It’s 2009.

JYP Entertainment is holding its fifth open audition.

Participant number 24: Park Jinyoung. Participant number 25: Im Jaebum.

They end up completing the open audition together, two boys who have known each other for barely enough time to get along properly, let alone be synchronized enough to pass a dance audition.

But somehow, it is enough for them. They tie for first place, for the first and only time in company history.

It’s too early to say, but maybe this is fate.

~~~

It’s 2012.

Eighteen-year-old Im Jaebum and seventeen-year-old Park Jinyoung debut as JJ Project, and it’s them against the world.

But it’s also them against each other. They’ve known each other and trained together for three years, acted together just months ago, but they still don’t know each other. Not really. Not yet.

They do their best. Jinyoung tries to play up his brattiness the way he knows he’s supposed to, tries to be the annoying little brother people expect him to be. Jaebum tries to manage that as well as he can for someone barely older than his groupmate, tries to be the responsible leader he needs to be. They promote their songs on shows, go to interviews and photoshoots, hold fansigns, do what they can to boost their popularity.

It isn’t easy. They’re young, Jaebum has a short temper, Jinyoung doesn’t know how to deal with it. They clash, argue, ignore each other, make up, repeat the process all over again. But they learn, too, and they grow, and they get better.

In the end, it comes crashing down and JJ Project is taken from them. It’s devastating for two boys who think this was all they had. They’ll soon learn that they’re wrong, though, because they still have each other.

It’s too early to say, but maybe that’s all they really need.

~~~

It’s 2014.

They’re being rebuilt, and this time they don’t have to do it alone.

Five boys join their group. A mix of personalities: quiet, loud, funny, crazy, shy, all uncertain, all eager. It’s new, exciting, terrifying.

So they adapt. Jaebum learns to control his temper, tries to become a better role model. Jinyoung takes on more responsibility, tries to become a source of support for the new members and for Jaebum, too. They’re not the teenagers they used to be - they’re seniors now. They become pillars for the rest of the group to lean on. And behind the scenes, they rely on each other to keep standing tall.

It’s too early to say, but maybe GOT7 will become their family.

~~~

It’s 2016.

Their first world tour begins, and it’s the fulfillment of the dream fifteen-year-old Jinyoung first shared with fifteen-year-old Jaebum many years ago. But it isn’t, not really. Jinyoung doesn’t get to share the first concert with Jaebum.

It shouldn’t hurt the way it does, the empty space at his side, because they have more than just each other now. They have five others who they would do anything for and who would do anything for them.

But Jinyoung talks about Jaebum at every concert, every day he’s not there, kisses Jaebum’s picture and makes sure the world knows how fiercely Jaebum is missed, because even with his five best friends there, he’s off-balance without the person who’s been there through everything. “If there’s no hyung, there won’t be me,” Jinyoung said once. He meant it.

Jaebum is off-balance too. His recovery and return are sped up - he’s certain of it - by his desire to be back where he belongs, back where Jinyoung needs him to be. “Your existence is one that allows me to be strong,” Jaebum said once. He meant it.

It’s too early to say, but maybe they’ll always be at their best when they’re with each other.

~~~

It’s 2017.

JYP asks them how they feel about having a comeback as JJ Project. Jaebum stares, speechless, shocked, surprise, elated. Jinyoung, usually so good at keeping his emotions hidden away, nearly cries.

They spend all their time in the studio writing and composing songs. They share food and laugh and reminisce over the thousands of shared memories they’ve accumulated over the years. Some nights, Jinyoung waits while Jaebum is still in the recording booth and accidentally falls asleep when it gets late. Jaebum finds him curled up on the couch, smiles the smile reserved only for Jinyoung, sits next to him and covers them both with a blanket so they can wake up comfortably in the morning.

After all these years, it isn’t the same as it was. But it doesn’t have to be. Jaebum took care of Jinyoung then, to the best of his ability. Now, they both take care of each other. They’re older, they’ve matured, and they have a bond that the teenagers who performed “Bounce” could never have anticipated.

It doesn’t change the fact that coming back as JJ Project feels like coming home.

They finish making Verse 2 and they never really had anything to prove, but it still feels like they’ve redeemed themselves.

It’s too early to say, but maybe this album, the first album they got to make together, is something they’ll always be proudest of.

~~~

It’s 2019.

Just like that, ten years have gone by. Ten years since two boys met each other at an audition by chance without any idea what the future held for them. They couldn’t have known they would fight and grow and fail and pick up the pieces and find a family and rise to the top of the world. They couldn’t have known they would do it all together.

But here they are.

They’ve sat in front of interviewers and said that they’ve spent their lives together and their tombstones will be beside each other too, that they want to have their last meal together, that they can confide in each other about anything. They’ve spent time apart and talked only about each other the whole time. They’ve spoken about the strength they find in each other, the comfort they get from each other, the stability they provide each other. They’ve won awards, travelled the world, laughed, cried, done everything they possibly can together. And they’re not done yet.

Because after ten years of their lives being utterly, inescapably intertwined, they aren’t able to imagine life without each other. That’s okay, though, because they don’t want to.

It’s too early to say, but maybe they’re destined to last forever.