Chapter Text
Namjoon had always thought of rich kids as spoiled and vapid and shallow, and despite the fact that he was a student at South Korea's most prestigious university, there seemed to be a lot of those people surrounding him. A good example, he thought, was Kim Seokjin.
Seokjin was easily the most attractive boy in the school, but he was also the coldest. Every time he walked into the music class he shared with Namjoon, he wore expensive clothes and a permanently stiff, emotionless expression. It reminded Namjoon of a businessman dealing with a client he didn't like. If that was the effect Seokjin wanted, Namjoon thought, he had it perfected. Namjoon had only seen the older boy smile once or twice, and it had seemed forced and was only ever used when meeting someone for the first time.
Namjoon absolutely hated it.
Sometimes, Seokjin did show emotions, but those emotions were only disdain, boredom, or annoyance. Namjoon knew that the only reason Seokjin had even been accepted into the university was because of how wealthy his family was. Namjoon also happened to hate people like that: people who didn't work for their dreams. He himself had worked his ass off to get into this school; Seokjin had clearly done nothing. He didn't even seem to care.
On one particular day in January of his sophomore year, Namjoon was running late to his music class. As he hurried into the building, he saw a familar face - Seokjin. The older boy was talking to a group of girls, all of whom seemed to be flirting with him. He winked and blew a few kisses before turning and heading in the same direction as Namjoon. As he entered the building, his expression changed from a somewhat forced flirty look to the same emotionless one Namjoon saw day after day. Namjoon found it disgusting that Seokjin couldn't even muster up enough real emotion to talk to people who seemed to actually care about him.
The professor was late too, so Namjoon had enough time to pull out his phone and see a text from his friend Yoongi. Yoongi was a year older than Namjoon - same age as Seokjin, actually - and was also majoring in music. He had been born in Daegu and had lived in poverty for most of his life. Namjoon admired him because of his determination to keep pursuing his dream despite his circumstances. That, and he was a good friend.
Yoongi
I'm moving my stuff into the new fancy apartment now. My roommate isn't there. I wonder what he's like
Yoongi was also friends with the son of the man who managed the most expensive student housing complex in town. This friendship had landed him an apartment in said expensive housing complex. Apparently, someone had moved out and Yoongi was taking his place. He hadn't met his new roommate yet.
Namjoon
Cool. Text me when your roomie shows up
Yoongi
Okay sure
----------
Twenty minutes after Namjoon's class ended and fifteen minutes after he had gotten back to his apartment, Yoongi texted back. He had met his roommate.
Yoongi
Ugh he's a rich asshole
Namjoon
That's what you get when you stay in the expensive apartments. What's he like?
Yoongi
He just shook my hand and gave me this fake ass smile and said 'pleasure to meet you' and then walked into his room
Namjoon
Oh man I feel so bad for you
Yoongi
The prick didn't even tell me his name
Namjoon
Jfc
Yoongi
Agreed, if someone's gonna walk up to me in a fucking gucci outfit and shake my hand they better tell me their damn name
Namjoon
Tell him to pull the stick out of his ass
Yoongi
He's fucking rich I need to get on his good side
Namjoon
Why would you want that if he's such a dick tho
Yoongi
His parents could probably get me expelled and ship me back to daegu and buy the guy a new roomie and it probably wouldn't make a dent in their wallets
Namjoon
Oh I see
Yoongi
Yeah anyway gtg
Namjoon looked up from his phone and stared at the ceiling of his bedroom. His roommate and best friend Jung Hoseok was sleeping on the couch, so Namjoon couldn't just go out there and grab some chips or watch TV. After a few minutes of laying indecisively on his bed, he got up, put his headphones on, played a song that he liked but could never remember the name of, and decided to wander aimlessly around campus. Maybe he would run into one of his other friends.
The second he left his room, though, Hoseok smiled and waved from where he was laying on the couch.
"I just woke up," he said cheerfully. "Do you wanna go do something?"
Namjoon nodded. "I was just about to go for a walk. You coming?"
Hoseok jumped up and put his shoes on. "Yeah. Maybe we can see if Yoongi wants to come."
"No," a voice said, "I need to work on a project." Yoongi was standing in the doorway of the small apartment, his laptop bag slung over one shoulder and his phone in his hand. "Mind if I hang out here? I really don't like my roommate."
"Okay, go ahead," Hoseok said. "Not like we would actually say no, though." He flashed Yoongi a heart-shaped grin, ruffled his hair (an action which earned a middle finger from its recipient), and walked out the door. Namjoon followed, leaving Yoongi to his work.
----------
"You know Kim Seokjin?" Namjoon asked Hoseok as the two of them walked past the library.
"Everybody knows Kim Seokjin," Hoseok replied. "Either you love him or you hate him. I personally think he seems sorta lonely."
"He's a prick. I don't know how anybody can stand him. Seriously, I don't think he even has emotions."
"Maybe he just doesn't know how to act any other way," Hoseok said. "Maybe he's just lived a very sheltered life and doesn't really know how to be a good person. Maybe he's nice on the inside."
"No, he's not. Seokjin is literally just an emotionless dick who doesn't give a shit about anyone's feelings, including his own. He's just a rich piece of shit. His looks are literally the only thing he has going for him."
"Excuse me?" A new voice asked. Namjoon's eyes widened in shock when he saw none other than Kim Seokjin standing in front of him. He and Hoseok stared. Seokjin's eyes were narrowed and his arms were crossed. Hoseok gulped.
"You're excused," Namjoon said after a moment. He met Seokjin's glare with a scowl of his own.
"Why were you talking shit about me?" Seokjin demanded.
"Because you deserve it," Namjoon replied. "And you don't have feelings anyway, so it doesn't really matter."
Seokjin looked legitimately offended for a second before he switched his expression back to the glare. "Well, I don't care, because I'm rich and my parents love me and I'm perfect."
Namjoon snorted. "You? Perfect? Yeah, right. Stop lying to yourself. The only true statement there is that you're rich. I honestly doubt that your parents really care about you."
That clearly hit a nerve. A genuinely pained expression flashed across Seokjin's pretty face and then went away as fast as it had appeared. His hands clenched into fists. The glare returned with far more anger than before. "My parents do care about me," Seokjin snapped. The way he said it almost sounded like he was trying to convince himself as well as Namjoon and Hoseok. "They give me everything I want."
"Except people who actually care about you," Namjoon retorted. "And I highly doubt they do anything else for you. You're probably not worth their time."
"Y-you're wrong. You're wrong. They love me. They care about me. Everyone does. I'm perfect." He was still obviously angry but now he really seemed to be trying to convince himself that what he was saying was the truth. He turned and walked away, but not before telling Namjoon to go fuck himself.
----------
A very young boy ran excitedly down one of the many hallways in his huge house. He held a paper tightly between his tiny fingers as he opened the door to an office-like room and ran over to the man sitting in front of the computer.
"Daddy! Daddy!" The boy squealed happily as he jumped up and down, waving the paper around. "Look! I can write my name!" He showed the man his paper, which simply had the same word scrawled on it over and over again in messy handwriting: Seokjin Seokjin Seokjin Seokjin Seokjin Seokjin
"Good job," his father said in a way that suggested that he didn't really care very much. "Why don't you go show your mom?"
And the little boy had gone to show his mother, and she responded in virtually the same way: a disinterested "I'm proud of you, honey" and nothing else.
The boy suddenly didn't feel like learning to write his own name was much of an accomplishment at all.