Late that afternoon, their boss called them to the conference room. Jungkook collapsed into one of the swivelling chairs, Namjoon taking the one next to him, furthest from the door. A few other people were shuffling into the room behind them, taking seats at random.

"Woah, Hobi hyung!" Namjoon suddenly said, causing Jungkook to look towards the door. A man with bright clothes and a harness wrapped around him was waving back with a tired smile. "You're here?"

"Oh Joonie!" he answered, taking a seat opposite Jungkook. "Didn't know you'd be here too."

"Me neither," the silver-haired man chuckled tiredly, before he set a hand on Jungkook's shoulder. "Let me introduce you to my newest appointed right hand, Jungkookie. Jungkook, this is Jung Hoseok."

They bowed to each other over the table, Jungkook making sure to bow longer, feeling this person was important to his mentor.

"Hi Jungkookie, I'm the project head of stunts. And Namjoon's best friend."

The man seemed to exude positivity, and it made him smile. It was a surprising combo, considering how studious Namjoon was.

"Hyung," Jungkook grinned cheekily, turning to his boss. "You have friends?!"

"Who has friends?" Min Yoongi said, plopping himself down in the vacant chair next to him.

"Namjoon hyung," Jungkook said, finger pointed across the table. "That's Jung Hoseok."

Hobi waved enthusiastically at them.

"Could you not act like I have zero social life please?" Joon groaned from the corner, only to be interrupted by Hobi.

"Actually, I can confirm he has no life. Even my dad is less boring."

The three of them snickered as Namjoon grumbled under his breath.

"Alright, that's enough bullying poor Joonie," came yet another playful voice, and they turned to the new arrival.

"Yah Jimin-ah! What are you doing here?" Jungkook said without thinking, earning himself a slap behind the head as Jimin shuffled past, right round the table and plopped himself down next to Hoseok.

"Namjoon-shi already has to deal with that brat," he said while pointing rudely at Jungkook. "Poor thing probably has no energy by the time he gets home... Hi there, I'm Park Jimin."

He was positively leaning into the table so his whole body was turned towards Hobi, a flirtatious smile spreading across his face. Hoseok just blinked at him as Yoongi shouted out.

"Oh Seokjin, you made it?!"

A sixth man stumbled into the room, out of breath, and collapsed into the one spare chair besides Hobi, ranting about packed schedules and how he couldn't catch his breath, and why couldn't he breathe?! Yoongi was swearing at him, telling him to shut up and focus on breathing normally, and Hobi and Jimin seemed to be exchanging phone numbers. Namjoon on the other hand had seen the new addition walk in and turned a vivid red, a fit of coughing suddenly causing him to duck down and hide his face.

Jungkook sat in the middle of the mess and burst out laughing. It was so chaotic, half these people he barely knew, yet somehow they were all connected, with both old and what seemed like budding relationships tangling together. They finally managed to pull together enough cohesion to introduce themselves formally, Jungkook snickering under his breath when he realised his boss's unusually stiff shoulders. Hobi was in the middle of saying he hoped the meeting would be quick because he needed to get back asap to help film the CGI scenes in the specialised centre next door, when their collective boss walked in.

She dumped a folder on the table with a great sigh, running a hand through her greasy hair. They all knew she'd pulled stupidly long hours recently, and their respect had only grown from it.

The meeting wasn't long. Mainly, they were trying to wrap up all the CGI scenes in the next week, after which they would move to location filming. Seokjin stood up at some point and bowed low to the head of PR, apologising for the nightmare of phone calls they'd been getting after the leak. It caused the whole team to burst into complaints. They refused his apology bluntly, stating he had no need to feel guilty over homophobes, and that they would continue to deal with the problem. Phone lines were being temporarily shut off, all individual contractors being given a new, confidential contact point. All other complaints would be by email only, which caused a great deal of relief to go through the room. The sound of phones ringing non-stop for the last few days had them all ready to pull their hair out.

As heads or key members of departments, the people in the room were warned, very clearly: some threats which had come through seemed serious. They were all to brief their teams; the whole staff body was to be on high alert at all times, whether within BigHit, on location, or in transit going to and from work.

