Jungkook finds he spends an awful lot of time sitting alone at bars trying not to make eye contact with strangers. It's an occupational hazard, he supposes, but it’s awkward as anything to be cooped up in eye-wateringly expensive restaurants while the rest of the clientele pretend they neither know nor care who he is.

The hard part, is acting like he doesn’t care whether their attention is on him or not. Truthfully, Jungkook wishes he could learn to stop worrying about it every now and then, but he’s been surrounded by cameras for so much of his life that even in the shelter of moneyed society he can never quite bring himself to let his guard down. The click of a camera at the wrong time, in the wrong place, wearing the wrong thing, with the wrong people, with the wrong expression…

It must be very hard to do this job from scratch. He was a rookie once, that much he knows, but that was twenty years ago, and he was hardly under as much scrutiny then as he is now. Hell, he wasn’t even old enough to drink back then.

Jungkook swirls brandy around the bottom of his glass and glances towards the door. Jimin’s not late, yet.

His eye is caught by the fidgeting of a girl sitting with her family over by the enormous floor-to-ceiling windows that offer diners a rather spectacular view over Gangnam, facing north towards the other side of the river. Namsan Tower is just visible to the far left of the panorama, easy enough to pick out if you know what you’re looking for.

The girl’s eyes flick towards Jungkook three times in ten seconds. When she realises he’s looking back at her she blushes beetroot red and her father leans in to whisper into her ear - no doubt reprimanding her over the impropriety of worrying about the attentions of strangers twice her age over family dinners.

“But dad, he’s famous!”

Jungkook’s heard that conversation one too many times. He drags his eyes away from the girl and away from the view and settles them doggedly on the other end of the bar.

Jimin arrives five minutes late, stepping through the door with his head tucked down below the collar of his jacket. At first, Jungkook isn’t sure if it’s him; the stocky figure shuffling off to the cloakroom looks so very unlike the young man he used to be in a group with, but when Jimin spots him his face breaks into a grin and all of a sudden he couldn’t be anyone else.

“What do you take me for?” Jimin scolds when Jungkook extends a hand to be shook. He brushes it away and leans up to pull him into a hug.

Jimin’s changed a lot since he left Seoul: the first errant wrinkles appearing around his eyes, his skin no longer so well kept since he stopped having professional dermatologists look after it for him, the muscles that made him famous long gone. He has slowed down and moved on.

Jungkook pulls back and surveys him carefully, “It’s been a while.”

“Too long”

“Yeah…”

Jimin orders himself a martini, because “you’ve got to take advantages of the little luxuries in life, especially when someone else is paying”

“Hyeong!” Jungkook pouts, “You’re the oldest, you’re supposed to be paying!”

Jimin winks at him, “ahh Jungkookie, you’re the one with all the money.”

He’s just playing around, but Jungkook feels his stomach twist with guilt nonetheless. There’s always an awkward moment when ex-Bangtan members get together where someone mentions money, and no matter how light-hearted their intentions may be, everyone draws a rather sharp breath. It’s like the mere mention of finances opens a split second wormhole back to their early twenties, crammed into each other’s company for far too long and squabbling over how best to divvy up their earnings.

Thank goodness for Seokjin, who saw very little in the way of royalties. yet always insisted they each keep the money they made themselves. Jungkook’s seen groups fall apart because no one can agree on how to divide their cash; at least, after all this time, Bangtan still like each other.

Then again, Seokjin makes more money than any of them these days, except perhaps Yoongi. Karma’s not exactly a but she’s certainly a fan of irony.

“Have you been working recently?” Jimin asks around an overlarge first sip of his drink.

Jungkook makes a non-committal hand gesture, “we’re still in the song writing phase for my next album. I’m spending a whole lot of time in rooms with my marketing team trying to find the most public-friendly way of saying what I want to say. We haven’t started working on any choreo yet though, so it’s easy going for now.

Jimin shakes his head in wide eyed wonder, “I don’t know how you’re still doing it. All those meetings and all that bull political maneuvering before you get to the fun part.”

“The fun part’s worth it though.”

“If you say so,” Jimin hums to himself, his focus slowly being lost in the view through the window. The city sparking up like fairy lights as the sun begins to set.

Jungkook doesn’t pretend to understand why Jimin ever left Seoul. No matter how wonderful Busan is, the idea of going back never sat right with him. He made a new home when he moved here to become an idol, and as far as he’s concerned that’s the bed he was born to lie in.

Of course, Jimin’s not an idol anymore, maybe that’s the big difference, it can be hard to see the forest for the trees after all. He always said that you couldn’t settle down happily if you were in the public eye, and so when the time had come and he’d met a pretty girl who made him laugh, he’d left. Jungkook still didn’t understand why anyone would want to settle down.

“Have you seen Hoseok recently?” Jimin asks, his attention still more firmly on the city than Jungkook.

“Sure, he was promoting his last single at the same time as me.”

“Oh yeah…I saw that episode of Running Man you guys went on together. It must be getting pretty old to have to do the whole ‘Bangtan reunion’ thing every time you guys are in the same room.”

