Chapter Text
By the time the live ended, Jimin’s smile hurt.
Not physically, not in any way he could point to if someone asked, but in that deep, private way certain expressions did when you’d worn them for too long. His cheeks felt stiff. The corners of his mouth trembled the moment the camera light went dark, and for one embarrassing second, he had to keep his head lowered under the excuse of fixing the sleeve of his hoodie just so nobody would see the smile vanish too fast.
The room around them shifted immediately.
Managers started moving. One staff member approached with a tablet. Another said something about the next car. Somebody laughed near the door at a joke he didn’t hear. The air, which had felt carefully arranged and breathable while the live was going, turned back into the usual backstage hurry: cables, footsteps, voices crossing over each other, everyone half on their phones, half on the move.
Beside him, Taehyung was still talking brightly to the stylist noona about some comment he’d seen near the end—something about his hair color, something dumb and easy to laugh about. Yoongi took the bottled water a staff member handed him and drained half of it in one go, head tipped back, throat moving. Namjoon was thanking the staff, one by one, in that polite, automatic way he had even when he was exhausted. Jungkook was already asking where their in-ears had gone.
It all sounded normal.
Jimin stared at the black screen of his phone. His reflection looked ghostly over the last frozen frame of the livestream summary. Seven faces. Smiling. Leaning into one another. Warm light. Thousands of hearts and comments having poured up the screen so quickly they’d blurred together into color.
He should have put the phone away. Instead, with the reflexive stupidity of someone poking at a bruise to see if it still hurts, he opened the comments archive.
At first it was the usual mess.
Marry me.
He looks so pretty.
Why is Hoseok so quiet today?
Yoongi, please wave.
Taehyung’s laugh is crazy.
Jungkook marry me.
Leader-nim looks tired, someone let him sleep.
Jimin dance challenge when?
It almost made him feel foolish. Stupid, even. Like maybe the tightness in his chest all evening had been the result of anticipation more than reality. Maybe tonight had been fine. Maybe—
Then he scrolled another inch.
Why is he trying so hard again?
He always acts like the camera belongs to him.
Weak vocals and still shameless.
Every group has one member that drags the others down.
He looks sick.
No, he always looked like that.
Such pick-me behavior.
Why is he trying so hard to act cute at his age?
He wants attention so badly it’s embarrassing.
Somebody shut him up.
Please remove him from the group.
Just disappear already.
His thumb stopped moving. It was never one comment. That was the problem.
One hateful comment could be mocked. Two could be shrugged off. Ten could be dismissed as trolls or antis or people with too much time and a Wi-Fi connection. But there was something uniquely corrosive about volume, about repetition, about seeing the same handful of accusations in different wording from different accounts until they stopped feeling like random cruelty and started sounding like consensus.
Too feminine.
Trying too hard.
Attention seeker.
Weak singer.
Embarrassing.
Replaceable.
Ruining the group.
His throat felt dry.
There were worse ones too, always worse ones if he kept going long enough. The sexual ones. The violent ones. The ones written like jokes so people could pretend they weren’t threats. The ones that made his stomach twist because they were specific enough to sound like imagination had been involved.
He locked the phone so suddenly his own face flashed back at him, pale and hard-eyed in the black screen.
“Jimin.”
He looked up.
Namjoon stood in front of him, close enough that Jimin hadn’t heard him approach. One hand was already half-extended, not touching, just there in that careful way Namjoon had whenever he was checking on someone without making a scene.
“They’re asking us to move now,” Namjoon said. His voice was casual, but his eyes flicked once to the phone in Jimin’s hand. “You okay?”
Jimin smiled on instinct. “Yeah.” It came out too fast.
Something shifted in Namjoon’s expression—not suspicion, not exactly, just that quiet registering look he got when he noticed a detail and tucked it away. But he only nodded and tipped his chin toward the hallway.
“Come on, then.”
The van ride was loud in the way tired people sometimes got—too much talking, too much energy spent outrunning the crash. Taehyung was playing music from his phone speaker until the manager told him to turn it down. Jungkook and Yoongi were arguing over whether some clip from rehearsal last week had been genuinely bad or just awkwardly filmed. Hoseok, half folded into his seat by the window, kept laughing with his eyes shut like he was one breath from sleep. Seokjin was trying to peel the label off his water bottle in a perfect strip.
Jimin sat in the middle row and contributed where he had to. He laughed in the right places. He hummed along when the song changed to one they all knew. He answered when spoken to. He even leaned over once to show Taehyung a fan edit someone had posted from tonight, one of the quick, sweet ones cut together with soft music and bright subtitles: Jimin being everyone’s comfort person for 6 minutes straight.
