before you love me | jjk

chapter fifty-four

double update, read 53 first
*cw: discussions of racism

━━━༻ ˚✩‧₊ june 2021₊‧✩˚༺━━━

"I'm sorry."

"Huh— what?" Narae was stupefied.

They had all gathered in one of the meeting rooms of the hotel they were currently staying at and had been sat in a tense silence as they regarded each other till Namjoon broke it with his apology.

He stood up from his seat and bowed deeply, his head down as he spoke, "I'm sorry. I apologise completely for my behaviour yesterday. Regardless of how I felt towards the situation, I should have asked you about it first and made sure you were okay. Instead, I berated you without fully understanding your position and for that I'm extremely sorry."

"I—um— please stand up!" Narae was flustered. This was not what she had expected coming to the meeting and seeing everyone's solemn faces. "It's really okay!"

Namjoon straightened up and sat down, looking at Narae directly as he spoke with a serious tone, "It's not okay. I was an ass and you didn't deserve that at all. You're a person and our friend first and foremost before being an idol, and my actions didn't reflect that at all. I'm very sorry."

Namjoon was right, it wasn't okay. She'd just said that on instinct, as it was something she'd always done – brushed things off to make things easier for everyone else, regardless of her true feelings. She needed to stop doing that but it was a hard habit to break.

Still, she couldn't help but feel a little bit moved by Namjoon's apology. She had always been someone who forgave quickly, most times even before the other person even said sorry, so hearing the sincerity in his tone, as well as his complete admittance of his fault helped. He didn't make excuses or try to downplay his actions and that was enough for her to warm towards him.

"Thank you for your apology." Narae offered him a small smile before she spoke again, "And I'm sorry as well. I didn't need to speak to you like that."

"No, it was understandable given the circumstances." Seokjin was the one to speak up this time, "I'm sorry as well Narae. Instead of supporting you, I just added to the dogpiling which was unfair of me to do so. Watching your tone should have been the last thing on my mind."

Narae blinked rapidly in shock. She had thought she'd be spending the morning defending herself and potentially more arguing, yet, here they were and they were apologising to her before she even explained things to them. She didn't want to applaud a fish for swimming, but still... it was nice.

"If you don't mind, would you tell everyone else what you told me and Ash yesterday? The full thing about what that Bryan guy said?" Yoongi asked her and she nodded before launching into the story again.

By the end of her recount of the events that happened, the boys were all frowning and angrily muttering amongst themselves.

"Fire him." Jungkook said, his tone leaving no room for argument. Not that anyone would disagree anyway. They definitely didn't want someone working for them who so easily twisted words and reported on situations without proper clarification.

And aside from that, if they were being honest, they were also the tiniest bit scared of Jungkook after seeing him square up to Namjoon the day prior. He was the soft and sweet maknae 99% of the time, but for the first time, they had found out what the other 1% was made up of.

Namjoon nodded to their manager who was in the room with them, "Please get that sorted out. I'd like a new translator by Friday's concert."

The manager nodded and began typing things out on the laptop in front of him.