The shuttlecock falls, his opponent’s shoulders slump and the stadium erupts. Jungkook feels his fist clench to strike the air in victory, feels like he’s flying as fast as his racket in the final set – he’s done it, years of hard work spent sacrificing sleep and social life for his dreams have paid off.

His rudimentary English is enough to understand the commentator, even through the roar of the crowd and the blare of the Portuguese announcer: “Jeon Jungkook has won the gold”.

Gold. Olympic gold. Because of him South Korea will be taking home their first gold medal in the men’s singles. He feels the excitement, the relief blaze through him as he begins to properly process what he’s just done – for his country and for himself. A bottle of water is shoved into his hands and he drinks deep, spilling half of it down himself through the gaps in his unwavering smile.

“YOU WON!” Jaesang shrieks in his face, a coach’s pride always that bit sweeter than anyone else’s, like parental joy and self-satisfaction rolled into one. Jungkook just keeps beaming as the South Korean national anthem begins to boom across the room, cutting the swell of multilingual babble until there’s nothing left but the solid, comforting sound of lyrics he’s long past forgetting.

The audience falls silent and as his mother tongue dominates the arena, Jungkook realises just how much he’s missed being able to communicate with the world at large. His time in Brazil has been intimidating enough in terms of the level of competition he’s had to live and work beside without the added pressure of little to no chance of having a proper conversation with anyone who didn’t arrive on the same plane as him. He’s used to international competition by now, but this is the Olympics, what’s the point in showing up if you’re not going to treat it like the first time all over again?

The first time of many. The podiums are set and the time comes for Jungkook to step forward and claim his prize, his badge of honour. He replays the various scenarios in which he imagined winning Olympic gold in his mind’s eye, none of his imagined victories were ever quite like this – the room was never quite the same and the vivacity of emotion was never quite so brutal – but he feels his toes slipping off the edge of a fantasy soon to be realised. The medal will fall around his neck and mark him as a world champion, it will skyrocket him to a position of splendour in his profession, it will remove the burden of national service forever, it’s going to change everything.

“How do you feel?” Jaesang hisses as they walk to the stand. Jungkook thinks for a second, then beams down at him,

“I feel golden.”



“You have to be careful with them, they’re a lot smaller than you so If you’re not gentle you’ll hurt them,” the girl looks up at Taehyung with a sombre expression as he hands her the cardboard box containing the two black gerbils,

“I’ll be very careful with them, I promise!” she says, taking the box reverently and walking slowly out of the shop, closely followed by her mother after she thanked Taehyung profusely for being so friendly with the six year old. He smiles the pair of them out and then collapses on the front counter,wondering what the earliest he can close up shop is before the promised 5pm closing is false advertising.

He doesn’t hate his job, far from it, but he promised a friend he’d help her out by getting the ball rolling at her open mic night with his saxophone. She’s trying to raise the money to move to America to study law, she’s motivated and kind and the type of person who thinks to run ‘pay what you like’ open mic nights before she thinks of begging her relatives on bended knee and-

And she’s pretty. Taehyung’s been nursing a crush for two years now and really needs to start giving himself more opportunities to screw his courage to the sticking place and actually say something before she flies away and forgets all about him.

Though of course if she does reciprocate his feelings then pretty soon she’ll be on the other side of the world surrounded by smart American boys and he’ll be back in Daegu trying not to feel lonely or jealous and that doesn’t sound like much fun either. He sighs and grabs the mop from behind the counter; if he wants to get out of here early he’s going to have to change the hay for the rabbits and guinea pigs and clean up the spilled seed form underneath the zebra finch’s cage before the four thirty 'phones dead' policy can be implimented. Let it never be said that the life of a pet shop worker is anything less than riveting.

When the floors are clean and the cash counted, the birds in covered cages and the rodents fed and watered, Taehyung grabs his keys and begins the walk home through familiar streets filled with unfamiliar faces. He’ll shower, shave, put on something nice but not too flashy, he’ll brush his teeth really well and when he sees Minah that evening….well his nerves will probably fail him but for now he’s going to imagine a world in which he has the courage to ask her out, and she says yes, and then something vague about giggles and kisses, he hasn’t gotten that far yet.



