Chapter Text
The first time they meet is at Taehyung’s house. It’s a modest apartment in a reasonably good location, nothing too conspicuous, but just grand enough for Jeongguk to understand that he will never be able to afford something like this: a modern, sleek building, with a security guard out front and a basement for the two or three cars that the residents might own.
Jeongguk doesn’t know that much about Kim Taehyung, but this is what he knows:
Kim Taehyung is twenty-three years old, turning twenty-four this year. He lives on the twenty-first floor of Coral Complex, a condominium near Namsan. He was a child actor for most of his young adult life, until something happened—Jeongguk isn’t sure exactly what or why—and, cue, Kim Taehyung, the nation’s little brother, fell from grace.
The elevator stops at the twenty-first floor. Jeongguk is careful to tread lightly, because wooden floors may look nice but sound loud, and he knocks exactly three times. This is still his third month at the newspaper and he doesn’t want to screw things up.
Three seconds and three steps in, and Jeongguk already knows there is nothing he can decipher from the barren walls. This is nothing like what people had told him, practically whispered in his ear—tales of diamond chandeliers and marble floors, of golden tiles and old money. Taehyung’s home is as private as Jeongguk’s own, but as sterile as the reception of his office, more space than stuff.
Five years down the line, Jeongguk guesses, it’s wise of Taehyung to pick some place as inconspicuous as his own house, away from prying eyes.
He wonders: if a person is a reflection of his home, then what is Taehyung like?
“Jeongguk from The Pacific, right?”
Taehyung glows just as much as he does in photographs, hair bleached blond and skin tan, like he knew nothing of the scandals that trailed after him or the witchhunt that he’d been at the center of. Jeongguk finds it hard to believe that this is the boy who’d had his face plastered across every tabloid imaginable for drinking, smoking, and getting questionable tattoos, among other things.
“Yeah, that’s me. Nice to meet you, Kim Taehyung.”
The smile that Taehyung throws his way is so sudden and bright it catches him off-guard. He figures, if your home is a reflection of who you are, then Taehyung must have created his home somewhere else. There is no way the man in front of him is as empty and plain as the apartment he is standing in.
“Sorry I made you come all the way here,” Taehyung says, guiding him to the couch. “Seokjin-hyung—that’s my manager, the one you talked to on the phone—thought it would be better if I insisted on somewhere less public.”
“It’s alright,” Jeongguk replies.
“Tea? Coffee?” Taehyung shouts from behind the countertop with all the enthusiasm of a five-year old showing off his new toy. “I make a mean espresso.”
“Just water will do, thank you.”
Jeongguk would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised by Taehyung’s cooperativeness. You’d think someone whose life was torn apart by the very nation that cradled him would be a lot more jaded by now, more withdrawn and less—less bright, less like any other enthusiastic twenty-four year old. Korea had watched Taehyung grow from child actor to OST singer to variety show host, held his hand and showered him with praises every step of the way. And when everything finally fell apart right at his peak—when his singles were charting perfect all kills, his dramas winning awards left and right—all it took was an army of anonymous keyboard warriors and vague accusations, of alcohol, of cigarettes and drugs and clubbing, of the tattoos he’d inked onto his ankles and collarbones, for everything to fall apart.
Jeongguk had just began his foray into journalism when Kim Taehyung’s fall from grace had gripped the nation. Then, he was only seventeen and still in high school, but even he remembers what happened. He’d woken up one day and his brother had shoved the newspaper in his face, about how everything had collapsed overnight and how Kim Taehyung, the nation’s little brother, was no longer the saint everyone thought he’d been, if he ever was to begin with. Within the week, Taehyung had announced his early enlistment, if only to escape the prying eyes and Dispatch reporter falling over themselves trying to catch a glimpse of him.
After that, the name ‘Kim Taehyung’ was a ghost that barely graced anyone’s lips. And if it ever did, it was always followed by a disappointed shake of the head or a long, drawn-out sigh. Hell, Jeongguk was convinced he’d gone into hiding, until, one day, Namjoon-hyung had called him into the office, and told him that his first big piece would be on Kim Taehyung’s attempt to rise from the ashes and make amends.
“So, what’s on the agenda today?” Taehyung asks. He hands Jeongguk a glass of water and nurses a mug of coffee for himself. “You alright? You look a bit dazed.”
