Chapter Text
Namjoon grew up in the periphery of super rich kids. Knew how to navigate them well; how to assuage their paranoia, bypass their psychosis. He just showed up to their parties, slipped a baggie into their palms, collected his cash, hung around for a smoke, and dipped.
One of his best friends—coincidentally his first client (accidentally)—pulled him to the side during a Saturday night party he’d stopped by, and asked for a joint.
Namjoon gave him one for free, as he would a friend. Neither of them vaped, not when you could light up a joint. Namjoon knew nothing made him more of a millennial plug to a bunch of Gen-Z college brats than the fact that he refused to learn how e-cigs and pens worked. In his opinion, some wheels didn’t need reinventing.
The two of them stepped onto the high-rise’s balcony to smoke. Real weed only ever wrinkled all the little silicone noses at these types of parties.
“I have a new customer for you,” Hoseok said, eyebrow cocked, smile lopsided. “If you want.”
This friend had never led him astray.
Namjoon tipped his head back and blew his smoke upwards. “Who?”
Hoseok waited until Namjoon was looking back at him before he said, “Jeon Jungkook.”
Namjoon coughed, choking on nothing.
Hoseok grinned.
“Fuck you,” Namjoon wheezed, gripping onto the railing and hacking into his elbow.
“I’m serious,” Hoseok giggled, taking a drag as his eyes lit from within by pure glee. “I’m serious serious.”
Namjoon took a deep breath, forced himself to swallow, and stood up straight. “You’re so fucking stupid.”
“I’m serious, Namjoon. Somebody who knows him reached out to somebody who knows me, and—”
“I,” Namjoon began earnestly, joint hanging from his lips as he used both hands to search for his phone, “Would laser off my left nipple before I’d believe that kid smokes weed.”
He found his phone and checked the time. 10:48. He still had plenty of time to before his next drop at midnight.
“He doesn’t want weed,” Hoseok said, looking right at Namjoon again, eyes blazing.
Namjoon bit into the tip of his joint, nestled between his teeth. He flicked it from side-to-side with his tongue. “What does he want?”
Hoseok kept grinning. “He wants coke.”
Namjoon finally raised his hand and properly smoked for a moment. He turned his head and faced some other opposing Seoul high-rise as he blew out the smoke.
He let out a short, incredulous laugh. “Politicians’ kids are so…”
“I know,” his friend agreed. “But they’re always good for the money.”
“And if he weren’t?” Namjoon half-joked. “Where would I send the dogs? Blue House or the National Assembly?”
Hoseok slapped his upper arm, laughing. “Do you want his number?”
Namjoon’s head snapped back to him. “You have it already?!”
“He wants it ‘A-S-A-P’ according to his last text.” Hoseok was already scrolling through his iMessages.
Namjoon stared at the screen. “Please tell me he wasn’t stupid enough to text you asking for coke.”
Hoseok’s grin was at its maximum width. “Of course he did. Honestly, you could charge him double and he wouldn’t blink. I should definitely be getting a cut of this.”
“I get you premium at half,” Namjoon mumbled. “That is your cut.” His phone dinged as he got the text with Jungkook’s number. He clicked it. Hit dial.
He expected to get voicemail (who picks up unknown numbers?) but—
“Hello?”
“Heard from a friend you needed my floral services,” Namjoon said straightaway, toneless. “When?”
A sharp inhale. “Um.”
“I’m in Gangnam until midnight.”
Hesitation. “Oh—I—I—”
“My phone cuts every thirty seconds,” Namjoon informed. “Network issues, you know.” He cut the call and redialed.
Same voice. “Hello?”
“Yeah. Okay, well, uh, think about it and call me when you know. Your favorite color is white?”
Namjoon counted seconds as he waited out the pause. One, two, three, four, five, six—
“Yes.”
“I have a couple stems of white roses on me tonight.”
Same hesitation. “I—”
Namjoon cut the call.
“You’re such an asshole,” Hoseok laughed, watching him with that same huge grin, joint dangling between his fingers. “Florist.”
“Have to see if he can keep up,” Namjoon shrugged, redialing already. “Give him the full experience. I swear, these stupid rich kids get you—”
“Hello?”
“Yeah, I have a couple stems on me if you wanted them tonight.”
“I’ll take them,” the voice said. Nervous but sure.
Namjoon grinned. Too easy. “Where?”
“Gangnam.”
“Where.”
“I’ll come to you.”
“Nice try,” Namjoon smiled.
He cut the call. Redialed. This Jungkook paused too much between replies.
“I come to you,” Namjoon told him when he picked up again (beating him to his fourth ‘Hello?’).
“You can’t,” the voice said.
