Chapter Text
"Okay", says Taehyung, cringing at the squeak in his voice. He has been listening quietly with his ear pressed to the phone, the woman on the other end going on and on about procedures and fines and forms he has to fill. She talks cheerily and laughs, gratingly, after every other sentence. As if her sunny disposition could do anything for him. It doesn't.
"Well then", she says and laughs again. "As long as you can submit a passable dissertation, we'll cover up the rest with your internal evaluation. There's really no worry, as long as you submit a physical copy"
Taehyung stops chewing on his lip to respond with a passive, "i see".
"Okay, then"
"Okay", he breathes, trying not to let the building irritation seep into his voice.
"Thank you"
"Yes. Bye"
He rubs the tip of his thumbnail against the side of his forefinger, watching the skin ripple with the motion.
The call disconnects.
He unsticks his phone from his ear, the screen damp with sweat. He wipes it on his thigh and unlocks the screen. He stares blankly at his contacts. The only calls on his log for the past week are from the network company and a wrong number dialled by an old lady. If you don't count the 3 missed calls from Jimin. There's a sigh in there that he doesn't address, keeping it inside his chest and scrolling further down to find his parents’ contact.
He has to call home and tell them that it will work out after all. He'll need some time, depending on stuff, might need to stay longer than he planned to. But it's okay, he's staying with a friend who had an extra room so the rent is manageable. He has enough clothes and his roommate cooks so they don't need to send him any more money. He's all set for now.
Everything's good, it's all fine.
🪡
The sky is grey in Seoul. Summer is waning slowly into overcast skies and hot humid air.
Taehyung has a goal for today. He has a place to be and a thing to do.
Jimin said that there was no way he would be let down. “I prophesize it”, he said and then bet 50,000 won as collateral if it turned out that his prophecy was in fact, full of shit.
“50,000 and a month’s worth of ramyeon”, Taehyung had demanded.
“And a month’s worth of ramyeon”, Jimin agreed. He breathed loudly through his nose and flicked the hair out of his flawless jr. assistant-designer face. He was dressed impeccably in a silver two piece suit, dyed blonde-rainbow hair slicked back and a pair of tinted shades perched on his perky nose. He looks like a pushover. If Taehyung didn’t love him so much, he would sock him in the face.
Jimin put his hands on the taller’s shoulders, smoothing out the fabric of the thrifted blazer. He picked off a lint and flicked it to the side.
“You look good”
Thrifted blazer, thrifted slacks, a bougie T-shirt he printed himself, and an old black cross-body. Nice for a walk in the park, not a nation-wide fashion summit.
Jimin slaps his arm. “Stop that”
Taehyung eases the frown he was wearing and pushes his hands into the too-small pockets of his pants.
“Where’s your booth again?”
They’ve had this conversation multiple times and Taehyung’s been a brat in all of them.
Jimin puts on a chilling smile,
“I don’t have a booth, baby-bear. I’m going to be loitering around backstage in case anyone is in need of a slave laborer!”. His voice rises at the end and he turns his face to cough demurely into his fist.
“Anyways”, he shifts his feet on the pavement, “If you actually go and talk to him, i’ll treat you to pizza”
“And dessert”, Taehyung says without missing a beat.
Jimin rolls his eyes towards the heavens and turns around, not responding. Taehyung follows him inside the venue, holding up his student pass for the security to see. Jimin doesn’t need a pass - he has an ID. He’s an employed interior designer under one of Seoul’s big names, here to organize the event. He doesn’t even need to pay for refreshments.
If Jimin had his own little design office, he would be eligible to put up a booth. (fashion and interiors are two fields interlinked beyond measure. One would think ‘oh it’s an exclusive fashion event’ and boom, interior designers everywhere)
They separate once they reach the end of the corridor, Jimin squeezing his hand in goodbye and telling him to text when he’s ready to leave. He takes a sharp left and disappears beyond an authorized-personnel sign board.
