Chapter Text
HIM
Kim Namjoon read the same paragraph three times before accepting that it was not going to improve through repetition. He lowered the book slightly, as if a different angle might make the sentence more meaningful, then set it on the cushion beside him.
The apartment remained quiet. Too quiet, honestly.
People romanticized silence. They imagined it as rest, discipline, peace. Namjoon had spent enough years sharing hotel rooms, vans, dressing rooms, green rooms, and backstage hallways with six other men to know the truth: silence was only restful when noise was still available somewhere nearby.
On tour, silence came in intervals: ten minutes between soundcheck and wardrobe…twelve minutes in a hotel room before someone knocked…the seconds before an arena erupted. Even alone, there had always been the sense of presence around him: Jimin singing off-key down the hall, Jungkook appearing without warning to steal food, Jin shouting over nothing, Hobi laughing too loudly, Tae disappearing into some corner of his own mind, Yoongi sleeping wherever gravity took him.
Now, his apartment was all clean lines, soft lighting, and absolutely no distractions from himself.
Books lined the wall in orderly rows. A small Pokemon figurine sat on one shelf, bright and cheerful and completely ridiculous among the art books and philosophy texts. Beside it, a framed photo of the members from their debut year, all eyeliner, bad hair, and absolutely no understanding of what was coming.
His phone buzzed on the coffee table.
Team Leader Han Minho of course. HYBE wanted to see him. HYBE always wanted to see him these days. They called it consultation, which in HYBE language meant someone else had already decided and now wanted him to feel included. Namjoon picked up the phone.
Minho: Are you available today?
Namjoon: Define available.
Minho: Physically present and capable of speech.
Namjoon: Unfortunately yes.
The typing dots appeared, disappeared, then appeared again.
Minho: 2 p.m. Studio first. Then conference room.
Namjoon stared at the screen. Studio first meant that Minho wanted to warn him before the official meeting. That was rarely a good sign.
He set the phone down and stood. For a moment, he considered going for a run, then dismissed it. He had all the time in the world to rest, which somehow made him feel more exhausted. Four months since the tour ended and his days still hadn’t found a shape.
Everyone else had moved on. Jungkook and Jimin were filming the next season of Are You Sure? at some mystery location, joined by Jin this time. Hobi was preparing for a solo tour. Yoongi had managed to cross fully into adulthood and was married with a baby on the way. Tae had landed the starring role in a new Netflix drama. Everyone had a next thing.
Namjoon had a break. In theory, a break was supposed to feel earned. This felt more like being placed carefully on a shelf until he figured out the next step. The tour had been some of the happiest months of his life, but ever since it ended, every possible future version of himself sounded equally exhausting. At first he’d assumed the feeling would pass naturally once he was properly rested. Four months later, he was less certain. He went to the studio most afternoons and accomplished almost nothing there, he kept opening notebooks just to stare at blank pages, and he spent an embarrassing amount of time reorganizing the shelves in his apartment.
And now he was being summoned for the fifteenth conversation about what came next for BTS’s RM. He went to shower, and dressed without thinking much about it: dark cargos, knit sweater, watch. Comfortable enough to look casual and expensive enough that nobody at HYBE would mistake it for carelessness.
By the time he left the apartment, he was already settling into the version of himself these meetings required. Calm. Structured. Easy to work with. Easier than figuring out who he was when nobody needed RM from him.
***HER
Rachel Monroe dropped the knitting needles onto the couch and stared at the half-finished hat like it had personally betrayed her.
It was supposed to be for her mom, who lived in Carmel and made driftwood sculptures to sell to rich people with open floor plans. She kept insisting that Rachel needed to find new ways to be creative, as if that would help get her spark back. The knitting phase had lasted four days so far, which made it one of her more successful coping mechanisms yet.
“I’ll just buy one,” she muttered.
Her apartment was aggressively bright, like everything in Los Angeles this time of year. It wasn’t messy, it was just…unorganized. Records leaned in unstable stacks beside the bookshelf. A guitar rested against the wall near a pile of unopened notebooks. A cardigan hung over the couch arm, sleeves stretched soft with age and repeated use. Three different drinks sat abandoned on the coffee table.
She opened her laptop because obsessively seeing what people were saying about her had become embedded into her daily routine. Google Alerts first.
Nothing new there. At least there were no more goddamn think pieces. Everyone loved philosophizing about the indie darling turned mainstream sellout. She wasn’t a person to them anymore, she was a cautionary tale. A cultural metaphor people recycled whenever they wanted to sound intelligent about fame, authenticity, and women becoming less palatable after acquiring ambition.
She had once told Talia that if she read one more longform essay about how fame corrupted art through the lens of feminine self-destruction, she would personally drive to the Pitchfork offices and tell them exactly where to put their misogyny disguised as cultural criticism.
But now, the headlines had become less sensationalized and settled into background noise. She was no longer a crisis…she was discourse. Three years ago she could stumble barefoot out of house parties in Silver Lake wearing someone else’s leather jacket and nobody built character analyses from it. Now being photographed leaving an older executive’s apartment twice in one month became a referendum on female ambition and artistic compromise.