“I’m good, thanks.” Jeongguk coughs, a sip of water that’d gone down the wrong way. “Just some background questions, so that I can get to know you a little better,” he explains, “and we can also arrange when and how I should accompany you to your, uh, events. Or whatever it is you think would be good to cover.”
Truth be told, Jeongguk has no idea what to expect. What the hell does ‘making amends’ even mean?
“That sounds good.” Taehyung beams, and Jeongguk feels his heart skip a beat. “If you don’t mind, I might ask you some questions too. If we’re going to be spending two weeks together, I’d like to know more about my shadow.”
“Yeah, that’s alright.”
Jeongguk places the recorder on the coffee table, a small thing with barely enough space for their cups. He sits down on one end of the couch and Taehyung on the other, bodies angled just so they face each other, the recorder between them.
“Could you start off by telling us a bit about yourself? Who are you, and what do you do?”
Taehyung chuckles, and the room lights up immediately. Jeongguk almost stops the recording to keep the sound for himself.
“Well, my name is Kim Taehyung, and I’m turning twenty-four this year. I’m enrolling in a cyber university in the fall, majoring in Art and Sound Engineering.” He plays with his fingers. “I used to act and sing. I haven’t been able to do that a lot in the past few years, but I might start again, maybe soon.”
“Nice, thank you,” Jeongguk replies. “I heard you served in the military four, five years ago. How was that for you? You enlisted quite early compared to most people.”
“Yeah, I did.” Taehyung leans back into the corner of the couch, curling into himself. “It was as good as military could be, I guess. I was definitely one of the younger ones there, most of the guys were halfway through college already.” He perks up. “Oh! There was one guy in my unit and he was from a really big idol group. We were stationed in Daegu, so it’s freezing cold, and he would tell us stories from when they were promoting and that kept us going in the winter.”
“Ah, Daegu, that’s where you come from, right?”
“Kind of, not really?,” he shrugs. “My family lives in a village near Daegu, and we visit the city every few months. There’s not much to do in the area but I love it.”
“Do you live with your family here in Seoul?”
“No, they’re still back home, tending to the farm,” he smiles. He reaches for his phone and scrolls through for a bit before showing the screen to Jeongguk in a way only a proud older brother would. “These are my younger siblings, and these are my cousins. And that’s my grandmother in the back.”
Jeongguk can’t help but smile. “They’re really cute.”
“Thanks, I know,” Taehyung laughs. “I miss them a lot.”
“You don’t keep in contact with them often?”
“I try, I guess.” His phone beeps, a notification popping up on the screen, and a small frown falls on his face before he keeps his phone back in his pocket. “I don’t have a lot of time, though, and they’re busy as well.”
“What about university, are you excited for that?”
“Yeah, I am, actually. I’m going to be studying part-time and I’m definitely enrolling later than most people, but I’m still really looking forward to it.”
“I remember my college days,” Jeongguk says. “It’s fun, but not all that it’s made out to be.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” Jeongguk takes a sip of his water. “You said you’re doing Art and Sound Engineering, right? Why these subjects?”
“I’ve always been kind of interested in art. I drew a lot as a kid and kind of fell out of it once I started acting and singing more, but I’ve picked it up again in the past few years and experimented with different mediums, and it’s something that has become really important to me.” Taehyung’s eyes gleam as he speaks, like speaking about a lover. “As for sound engineering, I’m pretty interested in the technical side of producing music, so I thought that would be cool to look into.”
“That’s really cool,” Jeongguk smiles. It’s nice, he thinks, hearing Taehyung talk about what he loves.
“Are you gonna ask?”
“Huh?”
“About what happened?”
“Oh.” Jeongguk did not think Taehyung would be this straightforward; but, he figures, this was the entire point of their meeting, wasn’t it? “Well, uh, yeah. Okay. Um. So, a few years ago, you were revealed to be clubbing and smoking and,” he refers to his notes, “as the newspapers said, ‘engaging in uncouth activities’. Would you like to share how your experience was?”
Even Jeongguk is cringing. He could not have put that forth in a worse manner.