Taehyung keeps walking in a straight line to the visitors entrance.
His goals today are simple:
Attend the conference, listen to some speeches.
Space out.
Space back in at the end.
Meet up with a former classmate.
Ask for help.
Get rejected.
Go home.
The lights inside the auditorium are dimmed. There’s movement behind the stage and it seems like they’ll be starting soon. Taehyung scans the aisles and starts making his way to an empty seat in the back.
The European Summit for Transformative Art and Design (ESTAD) is a conference held every five years for artists and designers from a select 45 countries across the globe. First held in 1893, it is celebrating a silver jubilee of 25 summits and a whopping hundred and twenty-five years of establishment. As a cause for celebration, they’re offering an opportunity to upcoming designers to show their skills for an attractive reward.
It’s a competition. There will be three winners in total. The prize has not been revealed yet, but there have been rumors of a monetary reward plus a magazine spread and government funding.
Sounds fake, but here Taehyung is. Putting his life and his dignity at stake for something that might turn out to be a fluke.
Once seated, Taehyung lets out a heavy exhale and reclines in his seat, getting comfortable. The lights turn all the way off and a set of LED’s light up on the stage. A woman in her forties with salt and pepper hair enters from the side wearing a flamingo pink foliage printed pant suit and a wide toothed smile.
🪡
There are three different talks held for an hour each, the topics varying from ‘global trend cycle’, ‘21st century aestheticism spectrum’ and ‘social footprint’. They’re interesting to listen to, and Taehyung finds himself sitting straighter in his seat, eyes glued to the discussion on stage. At the end of the talks there is a small segment where an English woman takes the podium and talks about sustainability for ten minutes. Her voice is heavily accented and it takes a lot of effort for Taehyung to follow her words. He gives up in the first two minutes and starts scrolling through his phone.
The auditorium has a behemoth of seating space, with about 40,000 seats. Taehyung doesn’t bother searching through the crowd by the time the event is over. His ears are still ringing with the announcement of the grand prize : Government funding for R&D (research and development) and promotions for the winner’s clothing line.
The prospect is so unreal, his head is dizzy with it. He slowly ambles out of his seat and down the aisles with the rest of the departing crowd. He sticks close to the wall in the corridor leading out, texting Jimin. He receives a response immediately, telling him to come by the shining gay art installation.
Taehyung texts back a series of question marks but is left on read. He sighs, slipping his phone back inside and exiting the venue.
Outside, the festival is in full swing. There are multiple art installations and quirky booths set up by design houses to showcase their artistic prowess and recruit talents.
Taehyung’s eye catches on a sparkling silver stage decorated with crushed foil and lit up in multicolor LEDs. In the center is a larger than life dress-form wearing an obnoxious over-the-top ball gown made entirely out of holographic sheets. It looks like a paper drag queen.
He finds Jimin talking with someone behind the stage, bent over a pile of cables and plugs. His nice suit jacket is gone and his sleeves are rolled all the way over his elbows. He smiles up at Taehyung when he approaches, gesturing for him to wait. The collar of his shirt is undone and there’s a faint sheen of sweat on his brow.
Taehyung wanders a few steps away to wait for him, aimlessly looking around the ground. The grass is dewy under his sandal-clad feet. There’s a corn dog stand up ahead that’s making his stomach cramp into itself.
Jimin comes up from behind and puts a hand on his shoulder,
“You ready to go?”
Taehyung hums.
“Let’s go, then. Joon-hyung is already waiting for us. Oh god I’m so hungry I could eat a cow, Taehyungie, a COW”
Taehyung chuckles, endeared. Jimin hikes his jacket on his shoulder and they start walking.
🪡
They end up at a pizza place known for its originality and sit down on the couch opposite The Kim Namjoon, who arrived earlier than them and is seemingly unbothered by this whole thing. The first thing Taehyung notices is that his hair has grown out, framing his face in soft black wisps, curling slightly at the nape. His smile is genuine as he greets them and he doesn’t seem too put off by Taehyung’s presence.