Taehyung grinned instantly. “See? That’s what you need to look at.”
Jimin let out a small laugh. “I didn’t say I needed anything.”
“You obviously do,” Taehyung said, still smiling, but there was enough truth in it to make Jimin’s stomach tighten. “You’ve been acting weird all day.”
“Everyone acts weird all day,” Jimin replied. “That’s literally our brand.”
That got a laugh from the others, enough to move the moment along. Taehyung rolled his eyes and leaned back dramatically like he’d been defeated by superior wit. The attention shifted. The van kept moving.
But across from him, Jungkook looked up from his phone. Only for a second. Only long enough for Jimin to know he’d heard the exchange and not fully bought it.
He looked away first, out the darkened window, city lights smearing past in long wet lines over the glass. His reflection floated there over the street outside: baseball cap low, mask tugged down under his chin now that they were in the van, face narrower than it used to be. He hated how often he noticed that lately.
Not because he wanted to. He was tired of himself, honestly, tired of his own face being a problem he kept returning to like there was some answer hidden in it. Too soft, they said. Too sharp, they said. Too round once, then too thin later. He’d seen people compare pictures from different years like they were discussing a character design instead of a person. Debates over his body like it belonged to the public in pieces. His cheeks, his waist, his mouth, his shoulders, his voice, the way he stood, the way he laughed, the way he looked at other members, whether it was too much or not enough, too flirty, too fake, too needy, too cold.
There was no correct version of him. That was the real joke. He dropped his gaze before he could catch himself staring.
The dorm was blessedly dim when they got back. Shoes piled at the entry. Half-open packages on the counter. Somebody had left a hoodie draped over one of the dining chairs. The air still smelled faintly of ramen and fabric softener. Home, or the closest shape of it their schedules allowed.
There was a brief burst of motion as everyone scattered—bathroom, kitchen, bedrooms, chargers, face wash, water, complaints. Familiar enough to be comforting.
Jimin went straight to the kitchen and opened the fridge. He wasn’t hungry. Hadn’t really been hungry all day. But that wasn’t unusual anymore, and in this apartment not eating was the sort of thing that got noticed faster than crying. The members had become irritatingly observant over the years. They knew each other’s moods by the sound of footsteps, exhaustion by the way someone set down a bag, stress by who got quiet versus who got loud.
He stood in front of the open fridge and stared at shelves full of things that all seemed impossible. Yogurt. Leftover kimbap. Cut fruit. Protein drinks. A container of something Seokjin had cooked yesterday. Eggs. Sauce packets. Pickled radish. Water bottles. Energy drinks they weren’t supposed to keep buying in bulk and did anyway. The bright fridge light made him feel abruptly, stupidly tired.
“What are you doing?”
Jimin glanced over his shoulder.
Yoongi had wandered in, hair still damp from the quick shower he must have taken, sleeves pushed up, expression somewhere between suspicion and boredom.
“Thinking,” Jimin said.
“About?”
“What to eat.”
Yoongi looked at the open fridge, then at him, then back at the open fridge. “You’ve been standing there for like three full minutes.”
“I’m being thorough.”
“You’re being creepy.”
Jimin snorted softly and reached for the yogurt just so the interaction would end. “Happy?”
“Moderately.”
Yoongi took a bottle of water, but didn’t leave right away. He leaned against the counter, unscrewing the cap, gaze drifting over Jimin in that offhand, deceptively lazy way he had when he was paying more attention than he let on.
“You should eat actual food.”
“This is actual food.”
“This is insultingly little food.”
“I ate earlier.”
“Mm.”
Jimin peeled back the yogurt lid. “Don’t ‘mm’ me.”
Yoongi drank some water. “Then don’t lie so unconvincingly.”
For a moment, Jimin said nothing. He hated how quickly irritation rose these days, how thin-skinned he’d become. Not at Yoongi, not really. Yoongi’s concern was never dramatic; it came disguised as bluntness, as dry comments, as these almost casual check-ins that made it harder to deflect because they weren’t emotional enough to push back against. But Jimin felt the familiar defensive heat anyway, sharp and embarrassed.
“I’m not lying,” he said.
Yoongi’s face didn’t change. “Okay.”
That was somehow worse.
Jimin dug the spoon into the yogurt too hard. “You don’t have to look at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re—” He stopped, jaw tightening. “Never mind.”
