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jimilter · 2 years ago

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on the borderline — 02 | pjm.

Park Jimin has been your buoy, your anchor and the ship of sanity that guides you to shore amid storms of self-doubt, nearly all your life; as have you been his. That is not to say nothing has ever brewed beneath the surface of platonic friendship, or that the two of you have never been victims to mistiming. Regardless, you would never risk the friendship you have with him now for anything. Even if you have to hurt him – or even yourself – in the process.

pairing: jimin x reader

rating: m (18+)

genre: humor | fluff | friends to lovers!au

word count: 7.7 k

— warnings: swearing + unresolved sexual tension + mentions of therapy + commitment phobia + innuendos in an office setting + really lame humor, again + some dark humor, again + sexual thoughts (pertaining to ass-grabbing, wet panties, choking, dick sucking) + jimin and yn being annoying bffs to each other + yn does not have a crush...on anyone...bec she's above crushes (but she's also a pathological liar so take that w a grain of salt) + a new (potential) love interest has entered the scene (:

— note: idfk why some bits of this fic are so hard to write??? but anyways, i took 3k words of unnecessary chatter and cleaned this part up. so much more satisfied w this than the mess it was yesterday, smh. anyyyyways, this is a burfday post - guess whose? hehe 🥺 hope y'all like the interesting turning of events in here and prepare yourself for the major twists coming w the next chapter! drop me a word~ 💜

ps. the rating, genre and warnings mentioned above pertain to this chapter, only.

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𝐈𝐈 ⇢ 𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐖𝐄𝐈𝐑𝐃 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 ♪ you give to me, everything anything that i could dream

“That wraps up all the major delegations,” you announce to the organizing committee gathered around the table before switching to the last slide of your presentation which displays, in a large font – ‘The 2G-Spot’, “and brings us to the last discussion of this meeting – our keynote and our guest of honor.”

"Wait, we still don't have them finalized?" Jackie, the Senior Sales Executive, looks at you with confusion in her gaze. "What happened to the names Zac and I picked out last week?"

You gingerly pull yourself a chair and delicately sit down, eyeing the three anxious faces around you in trepidation. This is gonna cause an uproar. Clearing your throat, you quietly inform them: "Boss man rejected them all."

Three gasps echo around you

"What?" Zac, your Social Media Manager, cries out with more than a little drama, both his arms spread apart and face contorted in a grimace. “I picked out forty-three people and Jackie shortened the list to twenty-seven. How could he not like one profile?”

“None of them fit his criteria of hitting the 2G-Spot.” It feels weird even as you say it, and the three pairs of questioning eyes that oscillate between you and the characters on the screen in absolute bewilderment make you clear your throat in discomfort. “He needs a glam guest and a genius keynote. A g and another g. The 2G-Spot. It’s not—” You break off with a puffed out exhale. “Don’t make me talk about it, please.”

Lea, the final member of your meeting of four, and the company’s Sales Strategist pats your back in a comforting gesture. But her eyes look absolutely soulless when she meets yours. “I can't imagine how that meeting must've gone… My brain's dying a slow death, one braincell at a time, just reading this. Did he not see the euphemism? Or did he intend it?"

You just shake your head, honest to God clueless.

She blinks. "Not that it makes much sense otherwise either, because what the heck does glam even mean?”

“Does he want some model to sit in as our guest?” Jackie squints at the screen, tilting her head as if the words will present you all with an answer if you look at them hard enough. “Does our boss hate us, guys?”

"No other way to explain whatever…this is.",

“I don’t think he hates anybody, he just wants us to – learn. Through hits and misses. And grow.” Lea scrunches her nose up in an evident display of how much she believes her own words.

“Oh, I'm learning alright. Learning how many blood pressure spikes my body can handle everyday before I succumb to heart failure under duress. Is that what he wants, Lea, is it?” Zac definitely carries the most amount of dark humor in your team.

You just exhale, because this is pointless. This cribbing about your boss is helping no one.

So although you more or less agree with the sentiments being thrown around, you don't participate in it. As the Sales Manager, the mess that was last month's sales is partly your responsibility. Marketing and Advertising shoulder the blame, too, but you were also at the center of it.

This workshop, being organized as a result of that fib, thus, has to be perfect and exactly how your boss wants it to be.

“Guys, I know it looks unfair,” you begin consoling your disgruntled team, “but I’m sure Boss is just being careful. Remember how meticulous he was with the selection of all the experts for different sections of the workshop?”

A grunt, a sigh and an eye roll. Wow, enthusiasm is rife in your office today. This won’t do.

"Guy, guys. Stop.” You raise both your palms up and three long faces turn towards you, disappointment pulling them down. “We don't get to do this. Let’s not forget the reason why this workshop is even happening in the first place – we ventured a new product into a new market and it absolutely crashed.”

You clap your hands together, drawing attention to the seriousness of the topic.

