a relationship I had been in. Singing this song to myself over and over again the past few weeks has given me a lot of comfort. I hope you enjoy it. This is ‘Happier Than Ever.’”
Namjoon watched the rest of the four-minute video without moving a single muscle on his face.
Six minutes after that, there was a knocking at his door. It was a complimentary gesture because Namjoon knew Jimin had keys and, lo and behold, he came charging into his bedroom within twenty seconds.
Jimin stood at the foot of his bed with hands on his hips.
“Did you watch it?”
Namjoon closed his eyes and opened them.
“It’s you, isn’t it?” Jimin asked.
Namjoon bit the very tip of his tongue and curled his upper lip.
Jimin turned on his heel and walked out. “I’m making coffee. Come out in five.”
Namjoon was out in thirty. He needed to shower. And shave. And floss. And respond to some texts. And he hadn’t called his mom in a few days. The longer he made Jimin wait, the angrier Jimin would be, and the angrier Jimin would be, the scarier he would become. So Namjoon kept delaying, making him angrier and scarier in his mind—
Thirty minutes was as far as Namjoon would push him, his manager-hyung.
Jimin was on his own phone when he came out, taking screenshot after screenshot of something.
“Coffee’s cold,” Jimin said, not looking up. He stood behind the ice-white, marble kitchen island.
Namjoon sat opposite of him on a counter stool with his arms crossed.
Jimin’s gaze snapped up.
“You’re all anybody’s talking about.”
“There are like five wars going on in the world.”
“Yes, and they’re all happening on Twitter.”
Namjoon rolled his eyes.
“Everybody thinks that cover was about you,” Jimin said. “Everybody.”
Namjoon bit the inside of his bottom lip. He knew for a fucking fact that cover was about him. “I doubt it.”
Jimin looked at him as if he was living through all five wars happening in the world simultaneously. He flipped through the screenshots on his phone. “I have the Korean translation of the lyrics here somewhere,” he murmured.
Namjoon threw his head back and groaned. “Jimin-hyung…”
“I don’t think you’re understanding the seriousness, Namjoon-ssi,” Jimin said tersely. “Everybody is talking about you, and none of it is good.”
“Hmm,” he said, rubbing his eyes.
“We need to think of a response strategy.”
“For what?” He stared back at Jimin.
Jimin quipped impatiently, “For your ex basically telling people you’re toxic and that you emotionally abused him.”
Namjoon’s expression turned to stone. He was near a snarl. “I didn’t.”
Jimin was looking at his phone. He recited the first lyric: “‘When I’m away from you, I’m happier than ever.’”
“Good for him,” Namjoon glowered. “Feeling’s mutual.”
“‘Wish I could explain it better’—”
“Yeah, he wasn’t the lyricist in the relationship—”
Jimin shot him a glare. Namjoon raised his eyebrows. Jimin continued reading.
“‘I wish it wasn’t true.’”
Namjoon tightened his crossed arms.
“‘Give me a day or two, to think of something clever’—”
“How do I tell him he might need a few more than that—”
“Well,” Jimin declared, huffing, “You’ve obviously handled rejection well—”
“I—he didn’t—”
“Are you about to lie to me?” Jimin challenged idly. Namjoon kept his mouth shut. Jimin continued. “‘To write myself a letter, to tell me what to do.’”
Namjoon had no comment this time. Jimin went on.
“‘Do you read my interviews? Or do you skip my avenue?’”
Namjoon didn’t read his interviews but he did skip his avenue. He didn’t go anywhere near Jungkook’s high-rise, even though he had a few other friends in the same complex. He insisted they all meet elsewhere. It was torture enough that he could barely go outside without seeing Jungkook’s face hawking Chilsung cider, or turn on the television without catching him dance his way through a commercial for Samsung. At the end of the ads, he’d always turn and smile over his shoulder. It was hauntingly over-familiar. Namjoon knew to flip the channel before that part.
It was interesting to him, the idea that Jungkook was sitting around wondering if Namjoon sought him out in 2D if not 3D (or was he 4D?). But no—he didn’t.
“I don’t read his fucking interviews,” Namjoon scoffed.
“He didn’t say you did. He asked.”
“Well, I fucking don’t.”
“Cool,” Jimin stated. He moved on. “‘When you said you were passing through, was I even on your way?’”
