The Arrangement

63

Namjoon sat confidently at the small cafe table, papers arranged in a neat stack in front of him. This was the moment he'd been working towards all day.

With a grateful nod, he accepted a cup of coffee from a waitress, hastily bringing the beverage to his lips. Exhaustion coated his every move, and he was purely running off of caffeine and the desire to close just one more deal.

All that separated him from bed was one final conversation.

As he waited, Namjoon let his mind wander to the recovering artist he called his friend. Taehyung.

He never gave the boy enough credit throughout his years of knowing the younger. It was easier to classify Taehyung as a reckless person, hungry for attention and acclaim. In the beginning, Namjoon tried to get to know him, but after meeting wall after wall of resistance, he gave up.

Namjoon was going to live with regret for a while. Over the six years of working with Taehyung, he knew the younger was in pain but he never took the time to try and understand. If he had taken one moment to look past the boy's destructive behavior, maybe things would be different today.

There was no point of dwelling on what he did wrong in the past. The important thing was that he learned from those mistakes and was taking active steps to help now.

Both Yoongi and Hoseok agreed with this mindset, having neglected Taehyung through his career as well. All three boys spent hours the previous night talking about how grateful they were for Jungkook, for how the new artist saved Taehyung from a life of despair. They'd always be indebted to Jungkook for that.

So now, waiting in the quiet coffeehouse, Namjoon was working on making things right. And to think his crazy idea was the product of an illicit live recording . . .

Namjoon watched every moment of Jungkook's live the previous night. While he knew Jungkook's and Taehyung's story and commitment to each other, he didn't know Taehyung was working on new lyrics. To say he was stunned when hearing the hopeful tune would be an understatement. The lyrics the younger sang struck a chord within Namjoon, and besides being lyrically deep and thoughtful, the song introduced yet another side of Taehyung to him.

The song introduced - to both Namjoon and the entire world - the man Taehyung had worked so hard to become.

And the people who heard his words liked this person. A lot.

The reception to Taehyung's song - both in the live's comments and social media afterwards - was overwhelming positive. Finally, people felt they were able to relate to Taehyung and they wanted to support him on his journey forward. That response was the very thing Namjoon knew could relaunch the younger's career.

But he also knew the current leadership at Big Hit would never go for it. Many of them, including the CEO, were rigid in their ways and showed no signs of tolerance or forgiveness. They took Taehyung's historic actions as a personal assault and wanted their revenge to be the end of the artist's career. But due to their stubbornness, they failed to see that V was never really the true star. It was the boy behind that mask.

And now they were going to regret this behavior for the rest of their lives.

After Namjoon revealed his idea last night, Yoongi and him spent hours working. They successfully secured a copy of Jungkook's live and parsed out Taehyung's song. The two producers wrote several melodies to possibly accompany the inspiring lyrics, exploring new harmonies and instruments until finding the perfect fit. When they finally finished the entire piece, they had created a song that truly represented who Taehyung was today.

That was great, but Namjoon needed to make sure Big Hit had absolutely zero rights to this new song. During the meeting with Big Hit this afternoon, he got all of the confirmation he needed.