“Then no flowers.”
“Somewhere neutral?” the voice proposed. “A Starbucks?”
Namjoon burst into a laugh. He imagined slapping a baggie of pure cocaine into the palm of the President of South Korea’s son in the middle of a Gangnam Starbucks, close to midnight on a random Saturday.
“No flowers,” Namjoon decided. “Don’t text this number.” He cut the call.
“What?” Hoseok asked eagerly, eyebrows raised. “Are you gonna—?”
“He wanted to meet at a Starbucks,” Namjoon laughed, tucking his phone back into his pocket. He dug out his lighter and re-lit his joint.
Hoseok was agog. “Is he an idiot?”
Namjoon shook his head. “Doubt he’s ever even smoked a cigarette, honestly. I can’t have him on my conscience.”
“Have you ever seen his pictures? Know what he looks like?” Hoseok asked him, joining Namjoon in leaning over the balcony railing. Spring was on the horizon and the air smelled clean.
Just then, two girls stepped out onto the balcony as well, a filterless cigarette apiece in their hands. They asked for a light and, as any gentleman would, Namjoon obliged.
✦
Namjoon’s phone rang the next morning.
He looked at an unfamiliar sequence of numbers before accepting the call out of sheer boredom. He was sitting on his couch, wondering if he wanted another bowl of cereal or if he should do something productive.
“Hello?” he asked, voice groggy.
“Hello,” a semi-familiar voice said politely. “I’d still like to order flowers. White. Whenever you’re free.”
Namjoon closed his eyes and half-smiled. “When?”
“Today. Before tomorrow.”
“How many flowers?” Namjoon asked. He tapped his feet.
“How—how many do people normally buy?”
“For the first time?”
That hesitation. “Yes.”
“One is enough.”
“Okay. One.”
Namjoon opened his eyes and looked at the phone screen. Twenty-four seconds. He cut the call, redialed.
“Where?” Namjoon asked once his call had been picked up.
“I’m on the Korea University campus,” the voice explained.
Namjoon exhaled.
“So not Gangnam.”
“No.”
“I’ll think of something,” Namjoon said. “I’ll text you.”
“Okay.” Then, “Thank you.”
Namjoon almost laughed again. He cut the call.
✦
Being a fairly in-demand dealer, Namjoon never bothered to go out of his way for his clients. His prices were standard given the quality, he never cut his shit with anything, he was discreet and smart—so if they wanted his services (and they did), they had better make the drop-off as easy as possible for him.
But Jeon Jungkook was a curiosity, and so Namjoon made the hike up north to drop him off exactly one gram of cocaine. It was all a bit low-grade for him, personally, but.
He wrote it off as a future investment.
He sat in his car, parked between an auto repair shop and an auto rental shop just off the main university streets. His passenger side door opened right at their scheduled time and Namjoon found Jeon Jungkook sitting beside him.
The first thing that struck him about Jungkook was that his eyes were huge. Either they were naturally that big, his oversized glasses made them look that big, or that was just how large they became when he was about to commit a felony.
“Hey,” Namjoon said, tipping up his chin.
Jungkook just stared at him, swallowing hard. He nodded.
Namjoon laughed. “Never bought drugs before?”
Jungkook’s chin trembled.
Namjoon squinted, jaw tensed. “Are—how old are you?” Jungkook didn’t look underage, and Namjoon was almost one-hundred percent sure he wasn’t, but Namjoon had been almost burned more than once before. Selling to minors was a harsher, longer sentence.
“Twenty-four.”
He relaxed. “Getting your master’s?”
Jungkook nodded.
“In what?” Namjoon asked.
“Agriculture.”
“Oh, yikes. Sounds boring.”
Jungkook opened his mouth and then closed it. Then said, “Korea has delicate terrain.”
Namjoon didn’t doubt it and told him so.
Jungkook looked down at his own knees.
Namjoon took pity. He withdrew a hand from his jacket pocket and slipped out a small, clear baggie filled with a perfectly white powder. He pressed it into Jungkook’s slack palm and curled his fingers closed around it.
“Thanks,” Jungkook mumbled, looking down at it.
“No problem,” Namjoon replied, bemused.
“How much do I owe you?” Jungkook asked, eyes wide and staring back.
Namjoon had always enjoyed playing with his food. “How much do you think one gram of pure cocaine costs?”
Jungkook’s chin trembled again. He looked like a kicked puppy and Namjoon almost—almost—wanted to coo at him. At a sad little puppy holding one gram of the best coke that money could buy in Seoul.
“I—I don’t know,” he answered truthfully.
Namjoon grinned. “The first gram is always free. Dealing 101. It’s how we get you.” He winked.
