Chapter Text
For the second time in Kim Seokjin's life, he is speechless. Which, for a lawyer as ambitious and accomplished as he is, is a monumentally uncomfortable place to be. But that's where he is, standing in the lobby of his law firm as anger steams out of every pore in his face. His colleagues stand around him uselessly, their eyes glued to the floor and walls, as he stares down his boss with resolute fury.
Eventually, Jin finds his words. "You're firing me? Why?"
"You know why," replies his boss Daehee, the most hateful man in Seoul.
"No. I want you to say it."
"Let's not do this. It's embarrassing enough for you."
Jin scoffs angrily. "Embarrassing for me? I'm not the one who cost our client the judgment he deserved."
"You were in charge of the evidence that went missing -"
"Which I handed off to you directly when you asked for it! I'll show you the time and date stamp on my email right now!" Jin moves toward the hallway to his office, but two security guards block his way.
"You no longer work here," his now former boss sneers. "Leave. We'll have a messenger send over your personal effects."
Jin looks around at his silent colleagues, challenging them to speak. "I know I wasn't the only one who was copied on that delivery. Yoonbin, you received it too. Check your email." But Yoonbin's face is fixed on a faraway spot outside the window. He's on his own.
"Don't make this worse than it already is," the worst boss in history says condescendingly. "We'll let the client know you were released for your mistake."
"What mistake?! I didn't -" Jin stops when the realization hits him, winding into his mind as he watches the smirk growing on Daehee's face. Jin laughs miserably. "I'm being made the fall guy for you losing the case. You pin it all on me and you get to keep Mujin Company as a client."
"I don't know what you're talking about," Daehee replies smoothly. "I'm simply letting you go for your severe lack of professionalism."
"Professionalism?! Ha! You wouldn't know professionalism if it smacked you in your fat face!" His soon to be ex-coworkers gasp, but Jin can't stop himself. He's so enraged. "Do you think it's professional to take credit for everyone's hard work when all you do is go to noraebangs with escorts and drink all night?!"
Daehee grits his teeth. "There's no need to fabricate such ridiculous allegations -"
"You and I both know it's not a fabrication. Everyone here knows. Do you think it's a secret to anyone that you're sleeping with your secretary?!"
Now even Yoonbin gasps out loud. Daehee explodes - "You shut your mouth!"
"And she's not the first secretary you've ruined," Jin says loudly, looking directly at Daehee's secretary standing wide-eyed behind him. "Maybe she'd like to know about the one you sent away because you got her pregnant!"
"Get out of here before I call the police!" Daehee rages.
"Call them!" Jin shouts back, even louder. "I'll tell them about the money you're embezzling from the firm!"
"You'll never work in this town again, Kim Seokjin!"
"Yes, I will! I'll see your ugly face on the other side of the courtroom someday and I will destroy you!"
Like a wild animal, Daehee lunges at Jin. The previously petrified associates snap to action and pull their boss back as the two security guards tackle Jin, pushing him out the office door.
Jin grapples against the guards, still shouting. "You'll regret this, you incompetent ass! I'll have my revenge on you! I will!" With that final curse hanging in the air, Jin wrestles himself from the security guards and turns toward the elevators, his head held high.
"Wait!" he hears Yoonbin call out. When Jin looks back, he sees the timid man pointing at the briefcase he's holding. "You have to leave behind your papers. Those are company property."
Jin narrows his eyes at his pathetic former work friend and looks over at his even more pathetic former boss in the background. With one final indignant sigh, and with the bell of the elevator ringing behind him, Jin pulls his arm back and flings the briefcase through the glass wall of the office, shattering it as everyone cowers and screams. He steps into the open elevator, turning to face the crowd of shocked faces, and throws up two middle fingers as the doors slowly close. "I'll see you all in hell!"
#
That exit was a bit dramatic, but Jin doesn't regret it for a minute.
Unfortunately, the adrenaline high only lasts about a minute, or the length of time it takes Jin to go down the elevator and walk out of his building into the crisp Seoul winter air. The blistering wind whips the self-satisfied grin off his face and stabs him with icy reality.
He just told his boss to go to hell. The most powerful boss at the most prestigious law firm in all of Seoul. A law firm that represents multiple high-level tech and media corporations. The pinnacle company of his profession, because when Jin was looking for a law firm ladder to climb, he settled for nothing less than the best.
It had taken him years to even get an interview for the company, and even more years of sacrifice and backbreaking work to get to this position. He was one step short of making partner – this case should have clinched it for him. But instead, he just burned his professional life to the ground. Now he's standing in the middle of an office plaza, empty-handed and empty-headed as midday pedestrian traffic rushes all around him.