“Yes, ha ha”, Taehyung awkwardly responds to the warm greeting sent his way, “long time. Yeah.”
Namjoon’s eyes are only a little tight at the corners. As is his shirt. A black half-sleeved tee tucked into a pair of smart looking jeans that hug his thighs. He looks like he gained some weight, filling out his corners and defining his edges. He takes up space in the small booth, a distinctive broadness to his frame that commands attention. He looks bigger than life. Big enough to crush all of Taehyung’s hopes and dreams with an accompanying dimple.
Taehyung hates him so much.
They order a mega pizza with four different toppings, a side of garlic bread and some sodas. Namjoon definitely makes a face when Taehyung asks for one of the toppings to be Hawaiian. It only prompts him to ask for extra cheese on top. The way Namjoon coughs into his fist at that is delightful.
Jimin gives him a pointed look, the kind that says I’ll-kill-you-if-you-fuck-this-up. Taehyung bites back his grin and focuses on making himself as solemn as he can.
Across the table, Namjoon pops Jimin’s soda for him and passes it back. They make small talk about the festival, flowing easily between campaigns and budgets and potential resolutions. Or revolutions. If anyone can do it, it would be these two.
Taehyung can’t keep up, if he’s being honest.
Then the food arrives and they dig in and Taehyung has cheese sticking to his chin when Namjoon pins him with a, “what about you?”
Taehyung looks up abruptly, brows raised in question.
Namjoon glances at the mess on his chin before he speaks again, “find anything interesting? I assume you’re looking to apply?”
“oh”, Taehyung intones, accepting the tissue offered by Jimin. He dabs at his chin to get it off. Judging by the smile on Jimin’s face, he isn’t succeeding much. Well.
He clears his throat.
“I was just looking around…”, he says carefully, “….I haven’t really decided what to do yet”
To his absolute horror, Namjoon nods like he understands. “I get that”, the man says, then ducks his head and laughs. Laughs!
“Me too, actually” Namjoon continues. “Now that college is over and It’s not like I have a job or anything….so”, he raises his hands in a helpless gesture, shrugging.
Taehyung has to consciously check that his mouth is not falling open, because it seems that Jimin was right. It’s still too early to say but the smug energy radiating from the seat next to him suggests that Jimin was right and now I owe him 50,000 won.
“oh”, says Taehyung. This changes things. He manages a smile that he hopes isn’t too creepy.
“Any luck?”
“hmmm, maybe…”, says Namjoon, eyes glinting. Then he starts talking about all the different booths he visited and what he thought about each one. Taehyung listens attentively because he had wanted to explore too, but was much too focused on other issues.
Jimin is only vaguely present in the conversation, tearing into the food like a man starved. He inhales a good chunk of the pizza and the entire serving of garlic bread, throwing back his soda in one shot. He groans long and tired.
“I’m done”, he says and promptly burps.
“Jesus”, Namjoon chuckles.
“Do they not feed you?”, Taehyung asks, only half-joking.
“No”, Jimin replies, straightening his clothes and standing up.
“Where are you going?”, Taehyung asks in alarm.
“My phone’s been going off for ten minutes. Work”
Taehyung frowns, “I didn’t hear anything”
“It's on silent”, he stretches his back. “Anyway”, he pats Taehyung on the shoulder, squeezing twice in moral support as he steps around him. “You two have fun”
He leaves, and Taehyung is left with an existential crisis to deal with on his own. He had been beating it back with a stick and focusing on being present, but now that his anchor is gone it all comes crashing through.
