The Shadows of power

12

Jin continued, "So that day, I ran into him in the library. What happened was that there was this guy, apparently he liked me, but I had no idea about it. Some books were about to fall on me, but then Jun—he was there—caught the books mid-air and placed them back neatly. Then, he looked at me and said, 'Careful,' in this deep, cold voice." Jin shuddered slightly, recalling the moment. "I kind of... well, shivered at how intense his voice was. Then, Jun scratched his neck nervously, which I thought was kind of cute."

Namjoon, now being referred to as 'Jun' in the story, secretly smirked, thinking to himself, Yeah, yeah, of course you weren’t aware...

Jin avoided looking directly at Namjoon and continued, "But what I didn’t know was that there was another boy in the library, someone who used to like me and was quite popular in the college. But you know, I was never into all that popularity stuff." Jin glanced away, a bit sheepish. Namjoon’s smirk widened as he mentally commented, Oh yes, you weren’t into it.

Jin, sensing Namjoon's quiet amusement, pushed forward, still avoiding eye contact. "So what happened was that this boy, his ego got bruised. I mean, how could such a nerd, like Jun, get that moment instead of him, right? He approached me and said, 'I heard you like simple guys. You’re not into the popular ones. So... how about you try something different?'"

Suga, the group's roaster, snickered. "What was he trying to do, serve himself up as a dinner special or something? 'Try something different?' Come on!"

The room burst into laughter at Suga's comment, but Jin carried on, grinning. "Well, after I rejected him, the guy got upset. He thought that I had something going on with Jun because he saw us together in the library. And you know, I had mentioned that I liked simple people. So in his eyes, Jun seemed... simple."

Namjoon tried to maintain his cool, listening to the story unfold as if he weren't the one being described. Jin was careful not to use Namjoon's real name, only referring to him as Jun, but the room remained oblivious.

"And then we had a swimming contest coming up. Well, it wasn’t exactly a contest yet—it was an audition for the contest. In our university, it was compulsory for all first-year students to audition for every activity. The university’s policy was to decide which club we should join, based on our performance. They figured students were often confused and made poor decisions, so they took the reins. Anyway, swimming was next."

Just as Jin was about to continue, Namjoon's phone rang. All heads turned to him as he picked up the call, and without much expression, he said, "Yeah? What happened?"

It was Sejin, their manager. Namjoon listened for a moment, his face hardening, but before he could respond, Suga interjected, "Put it on speaker, Namjoon. We don’t want you explaining this later."

Namjoon sighed, but complied. He switched the call to speaker, and Sejin's voice filled the room. "Sir, the boy... you know, the one we found spying on us—the one who was, uh... taken care of. His post-mortem report has come in."

The room grew tense. Namjoon, knowing the brutal details of how they’d eliminated the spy, clenched his jaw. The boy's death had been vicious—fingers severed, eyes gouged out. The memory was enough to send chills down anyone's spine. Namjoon, keeping his voice steady, said, "I’ll come to the office later to discuss it. For now, take care of everything else."

He ended the call swiftly, still avoiding Jin's eyes, and everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably. But before the mood could get too heavy, Jimin, ever curious, brought them back on track. "Hyung! The swimming competition! What happened next?"

The group chuckled at Jimin's eagerness, and Jin relaxed back into his storytelling. "Right, the swimming competition. So, the auditions were coming up..."

Meanwhile, over in the freezer, the poor author, who had shapeshifted into a spoon to avoid being caught earlier, was absolutely furious. She had been left in the freezing cold by not-so-observant Jungkook. The author cursed every single member of BTS under her breath, trembling from the chill.

God, watching from a distance, chuckled softly. "Well, you deserve this. You were stealing food from someone else’s house! And your mother has strictly forbidden you from eating ice cream because you’ve got a fever and a cold."

The author, still in spoon form, shivered uncontrollably, cursing her bad luck. How was she going to escape this frozen prison?

And so, the fate of the author hung in the balance as she remained trapped inside the freezer, contemplating her life choices while the story continued to unfold without her.