Jungkook blinked.
“I’m not kidding,” Namjoon assured, taking in his (pretty) face. “I don’t cut my shit with speed or fenty or anything, so you’ll get a good high out of it. Not that it would make sense to cut it with fenty, but, well, some dealers are really stupid. Let me know when you need more. But I’m not driving back up here again. Took me forty minutes in traffic.”
Jungkook stared at the little baggie in his hands. He turned it over between his fingers.
“How are you gonna take it?” Namjoon asked, watching him, curious.
Jungkook had no answer. He just shrugged. Then said, “I’ve never done drugs before.”
Namjoon thought the unnecessary clarification was cute, if not a touch depressing.
“Don’t do a gram of cocaine at once,” Namjoon told him seriously. “You will kill yourself, and then they’ll find my number on your phone and then, honestly, I will be fucked. If you’re gonna use that to kill yourself, actually, I would like to take it back…”
“I’m not gonna kill myself,” Jungkook said defensively, curling his hand into a fist around the baggie. “I just wanna see what it feels like. Everybody does it.”
“You’re a bit of a late bloomer, no? Don’t most people experiment their freshman year?”
“I know.”
“It all depends how you do it,” Namjoon then said matter-of-factly. “Injecting it gets it into your bloodstream the quickest but it gives you a shorter high, so I don’t recommend it. Also I don’t trust needles at all—those’ll kill you before the drugs get a chance to, I swear to god, especially with college kids. They think Hennessey is a disinfectant. Snorting might be something you should ease yourself into, so, uh… For your first time, I think just rub it on your gums. Low and slow. It’s a good first high.”
Jungkook nodded. “How much?”
“A good pinch on both sides. Should last about thirty minutes.”
“Okay. Thanks.”
“Yeah. No problem.”
Jungkook didn’t get out of Namjoon’s car right away and Namjoon didn’t ask him to leave either, so they sat in the quiet together for a minute.
Namjoon thrummed his fingertips on his knees. It was bad dealer etiquette to ask his users why they wanted drugs, especially with these rich kids. Every time he asked, he got stuck listening to sob stories about workaholic fathers and alcoholic mothers, about how all they got for their birthdays as kids was ten million wons’ worth of toys but all they’d wanted was a single hug. It was almost enough to drive Namjoon to hard drugs himself sometimes, just so he could numb himself as they cried in his passenger seat or their own luxury apartment lobbies.
So Namjoon didn’t want to ask Jungkook why he suddenly wanted (or needed) cocaine at twenty-four-years-old for the first time in his life (though of course he wanted to know because who wouldn’t).
“How’d you hear about me?” Namjoon asked instead.
“You deal to one of my friends’ friends.”
“Which friend?”
Jungkook kept his mouth shut.
“You’re not ratting them out,” Namjoon laughed, trying to relieve his stress. “If I’m their dealer, I obviously know.”
“Park Jimin,” Jungkook eventually dished out, after a whole minute of hesitation.
“Which Park Jimin?” Namjoon knew like three.
“The boy.”
“Oh. How do you know Jimin?” That Park Jimin was not somebody Namjoon could’ve ever imagined crossing the path of Jeon Jungkook, but, then again, Seoul’s rich kids always ran tighter than he knew. It shouldn’t surprise him anymore. Over the years, starting in high school (where he’d only been a class above Jimin), Namjoon had dealt him weed, molly, antidepressants, Adderall, and (once) fentanyl. He hadn’t heard from him in years, though.
Jungkook shrugged. He pushed up his glasses. “We were friends.”
Namjoon nodded. Jungkook still made no motion to leave.
“You shouldn’t do coke by yourself, you know,” Namjoon told him, for the sake of not sitting in silence again. “Do it with somebody or something. It can kinda fuck you up the first few times, if you let it.”
“Have you done it?” Jungkook asked Namjoon. He stared at Namjoon’s steering wheel when he spoke to him.
“Coke?” Namjoon repeated. “Yeah, I have. Here or there, you know, like at parties. But never my own supply, and I never got addicted.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to get addicted,” Jungkook said firmly.
Then don’t start, Namjoon wanted to say. Give it back.
But that would’ve been bad for business. Jungkook seemed sad. The sad ones fucked around and got addicted to everything. Good for business.
Namjoon thought he should probably take in Jungkook’s pretty face as best as he could now; cocaine would ruin it. The first thing to go would be his full cheeks.
Jungkook looked at the baggie again. “Where do you get it from?”
“Are you wearing a wire, Jungkook?” Namjoon teased. “Are you a cop?”