Some stories were still about the single with Jungkook. That song had gone everywhere without her. Streams, charts, edits, idols performing the hook, reaction videos, indie Youtube review channels trying to explain why the collaboration felt “surprisingly sincere.” Commercially, it was the biggest success of her career by far. Years of critically acclaimed emotional devastation and apparently what finally broke through was making eye contact with a Korean pop star over analog synth production.
She should close the laptop now. This was not productive.
Three years ago she had literally never googled herself. She’d had a perfectly respectable indie career with her critically acclaimed albums, interviews with niche music publications, and small fanbase that mostly wanted lyric annotations and recommendations for sad books. Back then, strangers occasionally recognized her in coffee shops and then mostly left her alone. Now entire TikTok accounts existed exclusively to analyze whether she looked emotionally stable while walking through parking lots.
And in between, she had become someone who couldn’t go an hour without checking whether strangers were still constructing new versions of her in real time. So she opened Reddit, because apparently she remained committed to the bit.
Her snark subreddit was blocked thanks to “The Incident,” in which Rachel created a burner Reddit account at three in the morning to defend herself in a thread titled: “Has Rachel Monroe Started Curating Her Own Authenticity?” Forty-three comments later, someone correctly identified her based entirely on sentence structure. Talia had installed the parental controls the next morning.
Most of the larger music subs had moved on. A few people were still arguing about the single with Jungkook. Someone in indieheads had posted a twelve-paragraph theory about whether her disappearance was a performance art piece about fame.
But wait, this was new. r/supportforrachelmonroe. She clicked immediately.
ALL SUPPORT. NO NEGATIVITY. SAFE SPACE FOR RACHEL FANS.
“Oh no,” she whispered. “That’s horrifying.”
A poll asked which album people thought she secretly hated now. Another thread debated whether fame had fundamentally altered her songwriting voice. Someone had posted screenshots from a 2018 interview alongside lyrics from her newest record like they were building a criminal case.
As she scrolled, she paused at a post titled “favorite photos of rachel that still feel like her.” She clicked before she could stop herself.
Old festival candids. Tiny club shows. Blurry backstage photos where she looked half-asleep and nicotine-dependent. A grainy image from early tour days sitting cross-legged on an amp in ripped tights and a vintage cardigan. And buried halfway down, a photo she barely remembered existing. It had been taken by her mom as the cover for her demo CD at age 17. She grinned through late afternoon sunlight in the backyard of her childhood home, her face still completely undefended.
Her phone rang before she could decide whether to spiral emotionally, shower, or order waffles. It was Talia FaceTiming, of course. Rachel answered with a groan.
Talia’s face filled the screen immediately, already assessing damage. “Where are you?”
“Home,” Rachel replied. “Where else would I be? The Chateau Marmont?”
“You look terrible.”
“Good morning to you too.”
“I’m serious. Have you slept?”
Rachel glanced toward the dark reflection of herself in the TV screen and chose to ignore that question. “So what’s up?”
“You have a meeting today.”
That made her sit up. “What meeting?”
“The HYBE meeting.”
“I thought that was next week.”
“It was moved.”
“By who?”
“Twelve executives and probably Satan himself. Rachel. Focus.”
Rachel groaned and dropped her head back against the couch cushions. “No.”
“Unfortunately yes.”
“What time?”
“Car arrives in forty minutes.”
“That is not enough time to become emotionally stable.”
“Nobody asked for emotional stability. We’re aiming for awake and approximately recognizable.”
Rachel rubbed a hand over her face. “Cruel.”
Talia ignored that. “Please tell me you haven’t been online.”
Rachel said nothing.
“Oh my god. Your snark subreddit is blocked for a reason.”
“That was censorship.”
“That was mental illness.”
Rachel laughed despite herself. The expression softened something in Talia’s face briefly before professionalism settled back over it.
“And we need to talk again about bringing in a personal management matrix.”
Rachel’s shoulders immediately tightened. “No.”
For most of her career, “management” had essentially meant her father forwarding contracts with increasingly alarmed commentary. Rachel had spent her twenties existing inside a rotating system of borrowed couches, freelance publicists, and people named Eli who promised they “totally knew a guy at Spotify.” It had been chaotic, occasionally irresponsible, and almost entirely hers.
Then HYBE entered the picture with schedules, media training, brand strategy, release calendars, and enough infrastructure to launch a small government operation. As a result, her life had become dramatically easier to operate and substantially harder to recognize. The last thing she needed was more management.
Talia held her gaze steadily through the screen. “You are not twenty-two playing coffee shops anymore.”
Rachel looked away and said nothing.
“Forty minutes,” Talia said quietly. “Please be dressed when the car gets there.”
Rachel ended the call and sat motionless for another few seconds. She looked from the half-finished knitting on the arm of the couch to the abandoned guitar. Three years ago this had still felt like a life. She stared at the laptop she absolutely should not reopen.
“Okay,” she muttered to the empty apartment. “Shower. Clothes. Corporate humiliation.”
As she stood, the oversized cardigan slipped from the couch arm onto the floor. She left it there.
***HIM
Minho was already waiting in Namjoon’s studio when he arrived at HYBE.