Yoongi straightened a little. “No, say it.”
But footsteps sounded in the hallway before Jimin had to answer. Taehyung appeared, still towel-drying his hair, and took in the scene with immediate, almost comical accuracy.
“Oh,” he said. “This again.”
“There is no ‘this again,’” Jimin muttered.
“There’s always a ‘this again’,” Taehyung said, moving toward the fridge. “What did he not eat now?”
“I’m literally eating right now.”
Taehyung made a face at the yogurt cup. “That doesn’t count.”
Jimin gave him a tired look. “You people are impossible.”
“And yet lovable,” Taehyung said, selecting leftovers from the fridge. “Sit down.”
“I am standing fine.”
“Sit down and eat while I microwave this.”
“For who?”
“For you.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You don’t know what it is.”
“I don’t care what it is.”
Taehyung turned, leftover container in hand, his expression bright but firm in a way that only close friends could get away with. “Jimin.”
There it was again—that edge beneath the lightness. That shift from banter into something else.
Jimin forced a smile that felt brittle. “I said I’m fine.”
The kitchen went quiet. Not dramatically. No dropped dishes, no stunned silence. Just that subtle halt in the rhythm of a room when everyone in it realizes a line has been reached. Taehyung’s smile faded first. Yoongi lowered his water bottle.
From the hallway, someone else must have heard the tone change, because Jungkook appeared a second later and stopped just outside the kitchen entrance. Namjoon, farther behind him, did the same. It was ridiculous, how quickly concern could gather. How humiliating.
Jimin looked down at the yogurt in his hand. “I didn’t mean—”
“You kind of did,” Jungkook said, not unkindly.
“Can everyone stop acting like I’m going to break because I skipped one meal?” Jimin snapped.
The words came out louder than he meant them to. Instant regret followed. He could see it land on all their faces—not fear, exactly, but the renewed confirmation of something already suspected. Nobody said anything for a beat.
Then Namjoon stepped in. “Okay,” he said quietly, as if Jimin had not just raised his voice. “Nobody’s fighting.”
Jimin pressed his lips together.
Namjoon leaned one hip against the counter, folding his arms. “We’re not trying to gang up on you. You’ve just been off for a while.”
“I’m tired.”
“We’re all tired,” Jungkook said.
“I know that.”
“Then you know why that answer doesn’t work.”
Jimin looked away.
He was suddenly aware of everything at once: the cold rim of the yogurt cup against his fingers, the hum of the fridge, the microwave clock glowing blue, the ache behind his eyes, the faint sting in his throat that warned he was closer to tears than he had any right to be over something this stupid. He hated this. Hated being perceived. Hated the way concern felt good for half a second before it curdled into shame.
Taehyung set the leftovers down without heating them. His voice softened. “Hyung.”
That almost undid him on the spot. Not because of the word itself, but because of the way Taehyung said it—careful now, no teasing left, all the brightness stripped away until only worry remained.
Jimin swallowed. “I’m just tired.”
Namjoon studied him for a long second. “Did you look at comments again?”
The question was gentle. Too gentle. Jimin’s silence answered for him.
Jungkook exhaled sharply through his nose and looked at the ceiling like he was praying for patience. “Why do you keep doing that to yourself?”
“I wasn’t—” Jimin started, then stopped. “It was just after the live. I looked for a second.”
“And?”
“And I’m fine.”
The lie sat in the middle of the kitchen like something visible.
Namjoon’s expression didn’t harden, but it deepened. “Jimin.”
Jimin gripped the spoon tighter. “Please don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t make this bigger.”
Jungkook laughed once, humorless. “You think death threats during live comments are small?”
The kitchen seemed to get colder.
Jimin looked at him sharply. “You saw those?”
“No,” Jungkook said. “Because unlike you, I have recently developed the life skill of not volunteering to read garbage written by strangers who don’t even know you.”
“That’s enough,” Namjoon said quietly, shooting him a look.
Jungkook dragged a hand over his face and looked away, chastened but still visibly angry—not at Jimin, never really at Jimin, but at the existence of the thing itself, this shapeless cruelty they could not punch or reason with or physically remove from the room.
Yoongi set his bottle down. “The company’s already nervous.”
Jimin let out a small, tired scoff. “The company is always nervous.”
“Not like this,” Yoongi said.
And that, too, was true. Even he could admit that. The last few weeks had changed the atmosphere around schedules. More security at entrances. Staff checking routes twice. Managers asking them not to linger after events. Phones lighting up with internal notices. Advisories about accepting gifts, about sticking close, about not separating in public even for a minute.