“We couldn’t sleep properly for days when the numbers started coming in. Remember? We need to think about how much worse it must have been for Boss. He had to answer his investors and even the media because of how huge the launch event had been.”

Lea’s back straightens at that. Jackie’s pout turns into a frown. Zac finally stops scowling and presses his lips into a concerned line. Wow, are you a good leader or what?

“What we can do, here, is coordinate well with Marketing and Advertising for this event. Help make it a learning experience for all. Find our faults and correct them before the next product launch, so that we don’t even have to play the blame sharing game. How does that sound?"

A collective, uplifted sound of agreement echoes around the huge conference hall. You smile, proudly.

“That’s what I like to hear. So. Let's begin by breaking down the implication of the word glam.”

Zac turns his laptop towards you. “We could bring in our brand ambassadors? We've got an A-list model and a daily soap actor with us. They can be glam, right?”

You look at two pictures on the screen. Both your brand ambassadors are definitely glam. But you somehow don’t believe this is what your boss wants. Besides, what would they even say in their mandatory speech?

“Um, I was thinking more of a customer,” Lea butts in when you’ve been silent for too long. “It can be a fun activity to engage with our consumers. Select someone that has used our products for a long time and ask them to talk about their experience with the company at the workshop?”

“I feel like that’d be a bit too attention grabby,” Jackie points out before you can, and you nod because you were gonna say something along similar lines. “Not to mention, a complicated ordeal to execute less than two weeks before the event.”

"We can push the date back if we really need to," you remind them.

“Agreed with what Jackie said, and also, Lea?” Zac clicks his fingers in front of the girl's face. “We sell bulbs. And a guest that can talk about bulbs at an event cannot be called glam, by any means. At least in my dictionary.”

Chuckling, you slowly nod because they’re all correct on some level. Lea looks at you with a sigh. “I’m out of ideas, then.”

“Aren’t you supposed to be the strategist? Use your skills, dude,” Jackie prompts her, which has you standing up to turn off the projector.

“Alright, guys, listen up,” you call for their attention. “We have another hour before work begins, so how about we privately brainstorm some ideas and later discuss ’em?”

You’re just making your way back to your seat when a throat is cleared at the door to the conference room, followed by the sound of knuckles rapping against the glass doors. Your gaze flies up to catch the intruder because you weren’t expecting anyone – and freezes in surprise.

It’s Kim Seokjin. The CEO’s cousin. The gorgeous, model-esque guy who doesn’t work here and yet frequents these offices more than some of the employees. The only person in this building that is literally everyone’s favorite.

Well, more like everyone’s crush, to be honest.

Not you, though. You’re above crushes.

You prefer to be an objective admirer of the breadth of his shoulders, the plumpness of his lips and the symmetry of his facial features. It’s just an aimless appreciation of his looks that you expect nothing out of. You would have tried to sleep with him, though, if Jimin hadn’t yelled at you about it being a bad idea.

Seokjin's blindingly good looks, though, are not what has you gaping at the man like a fish. It's actually his presence here, right now, outside the conference hall which is the only occupied room in your office building right now, while the rest of it awaits the arrival of the company’s employees, an hour from now. You wonder who made a social media post about you all being here early. That is the only way Seokjin could have caught wind of your meeting.

But you especially wonder why he has decided to show up. You didn’t know he knew you existed. But now he’s looking straight at you, gaze expectant and lips smiling softly.

“Oh my God, is that Seokjin?” comes an astonished whisper from Jackie, which launches you into action.

Quickly blinking, you pull a grin upon your face and walk up to the door, letting the really tall and really broad man into the huge conference hall that he manages to somehow belittle by his form.

“Good morning, Mister Kim,” you wish pleasantly but with an undercurrent of confusion in your voice.

Wait, is this the first time you’re talking to him? Why do you feel like a fangirl, right now?

Didn’t you just establish you’re above crushes? Where’s your maturity and detachment at?! Wow, liar.

“Hey,” he says to you with a grin, waving his fingers in a butterfly wave as he walks in. “Your guy Zac posted an Instagram story about you being a hardass that made him wake up at six, so I decided to come in earlier and see what it’s all about.”

Your head snaps to shoot an icy glare at Zac, who just swallows and focuses his wide eyes upon the table.

Seokjin, meanwhile, takes a seat next to the guy. “Good morning, guys. Hope I’m not disrupting your meeting sesh.”

A cacophony of ‘not at all’ and ‘our pleasure’ bursts around you as you look on in surprise. While you make your way back to your chair, your team has filled Seokjin in on your dilemma of the moment, for some reason. You wonder if they have interacted with him better than you have.

"Would you look at that," Seokjin begins after they're done, looking towards you with a smile. His gaze is kinda piercing. It's kinda hot. "You guys encounter a problem and the solution walks right into your meeting!"

You're…confused. What problem does he think you're facing? Given the lost looks on your team members' faces, they don't seem to have any idea either.

