I had never been so happy to take a shower in my life. That might not have been true, but it sure felt like it. I could feel the dust, grime, and sweat slowly shed off of my skin and out of my hair as I sat under the running water. I didn’t mind that the hot water ran out rather quickly. A cold shower was better than sitting in my own filth for any longer. My hair was an absolute mess, and I brought a comb into the shower to try and get all of the dried blood and oil out of it while I waged war against the matted tangles. I still had to be careful not to peel back the surgical tape over my freshly cleaned wound, but even so, I did a pretty good job all things considered. When I finally emerged from the bathroom, everyone had already started to return from whatever they had to do that day. “Yah,” I heard Yoongi’s voice call to me as soon as I was out of the bathroom door. Startled, I looked over to where he was laying on his cot. He was on his back, notebook in hand. “I’m not sure Korea has any water left after that shower,” he chided, a little lopsided smirk on his pale face. I simply rolled my eyes at him with a little smile as I combed through my damp hair one last time with my fingers. No amount of teasing or scolding could take away from the satisfaction of feeling clean again for the first time in three days. I strode over to my own cot, only to find Namjoon already sitting there.

He looked up at me, a weak, insincere smile looking rather out of place on his usually genuine face. “You look better,” he noted quietly. I narrowed my eyes at him slightly, trying to see what was bothering him. I silently nodded, studying his face. He spoke with a heavy sigh as he stood back up, “Let’s go talk.” I followed him as he crossed the room quickly, heading towards the front door. I felt multiple pairs of eyes following us as Namjoon swung the heavy steel door open, holding it for me to pass.

Once the door closed behind us with a dull, echoing thud, Namjoon pulled me around to the concrete bench along the back wall of the compound. It was starting to cool off, the sun heading into the west. The late afternoon warmth was still radiating off of the concrete, warming my back and legs when we sat down together. “What’s going on, Namjoon?” I finally asked, unable to ignore the anxiety building up in my stomach.

“Remember when I told you I had an idea to get Jimin back?” he started as he leaned back against the rough wall, looking out through the gaps in the compound’s wooden perimeter.

I raised my eyebrows slightly at him as I studied his smooth profile, “Yeah,” I replied hesitantly, my voice gentle, but wary. “That was only a couple of days ago, but why do you make it sound like it’s bad news?”

His eyes closed as he sighed again, his full lips remaining parted as he thought silently to himself. He kept still as he spoke, “Because it is bad news. It’ll be a miracle if we can pull it off and potentially disastrous if we it up,” he explained in a flat, even voice as I saw his eyes open again. He had spoken so plainly, making it clear he had thought a lot about this conversation already. Finally he let his head roll to the side slightly to meet my gaze. “Don’t be afraid to say no if you’re not comfortable with the idea.”

The way he was talking about it was not helping my anxiety. I managed a meager little smile anyway, “Namjoon,” I spoke as I rotated my body slightly to face him better, letting my arm and shoulder take most of the weight of my body against the wall, “You have to tell me the idea before I can say no to it.”

He laughed nervously, reaching up to run his hand through the longer center strip of his dark hair. “Right,” he looked me over briefly before returning his focus to the dark forest beyond our fence. Taking a deep breath, he began, “When Jungkook was discovered as the ‘Golden Boy’ or whatever,” he lazily threw up air quotes as he spoke before letting his hands fall heavily back in his lap, “Kim Jong Un himself declared that his godliness was unable to produce a mere human child, but he would ensure the most perfect child possible would be conceived by finding Jungkook the perfect mate.” Namjoon paused to gather his thoughts. Clearly spewing that much insanity was taxing for someone like him, and I watched as his dark eyebrows rose until they were nearly at his hairline. “The child will be raised in the royal household. When the time came to pass on leadership of our new united Korea, our dear leader would pass on his divine lineage and genetic succession to his adopted son,” he sped up the tempo of his speech as he came to the end, as if he wanted to just get it over with.

“It sounds just as crazy as the first time I heard it,” I muttered, empathizing with his exaggerated facial expressions.

At last, Namjoon broke into a little smile, “Me, too,” he assured me. He sighed again, “Jungkook was celebrated around the country as the new ‘Prince’ of Korea. The government wanted him to be a public figure, but as you can imagine, he was… uncooperative.” Surprisingly, his smile grew as he spoke again, “They had no idea how headstrong he would be.”

My mind began to race as I caught on to what he was saying. Jungkook was declared as some sort of captive prince, so what would that make me, then? I wasn’t the first, and if I wasn’t deemed satisfactory, I wouldn’t be the last of Jungkook’s partners. “What about me, then?” I finally asked as I took my turn to look away, shifting so my back was flat against the wall again. I studied the grain of the dark wood used for our fence as I continued to think.

I heard him ruffle his own hair again. Judging by his habit, whatever he wanted to say, he was nervous to say it. “Ah,” he sighed yet again, “Well I’m hoping that we can convince the officials to see you as worth investing in.”

Quickly I turned my head to look at him, and he was already looking at me, that wide expressive face showing a complicated mixture of pity and hope. “Investing in?” I questioned, my voice jumping up a few pitches. “Namjoon, are you insane?”

He gave a dry laugh, “Maybe.” At last he turned his head away, just glancing at me out of one of his eyes. “I’ve thought of it before, you know.” His eye flicked away, “The officials wanted Jungkook and his first partner to be advertised as a pair. You know, for national morale or something.”

“She was beautiful, I hear,” I mumbled, resting my head on my hand.

Namjoon gave a little half smile, “She was,” he admitted softly before sitting up a little straighter, his tall frame making me feel rather small, “but she was just Jungkookie’s shadow, so when he was uncooperative, so was she.”

Once again I stopped to think through what he was suggesting. “So you want me to fraternize on Jungkook’s behalf?”

“And yours,” he added quickly, glancing at me again. “Convince them that through you, maybe you can convince Jungkook to maybe play along.”

Even the mere suggestion made me laugh, “But there’s no way I can talk him into that!” My mind played the impossible scenario of asking Jungkook to play nice with the government officials for some sort of advertisement campaign. He had done magnificently at the construction site all those weeks ago, but he had nearly broken my hand in the process out of anger and frustration.

“Yeah that’s the problem,” he groaned, leaning forward to cradle his head in his hands. “I don’t want to force him, either. We’ll think of something,” he muttered.

I could tell he really had been thinking about this for quite some time. Reaching out, I gently rested a hand on his back, giving it a comforting little rub, “We’ll figure it out,” I agreed with a little sigh, “We’re going to have to play the long game on this one, won’t we?”

“Yeah,” he turned his head to smile a little at me, “Think you’re up for it?”

I wriggled slightly, pulling my feet up onto the bench, hugging my knees to my chest. “I think we could do it,” I whispered, mostly to myself than to him.

Namjoon scooted closer to me, wrapping a long arm around my shoulders, “We’ll stick together,” he spoke softly to me, giving me a little gentle shake. “And you can say no if you want.”

I leaned into his warm side as I thought. On the one hand, I wanted nothing more than to do everything I could to help bring Jimin back to his friends. But on the other, I was nervous to interact with the government officials more than I had to. Not to mention we were going to try and fool them. What if we were found out? What would happen to me? And moreover, what would happen to the rest of them? “How are we going to pull this off?”

He gave me another little squeeze as he chuckled lightly, “I don’t know, do you think you can act?”

I closed my eyes as I let my head rest on him. “That’s not a problem,” I assured him, “You’ll have to trust me.” Acting was something I had always had a knack for. I had even thought about how to behave around the government o