Officially, it was framed as general safety. Unofficially, everyone knew why it had escalated.
There had been hashtags. Repeated ones. Ugly ones. Campaign-like waves of accounts posting edited clips, cut to make him look arrogant, needy, talentless, manipulative. Threads compiling every supposed offense he’d ever committed, most of them not offenses at all. Rumors spun from glances, gestures, jokes, tired expressions. And beneath all that, the filthier part of it—the threats, the rape jokes, the fantasies of hurting him written by people who seemed to think a screen made them unreal.
The company had released a statement two days ago. A serious one. They were pursuing legal action against malicious defamation and threats against their artists. They would strengthen protective measures at upcoming public events. They asked fans not to spread or engage with harmful content.
It had helped for maybe six hours. Then people turned the statement into more content. More mockery. More commentary. More arguments. More screenshots.
Jimin set the yogurt down on the counter without eating another bite. The appetite he hadn’t really had to begin with was gone entirely now.
Namjoon noticed, of course he noticed, but thankfully didn’t comment on it. Instead he said, “Come sit in the living room.”
Jimin blinked. “What?”
“Sit down,” Namjoon repeated. “No one’s lecturing you. We’re just sitting.”
“I don’t need—”
“Please.” That word, from Namjoon of all people, was enough.
Jimin followed them to the living room mostly because resisting would have made it worse. The lights were low, only the lamp in the corner turned on. Hoseok and Seokjin were already there, both looking up as the others filed in with the unmistakable energy of something having happened off-screen. Hoseok straightened from where he’d been slumped against the sofa arm. Seokjin muted the video on his phone.
“What?” Hoseok asked immediately.
“No emergency,” Taehyung said.
“That means there’s definitely an emergency,” Seokjin replied.
“There’s not,” Jimin said, too quickly.
Six pairs of eyes turned to him. He almost laughed. There were too many of them. That was the problem with groups this close, with years this tightly lived together: one person’s bad mood never stayed private for long. It became communal property. Shared weather.
Namjoon sat first, leaving the spot beside him open without making it obvious. Jimin took it because that, too, felt easier than refusing. The others arranged themselves around the room in the messy, familiar way they always did—Taehyung cross-legged on the floor, Jungkook half sprawled in the armchair, Yoongi leaning against the wall, Hoseok and Seokjin sharing the other end of the sofa.
For a little while, nobody said anything. It might have been unbearable if they weren’t so used to silence together.
Finally, Hoseok looked between them and said, “Who pissed him off?”
“Comments,” Jungkook muttered.
Hoseok’s face changed instantly. Not into surprise—none of them were surprised anymore—but into something flat and tired. “Again?”
Jimin gave a tiny, helpless laugh. “You say that like they ever stop.”
“No,” Hoseok said. “I say it like I’m sick of watching you read them.”
Jimin stared at the coffee table. His voice, when it came, was lighter than he felt. “I didn’t realize it was such a group hobby.”
Seokjin spoke then, quiet but direct. “It’s not. But worrying about you kind of is.”
Something in Jimin’s chest pulled tight. He could not decide what was worse on nights like this: being alone with the noise in his own head, or being loved enough that other people could hear it leaking out.
He looked down at his hands. “I’m sorry.”
That, finally, made Namjoon turn toward him fully. “Why are you apologizing?”
Jimin shrugged once.
“For being affected by it?” Namjoon asked.
Jimin didn’t answer.
Namjoon let out a slow breath. His voice stayed very calm. “You know better than anyone that it’s okay to be affected.”
Jimin almost smiled at that, except it hurt too much. Because yes—Namjoon did know. Out of all of them, Namjoon understood best what it was like to be picked apart in public over things that had long since stopped being your choice. The leadership criticism in the early years. The endless comments about his face, his teeth, his build, his voice, his mistakes. The kind of ridicule that attached itself to ordinary features and tried to make them disqualifying.
But even then—
“It’s different,” Jimin said softly.
No one interrupted.
He swallowed and kept his eyes on his hands. “It’s not the same.”
Namjoon’s answer came just as soft. “I know.”
Jimin’s throat tightened. There it was. No false equivalence. No easy reassurance. Just the truth, and somehow that was kinder. The room stayed quiet.
Then Taehyung, who had been hugging a couch cushion to his chest like a child, said with unusual seriousness, “You know there’s good stuff too, right?”
Jimin laughed under his breath. “Please don’t start searching your own fan edits for evidence.”