Jungkook jumped up in his seat a little. “No. No—I’m not. I swear, nobody knows I’m doing this. I—I didn’t tell—”
“I’m just kidding,” Namjoon said, shaking his head with a smile and holding up his hands. “Relax.”
“Oh,” Jungkook said, sinking back down. “People just think that a lot, so.” He let a hundred implications hang. “Are you recording me?”
“No.”
“Legally, you have to tell me if you are.”
“I know,” Namjoon said calmly. He held up his phone and tapped his screen. Nothing. “I’m not recording you. I don’t like proof on either end.”
Jungkook seemed mollified by this somewhat.
Namjoon looked at his side view and rearview mirrors. Nothing suspicious.
“You don’t get security detail?” Namjoon asked with interest.
Jungkook looked at him. Eyes dead around the edges.
“Of course I know,” Namjoon told him, trying not to smile. He knew his own eyes were probably near twinkling; it was just all too funny.
Jungkook blinked once. Then he shook his head vigorously. “I refused.”
“They let you?” Namjoon asked, eyebrows lifted. If Namjoon were the President of South Korea—one of the more illustrious ‘what-ifs’ he’d come up with recently, granted—but if he were, he would one-thousand-percent have security on his kid’s back—the kid’s personal wishes be damned. What if his son ever got in a stranger’s car on a Sunday evening to buy blow? How would he explain that to the public?
“Yeah,” was all Jungkook mumbled. He finally slipped the baggie into the front pocket of his jeans. He patted over it, as if making sure it was comfortable.
Namjoon just watched him with a small smile. There was no way Jungkook was ever going to call him again. He should’ve charged him triple for the gram and called it a day.
“So who are you gonna use it with?” Namjoon questioned, his tone that of a college professor with an errant student. He really couldn’t have Jungkook overdosing out of naivety. (Bad for business, that was all.)
Jungkook finally made full eye-contact. His eyes were perfectly round. Even if he’d had his corners cut, they couldn’t have been that round. He just looked like that. Had been born looking like a little baby doe. Cute.
And dangerous. Namjoon immediately thought about what other dealers would make out of this kid and his pretty, pretty face. (Twenty-four wasn’t a kid, Namjoon told himself, but somebody should’ve told Jeon Jungkook’s face that.)
“I have friends,” Jungkook said.
It was so unconvincing that Namjoon’s heart almost bled. A puppy. A little, kicked puppy.
“Friends you can do coke with?” Namjoon double-checked, doubtful.
Jungkook put his hand on the door handle.
“Yeah.”
“Okay.”
Jungkook thanked him again and slipped out. Namjoon turned his head and watched him until he fell into the crowd of students on the sidewalk and Namjoon couldn’t tell one black jacket from another. He faced his steering wheel and turned on his ignition.
Later, at night, he kept wondering if Jungkook had done it.
He wasn’t supposed to care about these things. Dealing 101. The last time he’d cared must’ve been years ago, back when he first began, and was terrified that his supplier might’ve cut things into his stash. He’d sat around waiting for reorders or signs of life from his clients, terrified his drugs had killed them.
Around one in the morning, he finally texted Jungkook.
How did you like the flowers?
He fell asleep waiting for a reply, and when he woke up, there still hadn’t been one.
Maybe Jungkook was a bad texter.
✦
“Are you at work?” his mother asked.
“Lunch break,” Namjoon mumbled, between bites of cereal.
“What are you eating for lunch?”
“Glass noodles.”
“Oh, Namjoon, eat something healthy for once.”
Namjoon’s mother and father thought he was an accountant, which was what he’d gone to school for. He had gotten a job with some mid-sized company after he’d graduated, but he’d worked there for all of two months before he did the math and concluded that plugging two nights a week would make him way more money than sitting chained to that desk for fifty hours a week, being supervised by a middle-aged nightmare with dead eyes.
He quit, never told his parents, and promised himself two things: 1. He would never be stupid enough to get caught, and 2. He would quit dealing once he’d made enough money.
Namjoon probably had enough money, but he’d have had more if he weren’t smart. If he were stupid, he’d have taken every opportunity thrown his way. But he’d stayed exclusive, only dealt to close friends of close friends. People joked you needed a bachelor’s, at least, to get Namjoon as your plug. He made less money (he still made a lot of fucking money) but he stayed out of trouble, which was worth its own weight in cocaine.
“How’s dad?” he asked.
“Good, he’s at work too. We made beef last night, so I packed it for his lunch.”
It was easy to deceive his parents because they’d always trusted him so much. He hadn’t broken a single rule growing up.
“Beef sounds good.”
“Did you watch the news this morning?”
“Nobody watches the news, mom.”
“The President’s son got engaged to the daughter of the leader of the opposition party.”
