Chapter Text
The dance practice room smelled like sweat, sports spray, and the faint ghost of takeout from three hours ago. It was 11:47 PM on a Tuesday, and BTS had just finished their fourth run of the new choreography. Bodies were strewn across the floor like fallen soldiers.
Kim Seokjin—Jin to everyone, hyung to the six men who had been his family for over a decade—lay flat on his back, staring at the ceiling lights with the particular brand of existential exhaustion that only came from being thirty-three years old in an industry that ran on twenty-year-old energy.
"I'm dying," he announced. "Someone tell my mother I loved her. And my rice cooker. Especially the rice cooker."
"Hyung, you say that every night," Hoseok said from somewhere to his left, not even out of breath because Hoseok was apparently part gazelle.
"And every night I mean it more."
Jeon Jungkook—twenty-eight, full of youth and spite and the kind of physical ability that made Jin want to throw a shoe at him—was sitting cross-legged near the speakers, toweling off his neck. He wasn't even sweating that much. It was infuriating.
"Hyung," Jungkook said, "you did great. The bridge part is getting cleaner."
"Don't patronize me with your functional hamstrings."
Jungkook laughed—that low, warm sound that had somehow deepened over the years from a boy's giggle to something that made Jin's chest do a weird thing he'd stopped analyzing a long time ago. "I'm being serious."
"So am I. My hamstrings are begging for retirement."
Jimin, who had been scrolling through his phone with the single-minded intensity of someone avoiding stretching, suddenly sat up straight. "Oh. Oh, this is perfect."
"Nothing is perfect at midnight," Yoongi muttered from the corner, where he'd been pretending to nap for the last twenty minutes.
Jimin ignored him. "We should put Jin-hyung on a dating app."
The room went quiet for exactly one second. Then:
"Excuse me?" Jin propped himself up on his elbows, genuinely unsure if he'd heard correctly.
"Not in a mean way!" Jimin waved his hands defensively, phone held up like a shield. "Just—you've been saying you're lonely. You literally said last week that you 'miss having someone to send memes to at 3 AM.'"
"I have six of you for that."
"Hyung, we're not romantic memes," Taehyung chimed in, upside down on a yoga mat with his feet against the wall. "It's different."
"How is it different?"
"The subtext," Taehyung said sagely.
Jin blinked at him. "I don't even know what that means."
"Exactly."
Jimin scooted closer, phone extended. "Look, there's this app. It's really low-key. No face pics required if you don't want them. You just—talk to people. Answer questions. See if you vibe."
Jin stared at the screen. A minimalist interface with soft colors and prompts like "What's the last thing that made you laugh?" and "Favorite way to spend a Sunday?"
"I'm not posting pictures of my face," Jin said slowly.
"You don't have to!"
"I'm not telling anyone what I do."
"Obviously."
"I'm using a fake name."
"Please do."
Jin looked around the room. Namjoon was watching with his leader-face on—calm, assessing, not pushing but not stopping it either. Hoseok looked genuinely curious. Yoongi appeared to be asleep but was probably listening. Taehyung was grinning. Jimin was practically vibrating.
And Jungkook—
Jungkook was looking at his own phone. Not participating. But his ears were pink. Jin noticed because Jin always noticed things about Jungkook, even the things he tried not to.
"It could be fun," Taehyung said, breaking the moment. "Think of it as a social experiment. See if anyone likes you for your personality."
"My personality is excellent."
"Your personality is a disaster," Yoongi said without opening his eyes.
"A charming disaster," Namjoon corrected.
Jin sighed. Sat up fully. Ran a hand through his sweaty hair and felt every one of his thirty-three years in his lower back. "Fine. I'll do it. But only because I'm bored, and you're all insufferable, and I want to be able to say 'I told you so' when no one matches with a man who won't show his face."
He downloaded the app that night.