The first time Namjoon had dared to make a real move on Jungkook—as far as he could remember—was by showing up to one of his music video shoots. A friend of his had told him it was happening on the other side of the city. Namjoon had raced over, shown up, and told Jungkook he’d just been passing through. They’d both had such big, stupid grins on their faces that day—standing around next to dozens of staff and trying so hard not to just burst out of their skin. Namjoon could hardly think about it anymore without his gut twisting, but at the time he’d never felt such a strong compulsion to reach out and tug somebody close to him. To feel another person’s warmth against his chest. Jungkook told him later that his own fingertips had felt tingly.
Namjoon wondered if that lyric was a coincidence or if Jungkook had always known that Namjoon hadn’t simply been passing by that day—a day which had set off a sequence of events that spiraled out of their control and culminated in nothing but a pitch-black nightmare. Did they regret it? Did he regret running across town for Jungkook? Or did he only regret what happened afterwards.
That lyric had to be a pure coincidence; a minute detail in a song that Jungkook chose for other, less generous reasons. There was no way he’d still remember that.
Namjoon shrugged, noncommittal. “That could be anybody, anything.”
Jimin continued, “‘I knew when I asked you to be cool about what I was telling you, you’d do the opposite of what you said you’d do and I’d end up more afraid.’”
Ah.
From how Jimin was looking at him out of the corner of his eyes, Namjoon knew it’d be harder to evade this allegation.
Namjoon thought he was protective. Jungkook thought he was possessive. He liked it at first, the way Namjoon’s hand would curl around his arm at award shows or tighten around his waist at private parties. Perverts—that’s who the music industry was made up of. Perverts and creeps and rapists. Jungkook told Namjoon about all of them. Ones who leaned in a little too close to speak with him, one’s whose hands wandered a little too south down his back when telling him a joke, one’s whose words were bolder than their bodies.
Towards the end of things, Jungkook said it was fucking miserable that he couldn’t even tell his own boyfriend when he was feeling unsafe because he couldn’t trust how Namjoon would react. If he’d only make things worse. He usually did.
“You can’t deny that one,” Jimin said bluntly. “I was at that club when you hit that EDM producer over the head with a champagne bottle.”
“I don’t remember that,” Namjoon said. He re-crossed his arms. He’d been blackout drunk at the time.
“Obviously Jungkook does,” Jimin retorted. “We carried you home.”
Namjoon fucking hated everything today. He wasn’t supposed to think about Jungkook. He wasn’t at the ‘confrontation’ phase of his therapy, but he doubted Jimin cared much about that right now. Twitter was on fire, or whatever.
“And it’s not like it was just the one time, either,” Jimin reminded. “You used to be violent as shit. Tore apart your whole studio when you found out he’d done that song with—”
“He wasn’t any better,” Namjoon shot back. “He—”
“He isn’t being accused of being a piece of shit though,” Jimin jabbed back. “You are. So I don’t care what he was or wasn’t.”
“I could always accuse him back,” Namjoon griped. He wanted an aspirin for his headache. He wasn’t hungover because he didn’t drink anymore, but Jimin had opened all the blinds in his apartment and the sun was pouring directly into his retinas and burning up his brain. He sipped the ice-cold, milkless coffee just to have something to do.
“Doesn’t work that way. Whoever throws the second accusation is the loser in the court of public opinion.”
“My fans—”
“Nobody cares what your fans say or what his fans say. They’re fans. They don’t set the narrative.”
Namjoon slumped in his chair.
“We haven’t even gotten to the worst parts yet,” Jimin grimaced.
“I know,” Namjoon groaned again. He leaned his head back and looked up at the blank ceiling.
“Should I go on?” Jimin asked. But he didn’t wait for a literal answer to his rhetorical question. “The next bit goes ‘Don’t say it isn’t fair, you clearly weren’t aware that you made me miserable’—”
Namjoon grunted. He got up and began shuffling around his kitchen looking for an aspirin.
Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. Know that he made him miserable.
“‘So if you really wanna know’—”
“I don’t,” Namjoon murmured, drinking water.
Jimin ignored him, “‘When I’m away from you, I’m happier than ever’—okay this bit is a repeat—‘wish I could explain it better, I wish it wasn’t true.’” Jimin scrolled up. “Okay, this is—uh—this is where it gets dicey for you.”