“I’m serious.”
“I know.”
“You don’t act like you know.”
Jimin leaned back into the sofa and tipped his head toward the ceiling. His exhaustion felt bone-deep now, heavy enough to make honesty slip closer to the surface than usual. “It’s easier to believe the bad stuff.”
No one moved. No one even pretended that wasn’t the most truthful thing he’d said all night.
He shut his eyes. “I know that sounds pathetic.”
“It sounds human,” Seokjin said.
Jimin let out a weak huff of laughter. “That’s generous.”
“No,” Seokjin said. “It’s accurate.”
Jungkook leaned forward, elbows on knees. “What exactly are you reading lately?”
Jimin opened his eyes and gave him a look. “Nothing you’d like.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Namjoon shot Jungkook another warning glance, but Jimin surprised himself by answering anyway.
“Same things as always,” he said. “That I’m ruining things. That I can’t sing. That I’m embarrassing. That I’m fake. That I’m…” He stopped, mouth tightening. “Whatever.”
Taehyung’s expression had gone stricken. Hoseok looked like he wanted to throw someone through a wall. Yoongi’s jaw set.
Jungkook said, more quietly this time, “And you’re just carrying that around by yourself?”
Jimin gave a small shrug. “What am I supposed to do? Read it out loud at breakfast?”
That got a brief, unwilling snort from Hoseok.
But Namjoon’s gaze didn’t waver. “You’re supposed to not carry it alone.”
Jimin looked at him then. Really looked at him. At the tired eyes, the patience, the understanding that had clearly outgrown words. Namjoon wasn’t saying it as a slogan. He meant it. The others did too. That was the unbearable part.
Jimin looked away first.
Outside, somewhere beyond the dorm windows, traffic hissed faintly along wet streets. A siren passed in the distance. Inside, the lamp cast warm light over the cluttered room: charger cables, blankets, two unopened packages on the shelf, a pair of Taehyung’s socks abandoned near the TV stand because he was incapable of walking three steps without shedding clothing like evidence.
Ordinary. Safe. For a brief, painful second, Jimin felt how exhausted he was from not letting any of that safety reach him.
“I’m okay,” he said at last.
It was softer now. Less defensive. More clearly what it was: a plea for the conversation to stop before he said something uglier. Namjoon heard that too.
So he nodded once, slow and accepting, though the concern remained in his face. “Okay.”
Jungkook looked like he wanted to argue but held back.
Taehyung scooted closer on the floor until he could rest his chin against the sofa cushion by Jimin’s knee. “You still have to eat.”
Jimin let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “You’re all obsessed with that.”
“Yes,” six voices seemed to say at once, though only three actually spoke.
The room loosened by a degree. Not fixed. Not solved. But loosened.
Hoseok reached for the remote and said, “I’m putting on something stupid now because this whole atmosphere is disgusting.”
“Agreed,” Yoongi said.
Seokjin, already reaching for the takeout menus on the table, added, “And we’re ordering food because apparently no one in this house can be trusted to take care of themselves.”
Jimin gave him a tired look. “That feels targeted.”
“It is.”
Taehyung brightened instantly. “Get the fried chicken.”
“You always want fried chicken.”
“Because I’m right.”
Jungkook muttered, “That’s not how being right works,” and the argument, small and familiar and ridiculous, began to build around them with the well-practiced ease of people who had spent years saving one another in ways that often looked exactly like this.
Noise returned to the room. Not the bad kind.
Hoseok complaining about everyone’s taste. Taehyung insisting on extra sides. Yoongi saying no one needed extra sides and getting shouted down. Seokjin trying to calculate portions like a man managing a military unit. Jungkook reaching over to steal the remote. Namjoon finally laughing, brief and quiet, when Hoseok threatened to exile anyone who voted against his order.
Jimin sat in the middle of it and let the sound wash over him. For a while, he even managed to answer when spoken to. He voted for what to order. He corrected Taehyung’s memory of some rehearsal disaster from last year. He reached automatically to tug a blanket over Namjoon’s legs when he noticed the older member shiver under the air conditioner. He took the remote from Jungkook and handed it to Hoseok just to end a pointless fight.
It was easy, being himself like this. That almost made it hurt worse. Because he knew—knew with a clarity that felt like punishment—that if strangers could see this version of him the way the members did, they would not say half the things they said. But strangers never got the whole shape of a person. They got clips. Angles. Narratives they preferred. A few seconds cut from a longer tenderness.
