Chapter Text
“Absolutely not.”
Namjoon was red and Jimin could see his hands shaking. He felt a small twist of affection which was quickly frozen by the numbness that seemed to be spreading through him. Across the table from him, Seokjin had gone pale. The contrast would have made him laugh if Seokjin hadn’t looked so angry. The others were in varying states of rage and/or shock – Taehyung kept winding his fingers together and pulling them apart with a rainy frown making itself at home and Hoseok had a look on his face that made Jimin want to crawl under the table, even if he knew the anger wasn’t directed at him. Yoongi had two spots of pink high on his cheekbones and Jimin could see the tension in his jaw where his teeth were clenched together hard. Jeongguk just looked blank. He was staring at the white wall opposite him, eyes wide, skin golden under the expensive lighting of the conference room.
“Absolutely not,” Namjoon repeated and he slammed his hands on the table. The conference table was that sort of shitty pressed wood that always felt like it was going to break apart, so it made an impressive noise when smacked. Jimin jumped, a little delayed.
“Do we all get fake girlfriends?” Hoseok wanted to know. His tone was light but Jimin could see that he was extremely close to doing something stupid. Jimin had once witnessed him nearly body check a fan at the airport that had tried to grab Yoongi, and he had a similar glint in his eyes now.
A fake laugh sounded.
“This is crazy,” Seokjin said, voice tight. “How is this a good idea? What’s the rational?”
The PR lady at the end of the table smiled blandly, her lipstick an inoffensive shade of pink, her black hair pulled back tight enough that it made Jimin wince. “Seokjin-ssi,” she said, placating. “I know it seems bad. But it’s an image thing – it’s just something we have to do sometimes.”
“An image thing?” Namjoon asked. Jimin kept his eyes trained on his lap so he didn’t have to look. He could hear the quiet venom in Namjoon’s voice though.
“It happens,” the woman said soothingly. “A rumour starts, gets out of hand… There’s just been a little too much focus on Jimin-ssi.”
Jimin still didn’t look up. He wished the walls were glass and he could stand outside and watch them deliberate – he didn’t want to be here, eyes and voices focused on him.
“There’s focus on all of us,” Yoongi said. He sounded almost bored, voice a little flat. It didn’t sound like he was looking at Jimin. “What’s different?”
“It’s partly our fault,” the woman admitted. “The company – the stylists have been leaning into more of a feminine concept for Jimin-ssi, and it’s just exacerbated some things.”
His hand jumped to his earring – long, dangling, brushing his collarbone. He tugged at it.
“Just tell us what you’re talking about,” Namjoon demanded.
The manager seated next to the PR woman sighed. It wasn’t Sejin – it was a new guy. Yoo Jin. Jimin hadn’t had much contact with him yet.
“The media’s going after him because they’re claiming he’s gay,” Yoo Jin said. “And maybe it wouldn’t matter normally, but they’re really running with it, and this much speculation this close to your comeback? Not good. But it would look worse to refute it, from a Western perspective, that’s a death sentence.”
“This is fucking crazy,” Namjoon said, and Jimin made a face at the curse. Namjoon was so professional, normally. He wanted to slap a hand over Namjoon’s mouth, put them all away behind him so he could stop them from saying stupid things and hurting themselves. The way they were all spread out around the table was so vulnerable – the moment in a horror movie before someone’s snatched away.
“There are options though!” the woman said, smiling brightly. “I think we’ll go with an actress, just to avoid scheduling clashes, but I have a nice list to select from. We want this to be as easy as possible.”
She hefted a black binder onto the table and smiled some more before sliding it to Jimin like a present.
Namjoon smacked a hand on the binder.
“We’re not agreeing to this,” he said.
Jimin opened his mouth.
“Jimin, don’t say anything,” Namjoon warned without looking at him.
It was a fucking childish thing to feel, but Jimin felt abandoned. Bang PD wasn’t there – Jimin suspected he felt guilty about the situation because it was odd to have him not there for a decision that seemed so serious. He must’ve signed off and decided to leave the dirty work to others. The other managers weren’t there and he thought it was probably because they would’ve been more vocal about how upset they were with the situation. Sejin could be heard through soundproofed doors so it was probably for the best. Instead it was the seven of them against two, but Jimin felt vastly outnumbered.
“It’ll be six months, a year at most,” Yoo Jin told them. “A few public appearances, nothing crazy. It’ll tamp down the rumours, make the public more amenable to the idea of the rest of you having relationships eventually, and it’ll just calm everything down. It’s not a big deal, don’t take it too personally.”
Seokjin opened his mouth but Yoo Jin cut him off.
“Everyone who needs to approve has already done so, and signed NDAs. There’s a very small number of people who know. Please don’t make this into some dramatic event; no one wants to bring out your contracts.”
Jimin had that awful gasping sensation that you get at the bottom of a pool when you’ve blown all your air out – lungs contracting and twitching and aching for air but unable to draw breath. This sort of overt threat wasn’t something they had experience with. Things must be bad.
“Jesus,” Yoongi spat, and there was disgust spreading across his face in a thick layer.
The binder slid across the table until it was resting in front of Jimin.
It was large, like it would probably make a good dent in the wall if he were to throw it. Not that he would. But if.
The woman – Jimin thought her name was Go-eun, but he wasn’t quite sure – took that as her cue to keep talking.
“We’ve reached out to the managers of all of these women. You don’t need to decide right away but try to let us know by tomorrow, yes?”
Jimin’s words were too heavy to dredge up his throat so he didn’t, and left Namjoon to speak for him.
“Fine,” Namjoon gritted out. “Please leave us.”
