The chimes of the door jingle softly as the customer walks out. "Have a good night sir," the tired young cashier calls out as the man leaves. Sighing, he pulls his phone out to check the time, and groans loudly when he sees he still has half an hour left in his shift.
It's been pretty slow all night, and Jeongguk's already tidied all the shelves, swept and mopped the floors, checked the security tapes, and put away every last packet of instant ramyeon that had been delivered to the store earlier that day, and he's been insanely bored for the last two hours. So it's without guilt or care that he unlocks his phone and opens his Twitter app, deciding that maybe scrolling through his timeline that is a mix of existential reflections on college life from his classmates as well as relatable memes would be a half-decent way to pass his remaining time. It was better than cleaning the glass doors for the third time, anyhow.
Mechanically Jeongguk pages through tweet after tweet, propping his chin with on his elbow, only stopping when he sees a name that catches his attention. It's a tweet linking to an article. The caption is simple: "BTS 171006 Busan Fanmeet"
To most people, it's just another fanmeet by just another popular k-pop group. But for Jeongguk, the name 'BTS' strikes a chord in his heart that he can't get rid of, even after seven years. He's twenty now, in college, with a part-time job and he has his life together. But he still can't get over the fact that BTS's maknae, Kim Taehyung, forgot about him.
Despite his promises, Taehyung never had visited after he moved. For the first few months, Jeongguk sent countless emails using his parents' computer, asking if Taehyung would ever visit. But after time passed, and he never got an answer or a visit, Jeongguk gave up. It hurt, oh god did it hurt to accept it. Taehyung had been his best friend, pretty much his only friend, for the greater part of his childhood. From five to thirteen, Jeongguk had been glued to Taehyung's side. And after all that time, he had had to learn to live without him.
Jeongguk glances back down at the tweet, biting his lip. No, he tells himself. It's a stupid idea. He won't remember you anyway. It'll just hurt more.
But even so, he finds his fingers typing away, searching up the details of the fanmeet. Another google search, a phone call, and way too much money later, he orders enough albums to hopefully secure himself entry to the fansign.
Why am I doing this, he thinks to himself as he closes up the store later that night. Why am I wasting my money just for a chance to see him?
A few days later, when BigHit announces the winners on their website and he finds his name among the list, he knows why.
/ / /
The day of the fansign arrives along with a wave of second thoughts. Jeongguk is ready to back out and stay home, if it wasn't for the thousands of won he spent just to get into this damn fanmeet. Part of him is aching to see his childhood best friend again, to see that beautiful smile that had brought such light and happiness to his lonely life. But the other part, the more rational part, keeps reminding him that Taehyung isn't worth it, that he'd forgotten about him so clearly Jeongguk never meant that much to him in the first place.
And in a way, Jeongguk knows their friendship had never been quite equal. Growing up, Jeongguk had never really made any other friends. He knew some people from school, sure, but would never make an effort to hang out with them outside of school. All he had was Taehyung. But the older of the two had plenty of other friends, his outgoing and social nature never preventing him from making friends with everybody he met. Jeongguk had always struggled with jealousy whenever Taehyung interacted with his other friends, but kept it internalized because he knew keeping Taehyung to himself was selfish.