“Please tell me this is not another ‘what are you doing next with your career?’ conversation,” Namjoon said as soon as he stepped inside.
Minho looked up. “They’re calling it a structure conversation.”
“Worse.”
“Yes.”
Namjoon shut the door behind him and crossed to his desk. “How much worse?”
“Public relationship.”
Namjoon stopped and turned slowly. “A public what?”
“Relationship.”
“As in romantic?”
“Publicly romantic.”
Namjoon didn’t respond. Minho leaned forward. “They won’t frame it that way at first. They’ll say narrative alignment. Cultural positioning. Industry normalization."
Namjoon stared at him. Minho stared back.
Finally Namjoon said, “A relationship that isn’t a relationship.”
“Essentially.”
“With intimacy parameters.”
“Controlled ones.”
“Good. For a second I was worried this would sound crazy.”
Minho almost smiled.
Namjoon looked toward the studio glass. His reflection looked calm, which annoyed him. “Why me?”
“You know why.”
“Say it anyway.”
Minho sighed. “Because you’re stable enough for the risk. Because your reputation can absorb controversy better than most. Because if you do it successfully, it changes what’s possible for everyone else.”
“And the less noble reason?”
Minho held his gaze. “Because you’re stagnant enough that they think you’ll accept it.”
Namjoon appreciated and hated the honesty in equal measure.
A memory surfaced without permission: the final tour stop, stage lights hot enough to make thought impossible, his body moving before his mind could catch up. Crowd screaming. Members laughing through sweat backstage. Jimin throwing an arm around him and yelling something incoherent into his ear while Jungkook danced with a towel over his head. That version of himself had felt alive, excessive, almost stupid with adrenaline. He didn’t know where that man went when the tour ended. He only knew he wasn’t in this studio.
Namjoon looked back at Minho. “And if I say no?”
“You know they can’t make you do anything anymore. If you say no, then you stay where you are.”
He rubbed his thumb over the edge of his watch. “Who?”
“There’s a list.”
“Of course there is.”
Minho opened his laptop on the desk and turned it toward him. The title slide read: STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP CANDIDACY: PHASE ONE COMPATIBILITY GRID
Namjoon closed his eyes. “Minho.”
“I know.”
“They made a romance spreadsheet.”
“They made several.”
“I hate this company.”
“You own stock.”
“I hate myself too.”
Minho clicked to the next slide.
***HER
Rachel sat across from a row of executives and tried not to look like a woman who had been given forty minutes to re-enter society. The conference room was aggressively minimalist in a way that made her teeth itch, with neutral walls and frosted glass. Everyone wore the same expression: carefully composed, professionally attentive, and already slightly disappointed in her.
She still wasn’t used to rooms like this. Before, her label meetings were conducted by exhausted people sitting cross-legged on couches pretending not to vape indoors. Now she was signed to a three record contract with some enormous international conglomerate.
“As I said,” she repeated carefully, “I’m still developing the album concept. I don’t write from disconnected material. I need the frame first.”
One of the executives glanced down at his notes. “Do you currently have completed tracks?”
“No.”
“Lyrics?”
“Fragments.”
“A producer attached?”
“Not officially.”
A pause. “It has been six months since your last scheduled release benchmark. At present the only active material is the collaboration single.”
Rachel sat up slightly. “You mean the one currently breaking international streaming records?”
“We are not disputing commercial performance,” the woman across from her said smoothly. “We are discussing continuity. Audience perception. Narrative coherence.”
Narrative coherence. Rachel almost laughed. The song with Jungkook had gone so globally insane it had effectively detached from her as a person, and now a room full of executives wanted to discuss coherence.
Talia stepped in before Rachel could say that out loud. “The current strategy remains phased. Minimal appearances until the album direction solidifies. Select editorial. Controlled press. No oversaturation.”
A man near the end of the table shook his head slightly. “The issue is not visibility quantity. It’s interpretive instability.”
Rachel blinked. “I’m sorry, interpretive instability sounds like a diagnosis.”
No one laughed. The executive continued, “Public perception currently lacks a stable framework for understanding you.”
“That sounds like a them problem.”
“It becomes our problem when unpredictability replaces engagement.”
Rachel leaned back in her chair. There it was. Not the real concern, the translated one. They didn’t know how to market a woman who refused to behave like a stable narrative.
The woman beside him opened a folder. “We believe the solution is relational grounding.”
Rachel stared at her. “Those are words, but I don’t think they mean anything.”
“A public relationship,” the woman clarified.
Silence. Then Rachel laughed loudly. “Oh, absolutely not.”
“This would be structured.”
“Yeah like that makes it better. You know what happened the last time the public linked my name with a man.”
“Contractual,” the woman continued evenly, “mutually negotiated. Controlled visibility, limited public access, defined boundaries, coordinated timelines.”
Rachel looked at Talia, who looked thoughtful. Of course she was into it. Talia may be more bearable than anyone else in this room, but she was still Rachel’s HYBE-appointed PR handler.
“You’re serious,” she said.
“We believe attaching your image to a stable interpersonal narrative would significantly reduce speculative discourse and improve long-term audience retention.”