Taehyung can tell, and he smiles encouragingly. “You tried your best,” he laughs. Jeongguk is impressed, considering he’s basically voluntarily talking about how he was thrown to the flames. “I was nineteen at the time. To be honest, I don’t know any nineteen-year old who wouldn’t enjoy partying. I didn’t see what I did after work as anything bad, and it wasn’t illegal, but I guess it shattered this ‘little brother’ image that people had of me.
“The first couple of weeks were pretty rough, mostly because there were so many reporters and my friends and family were really worried. More than I was, I think.”
“And this was when you enlisted in the military?”
“Yeah, it was Seokjin-hyung’s suggestion, actually. I withdrew from my drama projects and put my album on hold, and I’d have to enlist at some point, so I might as well do it then and wait for all the noise to die down.”
Jeongguk hesitates before asking the next question. It’s not on the list that Namjoon-hyung had given him, but he can’t help himself. “Do you regret it?”
“Regret enlisting? No. I’m glad I finished military early, because now I have time to pursue what I want to do, and I really did meet a lot of good people there.” Taehyung rests his chin in his palms, elbows digging into the flesh of his calves as he sits cross-legged. “And for the partying, whatever, I don’t regret that either. I had fun, and it was my fault for not predicting the consequences.”
“And the tattoos?”
“Oh, right! The tattoos. People were pretty mad about that too, huh?” Taehyung laughs, harder this time, eyes curling into crescents and boxy grin spread wide. He pulls the collar of his loose, flowy shirt to the side to reveal a tree branch with a sparrow on it asplay on his collarbone. “This was my first tattoo that people really got mad about.”
The lines curl from Taehyung’s deltoid all the way to the bony ridge, with the sparrow set in the nook of his collarbone. The entire piece is probably just barely larger than a palm, but it flows well with the shape of his shoulders and chest.
“I think it’s really pretty,” Jeongguk says. “Does it have a meaning?”
“Not really, I just like nature,” Taehyung admits. He pulls up his left calf and shoves the pant leg up to reveal a pair of dice on his ankle. “There’s also this one. I think people made up even crazier stories about this, said I got it because I loved to gamble.”
At this, Jeongguk laughs. He has a pair of dice, too, right on his ribs, and when he tells Taehyung this, Taehyung demands to see it.
“Come on, it can’t be that bad, right?”
“My buddy did it while we were drunk,” Jeongguk says, but he still lifts up the side of his shirt, just high enough that the palm-sized pair of dice, resting on his ribcage, can be seen. “It’s kind of shit.”
“I agree, it is kind of shit,” Taehyung nods solemnly. “But if you like it and it has history, that’s really all that matters.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“So, now it’s my turn.”
“Huh?”
“My turn to ask you questions, remember?” Taehyung leans forward, still cross-legged with one pant leg shoved up to his knee, the hint of more ink—an abstract, thick-lined design, from what Jeongguk can see, snaking from his upper thigh and hugging his kneecap—peeking out. “Tell me about yourself, Jeon Jeongguk.”
Jeongguk’s face is hot. “Well, um,” he stutters. “I’m Jeon Jeongguk, just graduated with a degree in Journalism and Communications last year. I’m a junior writer with The Pacific.” He pauses. “I like to write and take photos. And I dance a bit, too, in my spare time.”
“A multi-talented man, I see,” Taehyung says, and Jeongguk flushes even more. “How old are you? Do you have pets? Are you close with your family?”
The barrage of questions takes Jeongguk aback more than he would like to admit. “I’m twenty-two. I don’t have pets, but my family has a dog. We’re not as close as you and your family, but I’d like to work on that, I think.”
“Family is important,” Taehyung nods. “Family have your back.” He looks to the clock. “I have a meeting in half an hour, so I think we have to end this today. But don’t think I’m finished with learning more about you, Jeongguk.”
Jeongguk doesn’t know what to make of that, except for the fact that, at those words, his pulse races.
“Alright,” he says, because that’s the only thing he can muster out. “If I’m not wrong, our next meeting will be in two days? At your photoshoot, and then to a cafe?”
“Yeah, that’s what is on my schedule, too.” Taehyung beams, loud and bright, and even the empty apartment lights up with colour. “I’ll see you then, Jeongguk. It was great meeting you.”
“It was great meeting you, too,” Jeongguk says, and he realises that he means it.