"Namjoon, how would you like to be involved in one of our upcoming projects?" Bang Shihyuk asks one cold February morning, and of course Namjoon takes the bait

"What kind of project?"

"I’m looking for a song to debut the new girl group with, I was wondering if you might be interested in submitting an entry,"

"Sure," Namjoon says, hitching his bag back up to his shoulder and bowing as deep as is appropriate till Bang walks away and he can continue on his way to dance practice in peace.

Of course, Namjoon doesn’t actually expect his song to get chosen. He’s rebellious and has decided that he’s a tortured artistic soul and so it is not enough for him to write ‘a song about love’ as Big Hit requests.

There is an important distinction here, as Namjoon sees it. There are love songs and songs about love, the first category is about pretty girls who make your heart beat faster and the other is about defining an abstract concept. Of course, the only way Namjoon can proceed is to tackle the latter.

He starts with every experience he’s ever had in matters of the heart and works backwards, pulling together what he is sure is a powerful dissection of the fraudulency of lovers and skin deep attraction masquerading as something more meaningful. He stretches for metaphors and trawls the dictionary for vocabulary left untouched for too long and by the time he’s done he’s sure that it’s perfect.

But then he finds himself stuck in the studio with Donghyuk for three hours after practice one afternoon, three hours in which his curiosity sits simmering just below his skin and Donghyuk cracks nonstop jokes about ‘ing homos’ and before he knows it he’s handing Bang PD a page of lyrics championing love between people of any gender.

He doesn’t expect to make the cut, but he feels proud of himself.

"This is good," Namjoon snaps to attention as Bang’s eyes reach the bottom of the page, head nodding in approval, "very good, I reckon with a little bit of a polish from some of the in house staff we can make this work,"

Namjoon stares at him like he’s grown an extra head, “what?”

"We’re gonna use this. Congratulations, you’re about to start earning royalties," Bang reaches across his desk to shake Namjoon’s hand just as the door swings open and a girl with fierce eyes and laidback shoulders steps into the room,

She walks over and drops a stack of papers onto the desk smiling like she’s won a war, “here you go! I think you’re gonna be impressed I really outdid myself this time,”

"Jiyeon! Just the person I wanted to see," Namjoon watches the girl’s eyes drop to the paper in Shihyuk’s hands, sees her smile falter and wishes he could vanish into thin air,

"You’ve already picked a song, haven’t you?" she sighs. Bang smiles and hands her the sheet of Namjoon’s lyrics; she takes it but doesn’t look at them,

"Please Bang sshi, I worked really hard on these, could you at least take a look-"

"Namjoon here has written a fantastic song that I’m sure is only going to get better with a little processing," Bang keeps smiling like he hasn’t heard her,

"Yes, of course…"

The girl, Jiyeon, turns to go and as the door slams shut Namjoon can’t help but feel like he’s unwittingly done something awful

"I’m sorry, are you going to be in here for much longer?" Namjoon jerks awake and in customary trainee style tries to pretend that he hasn’t just been caught napping. In the doorway of the tiny vocal practice room stands a girl who’s face Namjoon almost recognises,

"Who are you? Go away," he mumbles, pulling his notebook towards him and trying to remember what he had been doing before the urge to nap overrode the urge to continue,

The girl purses her lips and taps her foot angrily against the floor. She shows no signs of leaving,

"I was here first, I’m not moving unless you give me a good reason to,"

"You’re that kid who wrote our first song," the girl moves into the room and with all the available seats taken drops to the floor staring up at Namjoon, "it was good, you have talent,"

Comprehension dawning on him, Namjoon shrugs, “I know I do,”

He’s not being cocky, he’s being honest. If you want to be an idol you have to be brutally honest with yourself about what you do well and where you’re lacking or you’ll never find the focus to improve.

Jiyeon. He recognises her now, though the stresses of promotion have changed her face and her hair is styled differently from the afternoon he first met her in Bang PD’s office. She fixes him with an unwavering gaze as if she thinks she can stare him into providing whatever help Namjoon’s sure she’s about to ask for.

"Have you been asked to help on our next title track?"

"Nope,"

"Good then you can help me write my entry,"

"What makes you think I wanna do that?"

"I don’t think you want to help me at all, but I’m hoping that if I act like you’ve already agreed to help then you’ll start following my lead,"

Jiyeon s a wad of paper in Namjoon’s direction, “what do you think?”

Against his better judgement, Namjoon flicks through the pages, scanning Jiyeon’s untidy scrawl for obvious faults. He reaches the end and shrugs, “they’re fine. For an idol track I mean, I’m sure Bang will love them.”

"Fine isn’t good enough, I need it perfect,"

"Then you’re going to have to get help from someone who wasn’t supposed to be in school five minutes ago," Namjon says checking his watch and groaning internally when he sees the time, "or you could actually write it yourself. Crazy as that may sound,"

"He hates what I write," Jiyeon mutters as Namjoon stands to leave and she finally takes her eyes off him,

"Just submit that, it’s good you’ll do great"

And if Jiyeon says anything else he’s out of the room and running to class too fast to hear it.