“What?” Namjoon set down his spoon with an incredulous grin. “Who?”
“The son of the President.”
“Jeon Jungkook?” Namjoon asked.
“I think that’s his name, yes,” his mother said, sounding impressed. “Do you think they can really be in love?” she asked, skeptical. “I hope it’s not a political thing, honestly. It sounds like something that happens in countries with dictators, marrying their kids to one another like that.”
“Did they say it was love?” Namjoon asked. He flipped on his television.
“They said they’d been dating quietly for three years, before his father’s term even started.”
“Oh, wow,” Namjoon said. The news was reporting on a partial bridge collapse near Paju. “That’s crazy.”
“The girl is very pretty,” his mother commented.
“I’m sure,” he said, non-committal.
“Our neighbor down the hall, Mrs. Cho? She says her niece looks exactly like her. She works for a bank in Seoul. Age twenty-three. A banker and accountant together sounds cute, no?”
“Yeah, the kids will be born holding calculators,” Namjoon quipped dryly.
“Exactly! Very cute,” his mother effused. “I can send you her number. Mrs. Cho gave it to me—”
“Oh no, my lunch break is over,” Namjoon half-yawned.
“Namjoon-ah,” his mother attempted to plead, but he just said his goodbyes and cut the call. She’d call back later.
He switched off the TV and searched up Jungkook’s name online. Dozens of news stories came up.
It was true. 'Jeon Jungkook, son of the President of South Korea, announces his engagement to Kang Misun, daughter of the Leader of the National Assembly’s Opposition Party.'
She was pretty. Namjoon thought the future groom was much better looking. Jungkook was handsome in a suit, standing beside his parents with his hands clasped together and a solemn expression on his face. Hardly a newly-engaged glow. Namjoon could only think: kicked puppy.
Texts from Hoseok ribboned across the top of his phone:
What did you put in that hash
Got him engaged overnight lol
Be a friend and put it in mine too
✦
His friends teased him about it all week—‘Namjoon’s coke will turn your life around.’
Inadvertently, they were telling a lot more people than he was comfortable with that he had been Jeon Jungkook’s plug. Yes, that Jeon Jungkook, of course—which other one is there?
But they were just super rich kids telling other super rich kids. Airtight. It chafed Namjoon how wide-eyed and shocked every single one of them was that that Jeon Jungkook did blow. They thought he was better than all of them, straight-laced as they came.
Namjoon felt shitty his friends had said anything to people. He was positive Jungkook hadn’t touched the stuff, and likely never would. The high of having procured it was probably enough of an adrenaline rush for him.
By Saturday, Namjoon had mostly forgotten about Jungkook. He had half a dozen drops and then a party of his own to get to. He left his apartment at eight and finished his first two drops by nine. The third was annoying because he had to get buzzed into the building and of course the guy wasn’t picking up Namjoon’s calls, and Namjoon wasn’t going to leave a voicemail or text. He stood around impatiently until he finally got a call back and was buzzed up. He was thirty minutes behind schedule but his fourth and fifth drops were chill. His last drop was at the party he was meant to be at, in a nightclub. He presented fifty grams of marijuana in a wrapped gift box to the birthday boy himself, ribbons and everything. Yoongi grinned at him.
“You’re so fucking funny,” he said, taking the box.
“Should last you a week,” Namjoon joked back. “It’s the thirty you wanted and then twenty from me.”
Yoongi hugged him. “Thanks, Namjoon. Let me go put it somewhere safe. And tell the bartender all your drinks are on me; the tab code is ‘Daegu.’”
Yoongi disappeared and Namjoon looked around. He found Kim Seokjin’s pearly face in the crowd in a flash.
Jin loved being told how easy he was to spot at parties because his face literally shone and drew one’s eyes to itself immediately. Like a moon. Namjoon decided to stroke his ego and tell him exactly such.
“Yoongi doesn’t tell me I’m handsome anymore,” Jin griped about at once, upon receiving his compliment from Namjoon.
Namjoon shrugged. “Stop listening to his music, then.”
“Evil,” Jin smiled.
Namjoon nodded innocently.
“Speaking of,” Jin segued, as one did, “Heard you plug for Jeon Jungkook.”
Namjoon breathed in deeply. “That is an exaggeration. I just gave him one gram of blow, that too for free.”
“He got engaged on Monday, did you see?”
“Yeah, I did. I dropped it off to him the afternoon before.”
“That’s wild.”
“I know.”
“Did he use it?”
“No idea. Haven’t heard from him since.”
“Crazy.”
“I know.”
“Maybe it wasn’t for him? Doesn’t seem the type.”
“I have no idea.”