He was still thinking about that when his phone buzzed beside him. He glanced down.
A message from their manager in the group chat.
Reminder: tomorrow’s event security route has been updated. Please do not separate from staff at any point. We’ll review details in the morning.
Below it, another message followed almost immediately.
And please avoid checking trending topics tonight.
The room quieted a little as everyone’s phones lit up with the same notification. No one said anything at first. Then Jungkook swore softly under his breath.
Hoseok’s mouth flattened. “Again?”
Namjoon picked up his phone, read the messages, and set it face down on the coffee table. Jimin didn’t move. Because he already knew, with cold certainty, what had happened.
Something was trending again. Another wave. Another edited clip, another pile-on, another excuse for people to turn him into a game. His thumb hovered over his phone before he could stop himself.
A hand closed gently around his wrist. He startled and looked up. Namjoon wasn’t looking at the phone. He was looking at him.
“Don’t,” he said softly.
Jimin held still. Namjoon’s hand was warm, steady, not restraining so much as reminding. Around them, the others had gone quiet again, each aware of the moment without stepping on it.
Jimin stared at the black screen of his phone. He knew what would happen if he opened it.
He knew the sick drop in his stomach, the compulsion to keep scrolling once he started, the stupid hope that maybe this time it would be less bad, the certainty afterward that it had been worse. He knew how the words stayed, how they resurfaced at inconvenient hours, how they attached themselves to mirrors and rehearsal footage and quiet moments before sleep.
He also knew he wanted to look anyway. That, more than anything, frightened him.
His mouth curled in a small, miserable smile. “I hate that I still want to know.”
No one in the room mistook what he meant.
Namjoon’s grip loosened but didn’t disappear. “I know.”
Jimin swallowed. The truth slipped out before he could dress it up. “It feels worse when I don’t check.”
“Why?” Seokjin asked quietly.
Jimin laughed once, brittle and embarrassed. “Because then I imagine it. And sometimes imagining it is worse.”
Jungkook said, “And when you do check?”
Jimin looked at the phone in his hand, at his own reflection floating faintly in the screen. “Then it’s real,” he said.
Silence settled over the room again, heavy this time. Namjoon let go of his wrist only to take the phone from his hand entirely. Jimin should have protested. Instead he just let it happen.
Namjoon placed the phone face down on the far end of the table and said, with quiet finality, “Then let it be real tomorrow. Tonight, quit worrying about it.”
Something in Jimin’s chest gave way at that. Not enough to break him open. Not yet. Just enough for the ache to deepen.
He looked down, blinking once, then again. “I’m making everyone miserable.”
“Wrong,” Hoseok said immediately.
“Extremely wrong,” Taehyung added.
Seokjin reached over and nudged Jimin’s knee with his foot. “You being hurt is not the same thing as you being a burden.”
Jimin pressed his lips together.
Jungkook leaned back in the chair with a tired exhale. “You know what’s miserable? Some freak with a burner account deciding they know you better than we do.”
Yoongi nodded once. “That part.”
The delivery app pinged. Taehyung announced their food was finally on the way with the kind of exaggerated excitement that was obviously intentional now, a lifeline thrown into deep water. Hoseok demanded the TV volume be raised. Seokjin threatened violence if anyone ate his portion. Jungkook argued on principle. Namjoon stayed close enough that their shoulders touched whenever Jimin shifted.
And gradually, impossibly, the room resumed. Not because the problem was gone. Not because any of them believed tonight had fixed anything. But because this, too, was part of loving someone through something ugly: knowing when to hold the wound in both hands, and when to let them breathe around it for an hour.
Later, when the food came, Jimin ate because everyone was watching too subtly for him not to.
Later still, after the show ended and Hoseok fell asleep sitting up and Taehyung nearly did the same on the floor, after Seokjin had started stacking empty containers and Yoongi had turned off the harsh overhead kitchen light in favor of the softer one above the stove, Jimin found himself alone for half a minute at the sink rinsing sauce from his fingers.
The dorm had gone half-quiet. Midnight-quiet. The kind where every sound softened at the edges. He stared out the dark window over the sink. His reflection looked back at him.
For one terrible second, all he could hear were the comments again, as clearly as if they had been spoken into the room.
Weak.
Embarrassing.
Attention-seeking.
Disappear.
Disappear.
Disappear.
His hands tightened on the edge of the counter until his knuckles whitened.
Then, from behind him, he heard footsteps. Not close enough to crowd him. Just close enough. He didn’t have to turn around to know it was Namjoon. There was a pause.