"I need to talk to the tall nerdy one," Jiyeon announces after flouncing into the middle of a Bangtan dance practice, "what was your name again?"

"Namjoon if you’re not back in five minutes I’m going to make you run down to Gangnam Gu to get me Starbucks and I won’t care if the rain hasn’t stopped," Seongdeuk says shooing the pair of them out of the room before they can disrupt the flow of the practice too thoroughly.

"You can’t dance for ," Jiyeon snorts, "how many years have you been training again?"

"Shut up," Namjoon snaps

"You wanna add a ‘noona’ to that shut up?"

"Not really I’ve never bothered before,"

Jiyeon purses her lips in the way Namjoon now knows she only ever does when she’s bored playing games. He also knows that she never forgot his name but will take any and all opportunities to wind him up, and though he might try to act like her company strains his patience Namjoon knows he gives as good as he gets on that count.

"You have four minutes and thirty seconds," Namjoon holds up his phone as proof, "what do you want?"

"I want to know why you wrote Party XXO,"

Namjoon frowns, “because Bang PD asked me to,”

"No he didn’t, he told you to write about love and you did it in about the most unexpected manner possible. What even made you think you could get away with it?"

"I didn’t think I was going to get away with it," Jiyeon’s lips tighten, "no really, I still can’t believe that was the idea they went with. I thought Bang was gonna tear up the pages and tell me not to mention anything like that ever again,"

"If you didn’t think it was going to stand a chance why did you even bother handing it in?"

"I dunno I just…I was a kid, it was important to me at the time. I felt like if I didn’t say it then it was going to me up in the head,"

Jiyeon’s expression softens a fraction and with a jolt Namjoon realises the implications of what he’s just said,

"If you wrote it again tomorrow would it still be important to you? I mean, would you still hand it in?"

"I…" Namjoon has to think about it, has to weigh up the two girlfriends he’s had in the past year against the unpleasant sensation in his stomach that can’t shake when he thinks about walking in on Donghyuk getting handsy with his girlfriend on the couch, "it’s still important to me, but if I wrote it this morning there’s no way I’d hand it in,"

Jiyeon nods, “ok,”

"You don’t need to write about something shocking to get yourself noticed Jiyeon, really. You just need to find a new perspective,"

"I’ve got to do something drastic Namjoon," she sighs, "I’m not sure I have the option of not going for shock factor,"

"It’s easier than you think it is,"

"No Namjoon, it’s harder than you’ll ever know,"

Seongdeuk barks a ten second warning from the practice room, and Namjoon dashes back inside before Jiyeon can explain just how hard he’ll never know it is.

"Girls who write songs don’t sell in this industry, if you can write a good song then that’s a nice little bonus but no one really cares. As long as we look pretty and don’t get caught dating anyone we’ll bring in enough cash to toe the line,"

Jiyeon makes a sharp turn and heads up to the main offices where her manager is no doubt waiting for her, “except we don’t make enough cash, do we? How many girl groups are actually making money? Not just for their companies but for themselves, do you know how hard it is to see a proper profit margin when you’re not earning any royalties because APPARENTLY girls who write their own songs don’t sell?”

They barrel into the lift and Namjoon hits the button for the second floor, “you boys don’t know how good you’ve got it. Put out a boy group with talented, attractive members and you’ve made yourself a ton of cash but put out a boy group with talented, attractive members AND those members’ names on the credits and you’ve hit the jackpot,”

Stepping out of the lift and into the sharp sunlight as it pours through the glass doors of the building Namjoon almost loses sight of Jiyeon as she powers on through, “you boys don’t know how easy you have it. it, your fans will even support you when you your own up and here I am getting shown the door after however ing long spent inactive because of something I didn’t even do.”

They arrive at the desk that should belong to Jiyeon’s manager but it’s empty save for a large stack of documents that Namjoon suspects is her contract and a note asking her to sign her ‘resignation notice’ before she leaves. Jiyeon signs on the dotted line as quickly as she can, grabs the contract and turns her back on the office without a second glance. Namjoon barely catches up to her before she’s out of the main door and gone forever.

"Jiyeon, I’m-"

"You’re what? You’re sorry?"

Namjoon bites his tongue and nods sheepishly, “I guess,”

Jiyeon gives a derisive bark of laughter, “what do you have to be sorry for Namjoon? You didn’t set this system up, it’s not your fault that I’ve had to watch you be afforded every opportunity that I’ve fought tooth and nail for only to be denied,”

"But…you’re angry with me,"

"Oh don’t be so bloody vain Namjoon, not everything is about you,"

And then she’s gone, storming off down the road like she never wants to see Big Hit Entertainment again, leaving Namjoon standing on the patio, watching her go and feeling like he’s been missing the point for a long time