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

Ruined

Jungkook sits in his living room staring out at the city lights in the distance. He has his phone on his lap and he's been waiting for Binna to reach out to him since the early morning. He thinks about how long he's been waiting with all his recent messages left unread. At least the earlier messages he was sure she had read them even though she hadn't responded. But none of his messages since about mid afternoon have been read. He's not use to sitting around waiting on a girl to call him back and it's incredibly frustrating. It's late enough now, that he doesn't even expect that he will hear from her, but whatever game she's playing, he's sick and tired of it and he wants her to call him already.

He knows she arranged all the cast and crew for the shoot the following morning. It's as if she just expects him to show up on set at 7am and say nothing more about what happened between them. Maybe she thinks being on set around a dozen other people will prevent them from talking about the proverbial elephant in the room; the fact that they had sex, twice, and it wasn't even just sex, it was actually meaningful and intense and beautiful and it deserves to be acknowledged. He thinks she must be frightened. He realizes that she made herself very vulnerable and she let go of the part of her that seems to need to be in control. He understands that it can be terrifying to put yourself out there and to not know what to expect next, but if she would just talk to him, she would see that it doesn't have to be terrifying. She doesn't have to figure this out on her own, she can figure it out with him. They can decide what they are to each other, what they can be, and what others can know about them. But he can't do any of that alone. He can't resolve this if she continues to hide from him.

He wants to just get in his car right now, and show up at her apartment, and force her to talk to him and if she won't open the door, he can stand outside the window and shout to her until she's embarrassed enough at the number of neighbors lights that have turned on that she will finally open the door to him. But, if she does let him inside, he's nearly positive that neither of them will sleep at all, and both of them need to be ready for the long shoot day she planned for tomorrow, a day that begins in just over 8 hours.

He worked with Namjoon on his new song idea for several hours at their studio. He loves working with Namjoon because he finds a way to bring out what he's trying to say what he feels but can't find the right words to describe it. When he was working on their old song, Begin, about his life with his brothers, Namjoon had been the one to take what he was trying to get out of him, and find the clear path, the direction, and shape the song to represent his inner most feelings. He hasn't thought of that song in a few years, but Namjoon brought it up while they were in the studio. He said something about Begin Anew and it struck some sense of recognition in Jungkook, that maybe what he was experiencing now, what he was trying to get out of him, was a gratitude for a new beginning. He smiles as he thinks about the lines they worked on together. He wishes he could share it with Binna to see what she thinks, but he wants it to be finished, done and complete, before he shares it. He arches his eyebrow as the thought comes to him that may be exactly what she is doing by planning all of the MV reschedule on her own, and not sharing it with him, yet. He should trust her. She had arranged the entire first days shoot without him having anything to do with it and it had gone so well. He should trust her to do the same. Maybe when he sees her in the morning, they can start over.

***

Binna sits at her kitchen table staring at a cardboard box. Inside the box is everything personal from her office at HYBE. All her months of work and one small box is all she has to show for it. Her face is colorless, and her expression sorrowful. When she was called in to Bang PDs office, she was ready to tell him everything and ask for the footage back so she could fix her mistake. But she never got the chance. She isn't even sure what happened exactly. She knows she sat across from him, wondering at the serious frown on his face, a look she had never seen before and it instantly made her feel small and insignificant. She didn't even speak, she knew whatever he wanted to say was more important.

He began by telling her how shocked and disappointed he was, and it felt like one of the many talks she had with her father over the years. It made her feel instantly ashamed. He said something about a leak, and her account and footage and a reporter who brought the leak directly to him rather than publishing it. She told him she had no idea what he was talking about but he had said they had security footage of her entering the building late at night and taking the drive from the edit suite back to her office. He had already decided somehow that she took the footage in order to copy it to leak publicly. He thought that she not only knew about it but in fact was responsible for it all, solely. It seemed his mind was decided before he even called her into the office. The footage leaked, it seems, was a short clip of Jungkook in the dorm, walking through the space, and reacting to it, and she isn't sure how anyone could have the footage when the original media card was five feet behind his head in his office safe. She thought about asking him to pull it out to prove it was there. But she didn't. She thought about explaining what she was really doing there that night when she got the footage but she knows it's already too late and at this point, it could only make things worse. It might make it hard on Jungkook.  

He said something about digital proof and she watched as her laptop and her phone were brought into the office by an employee she had never seen before who had obviously just come from her office. When he left the room, she turned and could see a security officer standing outside talking to So Yeon and at that moment, she realized that she wasn't just being scolded for some offense she knew nothing about, she was being fired. At that moment, she felt as small and worthless as she had ever felt in her entire life and she shrunk from arguing her innocence anymore. She sat dumbstruck, waiting to hear the actual words come out of the mouth of the man she had looked up to and idolized for so long.

When they did come, it was almost a relief, it meant the scolding was done, the words were spoken and she could return to her office, and gather her belongings, albeit escorted by security. She was put in a HYBE car, for the last time, and driven home, to wallow in her errors and her shame.

The tears were all but dry now. It's over, and there is nothing she can do to fix it. She can't even reach out to Jungkook. She has no phone, no computer and no way to reach him even if he did want to speak to her ever again. There is nothing anyone can do to fix this. It's ruined.