Then Namjoon said, very softly, “You don’t have to say anything tonight.”
Jimin stared at the dark glass. “That’s good.”
Another pause.
“But,” Namjoon went on, “I think this is getting worse.”
Jimin shut his eyes. He could lie again. He could laugh. He could say it was just a bad week, bad timing, too much pressure, too little sleep. All partly true. All useless.
Instead he stood there in the dim kitchen and said nothing. Behind him, Namjoon took that silence for what it was.
When he spoke again, his voice held no judgment, only a sadness that somehow made Jimin feel even more exposed. “Okay.”
That was all. No demand. No fixing. No speech. Just okay, like a promise that the conversation did not have to happen all at once to still be real.
A few seconds later, Namjoon moved away again, giving him back the space without making him feel abandoned in it.
Jimin stayed at the sink a long time after that. Long enough for the apartment to quiet further. Long enough for the ache in his chest to become something duller, heavier. Long enough to understand, with a clarity he did not want, that Namjoon was right.
It was getting worse. And the worst part—the part he could not confess to any of them yet—was that it was no longer only the comments themselves.
It was what they had started to sound like in his own voice.
—----
The next morning arrived too quickly.
Jimin woke before his alarm, which was unusual for him. Normally he slept deeply enough that Taehyung had to shake him awake for early schedules.
Today his eyes opened at 5:48 a.m., staring into the faint gray light creeping through the dorm curtains.
For a few seconds he didn’t remember why his chest felt tight. Then the memories of the night before returned all at once: the comments, the conversation in the living room, the manager’s message about trending topics.
His phone sat face down on the bedside table. Exactly where Namjoon had put it back before everyone went to sleep. Jimin watched it like it might move on its own. He knew he shouldn’t check.
He also knew that if something was trending badly enough for the company to warn them not to look, the internet had already been busy while they slept. New edits. New threads. New commentary. New ways to talk about him.
His thumb twitched. Then he rolled onto his back and covered his face with both hands.
“Don’t,” he whispered to the ceiling.
The room was still dark enough that the shapes of furniture were only half-visible. Across the room, Jungkook’s breathing remained slow and even from his bed. The faint hum of the air conditioner filled the silence. Jimin dragged his hands down his face. He lasted another thirty seconds before grabbing the phone.
The screen lit up immediately. Dozens of notifications. Mentions. Tags. Messages. The group chat from management. A couple of fan-cafe alerts. Two missed calls from a blocked number he didn’t recognize.
His stomach sank. He didn’t open the messages first. Instead he did the one thing Namjoon had specifically warned him not to do.
He opened the trending tags. The result appeared instantly. His name. Attached to a phrase he had never seen before. For a moment his brain struggled to interpret it, because the words themselves weren’t hateful. They were almost neutral. Almost vague.
But when he clicked it, the truth unfolded quickly. A video clip. Cut from the livestream yesterday. Seven seconds long. It showed him laughing at something Taehyung had said. Leaning forward slightly. Tossing his hair back. Talking with his hands.
The caption under the repost read:
Why does he always need to be the center of attention?
Under that, thousands of comments. He scrolled. Of course he did.
He interrupts everyone constantly.
Attention addict.
This is why the group gets hate.
His vocals are so weak he has to compensate by acting cute.
Why does he act feminine all the time.
He thinks he’s the main character.
Embarrassing.
Then the uglier ones.
god, someone slap him.
Why hasn’t the company replaced him yet?
The group would be perfect without him.
Just disappear already.
Jimin locked the phone. Too late. The words were already there. Burned into the soft part of his brain that replayed things at the worst possible hours. He lay there staring at the ceiling again.
The rational part of him knew exactly what this was. A familiar pattern. A clip taken out of context, boosted by a handful of loud accounts until it looked like a movement. Within a few days something else would trend and people would move on.
But the rational part of his brain had never been the loudest. The other voice spoke first. They’re not entirely wrong. His stomach twisted.
He sat up abruptly, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. The floor felt cold. Across the room, Jungkook stirred slightly but didn’t wake. Jimin grabbed a hoodie and slipped out of the bedroom before the urge to check the comments again could win.
The dorm kitchen lights were already on. Namjoon stood at the counter, pouring hot water into two mugs. He glanced up when Jimin entered.
For a second neither of them said anything. Then Namjoon asked, very calmly, “Did you check?”
Jimin sighed. “Yeah.”
Namjoon nodded once like he had expected the answer. “Bad?”