Jimin’s body bends into the music like he and it were born together. His feet are so light he swears they barely touch the ground, his body so free he swears he could fly.

The spotlight follows him rather than the other way around, he knows that beyond the pool of light there is an audience several hundred strong, each and every one of whom has paid for the privilege of seeing him dance, but here on the stage where he cannot see them and cannot hear them it might as well just be him and the music. He likes it that way, he was never really dancing for anyone else.

The final movement begins to swell through his limbs, sending him faster and faster, higher and higher above the clouds. He feels it twist and pirouette around him, he feels it move him along its myriad pathways of melody and harmony, beat and syncopation and though he pushes himself to breaking point every time he entrusts himself to the comforting tidal wave of the orchestra he doesn’t feel the aching of his bones or the burning of his limbs. The stage, the dance, he was made for this.

The strings rise to a deafening crescendo and Jimin braces himself for the crash he knows is coming when he’s dropped back into reality, the last note trailing off to a point in time and space he doesn’t know how to reach, his body finding the final step in time with the dying of the horns.

The music quiets completely, and for a good ten seconds there is complete silence.

And then the applause starts, an untamed beast of hands and voices. Light floods the stage and Jimin can see a little better, people sitting slack jawed and awe inspired, and just for a second he lets himself enjoy it before the last of the music singing through his veins carries him offstage.

“Fantastic as always,” Jinhee congratulates him as she makes her way past for her solo stage. He smiles after her but she doesn’t see it, her mind’s already somewhere in the choreography.

Jimin watches from backstage as the spotlight settles on her. He loves to watch her, loves to watch everyone in their company, almost as much as he loves to dance himself. They’re all a little different, not one of them can do what the others do and yet they come together as a perfect whole so naturally it feels like fate.

Jinhee kicks off with an impressive piece of acrobatics and Jimin has to stop himself from whooping in delight. He watches her play in the spotlight like the stage was made for her and knows that for the life of him he will never find anything he loves as much as he loves his job.



“I’m never gonna be good enough,” Jonghyun spits through his angry tears, “I’ve been here for two years now I can barely keep up with the new kids.”

Hoseok laughs, “don’t be ridiculous Jonghyun you’re one of our shining stars!”

“Then how come the scout didn’t pick me?”

“Because SM Entertainment care more about pretty faces than talent, don’t let it get you down. There are companies out there who will want you.”

“They picked Hyukjae….”

“And one day someone’s gonna pick you,” Hoseok places a hand on Jonghyun’s shoulder, “c’mon, we’ll take it from the top.”

He goes to start up the music but Jonghyun has moved to his bag, ready to leave for the day,

“Where are you going?”

“Home.”

“Don’t you want to practice?”

“Nope.”

“You’ll never get better if you don’t.”

“ it.”

“Excuse me?” Hoseok feel’s more shocked than angry, Jonghyun may be comfortable enough around him to drop honorifics, but he doesn’t swear. Their eyes lock across the room and he hates the disappointment and lost faith lurking in Jonghyun’s gaze.

“Look at you,” Jonghyun hisses, “you’re twenty four years old and you’ve been here since you were fourteen. I know you auditioned for companies in Seoul, I KNOW it! There’s a picture of you at the JYP building after you auditioned for Park Jinyoung himself in the trophy cabinet but you never got anywhere with it, you never got out of Gwangju. Are you happy teaching at the same lousy dance academy you’ve been chained to your entire life? Are you happy pushing kids into dreams you know they’ll never reach just for the slightest chance to live out those dreams you never quite killed through someone else? Are you happy?”

Hoseok stares at him open mouthed. He has nothing to say.

With a shake of his head and the slam of a door Jonghyun walks out of the room and out of Hoseok’s life, and Hoseok is left wondering what he’d say to him if they ever met again.

He will never find an answer.