Namjoon convinced Jin to go to the bar with him and leave a nice dent in Yoongi’s tab.
“Do you think it’s a love marriage?” Namjoon asked Jin.
“Jeon Jungkook and the girl?”
“Yeah.” Namjoon took a sip of whiskey. “My mother doesn’t think so. Thinks it’s a political thing.”
“They don’t do that anymore,” Jin scoffed. “What would be the point? Presidents are elected.”
“I don’t even follow politics enough to know if there’s, like, some secret deal or anything going on behind the scenes or whatever,” Namjoon grimaced.
“I mean it’s not that strange that they should’ve run in similar circles, no? Politician’s kids.”
Namjoon puckered his expression. “Who tries to do coke for the first time the day before their engagement is announced on national television?”
Jin shook his head. “Insane.”
Yoongi eventually found them. He took a sip of Jin’s whiskey, knew at once it was top top shelf, got annoyed, and then ordered himself an even better scotch.
Hoseok showed up soon enough. He got Namjoon cross-faded within ten minutes. Somehow, an hour later, Namjoon found himself sitting on a roof, staring out at Seoul and blinking very slowly. They’d left the club and gone to a hotel bar.
Namjoon weirdly couldn’t stop thinking about him, and then he called. Namjoon recognized the sequence of numbers this time on the incoming call because he’d spent so much time staring at his lonely text to it.
He picked up on the third ring, savoring the first two.
“Hello?” he said.
“Hi.” A beat. “Can I buy another white rose?”
Interesting.
“What happened to the first one?”
“It’s gone.”
“All of it?”
Hesitation. “Yes.”
“How’d you like it?”
“Good.”
“Where are you?”
“Closer to you this time,” Jungkook said.
“Not so fast,” Namjoon grinned.
He hung up, redialed.
“Where are you?” Namjoon asked again.
“Gangnam,” Jungkook said.
“Bullshit,” Namjoon teased.
“I am.”
“Where?”
“Do you have any on you?”
“Roses?”
“Yeah.”
“I might.”
“I’m standing behind you.”
Namjoon turned around. He saw Jungkook disconnect the call. Jungkook—who was standing across the rooftop from him, by the opposing railing. Jungkook—who was wearing a well-tailored navy suit and a little frown. Jungkook—who was standing next to a pretty girl and not looking back at Namjoon.
Hoseok was half a second late in breaking the news. He rushed up to Namjoon and whispered in his ear, “Jeon Jungkook’s here.”
“Yeah, I saw,” Namjoon muttered back. He turned around and faced Seoul again.
Namjoon wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do in this situation. Jungkook had called him first. But Jungkook hadn’t looked back at him. Namjoon thought it best to be approached, not approach.
After thirty minutes of his friends awkwardly flitting around him, trying not to draw attention to themselves, Jungkook still hadn’t approached. Namjoon knew he wouldn’t. He was surrounded by ten or so other people, all in clean white shirts and dark, expensive suits. All of their hair was parted neatly to the side and they all stood with a flute of champagne in their left hands, chatting pleasantly. Jungkook stood at the edge of the crowd.
Meanwhile, Namjoon had a cropped undercut, Hobi’s hair was ice blond, and Yoongi’s was pink. Jin looked the most normal of them all, but he was also periodically taking shots straight from the bottle they’d ordered in table service (and wearing a garishly printed Louis Vuitton track suit). None of them were in real clothes. Actually, Namjoon couldn’t spot a button on a single item of any of their clothing. Funny.
Soon, it appeared as if Jungkook and his party were leaving.
Yoongi, Jin, and Hobi’s heads all whipped toward Namjoon, but he remained impassive.
“I’m not going to go up to him,” he said obviously.
“No, that makes sense,” Yoongi said. He poured everybody a scotch and they returned to their conversation, which was pointedly about everything else they could possibly think of.
✦
Around four in the morning, right as Namjoon had gotten home from his night out, he got a text. He assumed it was one of the boys asking if he’d made it home alright, probably Hobi, but it wasn’t.
Can I call?
It was Jeon Jungkook because of course it was.
Namjoon stood by his shoe rack looking down at his phone. He hit dial.
“Hello?” Jungkook picked up.
“And I thought we were friends,” Namjoon teased straightaway.
“I’m sorry,” Jungkook rushed out. “I—”
“You didn’t ask for permission to call me earlier,” Namjoon observed. “You just called.”
A breath. “You said not to text.”
“But you texted to ask if you could call?” Namjoon wondered, a smiling lilt in his voice. He kicked off his shoes.
Jungkook didn’t say anything.
“How can I help you?” Namjoon asked graciously.
“I—I’d like to buy another flower.”