"Uh, Mister Kim," Lea begins with a frown, "what…solution…?"

He gives a scoff, chuckling as if he finds Lea's joke very funny. Except, you don't believe she was joking. "Come on. Can there be a better fitted glam guest of honor for your event than yours truly?"

Your jaw slowly drops open, stuck in unsurety because you can't tell if he's being serious or just putting you through some impossible to understand test. But Zac is leaning away to eye Seokjin with a contemplative look on his face, already.

“You, um, you will have to say a few words about the company,” you finally speak up, lashes fluttering in unnecessary self-consciousness against Seokjin’s strong stare. “Some good things. And also about the failed product…a little…”

Seokjin shrugs. “Sounds simple enough, I can do that.”

He can?

Jackie suddenly excuses herself, before getting up and dragging you to the other side of the hall too. “This is a great idea, why are you hesitating?” she hisses at you. “There’s no way Boss will reject his own cousin, ma’am!”

That much is true. “But does he even really know what we do here at Sales?” you whisper your doubts back, which makes your sales executive roll her eyes.

“Of course, he does. He’s here all the time!” He is? When? Does the guy actively avoid you or something? “Come on,” Jackie goes on, “let’s give him his moment to shine. We have nothing to worry about even if he messes up – Boss will have to take charge. Not that he will mess up.” Jackie looks over her shoulder and grins at the other three. “Man loves to talk. He’ll be good as the guest.”

At the end of the day, you remind yourself, it’s just a company workshop. No outsiders, no one to impress but the CEO.

Seokjin is a workable idea.

You finally nod in agreement, which has Jackie clapping once and then joining the group at the table. Before you can join them as well, Seokjin’s call of your name has you stopping.

“You need a keynote, too, right?”

Tentatively, you move your head in a nod. “Uh, yeah… We’re – we’re looking for an industry expert from Marketing, Advertising or Sales itself.”

He squints at you. “Your friend that is here every other week… isn’t he Geisha Global’s Regional Director?”

Jimin?

This dude knows you’ve got a friend that you regularly meet up with after work – and what said friend does for a living? What? How? You’re beginning to wonder if Seokjin just doesn't loiter your hallways out of boredom but is in fact some sort of a detective working for your CEO.

Flustered, you try to formulate a response, “I, um, yeah, but—”

“Brilliant! He’s the director of an ad agency, he’ll make for a fantastic keynote for our little event!” Seokjin gets up and forwards a hand for you to shake.

And you obviously take it, because his fingers are so long, palms so huge, and—oh. His hands are warm, too. Before you can stop yourself, you’re envisioning them wrapped around your throat. And then grabbing your ass.

All that, while you still haven’t said a word about Jimin’s participation in your workshop that you’re more than certain he’ll refuse to, because your best friend despises public speaking.

What the heck is wrong with your horny brain, today?

Your team is looking at you with wide, shocked eyes. Damn, they didn’t know who your friendly, flirty, people pleaser friend is professionally. And now the questions will never stop.

“He’s generally a very busy guy, I hardly even get to see him lately.” Your last night’s clothes are still at his place. You're turning into a pathological liar. “But… I’ll try to catch him in a chat about this over the weekend. He might not have time on his schedule to be able to come, though, but…"

“In that case," Seokjin picks up your incomplete sentence, "maybe you should give him a heads up. You guys are friends, I'm sure he'll prioritize you asking for a favor if you give him enough time."

Is it just you, or is this conversation unbelievably weird?

It probably is just you, though, because everyone is looking at you with an expectant gaze again. Shit, the pressure is physically pressing down on your chest the longer they stare. It's as if they're reaching in to pull your intestines out, your stomach starts to churn so badly.

People's expectations ruin your life because you can't freaking say no.

Coughing, you discreetly press a fist against your collarbones and clear your throat. Yeah, people's expectations cause you breathing troubles. Your therapist deserves a fucking raise for dealing with you. But because you just had an appointment last week, you’re gonna have to dump your stress over Jimin, the second this meeting is over.

“I’ll – I’ll talk to him after work. Arrange for a meet-up whenever he has the time, explain everything about the workshop.”

You're lying again because you plan to meet him during lunch hour today, if he's available. You briefly wonder if you are the one with a lying problem and not Jimin, before nodding at the hopeful faces looking at you.

"I'll tell you guys how it goes. Although, next week might really be a short notice for him."

“Hey, didn’t you say Boss will allow us to push the workshop back if need be?” Lea squints at you and you resist the urge to smack a palm against your forehead. Why did you have to tell them that? “We’ll do that if Jimin wants us to. Oh, should I be saying his name like that?” She winces.

“Please do.” There’s a grimace on your face that you can’t turn into a smile despite your best efforts because what a mess. “Please do.”

"It'd be really cool to have Jimin at the event," Zac murmurs with a small smile, sparkling eyes looking at you hopefully. "He's always such a comforting presence…"

"Yeah, he really is," Katie adds with a nod, eyes similarly glittery.