Where is he even supposed to go now? Home? He hasn't been to his apartment in weeks, sleeping instead at the office and showering at the law firm's gym. He wonders for a fleeting moment if whoever cleans out his desk will also clean out his gym locker. What's even in there? Alo workout clothes, Nike CrossFit sneakers, high-performance workout towels he had shipped from the US. Things that would've matched his status before, but now - he's a nobody. Years of blind dedication and he's back to square one. Without a job. Without status.
He's just starting to spiral into regret over his choices when a man passing by catches his eye. Jin hones in on him immediately, fixating on the energy in his gait, the length of his hair, the denim on denim look. It can't be, can it?
His heart flutters as he surges forward dumbly, ignoring the annoyed yelps from all the people he bumps as he plows down the sidewalk - needing to reach the man, needing to see if maybe this moment is fate. Maybe this is the reason all of this happened. Maybe he can have a second chance.
He reaches forward and clasps firmly onto the man's shoulder, spinning him around as a name escapes his lips, sounding more pathetic than he'd like. "Jungkook?!"
The man turns, but it's not him. It's not Jungkook. "Oh. Sorry," Jin mutters.
The good-looking man assesses Jin quickly, surely taking in the AP watch on his wrist and the fine tailoring of his suit. "It's okay," he says suavely. "I'm glad you found me instead. My lucky day."
But Jin doesn't engage, just turns and walks away, ignoring whatever follow-up line this guy tries on him.
That was strange, Jin thinks. He hasn't thought about Jungkook in years. What made him think about him now? In a flash, Jin remembers the last time he was rendered speechless and immediately puts it out of his mind. There's no such thing as fate, he reminds himself. Our lives are what we make them. Nothing good comes from staring too long into the past.
#
Jin never thought he could hate the sound of knuckles on a door, but at this moment, it ranks high amongst the most abhorrent sounds on the planet.
He's lying on the carpet in his bathrobe, an outfit he's been in for… how many days? He's lost count. He stares at the ceiling, fixating on a dark spot that he can't decide is a bug or a speck of dirt. So he keeps his eyes locked on it, waiting for it to move and reveal its sentient nature.
The knocking continues.
"We're not interested in what you're selling thank you goodbye!" Jin calls out with all the energy he has left in his chest. After a second, he hears the beeping of his keypad and the door opening.
Jin groans. "If you were just gonna use the code to come in, why did you bother to knock?"
He hears the sounds of someone kicking their shoes off next to the door. "Because that's what normal people do when they visit their friends."
"And do normal people barge in uninvited too?" Jin tips his head back along the carpet to watch an upside down view of his best friend Namjoon walking toward him.
"They do when you haven't been answering calls for –" Namjoon stops and looks around. "Wow, it's worse than I thought."
Jin just resumes his ceiling gazing, pointing up. "Is that a bug or a piece of dirt?"
Namjoon approaches until he's practically standing on top of him, his chin turned up toward the ceiling. "It looks like a hole."
Jin squints at it, then chuckles to himself. "Oh yeah, I threw a knife up there to see if it would stick. It didn't."
Namjoon looks down at him, his brow crinkled with worry. "You're throwing knives around now?"
"Calm down, it was a butter knife. I can see up your shorts, by the way." Namjoon shuffles away quickly and Jin finally rises from his position on the floor with a groan, crossing his legs and stretching over them. "Oh... lying on the floor is really not very comfortable."
"And yet I would hazard to guess you've been on this floor a lot lately."
"What gave you that impression?" Jin asks, gesturing humorously around at the take out containers and empty soju bottles strewn around him. "Whatever," he says. "I'm a grown-up. I can do what I want."
"Including shower and bathe yourself," Namjoon snarks back. "And yet."
Jin points up at Namjoon. (Is that ketchup on his hand?) "Do not even attempt to tell me I smell bad because I'm blessed with the gift of no body odor."
"Your shirt is covered in food."
Jin looks down at his shirt with a frown. "So it is."
Namjoon lightly kicks Jin's leg. "Go clean yourself up. I'll take care of all this."
Jin grasps his leg in mock injury. "Yah! I'm your elder. Show me some respect."
"I will when you show yourself some respect," Namjoon volleys right back at him. "Now go."
"You don't tell me what to do. I'm perfectly capable of -"
"I'll bring your trash downstairs for you."
Damnit, Namjoon knows Jin hates walking down those stairs. It's an offer he can't refuse. "One shower," he says. "But I won't like it!"