She stared at the folder. Inside were profile summaries and public compatibility metrics for a potential fake boyfriend. She suddenly felt very tired.
“You people really sat in a room and professionally decided I need a boyfriend for brand stabilization.”
“No,” the executive corrected, “we decided audiences respond better when emotionally ambiguous public figures become relationally legible.”
“That is somehow the most upsetting sentence I’ve heard all year.” Still nobody laughed.
Talia leaned slightly toward her. “Rachel…”
“No, I know,” Rachel muttered. “I’m processing the fact that everyone here sounds like they escaped from a sociology dissertation.”
The woman across from her folded her hands neatly. “The current situation is unsustainable.”
Rachel’s irritation sharpened immediately. “Unsustainable how exactly?” She actually knew the answer. It was unsustainable because she kept disappearing, missing deadlines, and avoiding visibility cycles. People projected too much onto absence. Maybe she could have gotten away with it before, but now the single with Jungkook had suddenly expanded her audience beyond the scale her career was built to contain.
Talia spoke carefully now. “There’s flexibility attached.”
That got her attention.
“The album deadline,” Talia clarified. “They’re willing to extend.”
The room shifted slightly. Rachel felt it immediately. Ah, there it was. This wasn’t a punishment, it was a negotiation.
“How long?”
“One year,” the executive said.
A year. One uninterrupted year to write without constantly being pestered about missed deadlines. Rachel looked back down at the folder. Everything was negotiable. It was horrifying still, yes. But it was also strangely relieving. It was structure, to free her from her constant need of improvisation, chasing relevance, and pretending she understood how to exist at this scale naturally.
“And boundaries?” she asked quietly.
“Negotiated mutually,” the woman replied. “Physical expectations, public interaction frequency, duration, termination parameters.”
“Wow,” Rachel muttered. “Nothing says romance like termination parameters.” This time, Talia actually laughed softly into her hand.
She closed the folder slowly. At some point she had gone from being paid for performances in lukewarm beer to a multinational corporation offering her a deadline extension in exchange for a PR relationship. She hated to admit that she couldn’t handle it on her own anymore, and that the proposal sounded increasingly reasonable the longer she sat with it.
She stood before she could think hard enough to refuse. “Okay,” she said.
Talia’s eyebrows lifted slightly.
Rachel sighed. “Okay,” she corrected. “I’ll do it.”
The room changed instantly. Executives began speaking over each other in calm voices about candidate review and narrative pacing.
Rachel held up the folder. “I’m taking this home first. I’ll look at it later.”
Later. Like every other life-altering decision she’d made in the last three years.
***HIM
Namjoon squinted at the candidate slide on Minho’s laptop.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Is eighteen the minimum age listed here?”
Minho did not look proud. “Legally, yes.”
“Morally, no. Next.”
Minho clicked without argument. The first batch was internal, including HYBE international girl group members. Young, polished, and strategically beneficial.
“No.”
“You didn’t even read the names.”
“They look like children.”
“They are adults.”
“But they look like children. Next.”
Minho clicked. A British actress appeared standing with perfect posture on a red carpet.
“Impeccable reputation,” Minho said. “No public dating history. Multiple Oscar nominations. Allegedly involved with a lesser royal and looking for press distraction.”
“No.”
“That was fast.”
“I’m not getting involved with royalty or British tabloids.’”
Next. A Bollywood actress appeared, stunning enough that Namjoon momentarily forgot to be irritated.
“Major international market appeal,” Minho said. “Strong crossover potential. Research suggests she would perform extremely well with Korean general public sentiment. Privately involved with a woman, though her partner has concerns about the arrangement.”
“No.”
“Because?”
“Because there is already a real relationship involved. I’m not looking to complicate someone’s actual life.”
Minho nodded and clicked again. An American pop singer smiled flawlessly beside a luxury campaign logo, blonde hair perfectly arranged.
“The American market response projections here are extremely strong,” Minho said. “Existing international recognition, highly manageable public image, substantial social engagement metrics…”
“No.”
Minho stopped. "You didn’t even let me finish.”
“Why aren’t there any Koreans on this list?”
Minho had an answer ready. “Research shows the optimal outcome comes from international collaboration.”
“That’s corporate language for ‘controversy performs well internationally.’”
“Engagement expansion,” Minho corrected.
Namjoon exhaled sharply. “You know exactly what happens if I publicly date an American woman.”
“Yes.”
“It stops being a relationship and becomes discourse about westernization, masculinity, cultural betrayal…”
“Which is why the candidate pool was narrowed carefully.”
Namjoon pointed back at the screen. “But she already behaves like a brand partnership.”
Minho sighed. “Most celebrities do.”
“Not the good ones.”
Something in Minho’s expression sharpened almost imperceptibly, like a thought had just moved into focus. “So what do you actually want?”
Namjoon leaned back, considering. “Someone established. Not someone using this to become famous. Preferably another musician. Someone who understands touring, scrutiny, public performance. Someone with her own body of work.”
Minho listened.
“Someone intelligent,” Namjoon continued, “actually involved creatively. Lyrics, production, concepts, whatever. I just don’t want someone who stands where they’re told and repeats lines.”