“Hmm.”
Namjoon hung up, redialed.
“Where are you?” he asked when Jungkook picked up again.
“Out,” Jungkook said.
“Mysterious,” Namjoon said drily. “Are you in Gangnam?”
“Yes.”
“Alone?”
“I can be.”
“How’s your memory?”
“What?”
Namjoon told him an address. “Did you get that?”
“Yes,” Jungkook told him.
“Okay. See you soon.” He hung up.
✦
Namjoon had given Jungkook his own address.
It was risky and Namjoon only ever offered his place to clients he had longstanding relationships with, but he had a feeling that the only offspring of the President of the Republic of Korea was not about to expose him for dealing. Namjoon couldn’t imagine anybody with less incentive to do so.
Jungkook showed up in twenty minutes, which meant he must have been very nearby. Namjoon wanted to ask who he knew in the area but it felt like overstepping, so he didn’t.
Still in his navy suit with his hair parted to the side, Jungkook adjusted his glasses before he politely nodded and stepped into Namjoon’s apartment.
“Thank you for having me,” Jungkook said to his feet.
“Yeah, no problem,” Namjoon said, hands in the pockets of his sweats. “Saved me a trip back out. I’d just gotten back home.”
“Were you celebrating something? I saw a cake with sparklers at your table,” Jungkook relayed.
“My friend Yoongi’s birthday.”
“Happy birthday to him,” Jungkook wished.
“I’ll tell him.” Namjoon almost smiled again. Jungkook looked so lost. Did he always look like that?
They stood with a heavy, awkward air between them. Curiosity finally got the better of Namjoon, though he was enjoying watching Jungkook squirm.
“Did you end up…?”
Jungkook nodded, looking at Namjoon’s shoulder. “Yeah, I did.”
“All of it?”
“Yeah.”
Namjoon was stunned. “How long did it last you?”
“I did what you said and put it on my gums, a little bit every night. Before I went to sleep.”
Namjoon blinked. “It’s an amphetamine.”
“It helped me sleep.”
Namjoon rolled on his heels. “Cocaine helps Jeon Jungkook sleep. Got it.”
“Does it not do that for people?” Jungkook questioned, genuinely asking.
Namjoon grinned. “Sometimes. It’s called the ‘rebound effect.’ You get a big high and then the exhaustion hits you after. That’s usually when people try to take another hit.” Then he said, “I’m glad you fell asleep instead, though.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what happened,” Jungkook explained. He seemed so calm and neutral. “My heartrate sped up and I started sweating and I really regretted taking it, so I just laid down very still until it passed. And then, after, I was physically exhausted and mentally drained and I didn’t even have the energy to think about worrying, and before I knew it, I must’ve fallen asleep because I woke up and it was light out.” He spoke with such a sense of wonder. “I’ve tried everything for my insomnia and nothing had ever worked like that.”
It was a first for Namjoon, hearing about cocaine doing away with insomnia. People who did coke tended to have raccoon-eyes. A tell-tale sign. Well, maybe that was just the addicts. Most people who did coke looked like normal functioning members of society, because they were.
“So you need more?”
“Yeah. If you have it.”
“Another gram?”
Jungkook froze a little.
Namjoon almost rolled his eyes. “You can talk normally here. You want another gram?”
Jungkook crossed his arms. Still no eye contact. “I’ll have to keep hunting you down, if I only buy one gram at a time.”
Immediately, Namjoon wondered how much cash Jungkook was walking around the streets carrying. He clicked his tongue. “Well it wouldn’t be very responsible of me to sell you an eight-ball during only our second transaction. I still don’t trust you won’t overdose.”
“I won’t,” Jungkook pledged. Then, “What’s an eight-ball?”
“Three-point-five gram balloon.”
“Oh. That’s a lot.”
“Yeah. Higher jail sentence too, if they find it on you.” (Namjoon didn’t think Jeon Jungkook would ever see the inside of a jail cell.)
“Nobody’ll find anything on me. I keep it hidden.”
“Yeah?” Namjoon smiled. He leaned against the wall now. “Where do you hide it?”
Jungkook finally looked Namjoon straight in the eyes, as if scoping out whether he could trust him in turn. Namjoon gazed back at him coolly, eyes half-lidded. “One of my watches has a face that opens,” Jungkook revealed. “I poured all the powder into it and it fit perfectly.”
“What kind of watch is it?” Namjoon asked.
“A Piguet.”
Namjoon whistled. “That’s nice.”
“It’s old. Was my grandfather’s,” Jungkook shrugged, as if that didn’t betray even more wealth.
“Yes, the General, wasn’t he?”