“Choi Junwhe: three counts of vandalism, four of petty theft Lee Namseok: two counts of vandalism, one of public disorder, Lee Daeil: three counts of vandalism, two of public indecency, Min Yoongi: four counts of vandalism, two of public disorder, one of arson, Kim Junwoo: three counts of petty theft, one of public indecency, Park Shinhyuk…”

It takes a good ten minutes to read out all the charges for every one of them, by which point Yoongi is thoroughly bored with court proceedings. He wonders why the criminal justice system bothers sometimes, it all seems like such a massive waste of time to go through the fuss of lawyers and juries and hours spent waiting for people to come to a decision when they all know that they’re guilty as sin in the first place. Obviously he’d rather not be here at all, but they caught him red handed starting a fire in a very much not-abandoned warehouse out in the suburbs, he wasn’t expecting to avoid a prison sentence.

Daeil starts snoring next to him and Yoongi has to fight off a laugh as the policeman keeping watch on them shakes him roughly back to consciousness. He misses the reading of his sentence for it but it’s worth it.

When the powers that be are finished listing off numbers and months (or years, in Yoongi’s case), they’re frogmarched from the courtroom one by one, off to whichever detention facility they think best fits their crimes. It seems extreme to Yoongi, putting people away for graffiti and stealing CDs, but apparently repeat offenders get special treatment, as if the crime gets any worse just because you did it more than once.

Yoongi leaves the room trying not to look at the people sitting in the benches, angry and happy and miserable in different measures. He doesn’t need to look up to know the stricken expression of his mother, the raging disappointment of his father and so he keeps his eyes on the ground and his head in a place so separate from his situation that he can’t understand the scope of what it is he has done to himself and his future.

And so what if he’s a up? No one from Daegu ever amounted to anything anyway.



Early morning shoots are the worst, Seokjin decides as he fights sleep from the confines of the makeup chair. He’s happy to be doing something more interesting than the standard boy-meets-girl drama for once but edgy cop shows require city scapes and the only time they can really film in the city without waging war with the endless crowds of Seoul is by waking up at ungodly hours to catch the first rays of sunlight over the horizon.

Someone passes him a cup of weak coffee that he manages to drink down between yawns - it’s not the first time he’s thought that there must be a fortune available to anyone who can work out how to provide high quality catering at a reasonable price to film and TV companies. He’s been in this industry for three years now and he has yet to find a decent sandwich.

His agent likes to remind him that Kim Woobin and Seo Inguk have been dealing with a similar lack of proper sustenance for a lot longer than Seokjin and that for such a young actor he’s doing very well. Still, shutting up and accepting the free food can be difficult.

“Kim Seokjin, you’re needed on set!” A PD shouts from the other end of the room,

“I’m not ready-“

“Don’t care, just get out here.”

He wrestles his way out of the ministrations of the makeup cordi still trying to do something to his eyes with a paint brush and steps outside into the chilly morning air. There’s a group of people standing around a very much faked murder scene on the curb, muttering about ‘realism’ and ‘blood splatter’, they look up as he approaches and fall back into formation for filming.

“Ok everyone ready?” the director shouts, Seokjin looks round, confused.

“Excuse me, I thought Bang Dongwook was going to be doing this scene with me,” he says when it’s clear that they intend to proceed without him.

The director glares at him, “did nobody tell you? We decided his character was expendable, he’s been cut from the show. The scene’s all yours.”

“All my-“

“YES! You’re doing it alone, can you manage that?”

Seokjin shrugs off his puffa jacket and nods, “I can manage anything.”

The camera starts to roll and he falls away into character.



Second…..third…..fourth…..fifth….

He stands patient as the elevator rises to the ninth floor, where he’s been reliably informed that the man he needs to talk to works. He doesn’t have an appointment but he thinks the stack of papers he’s carrying in his briefcase are enough to buy himself a proper audience. If they aren’t, well…

Well then a lot of people at Plan A Insurance are going to be rather upset with the idiot who decided he wasn’t worth the time of day.