Minho stared at him for a second before picking up his phone.
Namjoon frowned. “What?”
Minho was already scrolling.
“No.”
Minho stood.
“You’re not calling someone.”
Minho held up one finger as the call connected. “Hey, Talia,” he said, turning away. “It’s Minho.”
Namjoon stared at the ceiling. Of course there was already someone.
***HER
A brunch about fake boyfriends should not have been fun. Unfortunately, it kind of was.
Rachel sat on the patio of Talia’s Hollywood Hills house with pancakes, champagne, candidate folders, and the dawning realization that judging men was morally questionable but spiritually restorative.
Talia slid another profile toward her. “What about him?”
Rachel studied the headshot for three seconds. “No.”
“Reason?”
“His mustache is weird.”
Talia sighed and reached for another folder.
Rachel winced immediately. “Oh absolutely not.”
“You rejected him faster than the last one.”
“He has podcast face.”
“That is not a real category.”
“You know exactly what I mean.” Rachel flipped through another few profiles, increasingly horrified. Actors, models, people with terrifyingly symmetrical smiles. “Why are all these men so… moisturized?”
“Because they are celebrities.”
Rachel tossed another folder aside and leaned back in her chair, rubbing a hand over her face. “This is insane.”
“Correct.”
“I used to play festivals sponsored by local breweries.”
“And now billion-dollar entertainment companies are trying to assign you a boyfriend. That's called professional growth.” Talia’s expression softened slightly. “You know you can still say no.”
Rachel stared out across the canyon for a moment. “I know. But I just can’t stay here like this.”
That shifted the mood. Rachel picked absently at the label on the champagne bottle. “Every song I try to write just tells the same story. The same city. Same parties. Same people. Same version of me.”
Talia stayed quiet.
“No more actors,” Rachel said finally. “No influencers. Nobody professionally charming. Nobody who already feels like a press release.”
“A difficult category in this industry.”
“I know.”
Talia picked up a pen. “So what do you want?”
Rachel frowned thoughtfully. “Another artist maybe. Someone who actually makes things. Someone with an internal life. Someone who understands scrutiny already. Audiences. Performance. But not someone fully manufactured by it.” She paused. “Someone who still feels like a person when the cameras are off. Maybe a singer-songwriter?”
“Fantastic,” Talia said dryly. “Because indie men who play obscure string instruments have been such stabilizing influences in your life so far.”
Rachel reached for her phone before Talia could continue attacking her dating history with facts. A text from Jungkook lit up the screen.
Since their collaboration, he had appointed himself her unofficial international morale officer. Their in person conversations were awkward, mostly consisting of overenthusiastic nodding. Over text though they had become friends, mostly through translation apps and sheer force of goodwill.
A selfie appeared of Jungkook bundled in fishing gear somewhere that looked aggressively cold, grinning beside two other men.
Jungkook: Patagonia! Very cold. Back to Korea next week.
Rachel smiled as her gaze drifted to the second man in the photo. Long blond hair…delicate build…impossible face.
Oh. Recognition arrived all at once. Not from the selfie, but from the Grammys performance.
It was him. Not the leader, the other one. The one with the hips.
“What is that face?” Talia asked.
“What face?”
“That one.”
“No face.”
Talia snatched the phone.
“Hey!”
Talia looked at the screen. Her eyebrows rose. “Jungkook? Hmm.”
“No. Absolutely not. He’s like a little brother.”
Talia looked unconvinced. “A K-pop idol actually isn’t a bad idea.”
“And he has a girlfriend.”
“He does?”
“Yes. Apparently in Korea, celebrities date like CIA operatives.”
Talia nodded. “More paperwork, though.”
Rachel stared at her in disbelief. “You spent too long in Korea before being assigned here to ruin my life.”
Before Talia responded, her own phone rang. She glanced down and blinked. “Minho,” she said. “BTS management. Probably another collab idea.” She stood and answered in Korean, walking toward the edge of the patio.
Rachel returned to her pancakes and Jungkook’s text. Another message appeared.
Jungkook: Sasha wants meet you properly. Come to Seoul. I will cook for you.
Could she realistically disappear to Korea right now? She looked across the patio, where Talia was now making animated hand gestures while speaking into the phone. She looked over and gave Rachel an enthusiastic thumbs up.
“Weirdo,” Rachel muttered.
Talia returned to the table looking deeply self-satisfied. “I found him.”
Rachel blinked. “Who?”
“Him.” Talia tapped the stack of candidate folders. “The candidate.”
"You're kidding me."
“Go pack,” Talia said. “We leave for Seoul on Sunday.”
***JIMIN
“Who are you texting?” Jimin dropped onto the couch beside Jungkook, still damp from the shower, long blond hair pushed back carelessly from his face. The rental cabin smelled faintly of river water, beer, and wet jackets drying near the door. “You’ve been on your phone all day.”
“Rachel-noona,” Jungkook replied without looking up. “She might come to Seoul.”
Jin walked in carrying beer. “Traitor.” It had been his favorite nickname for Jungkook since the collaboration released, when their golden maknae defected to work with the woman who beat them for song of the year at the last Grammys.
