Playing Favorites {BTS | Namjin}

Cautious

"Good evening, father. I hope you've been well," Jin said with a bow in greeting as his father approached the table. He had arrived early to get their reserved table and take a moment to get into business mode before everyone came.

"I have, thank you," he nodded. "How is my Gangnam branch? Are the trainees shaping up nicely?"

Jin smiled. "Yes. Three different groups have performances around Seoul this month. They are all very promising. The talent level is incredible."

"Good, I like to hear that. If you refuse to join the main office, at least you're excelling with the idols."

"Thank you," Jin replied, not sure whether or not his father had been paying him a compliment.

"Jinnie, you're already here? You're usually running in at the last second."

"Hyung!" Jin laughed, being pulled into a hug by his older brother. "I was in charge of getting our table this time."

"A poor decision on father's part," his brother teased with a wink. "How have you been, Jinnie? I rarely get to speak with you at length anymore. You keep yourself busy with all of those good-looking idols."

He felt his ears burn when his thoughts immediately went to Namjoon, and he half-heartedly laughed. "Yeah, they keep me busy." When his brother raised a curious eyebrow, he cleared his throat. "I've been well, though."

"What--"

"Boys, let's begin," their father interrupted, motioning for them to join the rest of the company's executives at the table.

The conversation turned to the company after that. Jin volunteered to grill most of the meat for the table so he'd have an excuse to not participate as much. While he loved their company and the work they did with idols, he hated the politics of the industry--which is usually what these meetings consisted of. He just wanted to do the best he could for their trainees and current idols, so he was happy to leave those conversations to the others.

"I set up an interview for you next month to discuss the current trainees, Seokjin," his father said, turning to him. "I'll have them prepare a list of questions and send them to you by the end of next week so you can look over them and prepare answers. Focus on that newest group Hoseok has been working with a lot--they seem to be the most popular right now thanks to all of the supporting performances you've had them participate in over the last few months."

That was Namjoon and Jimin's group.

He smiled, nodding. "I have particularly high expectations for that group. They're one of our most talented groups of trainees so far, and they've been really well-received by the public. I predict they'll be successful once we debut them."

"That's good to hear. If things keep going like this, I want you to debut them next year. Have they begun working on music?"

"We have a couple singles finished. One of the trainees produced his own music before joining us, so he has been working with our producers to revise them to include vocal parts for their entire group."

"Excellent," his father nodded, obviously pleased. "Let's plan to debut them next fall. That gives you about 16 months to finish a CD, plan concepts, and build promotions. Hint at the new debut in your interview. I want the media and followers of our idol groups to start speculating. The anticipation will make the news bigger when we finally announce a debut date."

"Alright," he agreed, excited to tell Namjoon and Jimin the news.

"Good. Now, I want updates on the Busan branch."

Jin zoned back out when his father turned his attention to another branch executive. He smiled to himself, thinking how excited Namjoon was going to be when he told him about the debut. Most trainees were with them for over three years before they debuted, so it was going to be a surprise to the entire group. I'll tell Namjoon at dinner tomorrow night, then make an announcement to the group on Friday morning.