The elevator doors ping open and he steps out into a bland looking corridor. Men and women wearing suits of all the colours of the boring-neutrals part for him as he walks to room 912, eyeing the magenta of his dress shirty surreptitiously as he goes. He’s sure a fair few of them are hoping that someone will have the guts to point out that not one of them knows who he is and will do something about his continued presence, but evidently they’re all much too meek for that.

Room 912. He knocks three times.

“Who is it?” comes the muffled shout from behind the door,

“I’m you’re 11 o’clock.”

There’s a pause, followed by the frantic page flapping of a person terrified that they have their dates mixed up as they ruffle through an office diary before heavy footsteps make their way to the door. It opens, revealing a man with an almost clinically straight haircut in a black suit and white shirt, hosting the beginnings of a belly peaking out over his belt.

Typical.

The man frowns “I don’t believe I have an 11 o’clock sir, what was your name?”

“My name is not important,” he beams at his confused host’s face, “but trust me, you want to see me.”

“What’s this about?”

He hold up the briefcase with a knowing wink, “it’s about those three hundred client’s you’ve been refusing to pay up to for the past two years, you know, the one’s with those pesky medical bills that your company is liable for?”

“They’re policy doesn’t cover…”

“It does, I’ve checked, double checked all of them.”

“Well then clearly you’re forgetting article 201 section B: In the event of-“

“In the event of the client’s death Plan A Insurance will not be held accountable for medical costs, yeah yeah yadda yadda I know but that still doesn’t explain why you didn’t pay up whilst these people were alive, considering it took six months for some of them to pass after they first contacted you I’d say that’s pretty shoddy work.”

The man looks at him, confused. He’s exactly the sort of person it’s difficult to find something bad to say about, but is equally hard to say anything good about beyond ‘they work hard’. There are hundreds, thousands of them sitting in comfortably paying jobs across Korea, their Seoul National University degrees framed on the back wall proudly declaring that they went to ‘the best’ university out there.

He hates them, he hates them all. How dare they waste all that time and energy, all that learning in the pursuit of nothing more meaningful than money.

“Well since you don’t seem to know anything more about it at this time, I suppose I’ll be seeing your employers in court,” he says brightly. The man in the suit scowls,

“You’ll be seeing me,”

“Oh I know, I hope you’ve found your voice by then. Here, take my card if you want to talk about some kind of settlement before this goes any further than it has to.”

The offered business card is thrown to the ground and the door is slammed in his face. Well then.

He stops a flustered looking clerk on their way to the coffee machine, “’scuse me, what’s this guy’s name,” he gestures to the door.

“K-Kim. Kim Namjoon,” the clerk stutters

“Kim Namjoon. Kim Namjoon. Kim. Namjooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon,” he rolls the name around his tongue, smiling. “Kim Namjoon, man in a suit. Tell me,” he grabs the clerk's shoulder and feels them jump under his hand, "what exactly is it that Kim Namjoon does at this firm?"

"He's a junior managi-"

"Yeah yeah, junior management -- what does he do?"

The clerk blinks, "he...he oversees the finance department,"

He sighs. He shrugs. He lets the clerk go. He can't pretend he was actually expecting a decent answer.

Before he goes, he takes a moment to stare at the door to Kim Namjoon's office, imagining him looking back through years of client records with a fresh pack of highlighters looking for anything that could hurt or harm the cause of The Great Plan A Insurance. It's funny, the lengths some people will go to to avoid having fun, so funny in fact that he laughs loud enough to make half the corridor jump, “I’ll see you round Namjoonie!” he woops before turning on his heels and skipping off and away, past the ranks of boring people going about their boring jobs.

“I am so so glad that I never did well in school,” he tells the man he finds in the elevator, “it all the fun out of you!”

The man stares at him, bewildered, and it’s ok if he doesn’t get it. It’s ok because even if he winds up in the gutter drinking homebrewed Soju by the pint, at least he’ll still have his personality, and that’s more than can be said for the men like Kim Namjoon.

The elevator stops at the ground floor and he steps out, beaming at the other man as he passes, “you suits are all the same.”