Jimin leaned back into the couch cushions and accepted a beer. He hadn’t really met Rachel beyond one rushed backstage introduction, but he knew exactly who she was. He remembered watching her perform at the Grammys standing under amber stage lights in a pale slip dress and black boots, guitar hanging low against her body while she sang something slow and sad enough to quiet an entire arena. No dancers. No elaborate staging. But somehow people still couldn’t look away from her.
He had found that interesting. Most performers at that level projected control, but Rachel Monroe projected atmosphere. Like she walked onto stages carrying her own weather system. And she was gorgeous. Tall, too. Jimin liked tall women.
“She’s coming to Korea?” he asked, stretching lazily across the couch. “Verrrry interesting.”
Jungkook groaned. “No.”
“What do you mean no?”
“Not her.”
“Why?”
“She’s my friend.”
Jimin considered this for exactly one second. “Counterpoint, she made eye contact with me during our Grammys performance.”
Jin snorted into his beer. “You think everyone makes eye contact with you on stage.”
“No,” Jimin said calmly, “this was specific.”
Jungkook made a tired sound into the couch cushion.
“She was sitting front row,” Jimin continued. “Very serious expression. And then during the second chorus…”
“Second chorus,” Jin repeated flatly.
“…we made eye contact.”
“You invented that completely,” Jungkook said.
“Then why did she keep looking at me?”
“Because you were in the center.”
“I’m just saying,” Jimin replied easily, “there was energy.”
Jungkook pointed at him. “That does not mean you’re allowed to make yourself her problem.”
Jimin clutched his chest. “You all think so poorly of me.”
“Because we know you.”
Jin laughed and turned back to Jungkook. “She’s visiting you? What does Sasha think?”
“Sasha likes her. And she’s not visiting me. It’s work related. Some meeting at HYBE.”
Jimin’s attention sharpened. “A meeting at HYBE?”
“Yes.”
“Well,” Jimin said, nudging Jungkook with his shoulder, “then I suddenly also have business at HYBE next week.”
Jungkook looked exhausted. “Jimin.”
“What?”
“No hallway collisions.”
“I didn’t say hallway collision.”
“You were thinking it.”
“I was thinking dramatic hallway encounter. That's different.”
Jin laughed again as Jungkook lunged without warning, tackling Jimin sideways into the cushions.
“Leave her alone! She’s been through enough!”
Jimin yelped through laughter as Jungkook pinned him down. “Never. It is inevitable.”
“You’re crazy.”
“You knew this already.”
Jungkook tightened his hold while Jimin continued talking anyway, entirely unbothered. “I’m just saying it would be rude not to welcome her to Korea personally.”
“You are not welcoming anyone.”
Jimin twisted enough to point back accusingly at him. “You cannot gatekeep an entire country because you collaborated once.”
Jin nearly choked laughing. Jungkook released him with one final shove. “I said, leave her alone.”
Jimin sat upright and calmly fixed his hair. “Maybe,” he said lightly. “But I bet she’d like me.”
***HIM
Namjoon stared at the folder waiting on his desk. The front was embossed with “PARTNERSHIP VIABILITY ASSESSMENT: RACHEL MONROE.”
The name tugged at something immediately. He frowned slightly, searching for the connection….oh, it was the woman from the Grammys. Not the backstage introduction, he barely remembered that part, it was always a blur. No, what he remembered was afterward.
Back at the hotel, sometime after two in the morning, Jungkook and Jimin still refusing to leave his room.
Jimin had stolen his laptop. “Watch this part,” he said from the end of the bed, replaying Rachel Monroe’s performance for what Namjoon was fairly certain was the fourth time. Jungkook sat cross-legged on the floor still grazing on leftovers from dinner, nodding enthusiastically.
“I like her voice,” he announced.
“You like everybody’s voice,” sighed Namjoon.
“That’s not true.”
Jimin ignored both of them, staring at the screen. “The boots with the slip dress was a very strong decision.”
Namjoon didn’t look up from where he was lying across the bed. “You’re just saying that because you like her legs.”
Jimin gasped in offense. “Wow. The lack of respect in this room.”
Jungkook snorted. “You’ve been talking about them for thirty minutes.”
“That is not true.”
“You literally rewound the bridge.”
“For performance analysis.”
“You said…and I quote… ‘her proportions are crazy.’”
Jimin shrugged, “Context matters.”
Namjoon finally shoved Jimin off the bed with his foot and kicked both of them out before the conversation devolved any farther.
And now, here she was, reduced to a binder prepared by the HYBE PR Strategy Team. He flipped the dossier open, to the first page.
OBJECTIVE: To analyze the suitability of Rachel Monroe (hereafter: “Subject”) as relational counterpart for Kim Namjoon (hereafter: “Artist”) within the framework of a long-term strategic public intimacy initiative (hereafter: “Agreement”).
He glanced across the table where Minho was watching him expectantly. “I think the legal terminology is making this significantly more disturbing.”
“Just read on,” Minho encouraged. With a sigh, Namjoon turned to the next page.