And you nervously swallow. For all the bravado and the general badass energy you claim to walk around with, it's hilarious how you can never say no to people. No matter how wild the expectations, you're always willing to bend over backwards to accommodate everyone. Which is fucking crazy!

You wonder how you've survived corporate jobs and promotions without sucking any dick. Maybe you're lucky to not have faced truly lecherous people.

The point of the matter being, you feel like you're gonna have to drag your best friend to the workshop if these guys pin so much hope onto you.

Seokjin suddenly claps his hands together with a large smile on his face.

"That is wonderful!" he exclaims, as if he has anything to do with this workshop at all. This man would have been so freaking irritating if he wasn't so damn handsome. Sigh. "Please convince Jimin to join us next week?"

Oh God, now he has a shimmer in his eyes too? Why are these people doing this to you?

“I – I’ll talk to him… No promises, though, guys—”

“I’m sure he won’t say no to you,” Zac says to you with a sage smile that makes him look twice his age and makes no sense to you. “You guys are best friends.”

You awkwardly nod, unable to figure out a response. You fear noisy breathing sounds would come out of you if you opened your mouth. So you keep your lips sealed and stealthily reach into your bag to extract your phone.

Texting Jimin cannot wait till after the meeting, you're minutes away from hyperventilating.

Text Message to Min 🌟 ↳ SOS ↳ meet for lunch today?

The response comes within five seconds, and you’re so fucking thankful your phone was on silent. He’s generally very busy, yeah right.

Text Message from Min 🌟 At my office @ 1 Bring pizza From the eatery down my block Pls 👅 ** 🥺 I MEANT 🥺 I SWEAR

Why is your best friend a literal clown? You immediately lock your phone and slide it into your pant’s pocket, holding in the snort that threatens to escape. Well, at least his typo has caused you to breathe easier now.

"That officially concludes this meeting, I guess," you finally say, voice a little tight as you avoid everyone's excited gaze by looking at your laptop. You clear your throat with pursed lips. "We have twenty minutes before work starts, so grab a coffee or some breakfast if you skipped this morning."

Your team, along with Seokjin, bounds out of the conference hall like enthusiastic children, leaving you behind to slowly collect your stuff. You do so with a sigh, already dreading the conversation you will have to have with Jimin.

“I have been blindsided.” Your best friend is frowning at you, hands crossed against his chest petulantly as he leans back in his revolving chair. “This doesn’t sound SOS-y at all."

You exhale. “Jimin—”

“No, first of all, where’s my pizza? Second of all – why would you suggest my name for a public speaking stint when you know I don't like public speaking? Neither of these acts exhibit best friend behavior.”

“There was a mile long queue outside of your damn eatery, okay? And my break lasts thirty minutes, so—”

“Your company isn’t strict on lunch timing, don’t try to fool me.”

“—so, I ordered your pizza online and it’ll be here in the next five minutes.”

He shuts up that, lips curving up in an excited smile. “Hey now, why didn’t you lead with that? I would’ve been more understanding.”

Your eyebrows rise up in expectation.

“Which means I would’ve rejected you softly, instead of yelling at you.”

You deflate again.

“No, don’t get all pouty on me. You know about my weird introversion about public speaking.”

“It’s called stage fright, stop making up new shit.”

“Case in point – you know I don’t like it. Why didn't you say no on my behalf? You’re my best friend, you should be on my side, not your company’s.”

Keeping the way Jimin is dramatically making this a bigger deal than it really is aside, you’re getting irritated at his claims upon your friendship. You do know he doesn’t like it, which is why your immediate thought when Seokjin brought him up was that he won’t agree to do it. You tried to dissuade them so many times, citing Jimin's non-existent busy schedule. Where's your credit for that attempted resistance? Nowhere! Instead, the guy seems to think you had a hand in encouraging this.

"I didn't say no because no one would believe me if I told them a company's Regional Director isn't fond of public speaking." You eye him, askance.

"That feels oddly offensive…"

"Jimin. Be fucking for real. You speak at events, like, every week. What's one more added to the pile?"

"I do that because I'd be out of a job if I don't," he bemoans, eyes shut and face crumpled like a toddler's. "Public speaking as a favor is a completely different exercise that I do not wish to participate in, nuh-uh. Pass."

“What if I’m out of a job because I couldn’t persuade you to come?”

He gapes at you. “It cannot possibly be that serious, babe, it’s just an office workshop!”

“You know what my boss is like – every fucking thing is a huge fucking thing for him,” you grouse, shaking your head.

“Is there no one else you could think of, though?”

Okay, yeah, that’s enough. You’re gonna have to tell him it wasn’t your idea because this is getting irritating. Seokjin’s name gets you earfuls, so you will avoid mentioning he was the one who instigated this, but you can at least tell Jimin that it wasn’t you.