Jimin leaned against the counter and shrugged. “Normal bad.”
Which meant it was worse than that. Namjoon slid one of the mugs toward him. Tea.
Jimin hadn’t even realized how dry his throat felt until the steam reached his face. “Thanks,” he muttered.
Namjoon watched him take the first sip. Then he said quietly, “Security meeting at the company today.”
Jimin frowned slightly. “Why?”
“Because of the threats.”
Jimin stiffened. “Threats happen all the time,” he said.
“Not usually with locations attached.”
The tea almost slipped from his hand. “What?”
Namjoon’s voice remained calm, but the tension in his shoulders was obvious now. “Some accounts posted details about the event route tomorrow.”
Jimin stared at him.
“Probably fake,” Namjoon added quickly. “But the company isn’t treating it that way.”
Jimin looked down at the steam curling from the mug. His first thought wasn’t fear. It was guilt.
Because somewhere in the back of his mind a smaller, uglier voice whispered: Of course it’s about you.
He forced a laugh that sounded wrong even to him. “Great,” he said. “Now everyone gets extra security because of me.”
Namjoon’s eyes sharpened. “That’s not how this works.”
“It kind of is.”
“Jimin.”
“I mean, objectively speaking—”
“Stop.” The word wasn’t harsh.
But it carried enough authority that Jimin’s mouth closed immediately.
Namjoon leaned against the counter across from him. “You are not responsible for people behaving like psychopaths on the internet.”
Jimin looked down at his tea again. The silence stretched.
Then Namjoon said something softer. “Did you sleep at all?”
Jimin shrugged. “Not much.”
Namjoon studied him for a long moment. Then he sighed quietly. “I think we need to start talking about limits with your phone.”
Jimin laughed weakly. “You sound like a therapist.”
“Maybe.”
“Or my mom.”
“That too.”
Jimin rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m not addicted to comments.”
“I didn’t say addicted.”
“You implied it.”
“I implied you’re hurting yourself by looking.”
The words landed harder than expected. Jimin didn’t respond.
Before the conversation could deepen further, footsteps sounded in the hallway. Taehyung stumbled into the kitchen, hair sticking up wildly, still half asleep.
He blinked at both of them. “Why are you two awake already?”
“Schedules,” Namjoon said.
Taehyung squinted suspiciously.
“Also,” he added, “Jimin checked the comments again.”
Taehyung groaned dramatically and dropped his forehead onto the table. “Hyung.”
Jimin winced. “What?”
“We talked about this yesterday.”
“I know.”
“So why—”
“I know.”
Taehyung lifted his head. The frustration on his face softened when he saw Jimin’s expression. “Oh.”
Jimin forced a small smile. “See? I’m fine.”
Taehyung stared at him for a long moment. Then he said quietly, “No you’re not.”
—----
The company building felt different. Jimin noticed it the moment they arrived. More security at the entrance. Two unfamiliar guards near the elevators. Managers speaking in low voices. It wasn’t chaos. But it was enough to make the tension visible.
During rehearsal the members tried to behave normally. They joked between takes. Practiced choreography. Corrected mistakes. Ran through the set list. Jimin danced automatically. Years of training carried him through every step even while his mind wandered elsewhere.
But halfway through the second run-through, something slipped. A spin that usually landed perfectly came out half a beat late. Jungkook noticed immediately.
“Again,” he said.
They reset. Jimin tried again. The move landed correctly this time. But his chest felt strange. Not pain. Just tight. He told himself it was lack of sleep.
During break, Taehyung handed him a bottle of water.
“You’re spacing out,” he said quietly.
Jimin shrugged. “I’m just tired.”
Taehyung hesitated. Then he asked, “Are you still thinking about the comments?”
Jimin didn’t answer right away. Across the room, staff were adjusting cameras. Managers whispered near the door. Namjoon spoke with a choreographer.
Normal activity. But Jimin still felt like something was wrong.
Finally he said, “It’s stupid.”
“Probably,” Taehyung said.
“But you’re still thinking about it.”
Jimin gave a weak smile. “Yeah.”
Taehyung leaned his shoulder against him. “You know there’s literally videos called ‘The Jimin effect,’ right?”
Jimin snorted. “I know.”
“So maybe listen to those people instead.”
Jimin looked down at the floor. “I try.”
Taehyung bumped his shoulder lightly. “Well, try harder.”
Jimin laughed. But the sound felt thin. Because deep down, the problem wasn’t the hate itself anymore.
It was that a small part of him had started to believe it.