SUBJECT PROFILE: RACHEL MONROE
Alternative folk-pop recording artist
Los Angeles, California; originally from Carmel-by-the-Sea
Currently signed under Vanguard/Atlantic joint distribution agreement
Critically associated with the contemporary “West Coast revivalist” movement
“Minho, really. Rachel Monroe from Carmel-by-the-Sea? This does not sound like a real person.”
“Take this seriously. I think you’ll like her.”
Namjoon flipped the page.
SUBJECT OVERVIEW:
Critically acclaimed American singer-songwriter recognized for lyrical specificity, high audience trust metrics, and sustained long-term listener retention despite limited traditional promotional participation.
Subject spent the first decade of her career functioning as a self-managed independent artist embedded within the late-2010s/early-2020s Los Angeles alternative underground prior to achieving broader commercial crossover viability.
Commercial crossover accelerated significantly following recent collaboration with BTS member Jungkook.
Observed audience perception strongly associates subject with artistic authenticity, emotional intelligence, and resistance to conventional celebrity performance structures.
Namjoon paused briefly at that. “Resistance to conventional celebrity performance structures” did not seem to bode well for a highly publicized artificial romantic relationship.
The next page contained touring history, audience demographics, and media engagement analysis.
Another section:
CURRENT PUBLIC POSITIONING RISKS:
- escalating audience mythologization through absence
- increasing speculative discourse environments
- reduced visibility predictability
- resistance to media-managed narrative correction
- elevated tabloid fixation surrounding prior proximity to older industry figure
Namjoon stopped reading and looked back up at Minho. “Prior proximity?”
Minho barely blinked. “Legal phrasing.”
“That sounds like she accidentally stood too close to someone at a bus stop.”
“We are not putting alleged affairs in official documentation.”
Namjoon looked back down at the dossier again. “Did it actually happen?”
Minho exhaled quietly through his nose. “That depends entirely on which version of the internet you believe.”
Not a denial. Namjoon frowned slightly. “And you still think this is a good idea?”
Minho leaned back in his chair. “She’s not unstable. She’s overexposed and unequipped for it.”
Namjoon stayed quiet.
“The problem,” Minho continued, “is that Rachel Monroe became globally famous without ever developing the behavioral instincts global fame usually forces onto people. She kept moving through Los Angeles like nobody was watching her. That worked when she was playing two-hundred person venues in Echo Park. It stopped working after the Grammys.”
Namjoon glanced back down at the dossier. HYBE had somehow transformed one woman’s personal collapse into market analysis. Ok, next section:
STRATEGIC COMPATIBILITY ASSESSMENT:
Subject demonstrates unusually high relational credibility across both male and female audience segments despite elevated controversy conditions.
Internal analysis indicates strong compatibility potential with Artist’s existing public identity architecture, particularly in the following categories:
- perceived emotional intelligence
- intellectual/artistic legitimacy
- low scandal replication probability
- resistance to conventional celebrity vanity signaling
- sustained parasocial retention across long-form media appearances
Internal focus groups repeatedly identified Subject as “believable” beside Artist despite limited prior interaction visibility.
Notably, audience perception trends suggest pairing generates unusually high levels of projected emotional realism relative to comparable celebrity relationship narratives.
Namjoon stared at the page for a long moment. “You ran focus groups?”
“Several.”
“About my hypothetical emotional realism?”
Minho ignored that completely. “The public already wants to believe you’re capable of loving someone like her."
“What exactly does that mean?”
Minho glanced toward the dossier. “You’re perceived as intelligent, disciplined, but increasingly emotionally contained. Rachel Monroe is perceived as emotionally accessible but difficult to stabilize. Together, the narrative resolves both of your public problems simultaneously.”
Namjoon felt a headache beginning slowly behind his eyes and flipped to the last page of the folder.
CONCLUSION:
Subject represents uniquely viable strategic relational positioning opportunity capable of facilitating controlled disruption of existing K-pop public relationship norms while preserving audience trust stability.
Internal modeling indicates high probability of sustained audience engagement, elevated international media interest, and unusually strong long-term narrative elasticity relative to comparable celebrity partnership frameworks.
Notably, Subject demonstrates rare compatibility with Artist’s established public identity without generating significant perceived opportunism risk.
Namjoon closed the folder. “Controlled disruption?”
Minho did not even look embarrassed. “That’s the phrasing legal approved.”
Namjoon looked back down at Rachel Monroe’s photograph on the cover. The woman from the Grammys. The one who sang in run-on sentences.
He looked back up. “But why is she doing this?”
For the first time since the meeting started, Minho hesitated slightly. “The arrangement includes significant structural flexibility,” he said carefully.
“That is not an answer.”
Minho leaned back in his chair. “She’s becoming increasingly difficult to manage.”
Namjoon’s expression sharpened immediately.
“It’s not the scandal,” Minho quickly clarified. “The issue is narrative instability.”
There it was again. Instability.
“After the Grammys and then the collaboration with Jungkook, her audience scale expanded faster than her infrastructure. Visibility intensified. Public projection intensified. She became…” Minho paused briefly. “Increasingly difficult to contain.”
Namjoon frowned.
“She disappears for weeks at a time,” Minho continued. “Refuses certain press cycles. Ignores recommended visibility structures. Argues with fans online. Public sentiment toward her remains extremely positive, but increasingly fragmented. The label believes she requires stabilization."