Jungkook looked back at Namjoon blankly. He wasn’t gonna talk about it—any of it; Namjoon got the hint.
“I’ll only give you a gram at a time until I can trust you,” Namjoon said, straightening up. “I’ve never had anybody die on me and I don’t want it to be you.”
“I just use it to sleep,” Jungkook mumbled, looking at his feet again. His arms were still crossed. When he looked back up, he pushed his glasses back against the bridge of his nose.
“For now,” Namjoon said ominously. He motioned for Jungkook to stay put and he did. Namjoon walked off into his bedroom, straight to his closet. He unlocked his safe, grabbed a pre-weighed baggie, and swung the safe back shut.
Back in the entryway, he tossed the baggie at Jungkook once he was close enough. Jungkook caught it with a startle. He looked at the baggie with less wonder this time, instead just stuffing it straight into the front pockets of his pants again.
“Thanks,” Jungkook mumbled. He shifted his weight from one leg to the other.
“No problem,” Namjoon said, standing there with his hands in his pockets again.
“How much do I owe you?” Jungkook asked.
“₩120,000,” Namjoon told him.
Jungkook took his wallet out from his jacket’s inside pocket. He quickly counted the bills and handed them to Namjoon with a tiny bow. The bow must’ve been out of pure habit. Any other client and Namjoon would’ve assumed they were being ironic.
Namjoon accepted the payment just as formally, bowing back and raising both hands to receive it from him. When Jungkook saw what Namjoon was doing, he blushed.
“Thank you very much,” Namjoon droned, as a child would when receiving their Lunar New Year’s envelopes. He slipped the cash into his back pocket.
Jungkook looked thoroughly embarrassed.
Cute.
✦
A week later, Namjoon agreed to meet Jungkook at a Starbucks. He had met clients there before—usually girls—and it wasn’t that abnormal. He’d just been giving Jungkook shit that first time because he could.
When he got there, Jungkook was already sitting at a table in the back corner, wearing a facemask and watching him come through the door with those massive, round eyes behind his thick glasses. His fingers were curled around a coffee cup.
Namjoon ordered a coffee, waited for it, and then went and sat across from Jungkook.
“How’s the insomnia?” he asked, blasé.
“Better. Thank you.”
He slid him over a book. Almost Transparent Blue. Namjoon thought he was very funny, thank you very much.
It was an old trick of his, back from his early days when he’d seen too many TV shows about dealing and thought it all needed to be cooler than it had been feeling.
Jungkook looked at the book. “I haven’t read it.”
“It’s interesting. Read it when you get home.”
Jungkook nodded. He picked up the book and flipped it open. Namjoon watched Jungkook’s expression, waiting for it to shift when he’d realize what Namjoon had hidden inside.
Jungkook opened the book, stared at the inside, and then closed the book. He hadn’t wavered a bit. Namjoon found it as impressive as he did disappointing.
“You cut up all the pages,” Jungkook said to his coffee cup. “I would’ve read it.”
Namjoon breathed out a short laugh. “I can get you a real copy.”
“My coffee’s too hot,” Jungkook said to him, suddenly. “Do you want it?”
Namjoon looked at Jungkook’s coffee. It was double-cupped.
“Take mine,” Namjoon said, pushing his towards Jungkook.
They switched coffees.
“It’s not disgustingly sweet is it?” Namjoon asked, looking at the cup.
Jungkook smiled a very, very small smile; Namjoon could tell from the way his eyes crinkled just a hint at the corners. It was going to be disgustingly sweet. Namjoon sighed to himself.
“Oh,” Namjoon suddenly remembered to say, “I forgot to congratulate you on your engagement. I meant to last week. Congratulations.”
Jungkook went blank again. Namjoon didn’t need to see Jungkook’s full face to see the way his eyes immediately dulled, as if he could make them lose color on demand.
“Making fun of me won’t work,” Jungkook told him. “I’ve already heard it all.”
Namjoon blinked. “What?”
Jungkook stood up. “Thank you very much for the book. I hope you enjoy the coffee.”
He quickly walked out of the store. Namjoon watched him go, terribly confused.
A few minutes later, Namjoon got up and left as well. He drank the coffee as he walked home (despite the fact that it was not just poisonously sweet, but also creamy; ugh). Once home, he separated the double coffee cups. At the bottom of the second one were four neatly folded bills that totaled up to ₩120,000.
Namjoon texted him:
Less sugar in the coffee next time
Almost threw it out, cup and all
Jungkook’s typing bubbles appeared and disappeared for a good five minutes. Namjoon watched them with total fascination and eager anticipation.
When Jungkook did reply, he said:
Less holes in the book next time.
Stick to flowers.