Because Kim Namjoon was effervescent in class. He would ask questions and debate theories and keep haggling with the teachers for more information, more material, more references, more more more until it satisfied him. He never did seem satisfied, eyes sharp under slanting brows, frowning his way through story boards and spec sheets and stick figures doodled in the margins of his texts. Kim Namjoon was smart and witty and way more intellectual than the faculty gave him credit for, ending up with a Namjoon induced headache on their hands every other week. Because the boy could never sit and take what was given to him. He had to go above and beyond every single time, nagging for a workshop here or a field study there, with an iron-clad argument for why the college should arrange it for them.
Their college of choice was not…the best. To be polite. Taehyung had taken admission there because of the cheaper fee structure. Affording to put him in a nice well-established fashion college in the heart of Seoul was beyond his parents’ capabilities. Taehyung had settled for this college in the suburbs.
He always questioned why Namjoon was there too.
It couldn’t have been a financial issue, judging by his clothes and shoes and the quality of the projects he put out. But the two had never been amicable enough for Taehyung to outright ask. Their circles didn’t overlap. Neither did their design sense. They went through their college education turning their noses up at each other’s work and staying out of each other’s way.
Kim Namjoon had taken part in a nationwide design challenge in their graduate year and placed first in Seoul. Taehyung had not passed the preliminary round and that’s okay, but Namjoon had won.
It makes no sense that he would be here, in the same hopeless situation that Taehyung is in. It makes no sense at all.
“Does it not?”, Namjoon dimples, completely inappropriate.
“I don’t understand,'' Taehyung replies. He knows his face is blank from the careful look Namjoon is giving him. But more than a year has passed since Namjoon’s graduation and it is absurd to think that the most capable designer in all of Korea is out of a job.
Taehyung squints,
“Weren’t you being scouted by like ten different labels before our final exams?”
Namjoon ducks his head at that, cheeks turning red.
“Just three”, he replies, taking a sip of his soda. “I actually worked with one of them for some time..”
“Huh”, says Taehyung, eyeing the cold pizza in front of him. He’s not hungry anymore.
“six months, but…ah. It didn’t work out”
“Really”, Taehyung deadpans. He didn’t expect Namjoon to laugh but it’s happening all the same.
“Just….how do I say this”, Namjoon scratches a finger in the corner of his eye. “The work wasn’t something that I …… that, um, inspired me, I should say. I had things in my head that I wanted to do, or at least work towards and that wasn’t happening. Soooo I left”, he raises his hands in a ta-da!
He left a well-paying job because he didn’t feel like doing it. Wow, Taehyung hates him so much.
Namjoon picks up another slice with the meat-lover’s topping and starts eating, unaware of his companion’s brewing hostility.
“You haven’t told me anything about you”, Namjoon speaks through a mouthful of pizza, barbeque sauce smudging on his lip. It’s gross and brings down his perfect image by a notch.
“What have you been up to?”
Taehyung shakes his head,
“Nothing, really. This and that, some freelance stuff. I……”, he swallows around nothing. Twists the edge of a napkin between his forefinger and thumb. Drops it and leans forward in his seat, folding his arms on the table.
“I actually wanted to talk to you about something”
Namjoon pauses in his chewing, studying him. Then he speeds up, swallowing quickly and taking a sip of water.
“Sure”, he says openly. “what is it?”
Taehyung resists the urge to trace circles on the table and puts on a charming smile.
“Were you there in the auditorium today? When they talked about ESTAD?”
Namjoon nods, understanding in his face. A little too much understanding than Taehyung would like. He hasn’t even started yet but it looks like Namjoon knows exactly what he’s going to say.
Taehyung licks his lips and barrels forward.
He starts, “I’m thinking of taking part”, and stops. There is a lump in his throat that has made itself known. In contrast, his oral cavity feels like it is trying to swallow itself.
Namjoon inclines his head, coaxing him with a gentle, “hmm?”
Taehyung opens his mouth and breathes, trying and failing not to appear nervous.
“well. Um”
“Do you know what you’re going to do?”, Namjoon asks, kind.
“Yes, kindof. It’s- in the works. I have an idea and I made some boards…”, he trails off, looking very intently at the graphic art on the wall beside Namjoon’s head.