“I didn’t bring up your name as a prospect, Min,” you finally clarify upon an exhale, watching the way his eyebrows slowly start to furrow. "It was…suggested. Because you’re kind of famous, you know? And people at my office know you.”

He leans over the table, a crease in his brow. “You didn’t? Then who did?”

You wave a dismissive hand. “They’re not important.”

“They? Are you being ambiguous or is that their pronoun?” He squints into space, mumbling something to himself, and then shakes his head. “Nope, you don’t have a non-binary coworker in your department, you’re just being ambiguous. Which – a lack of representation. Ask your HR to look into it, okay?"

Scowling, you shake your head at him. "How can you possibly know that?”

“Babe. I know everyone in your department.” He gives you a flat stare. “By name. So, spill. Who was it?” His eyes suddenly widen, glee spreading over his face slowly. “Wait, is it Lea? Your sales strategist?”

Ugh, he’s really on a first-name basis with your entire department. It’ll take him minutes to go down the list and you'll have to lie to get out of this. Or just tell him the truth and face that lecture on why seducing Seokjin is a bad idea.

You shake your head with a resigned sigh.

“Given how she’d looked at me with really wide, shocked eyes, no." With an eye roll, you rest your face on a palm and lean on his desk. "I don't think she even knew what you do for a living… Much like the others.”

“No? Oh.” He slumps back in his seat, lips downturned. And then he sits up again with renewed joy. “Ooh, wait, is it your sales exec? Katlyn? Katie? She always says hi to me, right? Wow, she’s kinda hot…” He leans across the table with a wide grin. “Tell you what, I’ll agree for the keynote thing if you set me up with her.”

“What? No and no, Jimin! You can't date people from my office!” You scoff at the guy when he rolls his eyes. “I mean you can’t date, period, but you shouldn’t even hook up with people from my office."

Jimin gives a drawn out groan, ever the dramatic bitch. “Why?”

“Because.” You shut your eyes and massage your forehead. “Because it’ll make things weird for me.”

“Weird? Why?” He wiggles his eyebrows, a smirk on his lips. “Do your colleagues think we're a thing too?”

You read forth to flick at his forehead.

“Ow, what the hell?”

“Yeah, what the hell? No, they don’t, Jimin. And it’s not Katie, okay?”

“FIne, okay, so then who was it? Why’re you being so mysterious about it?”

He is looking at you through narrowed eyes now, peering into your very soul. And immediately, your brain rushes to compare his stare with that of Seokjin’s for no other reason but to ruin your already tiresome day.

Seokjin looked at you with pretty much the same intensity as Jimin, but there was a hint of a smile on his face. Whereas your best friend seems to be scrutinizing you as if you’ve been placed on a slide under a microscope. And yet, the alternating warm and cold currents that run through your nerve endings right now affect you worse than Seokjin’s flirtatious smiles did.

Oh God. The morning’s rush made you almost forget about your recent sexual awakening regarding your best friend. Ew, sounds gross even in your head.

But now that you have reminded your brain of the same – including the innuendo-infused face-off you two had in the bathroom and the wet dream that you had last night – it decides to conjure up all these scenarios where Jimin gives you this exact stare, but in an atmosphere with a dimmer, warmer lighting and few to no clothes on your bodies.

Oh. God.

Desperate to distract yourself from witnessing what is sure to be a very embarrassing x-rated video featuring you and Jimin in your head, you resort to initiating the one conversation you planned to avoid when you came here.

With clenched fists, you stare at the back of Jimin’s laptop, and exhale in a rush: “Okay, fine, it was Seokjin.”

Jimin draws away from the table, back flattening against his chair as if shoved by the force of your words. You just focus on your breathing while you wait for him to respond, strictly keeping your eyes away from his person and trying to fill your head with work-related, appropriate thoughts.

“Kim Seokjin?” Jimin finally mumbles, pulling your gaze to his frown. “Your boss’ cousin, Kim Seokjin?”

“Do you know any other Kim Seokjins?” you grumble, crossing your arms against your chest in irritation.

You’re being unfairly cranky because it’s not even Jimin’s fault at this point. You’re the one with a malfunctioning, horny brain which keeps making you feel like a teenager, Jimin’s just living his life.

So you exhale in resignation, and nod. “I mean, yeah. That’s the one.”

“Dude,” he begins in an accusatory tone, shaking his head at you, “you're totally trying to use me to impress him.”

Rolling your eyes, you resist the urge to groan in frustration. “Impress him? For what?”

“Didn't we establish that your crush on him was a bad idea because you shouldn't sleep with your boss’ cousin?”

This time you let the groan escape. “I am not crushing on him anymore, Min! I just…like to look at him from a distance, just some objective admiration…”

Jimin blinks at you. “That's what a crush is.”