Namjoon looked back down at Rachel Monroe’s picture. “She agreed with that?”
“Yes, more than we expected.”
Looking at her staring back, Namjoon could suddenly see the shape of it from the other side. Not a woman chasing publicity, but a woman exhausted enough by public interpretation that allowing a corporation to help structure her life had started sounding preferable to continuing alone. He stared at the folder for another second. “That’s bleak."
Minho considered that. “Yes, but also potentially effective. Not backing out now, are you?”
Namjoon exhaled slowly. “At minimum, she seems unlikely to enjoy this any more than I will.”
Minho’s mouth twitched slightly. “Correct. She’ll be here tomorrow.”
The office fell quiet after he left. Namjoon looked back down at the folder resting on the table, forty pages of psychological profiling, audience modeling, and projected intimacy structures. If this actually happened, Rachel Monroe would not just become part of his life…she would become part of theirs. The members, the staff, everyone's routine would shift around her eventually.
With a sigh, he reached for his phone and opened the group chat. If he was going to do this, he needed everyone in on it.
Namjoon: Dinner tomorrow night. Everyone in Seoul. Need to discuss something.
Jungkook: are you dying?
Yoongi: If yes can I have your speakers?
Tae: i want the Pokemon cards
Namjoon stared at the messages for a second before laughing.
Namjoon: This is why none of you receive information in advance.
***
HER
Rachel settled into the plane seat and tried not to think too hard about the fact that she was crossing the Pacific on a private jet to meet a potential contractual boyfriend.
She hadn’t wanted the jet. Unfortunately, HYBE had insisted she travel privately, apparently unwilling to risk photographs of Rachel Monroe boarding a commercial flight to Seoul. So here she was, sitting in a luxury aircraft consuming enough jet fuel to permanently disqualify her from several conversations she’d previously had about sustainability, all just to negotiate a fake relationship with a stranger.
She buckled her seatbelt and opened her laptop. “What’s his name again?”
Talia looked up slowly from her iPad.
“I know. I know. I’m joking.”
“You are not joking.”
Rachel shrugged.
Talia sighed. “Kim Namjoon.”
“Right.”
The truth was, Rachel still hadn’t really looked into him properly. She knew the basics: he was the leader of BTS, a rapper and a writer. Fluent in English. Intelligent. Publicly respected. A grown-up, essentially. That alone already distinguished him from at least eighty percent of the men she’d dated in Los Angeles.
She typed his name into the search bar, and then immediately stopped breathing. There were too many results. Not celebrity too many, civilization too many. She stared at the screen. “Oh..."
Talia did not even look up. “Yeah.”
“No, I knew they were famous.”
“You did not.”
“I did not,” Rachel admitted, because intellectually understanding “internationally successful” had not remotely prepared her for the actual scale of BTS.
She clicked into images. Right, she recognized him. He had been the one speaking English backstage at the Grammys, introducing everyone while the rest of the group smiled politely. She clicked through more photos and opened a group shot. Namjoon in the center, Jungkook hanging off him with visible little brother energy. She moved down the lineup slowly, her gaze stopping at the end.
Oh no. That one. The hip-thrust eye-contact one. She zoomed in slightly before she could stop herself. Park Jimin, apparently.
She stared at the screen for another second. “Absolutely not,” she muttered to herself, and clicked back to Namjoon. She needed to focus, he was the whole point of this trip. She clicked a video titled “Guide to BTS Members” and skipped to his section.
He was impressive immediately. Not just polished, but thoughtful. He answered interview questions like he actually listened to them first. Serious when appropriate and funny when appropriate. Occasionally visibly tired of American interview formats in a way Rachel found weirdly reassuring.
She clicked another video…then another. At some point the algorithm fully escaped containment and started flooding her screen with fan edits.
One focused entirely on Namjoon’s stage presence. Onstage something opened up. He looked larger somehow, and less controlled. In other videos, especially with the other BTS members, he transformed again. He was clumsy, loud, and laughed with his entire body. And then apparently he would reappear at the United Nations giving speeches about youth identity and global responsibility. It was like he kept different versions of himself stored in different rooms and unlocked them situationally.
Her attention drifted again…back to Jimin. A mistake immediately, because now she found tour footage. She watched approximately thirty seconds before leaning back in her seat experiencing several emotions she preferred not to examine individually. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Okay. Sure.”
A magazine smacked lightly against the back of her head.
“Ow.”
Talia stood behind her in the aisle looking profoundly unsurprised. “You are researching the wrong Korean man.”
“I was not…”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
Rachel quickly closed the tab. “This feels judgmental.”
“It is judgmental.” Talia pointed toward the laptop. “Homework.”
“Yes, professor.”
Rachel clicked back to Namjoon. Another interview…another performance…another impossible crowd screaming loud enough to distort the microphone audio. The scale genuinely unsettled her.
“So?” Talia asked eventually. “Cold feet?”
Rachel leaned back slowly in her seat. “No,” she admitted.
After two hours of watching Kim Namjoon exist publicly, one thing had become very clear: he looked just as trapped by all of this as she felt.