Her voice had dipped, clearly stressing the seriousness of the situation. She continued by expressing how much press they were getting from this though, which was a great push for the movie. Endorsement requests were rolling in, companies throwing money at them faster than they could accept it.

"We'll be holding the main press conference tomorrow," she said. "Originally we weren't going to divulge this much, but now that the cat is out the bag, we need to use this momentum whilst we have it. Jeon Jungkook, I hear you're good with a camera?"

Jungkook sat to attention, suddenly sweating, unaware of the eyes swinging in his direction and burrowing into him.

"Um... As an amateur maybe? But..."

"Great. We'll need still shots of the conference for the website we're patching together as fast as possible. We've got some photographers on retainer for the main event, but I want you backstage to record more raw footage. Namjoon, you'll have to explain to him in more detail later, but we need the editing team there no matter what."

Jungkook gulped and sank into his chair, feeling the pressure settle onto his shoulders. Namjoon did that thing again that he loved, where he tapped him on the shoulder like the older brother he'd always wanted. It was a gesture that said 'You got this, I believe in you', and it made him lift his chin.

The meeting was adjourned, and they all went back to their chaotic days, Hoseok quite literally running back to the training hall, Jin hot on his heals shouting (begging) to slow down.

***

That evening, the unthinkable happened: Namjoon asked Jungkook to go out with him for drinks.

At first, he didn't believe it, teased him about it. But then Jung Hoseok and Jimin showed up, and he followed them all out, feeling strange.

He hadn't had a friend apart from Jimin for the longest time, so for him to be sat at a table with multiple people, laughing and drinking together, felt surreal. He sipped his soju whilst watching Namjoon toppled a bottle accidentally, causing the two remaining men to cackle. Jimin quite literally fell off his chair.

They'd chosen one of those outdoor bars, with plastic furniture set up in the street. Here, they were free to be as loud as possible (something Namjoon had warned them of ahead of time, and which had made Jimin coo at the stunt man for some reason). So here they were, progressively getting drunk, when the question dropped.

"What's gotten into you recently, Jungkookie?" Namjoon asked.

It caused Jimin to snicker from across the table, and Jungkook glared at him.

"Oh, he's just in love with a dream."

"Huh?!" Namjoon eloquently said.

"Wait... I swear I've heard those words before," Hobi interjected. "I'm pretty sure you've said something like that before, Namjoon."

"Eh? I did?"

"He did?!" Jimin and Jungkook shouted at the same time.

"Yeah... at the gym, remember? That time you got flustered and hid behind a potted plant."

"YOU DID WHAT?!" the youngsters screamed in sync again.

Namjoon ran tired hands over his face, groaned at the betrayal.

"Yeah, he got flustered looking at Kim Seokjin and had to hide."

Jimin was in hysterics as he spoke up.

"Wait... Kim Seokijin as in Kim Taehyung's manager?"

"The one and only," Hobi snickered back, and Jungkook ran a sympathetic hand over his boss's back.

"Come to think of it, he reacted really weirdly, Kim Taehyung I mean."

"He overheard you?" Jimin asked.

"Yeah, he started asking questions then suddenly changed the subject."

"Hobi, who wouldn't react like that?!"

"Good point."

"Back to the point," Jimin interrupted. "You haven't told me about your dream boy recently, Kookie. Actually... weren't we going to talk about it that day? We got distracted by Kim Taehyung's music, if I'm remembering correctly."

Jungkook squinted, trying to recall what had happened on that day, but anything before V's return into his life looked like a mushy grey mess in his mind's eye.

"Oh yeah," he finally said. "You were bugging me about my hand."

Three pairs of eyes narrowed in on the ever-present white bandage wrapped round his fingers and wrist.

"Yeah, speaking of, I think it's about time you explained."

Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe it was the tiredness of having to hide all the time, or maybe it was because he'd had V returned to him and it made the memory sweet instead of painful. Whatever it was, it imbued him with some small courage, and he pulled the bandage loose. It fell down on the plastic table, blue flame-shaped scars unveiled for them to see. They gasped, taking turns to run their fingers over the lumps, questions spewing out chaotically.

And so, that's how Jungkook, slightly tipsy, told Jimin, Namjoon and Hoseok all about V.