Namjoon has always made leading his members his top priority. That is until he met her. Now he has to figure out how to keep the love of his life secret from his not so private world. AMBW fic, NSFW in later chapters.
"Wait, they want us to do what?" Maya asked, confusion plastered on her face. I'd be lying if I said I didn't see this coming.
I sighed, "They want us to follow what SM did with Chen's case, change up a few of the details to make it a bit less 'scandalous'".
"How does lying about this make things any better? Especially when lying is what got us into this situation in the first place?"
"Well nothing is set in stone yet, so it'd be a bit before they set things in motion. They'll most likely have me or one of the guys slip up by mistake and have me backtrack and elaborate later on. Or they'll have me do exactly what Chen did and make an appeal to the public and to ARMY."
"That still doesn't make any sense," she says pacing back and forth across the bedroom, robe hanging off of her shoulders. "I mean what would they even want to change about how things happened? We dated, we got married, we got pregnant. Wouldn't that be the ideal timeline of events to begin with?"
She had a point. The things the new board had come up with as 'in need of revision' were a bit hard to follow for everyone, and it seemed like it was only complicating things more. "Instead of Vegas three years ago, we met when you became an exchange student and began living with my family. We dated, you got pregnant and we want to make it right by getting married now."
She sharply turned towards me, arms folded above her growing belly. "Excuse me?" Ah, there it was. I winced. "This is exactly why I told you I wanted to come with you to these meetings Joon. Why is it that they'd rather us be irresponsible than us have had an actual relationship? It's ridiculous."
"But it works-"
"For who?" It'd slipped out before I'd even had a chance to rethink it. "And don't you dare say Chen because his wife is Korean and they received so much hate and backlash. There were petitions his own fans signed trying to get him removed from the label."
"I know."
"You know how I know your fans would do worse Joon? I was one of them." She added, eyes narrowing. "I've seen them send death threats and call people slurs for so much less."
I gritted. "I know." She wasn't wrong.
"Then tell me what problem does this solve? Because if we were to go through with this, people would hate it. They'd smell the fib from miles away and they'd pick it apart just as quickly." I could do nothing but look down as she continued, still pacing and rightfully upset. "I don't know if you noticed Joon, but last time I checked, I'm not white," she said holding up a hand and pointing to it with the other. "and I'm not Korean," she continued. "And, as Jimin even put it, I was just in the right place at the right time."
"That's how they feel. They'd rather us be an accident and just trying to make it work because from them its more believable than us hiding this for three plus years. It makes the group look better in their eyes-."
"What about how I look, Joon? What about how this baby looks, Joon? This isn't just about you anymore. They'll forgive you, they won't forgive me!" I froze.
"God, Joon, how can you still not get it? This is why I've been scared every second of everyday since Vegas; since you asked me to marry you and to trust you! They'd rather paint you as the saint and as the boy who is doing the honorable thing by marrying me and claiming this baby and me as the slut who ruined you. They don't see me as your wife. They see me as your mistake, not the one who wanted to do this the right way in the first place!" She stormed off, shutting the door to the nursery behind her.
I keep finding myself in these situations of disappointing my wife and rightfully so. Three years. She's not asking for much, just for me to listen. To speak up first instead of standing by while she makes all the sacrifices for us. As easy as it is for me to see her for more than her skin, I know that others don't and won't. We don't get to live a fantasy. This is our life. Our baby's life. I need to do better at remembering that without her tears serving as my reminder.
Even if things went well, there'd be backlash. She was right that with just six months until the baby comes, our story needs to make sense. It needs to be real.
I walked over to the nursery, placing my hand and my forehead to the door. Over the past few weeks of moving in, its become her safe space.
'It's quiet- at least for now,' she breathed out, rocking back and forth as she rubbed her belly. Her eyes were trained on the window and the busy streets below.
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I hadn't said it out loud, but I knew it meant that her thoughts were loud. Her mind buzzing a mile-a-minute as she contemplated everything going on in the world. Finishing the nursery, getting her parents here for when the baby was born, dinner with the guys, doctor's appointments, making sure Monie was taken care of, Jimin's backhanded remarks. She never got quiet. Peace. There was always more to do. More to plan. More to fix.
Meanwhile I'd been living in a completely different reality. So happy with the fact that we had a baby on the way and that we had a place of our own that was close to the office and excited about just doing things quickly so that we wouldn't have to hide anymore. So caught in my own quiet that I hadn't noticed how loud everything had gotten for her.
"I understand," I began, voice cracking slightly as I spoke. "I'll make this right for us. I'll show you that I can handle the sacrifices for the three of us from now on."
She opened the door, eyes red, face tear-streaked. She wrapped her arms around me, nestling her head into my chest, and breathed out. "I hope so, Kim Namjoon. Because I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this alone."
A/N: So that took a longer time than expected. I wrote a full chapter back in January, scrapped that. Then brainstormed and wrote another chapter by March and typed it up read through it once more and decided that I need to slow down because things are moving so fast in this story and I want to finish, but I don't want to rush through it. So the put that chapter on the back-burner and started to write this one and rewrote this chapter about six times before I got to a point finally where I feel like it isn't completely shit. I really didn't want to just write a bullshit chapter especially when so many of you have waited so long for me to update. I want to put out something that is at least a little bit enjoyable. That being said there will be more updates soon since I already have the next few chapters written and ready to be published. Thanks so much for being patient with me. I love writing and I love this story, but between writing and having one of the most difficult semesters of my college career, Clandestine has really suffered. We're getting closer and closer to the end of this journey and I really am so grateful for all of you that have decided to stick around. I love you all and can't wait to read the comments that follow in the next few chapters. 💜💜💜 xx A.R.C