Yoo Jin and Go-eun rose, and made for the door. There was a certain smugness to their walk. Once the door closed, Jimin calmly flung the binder across the room. It smacked against the plain white wall and left a decent scratch with the corner. No dent, but the sound was satisfying. No one said anything, so Jimin went and got the binder and went back to his chair and opened it to the first page and started flipping through.
Most of the actresses were less well known, and Jimin could see why this would be a good idea for them. It was an easy way to be splashed across the media – even if they got backlash, no publicity was bad publicity. He envisioned it.
Him with one of them at a café, holding hands, smiling blandly, waiting for the click of the camera to immortalise the lie to keep him safe, to place her in the light.
The others were still watching him and Jimin closed the binder again and swallowed. Jeongguk slid him a bottle of water and grabbed Jimin by the wrist. The water was lukewarm but Jeongguk’s hand was hot and tight against his skin and it felt like a tether, holding him with them.
“It’s going to be fine,” Hoseok said, voice going low and soothing. He reached out to place a palm on Jimin’s shoulder lightly. “It’ll be fun, like acting.”
“It’s bullshit,” Namjoon said mutinously but he offered Jimin a small smile that made his dimples pop and lightened his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Jimin said, the first thing he’d said the whole meeting. The words tripped out of his mouth and fell to the floor.
The table near erupted at that, Jeongguk’s hand around his wrist tightening, Hobi holding his shoulder. Taehyung flung himself to kneel at Jimin’s feet and wrapped an arm around his leg.
“No,” Taehyung said firmly, and dug his fingers into the muscle of Jimin’s calf. “No, nope, no. Not doing this. Ok?”
He peered up, eyes wide and mismatched and so hopeful that Jimin would nod and say, ‘ok, ok, we’ll get through it.’
“Ok,” Jimin said. “I’ll be fine.”
Three sets of hands on him soothing and reaching like he’d fallen down the stairs and they were picking him back up. They had only been given notice of the meeting yesterday. Jimin had assumed it was something to do with comebacks or doing more lives or less lives, or some miniscule thing. It hadn’t been.
There was a beat of silence, like the moment before the drop in a song and then Jimin dropped his head to the table. It was cool under his forehead.
“Everyone’s going to hate me,” he wailed, small and stupid and childish and taking maybe a little too much happiness in the way he was being fussed over and cooed over and reassured.
“No one’s going to hate you,” Seokjin said firmly. “It’ll be great! You’ll make a new friend, get some free meals, and it’ll all be fine.”
Jimin had not considered the free food aspect, but it wasn’t enough to make things better. He moped a bit more with his head down. It was fucking unfair. He had thought – they had all thought that at a certain point you obtain a certain safety, an inability to be touched and marred and pushed but that idea was being torn apart and quickly. He hated that idea because it meant all the small rebellions, the things that they had done with gleeful knowledge of their rule-breaking hadn’t actually been rebellions but had been allowed because they didn’t push too far. The image of a gilded cage was an old one but Jimin was too tired to come up with a new one.
“Let’s go home, yeah?” Yoongi said eventually.
Hobi and Taehyung let him go to stand. Jeongguk’s hand stayed, braceleting the bones of his wrist, warm and a little too tight, and grounding. His fingers brushed the inside of Jimin’s wrist as he pulled away.
“Ok,” Jimin said, a little shaky. “We can all go through the catalogue and pick a fake girlfriend for me, it’ll be fun.”
“Like a really fucked up dating app,” Seokjin agreed, patting him on the back and opening the door.
“She looks boring,” Jeongguk complained. His chin was digging into the soft part of Jimin’s shoulder, breath hot and damp against his neck, and Jimin wiggled a little bit. The binder was open on his lap. Each page had a professional headshot and a full body picture, along with a brief bio and list of accomplishments. Jimin did not like this, a combination of guilt and anger and sickness at the whole system sitting on his chest and digging in claws.
“You can’t say that, that’s mean,” Jimin told him, and shrugged to dislodge him. Taehyung was sat on the floor with a bag of chips and would toss one at Jeongguk from time to time to catch in his mouth. Jeongguk wasn’t very good at that part, so there were a lot of chips on the floor too.
The woman on the page was blandly pretty and listed her interests as interior decorating and romance novels.
“Blah,” Jeongguk said, putting his chin back. “Next.”
“You’re horrid and Namjoon will disown you,” Jimin said. Jeongguk reached out to flip the page anyways.
“Horrid,” Jimin repeated but looked at the next page.
“Chip?” Taehyung asked from the floor and Jimin opened his mouth absentmindedly. He wasn’t quite sure what happened – something hit him in the face and then Jeongguk moved and then Jeongguk’s hand was in his face and he was being gently fed a chip. He sputtered a little bit, and Jeongguk pinched his cheek with grimy fingers.
The hyungs had all vacated the living room – he was pretty sure Seokjin and Namjoon were holed up plotting darkly, and Hobi was off mollifying Yoongi and preventing him from committing arson.
The girl on the page was cute – wide eyes and wavy hair and a front tooth that was a little crooked.
“No,” Jeongguk said immediately.
“Gukkie, he has to pick someone, he’s three quarters of the way through and you’ve rejected them all,” Taehyung told him.
The information said she liked cats, had just finished shooting her first drama, and she was a political science major. It said her name was Jin-ah. She was a year younger.
“No,” Jeongguk said again and tried to flip the page but Jimin blocked him.
“Jeongguk-ah,” he said. “I have to. I just want someone that it won’t be unbearable to spend time with, I want it as easy as possible.”
Jeongguk wavered, mouth turned down and cheeks puffed out.
“I’m sorry,” Jeongguk said quietly. He put his chin back. “She looks nice. Maybe you’ll make friends.”
“That’s all I want,” Jimin told him. “I just don’t want to think too hard, ok?”
“Yeah,” Jeongguk said. Taehyung threw the chip at Jeongguk this time and he caught it perfectly.