Jungkook grunts, in ascent or denial he’s not sure. It’s not so much the ‘Bangtan reunion’ thing that bothers him, as the inevitable accompanying comments that there’s no way Seokjin would ever get back into the group so it wouldn’t really be Bangtan.

They’re right, of course, but Jungkook still thinks it’s pretty rich to be complaining about Seokjin’s absence when the media treated him like background scenery for most of his idol career. Namjoon was popular, he supposes he was pretty popular too, but no one gave a about Kim Seokjin till he started getting major roles in foreign movies.

“We should get together with Taehyung sometime, you and me. I reckon I’d like that reunion better.” Jungkook grins.

Jimin turns his head away from the window, giggling, “We should like…just head over to his apartment right now. Surprise him!”

“We could, we could”

They won’t. Taehyung’s modelling schedule is packed and his beauty sleep needs to be carefully pencilled in around it. Time was, Jungkook would have laughed at him for refusing company over something as trivial as an over-late bedtime, but as he gets older he can appreciate that looking after one’s skin is no longer as easy as when they were seventeen.

Not that he had great skin when he was seventeen, but acne is more easily managed than the ever present threat of crow’s feet.

Jimin doesn’t really understand, but at least he’s not pushy, “I’ll call him though, see when he’s free.”

It transpires that Jimin’s in town for longer than Jungkook had anticipated. He’s got himself a fortnight off work with Minhee, while the kids stay with her parent’s.

“I always forget you’re a dad,” Jungkook moans, mortified from beneath his hands, “You’re too small to be a dad”

Jimin puffs himself up with good humoured pomp, “I’ve eaten 2130 more bowls of rice than you I’ll have you know!”

“Hyeong please…”

“Sorry, couldn’t resist.”

“Does Minhee mind? You coming out to meet me I mean.” Jungkook asks. He’s not really worried, Minhee is nice and down to Earth. But everyone always assumes that couples want nothing to do with anything but each other, and it’s infectious.

Jimin snorts, “It’s fine, she’s off drinking with a couple of old college pals as we speak. No doubt somewhere a whole lot less fancy than this place.” He gestures around the room like Jungkook may not have noticed the expensive decor up till this point, and then a dangerous glint comes into his eye,

“Jungkookie…”

“What?”

“Jungkooooooooooooooooooookiieeeeeeee!!!” Jimin leans forward, wiggling his eyebrows erratically.

Jungkook groans, he knows exactly where this is going to go, “no hyeong, I’m not dating anyone.”

“Aww, still?”

“Yes still!” Jungkook sighs, "you remember how hard it was to date anyone properly? Well that doesn’t let up."

Jimin’s face softens, “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine it’s just…one of those things, ya know?”

“Yeah but to not even have the option…” Jimin shakes his head, “Lord knows I’m not cut out for it.”

“It’s no big deal. I chose this life, remember?”

Jimin looks at him very carefully, “so did I.”

He gets it, of course he gets it, Jimin’s always the first to remind any of them that they can leave this all behind if they want to, but only because Jimin was the only one of them who ever wanted to leave this behind. Jungkook on the other hand is very sure that idoldom was the right choice for him - he still wants to sing, and dance and be famous.

He doesn’t want to make movies like Seokjin, he doesn’t want to be stuck behind the scenes like Yoongi (”I wouldn’t mind doing what Yoongi does,” Jimin laughs, “I saw him yesterday. He’s working on a track for that new FNC group - he’s making so much money”), he doesn’t want to be confined to hiphop like Namjoon, he doesn’t want to model like Taehyung.

“I think we all got the right idea in the end,” he says, placing a reassuring hand on Jimin’s shoulder, “even Hoseok and I.”

Jimin opens his mouth to offer a retort, but is interrupted by the grumbling of his stomach. He laughs somewhat awkwardly as a blush creeps into his cheeks, “err…”

“You should have said you were hungry!” Jungkook grins, “c’mon, let’s go get something to eat. What are you hungry for?”

Jimin thinks for a moment, brows furrowed, “you remember that little barbecue place two blocks over from our dorm?”

“Which dorm?”

“The…third one I think?”

“Oh…OH yeah I remember that place. They had the best samgyeopsal”

Jimin’s eyes twinkle excitedly, “Wanna go see if it’s still there?”

He does, he really really does, but Jungkook hesitates, feeling his smile grow stale with indecision. Out of stage makeup and wearing a face mask, he can normally just about pass for a civilian if he walks fast, but he’s not sure he wants to risk it.

Jimin doesn’t need an explanation to work out what’s troubling him, “I thought you liked being famous! What’s the worst that could happen?”

They might try and drag you back into all of this, or worse, they might not even recognise you - Jungkook doesn’t say. He doesn’t need to, Jimin knows the risks.

And maybe once they’ve eaten they can slip round to the building where they used to live, and laugh about how naive they used to be. Maybe Jimin can admit that he misses it, just a little, maybe Jungkook can remember that happiness finds them all from the humblest of beginnings, and the road to fame is just as bright at the destination.