His first mistake was letting his guard down. It seemed safe enough. Just a normal (if extravagant) weeknight dinner with friends. Now he can see that it was a trap. He said yes to a glass of wine, which in retrospect seems calculated to weaken his defenses. Because no sooner is the main course served than the real purpose of the invitation becomes apparent. "Oh, tell him," Jimin says, backhanding Seokjin lightly across the chest, "about the thing." Ignoring his own plate of sad-looking vegetables, Jimin waylays a bite of steak on its way to Seokjin's mouth and reroutes it to his own. "What thing?" Namjoon can tell from the set of Seokjin's smile that he and Jimin had argued about this and Jimin had won. As Jimin does. Jimin gestures for Seokjin to talk, and with a deep sigh and an unsubtle eye roll, he recites, "Jimin thinks-" Jimin makes a noise of objection. "We think," Seokjin amends, "that you might benefit from some structured social events—" "Not interested." "Just listen," Jimin insists. "As you may know, we have a product launch in a couple weeks—" Jimin waves his fists in a tiny cheer and then takes Seokjin's cutlery out of his hands and resumes eating Seokjin's steak. "And there's a gala—" "Absolutely not interested." "And my business associate who is, by the way, a rising star in the company—" "Brilliant," Jimin adds around a mouthful. "And who happens to be single-" "Gorgeous." Jimin does something with his tongue that doesn't seem to have anything to do with the steak. "No. Nope. No." "You'd be doing her a big favor."
"Sorry, no." "Namjoon, seriously." Jimin points the steak knife at him. "You can't just-" "I'm seeing someone." Jimin lowers his utensils in dramatic slow motion. And waits. Namjoon turns to Seokjin, hoping for an assist, but his eyebrows are hiked up and he seems as content as Jimin to stare Namjoon down until he cracks. "I don't really want to talk about it." Jimin and Seokjin look at each other and something happens with Jimin's eyebrows that gives Namjoon a deep feeling of foreboding. "It's new. Ish. Fairly new. Recent." With terrifying placidity, Jimin leans toward Seokjin and slices a chunk off his steak. "Where did you two meet?" He cuts the chunk of steak in half, his eyes on Namjoon. "Um. We met. Online." Jimin's eyebrows do the scary jump again and he continues his knifework, the steak starting to resemble something that might be fed to small children or rodents. "Lots of people meet online. There's nothing wrong with it." "Nothing wrong with it," Seokjin agrees, and then clamps his lips together at Jimin's slow intake of breath. "Well we'd love to meet her. Wouldn't we, Seokjin?" "She's traveling at the moment." Jimin makes the smallest movement that can legitimately be classified as a smile. He thinks Namjoon is lying. He thinks he made her up. And, well, she isn't made up. Not exactly. She exists, in a sense. And they are seeing each other, in a manner of speaking. "To Busan, actually. I might go with her." "Really." "Yes. If I can, you know, schedule. Hopefully. I was invited." "Were you." He spears a particle of steak and deposits it in his mouth. "And what's her name?" "Jungsoon."
#CompletelyUnexpectedTrueIdentity
ao3.org/works/23690653