Namjoon knew. He’d seen the video.
“Should we watch the video?” Jimin suggested.
Namjoon whipped his head toward him.
Jimin was a very good manager. Smart, forward-thinking, considerate, patience of a thousand saints. But Namjoon would fire him. He’d fucking fire him if he—
“Where’s the remote,” Jimin said to himself, wandering over to Namjoon’s living room, sticking his hands in-between the white leather cushions until he found the remote to the massive flat screen on the wall. Jimin clicked it on.
“Jimin,” Namjoon said a little quietly.
He didn’t know if he was being ignored or just not heard.
Jimin cast up the video of Jungkook. Had his face magnified by a hundred times in front of Namjoon’s eyes. Yeah, it hurt. Felt like a dagger to the heart by the hand of a friend: unexpected, cold, cruel.
Namjoon looked away.
The video played and now Namjoon couldn’t escape him. His voice filled up the entire room, like aerated poison in an enclosed space.
They watched the first half of the video in total silence, Jimin standing in front of the television while Namjoon hung back in the kitchen. The muscles on Namjoon’s face moved a little differently this time, when Jungkook said that ‘literally every single lyric’ applied to a relationship he had been in. He still didn’t look at the screen.
They caught up to the part they were at. He sang, once more, in his perfectly-enunciated English ‘wish I could explain it better, I wish it wasn’t true.’ His voice was so clear. He’d always been praised for how crystal clear his voice was. Nobody listening to him could ever miss a word; Namjoon certainly wasn’t.
The song changed tempo and genre at the mid-point mark. In the video, the idly sitting drummers and guitarists behind Jungkook at the BBC studio perked up and got into position. The song began to brood. Went from jazz to rock. Beautiful to blistering, pretty to puncturing. Namjoon stole a glance at the television. Jungkook’s expression shifted from distant, somber, and pensive to alert, biting, and sharp. He tapped his foot as he waited for his cue.
Jungkook looked right at the camera when he sang now, expressive eyes a meter apart on Namjoon’s wall. Could he see Namjoon?
“‘You called me again, drunk in your Benz, driving home under the influence,’” he sang, gaze piercing through to Namjoon, hand gripping his microphone tightly. “‘You scared me to death, but I’m wasting my breath ‘cause you only listen to your fucking friends.’”
He sounded like he was going to cry. Looked like it too. Big eyes glassy and watery and trembling around the edges. They used to waver like that before he cried. Hadn’t lost a flicker of impact.
Namjoon ducked his head.
Jimin paused the video. He turned to Namjoon.
“He said ‘every single lyric’ applied,” Namjoon said, voice detached and distant. “I don’t drive. I’ve definitely never drunk and drove.”
“Yeah,” Jimin said, surprisingly taking him seriously. “I thought about that, too. But you do have a Benz, and you did used to call him from it all the time—drunk.”
“What friends do you think he’s talking about?” Namjoon deflected. He didn’t drink anymore.
“Probably all of them,” Jimin mumbled. “He hated all your rapper buddies. Said you were an asshole around them. He wasn’t wrong…”
Namjoon pursed his lips. He hadn’t hung out with those guys since he started taking care of himself. Turns out they hadn’t wanted to be friends outside of a nightclub or a 4 am studio snowstorm. He wondered who was buying them their premium coke these days.
“He hated them because he hated when I gave anybody apart from him any attention.”
“The point is, Namjoon,” Jimin sighed, “That that line is pretty damaging. He looks like he cared about you and you sound like…”
Yeah, he knew what he sounded like. Namjoon didn’t like that face being blown up on his entire living room wall.
“Can we finish this?”
Jimin pressed play.
Jungkook sang with anger now. His voice shook, same as his hand.
“‘I don’t relate to you, I don’t relate to you—no,’” he sang, “‘’Cause I’d never treat me this shitty, you made me hate this city.’”
That didn’t sting any less the second time.
So Jungkook thought that he wouldn’t treat Namjoon the way that Namjoon had treated him. The implication—to people—would be that Namjoon had treated him pretty fucking awfully. They’d dated for just under a year. A long time to put up with somebody you couldn’t relate to; a long time to put up with being treated shitty.
“He’s not from Seoul,” Namjoon blandly informed Jimin, who had paused the video again. “He’s from—”
“Busan,” Jimin finished. “Yeah, I know every celebrity who’s from Busan, trust me.”