“Absolutely not! I respect him and like how he looks, without any unrealistic expectations and imaginary scenarios.” You shrug your shoulders, trying to act nonchalant in the face of the imagery of Kim Seokjin’s gorgeous hands on your throat and/or your ass. “Just some friendly admiration, as – as I said.”

“No, you said objective admiration.” Jimin goes back to observing you like a specimen under a microscope. “And to me, that still sounds like you wanna sleep with him.”

“Untrue, it’s just—”

“Well, do you wanna date him, then?” He raises a brow, a weird eagerness spreading across his face as if he wants you to say yes.

Maybe he actually does, maybe this is him hopping onto the ‘I will convince you to get back in the dating game’ bandwagon again. God, he’s so annoyingly persistent.

“No, Jimin, no way in hell.” You glare at him. “Okay, you know what? Everyone else backed him up too, so I'm not tryna impress just him. The others in my department want you to be there, too. They even talked about pushing the date back to accommodate you.”

“Aha! So Katie does remember me!” He claps his hands and rubs them together. “See, soulmates.”

“You literally called her Katlyn twice…” You deadpan.

“Ah, that's a minor blip that I and Katlyn—Katie," he corrects with a wince. Then clearing his throat, he grins at you again. "I and Katie will work through it, don't you worry."

“Jimin. Please. Everyone will really love it if you’re there. Zac even said you’re a comforting presence…”

He frowns at you. “Zac? Ellis? Oh man, does he still think I was flirting with him that one time? Please clarify it to him that I’m straight, Y/N!”

“It was you that told him and Jiah that story about you hooking up with a guy in college, Min,” you remind him with a giggle, resting your chin on a fist to wiggle your eyebrows at him. “What did you expect to gain out of that, if not an admirer?”

Jimin seems to get a bit serious at that. “I… Well, they just looked kinda tired, sad and uncomfortable, you know? So I thought I’d cheer them up a bit with a fun anecdote…”

His response is so genuine and so wholly him, that your heart goes out for the guy. You reach forth with your free hand to pat the back of his own. “I get it, buddy. But you don’t have to always comfort everyone. You need to think about your own comfort and happiness at times, too. What you need, instead of always taking care of what others need from you.”

He looks at you with wide eyes and then slowly nods. “What I need, huh?” he mumbles, blinking with so much innocence in his gaze, it’s uncanny. “How about that pizza I asked for?”

You lift your fingers off his fist and bring them back down in a snap. Can never have a serious conversation with this for two seconds.

“Ow!”

Checking your phone for the ETA with a roll of your eyes, you hiss at him, “Will be here in less than three minutes. Asshole.”

He just giggles, entirely gleeful and not one bit sympathetic about your predicament. And then he surprises you by getting up and squeezing your shoulder. "I'll think about it, okay?

Eyes going wide and lips curving up, you jump out of the chair to hold him by his forearms. "You will?"

"I said think," he corrects you, but there's a resigned smile on his face which tells you he's gonna say yes.

"That's good enough," you hurriedly tell him before engulfing your best friend in a bear hug. "Thank you, thank you!"

"You are really not welcome to this again and it absolutely won't be my pleasure," he grumbles into your shoulder.

You wack him on the back, and relax in his grasp, silently asking to pull away. "That's enough emotion for a week, Min…"

He throws you away with a scowl, but there's no real heat to it. You laugh at his irritated face, settling down again to fill him in about the details of the workshop so that he can prepare his speech.

Barely into your discussion, the pizza arrives. You two share it while you discuss some points he wishes to make in his speech.

When you finally take your leave, his secretary is on the phone right outside his office doors. You wave at the girl you know is a sweetheart, and she absently smiles at you.

That is when her words register to you:

"...lunch with his girlfriend so we had rescheduled you for three o'clock, but he is available now, if you wish to meet-up?"

The girlfriend part gives you a pause but doesn't really shock you, because now you know what goes on at Jimin's office. What has you stopping completely in place and frowning – is the postponed meeting part. Did Jimin cancel a prior engagement to make room for you?

Whipping out your phone, you shoot him a text.

Text Message to Min 🌟 ↳ did u have a lunch meeting?

His response takes a while, only pinging your phone when you've exited the building and are getting into your car.

Text Message from Min 🌟 Uh 🧍🏻‍♂️ You JUST left my office??? And we had lunch together? So I'd say yeah

↳ no smartass ↳ i mean a scheduled one

Min 🌟 Well Kinda? But it's no issue, I got it pushed to 3

↳ it is an issue w ME! ↳ see this behavior is exactly why your office thinks we're dating ↳ why would u push back a meeting to have lunch w me???

Min 🌟 Because you literally told me it was an SOS situation!

↳ oh

Now you feel kinda dumb. You made the guy postpone a meeting because of a situation that was a lot less than an SOS, if you're being honest. But he should know you're prone to exaggeration.

↳ i'm sorry?

Min 🌟 Are you apologizing for having lunch with me? Because I will physically tackle you to the ground and make you take it back 😠

Your best friend is insufferable but also really fucking cute.