#
Unfortunately for Jin's already bruised and battered pride, he does like the shower. He'd read somewhere that the best way to snap out of a depressive funk was to take a shower. (And by read, he means he saw it on TikTok.) Well damn if that wasn't perfect advice because after washing his hair and scrubbing his body from head to toe, along with some good old-fashioned screaming, he's feeling slightly better.
When he emerges from the bathroom, Namjoon is setting out two steaming bowls of ramyeon on a table already covered with banchan dishes. All the trash is gone and Jin is reminded of what a nice place he lives in. He worked hard to get this place and then barely spent any time in it. He's probably spent more time here in the past few weeks than his entire time owning it combined. This home that never felt like home.
Jin flops into a chair at the table in front of a steaming bowl of ramyeon and breathes in the spicy, savory aroma. He looks at the noodles floating in the soup, the slice of cheese melting gently on top. Wishes he could disappear inside this bowl.
Namjoon sets down a pot of barley tea and sits in the opposite chair. "Are you going to eat or just stare at your bowl?"
"Namjoon. What am I?"
Namjoon ponders the question. "Like, in an existential sense?"
"First answer that comes to mind," Jin asks again, more quickly. "What am I?"
"A lawyer," his friend replies.
Jin winces at the response. "Am I though? Lawyers practice law. A lawyer alone in the forest without a courtroom or a case or a brief to write - is he a lawyer? Or is he just an idiot standing in the woods wearing a suit?"
"I take it the job search is not going well."
"Job search?" Jin laughs heartily. "Job searches are for eligible candidates. Not blacklisted chumps who have been badmouthed all over town by the biggest law firm in Seoul." Jin snatches up his chopsticks with gusto. "Here I was trying to make a name for myself as a lawyer and now I'm infamous! No one will even talk to me on the phone."
"You'll be okay," Namjoon encourages blindly as only a good friend can. "You'll get a job and you'll get your revenge."
"You have to be somebody to get revenge." Jin stabs at the noodles and shoves an extra large serving into his mouth, fake sobbing as he chews dramatically.
Namjoon just looks at him with complete patience and compassion. "Let it out. Whine all you want - that's your right. But you don't get to give up on yourself. Not on my watch."
"Speaking of watch," Jin says as he flourishes his right hand in the air, revealing his bare wrist.
Namjoon gasps. "You sold your AP? The one the company gave you?"
"First I threw it into the garbage. Then I fished it out and sold it." Jin sighs, still feeling the loss. "I needed a cushion so I can find my life's purpose. It's been the law for so long, but now?" Jin's eyes drift away from his friend, roaming around his now cleaned up apartment until they settle on a small lump of green on his fireplace mantle. He only sees the color - it's too far away for Jin to truly see its features - but he knows what it is. Where it came from. What it means to him.
Namjoon goes into solution mode. "There's still a lot of things you can do, even if you don't practice law. You could consult, you could teach."
Jin makes a face. "Joon-ah -"
"Hey, don't turn your nose up at teaching. It's a noble profession."
"I have neither the disposition nor the patience to do what you do. And you still need references to get a teaching job." Jin gives a sad glance around his place. "I'm going to have to give up this fancy apartment and move out of Seoul."
"Maybe that's okay. Maybe this is a blessing in disguise," Namjoon says, ever the optimist. "Maybe this is the universe giving you an opportunity to try something new, do something you've always wanted to do, take your life in a fresh direction."
Jin turns his head and looks back at the blob of green on his mantle again, his mind swirling around the thoughts he hasn't been able to ignore for days. "You're right, I need to do something new. I'm going to find Jungkook."
Namjoon laughs for a second, then realizes Jin isn't laughing with him. "That's funny, I thought you said you were going to find Jungkook."
"I did. I'm going to get him back."
"No. You promised." Namjoon's voice becomes urgent as he attempts to talk Jin down. "Everything is different now."
"Not for me."
"But if you go back on your promise, then everything will be different for him. You can't blow up his life just because yours is blown up." Namjoon pulls himself back, knowing Jin doesn't need to be reminded of the state of his life. "I know things are tumultuous right now, but be reasonable. You don't even know how to find him."
Crap, Namjoon has him there. "I've never stopped thinking about him, Joon-ah."
"I know. But you can't look for him. You promised."
"You're right. I did." Jin sets his chopsticks down, his appetite gone.
Namjoon lets him be silent, knowing the sadness overtaking his friend at this moment. "Maybe try the careers office back at the law school. And don't miss any more showers. You'll figure things out."
Jin nods. "I will. Thanks."
But despite the very smart advice from his friend, despite knowing he's absolutely right, Jin's mind settles into a thought that becomes a decision. He knows his purpose now.
He needs to find Jungkook.