Jungkook had ruined a high-rise for him. Namjoon wondered if he’d ruined all of Seoul for Jungkook in return.
“I’m impressed he’s not afraid to swear in songs anymore,” Namjoon observed, tone clipped. “Or, I guess, that he’s suddenly allowed to. His team were always so image-obsessed.”
“The image has clearly changed,” Jimin noted, waving toward the screen.
Namjoon looked for half a second. Tatted, pierced, punkier. Yeah, it had. Wasn’t he just blond and pretty and prim this past January? Jeon Jungkook with a choppy haircut, an eyebrow piercing and dozens of tattoos felt stranger than fiction to Kim Namjoon. Jungkook had always talked about getting a tattoo—maybe a small one, hidden somewhere only Namjoon could see it—but the idea of his agency finding out had always deterred him. He couldn’t disappoint them. They’d done everything for him since he’d been twelve, he’d explain to Namjoon. He owed them things. (“Not your body, though,” Namjoon would tell him. “You can do whatever you want to that.” Jungkook pointed out that his image was actually their most valuable asset. He couldn’t tamper with it. Namjoon said it was bullshit. Jungkook said he didn’t get it. They’d always dropped it before they’d ever truly fought about it.)
Jimin played the video.
This was the part Namjoon didn’t want to hear again. This was the part he didn’t want to think was for him; this was the part Namjoon knew was for him more than any of the other lines.
Jungkook tilted his head and sang with full force, from deep within his chest. He could have sung it into Namjoon’s ear. Whispered it to him alone. Instead, he told the world.
The music blasted behind him—rocky and angry.
He sang: “‘And I don’t talk shit about you on the internet, never told anyone anything bad. ‘Cause that’s shit’s embarrassing, you were my everything, and all that you did was make me fucking sad.’”
With mercy, Jimin paused it.
Namjoon’s entire jaw was clenched unto itself.
“This part…” Jimin began gingerly. “It’s…”
‘You were my everything.’ He’d said every single lyric.
“He’s never said anything,” Namjoon acknowledged, giving credit where credit was due. He picked invisible lint off his shirt. He shrugged. “He’s never admitted publicly we dated. Almost nobody knew.”
“It was an open secret,” Jimin said, drained by Namjoon’s caginess. “Everybody knew.”
Namjoon shrugged again.
What Jimin didn’t know—but Namjoon did—was that Jungkook eventually stopped privately admitting they’d dated too. People would bring it up to him and he’d act as if he’d only been in the same room as Namjoon once or twice in his life. The same people would bring their confusion over to Namjoon and he was left to gauge how much privacy Jungkook ought to be allotted. In the end, he gave him all of it. Never told a single person anything; returned the favor. It had been one of the problems in their relationship, the fact that Namjoon was constantly being asked to put his hand on the blade for Jungkook. He’d never hesitated to do it, either.
Jungkook made him really fucking sad, too.
“‘I don’t talk shit about you on the internet,’” Namjoon suddenly repeated, bemused. “But you’re singing a whole song about it, posted—obviously—to the internet.”
“Is that you admitting it’s about you?” Jimin asked without hesitation, almost smiling. He looked exhausted. “You know, he hasn’t talked shit. He could; he knows everything. Saw everything. He could—he could’ve really—”
“Just press play, hyung. It’s almost over.”
Jimin turned around and did.
As ever, Jungkook’s voice was incredible. Stable and distinct but versatile. Crystal clear. A producer’s dream. Had certainly been his.
“‘So don’t waste the time I don’t have, don’t try to make me feel bad’—”
They’d have to talk to one another in order to try to make the other feel bad, Namjoon wanted to point out.
“‘I could talk about every time that you showed up on time, but I’d have an empty line ‘cause you never did’—”
Of course Jimin paused it. Right on Jungkook’s face as he looked positively seething with rage. He’d always been so expressive when he sang; a natural performer. Born singer and all that.
“Do you think he’s thinking about his twenty-second birthday?” Jimin asked, looking back at him with a puckered expression. “Not your finest hour.”
Everybody thought the drinking was what had made Namjoon constantly angry a few years ago, but he knew he was fully capable of it without drink—like now. At that moment, he felt murderous. His fingers curled around the coffee mug and he actively told himself not to break it, not to crush it to pieces just because he could.