↳ apologizing for delaying your meeting ↳ and causing u to stay longer at the office potentially

Min 🌟 It'll be fine with me if you need to grab your stuff from my place and run home while I’m gone

↳ yeahhhh was kinda hoping I could do that 😬

Min 🌟 You never have to think so hard with me, grumpkim <3

Ew, what the hell is that?

↳ …tf? ↳ is this a new nickname you're trying?

Min 🌟 Yes!!! Isn't it adorable? Like pumpkin cause you’re cute but grumpy because that's your natural state of being :)

↳ okay one - i am NOT grumpy, just a lil short tempered ↳ which im working on rectifying ↳ and two - no cheesy nicknames bw us hello??? u yelled at me for calling u bestie once!!!!

There isn't a response for a while, so you start your car and drive back to your office. You're ten minutes past the lunch break ending, but just as Jimin said, one of the only redeeming qualities to your boss is that he isn't hard about lunch timings.

It's when you've settled into your cabin and have pulled your phone out to keep it on your desk that you notice Jimin's response.

Text Message from Min 🌟 You were friend-zoning me with the “bestie” tag How am I supposed to flirt with you if you do that?

You can’t help the snort that leaves you. This is so on-brand of him, it’s almost funny.

↳ soooo “grumpkin” is flirtatious?

His reply comes instantly:

Min 🌟 It can be if I want it to be ;)

You hate the way that stupid freaking winky face makes your cheeks warm.

This is your childhood best friend, for fuck’s sake! What the hell is wrong with your brain?

The longer you stare at the text, the warmer your face feels. And the warmer your face feels, the hotter your heads get.

At the end of a whole minute when you are beginning to feel how Bruce Banner must feel right before his transformation, you grab your phone and lock the screen, leaving your best friend on read. But that doesn’t feel quite enough, so you jerk a drawer of your desk open and toss the stupid device with your stupid best friend’s stupid text into it.

Just as you have shoved the drawer close, Jackie, passing your office by right that moment, stops to raise her eyebrows. “Need a mallet to deal with that?”

If you could take a mallet to your stupid brain and beat the stupid parts with the stupid thoughts about your stupid best friend out of it, you would take Jackie upon her stupid offer.

The next few days are normal, but…very strange, at the same time.

Normal on the front that work goes back to the usual. No unwanted, tiresome meetings await you at the office, your boss having been really satisfied with the final choices your team submitted for the guest of honor and keynote appearances at the workshop next Friday. Sane working hours leave you feeling productive and a lot energized.

The strange part comes in the form of one Kim Seokjin.

Guy’s been sort of hovering around you lately, and you don’t exactly hate the attention. You’ve decided you’re not gonna “fuck and chuck him” like Jimin has told you not to. Mostly because your best friend never butts into your love-life (read: the academic roll of people going through your bed, but anyways), while for this one guy he has been screaming at you to not do it, every chance he gets.

You’re gonna respect that. And also, you get what he means. Fooling around with your boss’ cousin with no intention of getting serious has the highly delicate risk of complicating things at your workplace a bit. Or more than a bit, depending upon how badly you deal with it – and you usually break your own records of how badly you’re dealing with an ex-lover.

So. You’re not gonna sleep with Seokjin.

But, you’re absolutely giving back your one-hundred percent into the dangerous smirks and heavy glances he sends you any time you meet his gaze, which you find yourself doing a lot of. You’re not breaking any rules if you present him with the hope of possibly pursuing something, right? And who knows? You might actually end up dating, too. Finally break the freaking fast!

It’s strange but also strangely fun doing this, if you’re being honest. And also, this whole back and forth is kinda helpful in keeping your mind somewhat off of the x-rated thoughts your brain has recently found out it loves conjuring up about your best friend. Like, seriously, you feel like you need a fucking mental intermission to get your brain to recover from the constant overdrive it has been riding around in for nearly a week now. It’s exhausting when you have to ward off a variation of the same repetitive thought twenty times in a single hour.

Your interactions with Seokjin have helped a bit in that regard, dwindling it down to five thoughts an hour, Which is a lot workable, so you call it definite progress.

But, despite all of that, this feels wrong to you.

You’re not necessarily betraying Seokjin, right? You don’t even know if he is as much into it as it seems! And who is to say that you aren’t? You could date him if you want. Jimin would be so proud! What the hell is your problem?

You wonder if this is just a psychological repulsion born out of your self-imposed ban on dating? In the way that you have gotten so used to steering clear of anything touching the themes of ‘romance’ that your mind now detects those thoughts as something negative?

In all honesty, you ought to be feeling negatively about all the way your imagination has been running wild about Jimin. Those are the kind of thoughts that stand to harm your deep and profound friendship of years.

But what do they do, instead?

Leave your panties wet.