Silence reigns for a while, then,
“Do you…need help with that?”
Taehyung chews on his lip, meeting his eyes.
“I need help”
Namjoon raises a brow but doesn’t speak.
“In general”, Taehyung continues. “I have ideas and skills and a vision too. I have not… been, well. Career wise. And I don’t want to let this opportunity go by. I would do it on my own but I am not in a place where that is possible. I need..help”. He chews on his lip some more and forms the syllables around the riot happening in his mouth, “please”.
For a long moment, nothing happens. Namjoon keeps watching him, a subtle frown on his brows. Then he drops his gaze to the table and takes a sip of his now lukewarm soda.
“I see”, he says.
The anguish sloshing around in Taehyung’s stomach is thick and acidic and it feels like he might throw up. All his life’s decisions swim in front of his eyes. All he had was a dream and all he has is a dream, and he knew it meant something to him but the profoundness of his want has never felt so real until this exact minute. This is how much he wants it. Enough that it makes him sick.
“Taehyung-ah”
Taehyung snaps back to the present. Namjoon is looking at him with some concern. His tone is careful when he speaks,
“I want to thank you for reaching out, but I’m not looking for a partner right now. I have my own ideas for the competition and given my partnership history…”, he waves randomly, “you know, right?”
Namjoon’s previous attempts at a partnered project did not go over well in college. Taehyung nods because he remembers. But Namjoon never partnered with him so isn’t there potential in that? Taehyung opens his mouth to point this out but Namjoon cuts him off politely.
“But that’s not the thing, is it? We have different work ethics, not to mention aesthetics. If we disagree on every other thing and can’t even match our pace, then-”
“We can match our pace”, Taehyung cuts in before he can stop himself. His head is buzzing and his nerves feel like they might light themselves on fire. He is not losing this fight.
“Your construction is slow. Mine is quick and just as neat as yours so you can’t use that argument”
Namjoon closes his mouth. His face settles into a neutral expression before he speaks again.
“We construct different silhouettes. Your sharp 3-d angles are all machine turned, while my curving hems are hand-felled, Taehyung”
“You can’t drape for shit, though”
Namjoon squawks.
“And it takes you hours to attach openings”, Taehyung presses, not letting him get a word in. “I can do it under ten minutes and I do it good, you know it”
Namjoon has closed his mouth and settled for silently staring with narrowed eyes.
Taehyung recognizes it as his not-convinced expression. An open challenge, if you will.
“I saw you running around for outside help in your graduate collection. Not to brag, but I can bring in a lot of outside help should we need it”, he is aware of his word choice there. He grins, “besides, our differences have always served as valuable perspective so is it really that bad?”
Namjoon’s eyes have un-narrowed, just a bit.
“Think about it”, Taehyung says and watches as Namjoon’s eyes narrow right back. It spurs him to speak twice as fast, “Divided cost, divided labor and twice the potential”, he counts on three fingers. He lifts a fourth, “Insurance for sick days”
Namjoon snorts.
Fifth, “your own personal alarm and schedule tracker”
Namjoon is shaking his head.
Sixth, “A personal cook to keep you fed and on your best game-”
“What exactly do you want from me?”
Taehyung straightens up, putting away his hands.
“I was running out of options”
Namjoon looks like he can’t believe himself when he says,
“okay”
Taehyung blinks, not believing him either.
“What?”
“I’ll…think about it”
“about….?”
Namjoon sighs and starts wiping his hands on a napkin.
“I can’t promise anything but maybe we can compare ideas and see if we can get something to work out. If not, then….”, he shrugs.
“oh”, Taehyung blinks. Nods, “okay”
“okay”
“yeah”
Namjoon smiles like something is very funny.
Taehyung asks the waiter to pack his leftover slices to go.
When they ask for the bill, they find out that it has already been cleared by an imp in a fancy suit.