Namjoon should’ve done everything he could’ve to prevent Jimin from having walked into his apartment earlier. He should’ve bought a one-way ticket to anywhere while Jimin was still ten minutes away, left in his sweatpants, and boarded the flight with just his cell phone.
Jungkook had always been unpunctual to things in the way that celebrities were. Shoots ran late, make-up took forever, city traffic was hell on earth. Namjoon was unpunctual to things in the way that assholes were: he either showed up when he wanted or he didn’t. It depended on his own mood and nothing else. Jungkook’s team had arranged a huge birthday party for Jungkook’s twenty-second, back in 2019. Seoul’s best club, Seoul’s best DJ, Seoul’s best food, Seoul’s best liquor, Seoul’s best socialites, Seoul’s best everything for Seoul’s best idol. Jungkook had gone through the motions all night—smiling wide for the hundred cameras trained on him—but Namjoon had never shown up. Had decided he didn’t want to go and then hadn’t. He’d woken up gagging the next afternoon to Jungkook pouring his own open bottle of Grey Goose over his head.
“He got over it,” Namjoon upheld. (He hadn’t. It had been the beginning of their end.)
“You stood him up so many times,” Jimin alleged. “So many times.”
“Your point?”
“It makes you look bad. If he talks.”
“Yeah, well there’s shit else I can do about it now.”
Jimin played the video.
“‘Never paid any mind to my mother or friends, so I shut ‘em all out for you ‘cause I was a kid’—,”
“He,” Namjoon began tersely, arms crossed again, “Was twenty-one when we started dating. He wasn’t a kid.”
Jimin paused the video.
“I agree,” he said. “But he was young. Looks really sympathetic.”
“And I never even—okay, well, I only met his parents once.”
“You met them at least three or four times.”
“Not to mention, he doesn’t have ‘friends’—he’s never had ‘friends’—”
“Namjoon—,” Jimin sighed.
“He wasn’t a kid,” Namjoon repeated, annoyed. “If he’s a kid at twenty-one then why wasn’t I one at twenty-four? He’s twenty-four now, you know, looking for fucking pity over this shit from three years ago.”
“Excellent point,” Jimin nodded. “We should fit that into the response somehow.”
“I’m not responding to this!”
“Well, we’re not going to respond directly.”
“I’m not responding at all.”
Jimin just hummed. He pressed play.
Jungkook stood up from the chair he’d been sitting and swaying on. He sauntered toward the camera. The music simmered as he kept singing, silky and sedative, “You ruined everything good; always said you were misunderstood’—”
Namjoon swallowed.
“‘Made all my moments your own,’” he indicted.
Namjoon thought about if that was true. Probably. If he let himself think harder, he knew it would definitely be.
Jungkook looked at the camera once before bending over and finishing the song, screaming out, “‘Just fucking leave me alone!’”
The ‘alone’ carried on and on and on—lungs of steel. Could’ve been a swimmer. Didn’t have the body proportions for it, though. Legs too long, waist sat too high. They’d talked about it once, in bed.
Jungkook stood up straight and just kind of stood there, looking at the camera with a dazed look of conviction as it panned out. Breathing heavily. Proud of himself. The band swept over. There were screams.
“Who the fuck is screaming,” Namjoon mumbled.
“I think that’s just Billie Eilish.”
“Hm.”
The video ended with Jungkook letting the mic slip from his hand and fall to the ground as he turned around and the video faded to black. It wasn’t a mic drop. It was like a—something else.
Jimin turned off the television.
“Did you look at the tweets I sent you?”
Namjoon shook his head.
“It’s bad,” Jimin said, exhaling slowly. “Even your fans…it’s bad.”
“I’ll look at them.”
Jimin didn’t look like he believed him, but Namjoon was saved by the bell when Jimin’s phone rang. He excused himself and Namjoon was more than happy to see him step out of his apartment to take the call.
Namjoon thought about the ending of the video. He’d taught himself how to numb himself to rage—to negative feelings and emotions. He was an expert at it now. He didn’t bottle anger, he just learned to dissipate it before it built up.
But it boiled inside of him now in a way that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. He thought about the end of the video, the way the mic fell from Jungkook’s hand. It was a moment of closure for him. He’d said his bit, made his peace; he was done.
Regrettably for him, Namjoon wasn’t.