It is when emotionally available, interested in you and not a childhood friend that you might lose forever Seokjin brushes past you with a meaningful smile that you get this sense of foreboding. As if you shouldn’t be allowing this to happen between you and a perfectly handsome, well-natured, intelligent and funny guy.

Why aren’t you scared of losing your best friend but wish to hide away from a guy you should be fantasizing climbing up?

It could be because you know Jimin is safe. As in, nothing will come out of having thoughts about him because you will never act upon him. But with Seokjin, things are tangible. If you give him signs, he might actually pursue you with a seriousness that might actually, really, factually lead to a romantic entanglement.

Wait… so this is basically your commitment phobia making your life difficult again?

Sure sounds like it.

Your ex should be burnt in fucking hell. And your therapist definitely deserves a raise, damn.

So aside from the whole whatever the fuck you’re doing with Seokjin, the days following Monday go by pretty normally – until, that is, things take a turn.

The first wave of change hits you on Friday.

Zac Ellis comes into work late and somehow catches your boss’ eye. Which leads to your boss unnecessarily giving you all an hour long lecture on the importance of punctuality. Which, in turn, makes you all stay an hour late to finish up the day’s tasks because it is the end of the week.

By the time you finally get to leave, ten minutes later than your team as is the curse of a Team Leader, you are dead on your feet. Dragging yourself out of your cabin, you yawn with your mouth thrown wide open and eyes squeezed shut, allowing them to water. You are dreaming of cuddling under some blankets with a heating pad between you and the cushions because your back hurts like a bitch.

Your colleagues don’t seem to share the sentiment, though, because the six pm clock out time gives them the idea of going out for dinner together.

“Guys… you should go on without me, I’m really tired,” you politely tell them, shaking your head when Lea pouts at you. “Seriously. I would if I could, but I just want to get into bed and sleep for ten hours today.”

“Ah, understandable.” It is Seokjin that speaks up, emerging from the group to smile at you. Yep, one of those secret smiles that seem to convey more than what is visible. “Some days ask ten hours of sleep out of you.”

You give him an awkward chuckle, unsure how to maintain a civil conversation with the guy with all the heavy gazing from the past three days. Especially in front of the entire Sales department.

“Yeah…” You lamely nod, watching as the crowd of people begins to shuffle away from you and towards the elevators.

Seokjin looks at you again, kinda smacking you in the face with his good looks with the way he gives you a lopsided smirk. One of his eyebrows arches up and it’s certain death to your brain, because the damn organ forgets to work your lungs and your oxygen supply just cuts off.

“I hope this wasn’t due to…” He trails off and steps closer. You just started breathing again but now you wish you hadn’t, because his cologne is delicious and makes you want to sniff him. Fuck. “Was it?”

You quickly shake your head to assure him. “No, no! Absolutely not, please trust me.” Forcing a smile upon your face, you thickly swallow and will yourself to not break eye contact. “I really am very tired.”

“I was looking forward to having dinner over some casual chat with you, but… I understand.” He smiles at you fully.

It doesn’t feel nice saying no to such a friendly, harmless invite. To a group gathering, too. But because you are sincerely not kidding about the kind of pain your body is in, you grimace at the man. “I am truly sorry, Seokjin. Raincheck?”

If he finds your sudden usage of his name odd – because you are pretty sure you have never said it out loud before; and it has been well-established that your brain is a dangerous place so whatever happens up there doesn’t count – he doesn’t show it. But your response makes his eyes glimmer a little, and his smile turns serene.

“That is quite okay,” he tells you with a wave of his hand. “How about tomorrow? Just us? That Korean BBQ place down the block?”

You blink, a bit taken aback by the sudden invite. “Uh…”

“My treat.” He smiles conspiratorially, and you wonder if he thinks that the prospect of free food is enticing to you.

Like, of course it is, but of course he shouldn’t know that.

You take a moment and then shrug. “Sounds good to me. What time?”

“I’ll text you.”

He waves as the two of you get into the elevators with the last of your floor’s members, and you wave back with a small smile that matches his own.

It is when you are pulling your car out of the building that it hits you.

Just us… My treat… And that smile? Dude just asked you out on a date!

i, he didn’t specify the word and it may as well actually be a friendly dinner, but… It is definitely going to be a dinner with benefits. Fuck.

And you said yes because you are the biggest dumbass of the century.

“He wasn’t thinking about free food, you absolute idiot!” you yell at yourself.

Your mind immediately goes to Jimin.

What would he say? What would he think? Theory says he will be over the moon, but also… this is Seokjin and the dinner could still be a dinner-with-benefits thing and not an actual, official situation, so.

You really don’t know what your best friend will say.

But you really care about what it will be.

God, you need to call him as soon as you get home, fuck your back!

“Ow!” a pang of pain runs across the small of your back as you accelerate away from an intersection.

Okay, no, not fuck your back. Nap first, Jimin immediately after.

links to be updated at a later date!

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