Begin (JJK) BTS 2026 series Book 3 (COMPLETED)

The Cutting Room Floor

Binna closes the door to her small office and brings the drive to the side of her computer, pulling out the cable to connect it as she turns the power on. She sits down in her chair and drums her fingers nervously on her desk as she waits for the system to start up. It's very late and she has to be on set at 7am, she's probably not going to sleep tonight. She opens the file in her edit program and begins to copy it. Her plan is to make a copy, edit it and use that as the transferred material to give back to the editor, erasing the original file completely from the drive. She's never had to do anything like this before but it isn't very different from copying footage. She wonders if the file names will give away the fact that this is a copy of the backed up file and not the original. The time stamp on her computer might. She opens the preferences and changes the time on her system to sometime during the day, when she might have been copying this footage, just as Jin arrived on set.

She sits back in her chair to let the file copy and she smiles slightly, relieved. She's going to fix this, and no one will know, unless of course Bang PD decides to watch the original media in his office. She frowns, her lips purse together as she thinks about the original locked away in his office. He put it into his safe behind the desk, and there is very little chance even his young assistant can access the safe. She leans back farther on the chair wondering what would make him want to look at the footage? Then she thinks about how excited he was when Jungkook was telling him about the days shoot. He almost seemed giddy. He is scheduled to visit the set on the final day, after the other members have completed their footage, hopefully after Taehyung has been filmed. He was excited for the surprise location, but, would he ruin his surprise by looking at the footage? Her eyes pop open wide as she realizes there is no way for her to know. If he sees it, she could be fired. They would never do anything more than scold Jungkook but she is expendable, regardless of her skills or her talent, she can be replaced. A single tear runs down her cheek as she wonders what she can do to prevent this. There is no way she can do this without him. She needs him. She has to tell Jungkook. She has to admit what she's done, and get him to ask Bang PD for the footage back, so she can remove that part before anyone knows.

She pulls out her phone, scanning through contacts to see his name. Her finger hovers over it, unsure. It's too late for her to be calling him for anything other than an emergency. She doesn't want to disturb him, but, if she waits, Bang PD might look at the footage. It has to be now. She presses the icon to call him, placing the phone to her ear as she listens to the sound of the ring. It rings four or five times, she can't be sure how many times as she rehearses what she might say to him. The voicemail picks up. She hangs up quickly, startled and unprepared. She can't leave a voicemail, what would she even say in a message?! She presses the icon again, calling, listening to the ring, unanswered. She frowns and looks down at her phone. Maybe he's asleep. She's fairly sure he would answer her call. Despite what has happened between them she is still his producer, for now. She pauses a moment to think, before pressing the icon to call one more time. When the voicemail connects she speaks quickly in low tones.

"Jungkook ssi, it's Binna. I need to speak with you as soon as possible. Please please call me the moment you get this, it doesn't matter how late." She puts the phone down and wonders what he would think this is about. She hopes he will understand that it's about the video and will call her.

She turns back to the business of getting rid of this footage and making the copy for the editor. She might watch it once more, just to remember the look on his face when he asked her to put the camera down. Once more might help her remember how he looked, wistful, flooded with emotions, a softness in his gaze as he regarded her, with a single tear glistening on his cheek. It made her forget the camera even existed, it made her want to comfort him, and make everything better so she could see his beautiful smile again... Once she is done, she will put the drive back in his edit suite exactly where she found it on top of the other footage, and no one will know. But she will never forget it.

Binna stays at HYBE for the next few hours, unsure whether she should go home before Jungkook calls her back. He hasn't called back. She tried calling a few more times, just in case he was just sleeping but she got no answer. She wonders what could be keeping him from responding. Surely the noise of the phone ringing so many times would have woken him. Could he be upset at her, maybe because of what happened between them? He seemed ok at the end of the evening, he was even jovial after they left Bang PDs office. On the elevator down to her office, he talked almost non stop about the plan for the shoot in the morning and the three members who will be part of the days footage. He dropped her at her office door and said he would see her in the morning before he headed home.

Maybe he expected her to ask for a ride home, and invite him into her apartment? She frowns at the idea. She had told him that was never going to happen again, and he seemed to understand at the time, but, he probably isn't use to people saying 'no' to him. Maybe he didn't believe her. Maybe he expected to relive their encounter. Just as she thinks it, she feels ashamed of herself for even considering the idea that she could wound his feelings by rejecting him. She shakes her head, embarrassed for her thoughts.

It's nearly 3am. She has to be on set in less than four hours, she must go home and sleep. If Jungkook wakes, and calls her back, she will wake up and try to find the words to admit what's happened, to fess up to her mistake, and it was a mistake. Surely he will see that and be willing to help, if only to protect himself. She walks to the street outside the front of the office building to meet the car she ordered.

With a few hours of sleep, things will look brighter, and if Jungkook doesn't call back, she will figure out what to do about the other footage. Maybe she can go to Bang PD herself and tell him she needs the footage to make a new copy for the editors for some reason. Or, maybe she can get the assistant to let her into PD's office. She seemed nice enough, she could probably help. She drops down heavily, into the back seat of the ride share to head home for the night, exhausted. She scans back to the gallery on her phone, finds the video, their video, closes her eyes to it, and deletes it, releasing it to live on only in her memories.