“Just because they’re close doesn’t mean they’re in a relationship, stop sexualizing everything they do”
Then call them best friends, Becky. Say it. Say that Jimin and Jungkook are connected-at-the-hip-share-a-single-brain-cell-soulmate-level best friends. Just like Jimin and Tae, right? Say it.
Actually, be specific and call them the closest duo in Bangtan, because at a minimum that’s what they are. Like, if you don’t want to say they’re each other’s real life best friend (meaning outside of BTS), at least say that they are closer to each other than they are to any other member — because you can at least acknowledge that, right?
And if you’re so sure they’re “brothers” then celebrate it! Stop pretending it isn’t special, call it a bromance! Ooh and ah over it, like people do when married male actors have a public bromance. Call them the next Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman, the next Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey. (Even if, rather than publicly roasting and joking with each other; they are more often than not sweetly supportive and flirtatiously complimentary…That’s fine, call them a CHEESY bromance).
But nobody will.
It’s either, “ALL SEVEN of them are so close and love each other like brothers” or “Jungkook has such a big crush on Namjoon 🤭” or “vmin are still the closest, they have a song about it!” or “Korean men have skinship in their friendships, shippers are so weird, stop projecting your fantasies” but it’s never “ah, well, season 2 of that soft little show? No one is surprised. As expected from the best friends who enlisted in the military under a rare, special Buddy system. Jikook are jikook. Of course they want to hang out together 24-7.”
People flood to the comments section to (very mildly, with much restraint) praise their bond, but NO ONE will call it the closest in the group, even though it objectively is. Well, no one but a subset of the fandom who immediately get called creeps and weirdos and fetishizers.
No one but shippers will acknowledge their closeness and it’s so obvious why:
Because if you acknowledge their closeness, if you do anything but minimize and ignore it, it starts to look a whole lot like something else.
And people are too homophobic to allow that.
Jungkook and Jimin enlisting together under a Buddy system that no other idols in the same group have ever used shows closeness.
Jungkook and Jimin filming not just one but TWO seasons of a travel show that primarily follows JUST the TWO of them (when they are part of a band of 7) shows CLOSENESS.
Jungkook going to Jimin’s house after a concert to cook him dinner and then the two of them going out the next day to presumably spend White Day together shows CLOSE. NESS.
Jungkook going live in 2023 every time Jimin left town, and mentioning Jimin relentlessly and making him flat out the entire topic of some of the lives shows that Jungkook thinks of him when he’s gone.
Jungkook complaining that he missed Jimin when they were both busy, Jungkook saying he wants to film travel shows with Jimin until they’re 50, Jimin mentioning Jungkook in the letters he posted while enlisted alongside him, Jungkook’s voice giggling from behind the camera while he films Jimin’s dance challenge for him…
Jimin saying if he could take one thing with him to a desert island it would be Jungkook. Jungkook saying if he was a girl he’d want to date a guy like Jimin. Jungkook showing up with a hickey Jimin gave him because they got drunk together and Jungkook wouldn’t stop spinning him in his arms. The same arms he proudly carried Jimin out of a concert with, while Jimin giggled and blushed.
Jason Momoa and Henry Cavill? Tom Holland and Jake Gylenhaal? Selena and Taylor? THEY COULD NEVER.
Everything jikook shows us points to a best-friendness of EPIC PROPORTIONS at the LEAST. They should be the best friend duo that gets talked about the MOST IN BANGTAN. They’re so close locals should know about it. Not Jimin and Hobi. Not Jimin and Taehyung. Not Hoseok and Yoongi. Not Yoongi and Namjoon. Not Jungkook and Jin. Not the maknae line. Jikook have lapped all of them, and they have for years, but ESPECIALLY in the last 3 years.
And in the last two weeks? In the last two/three WEEKS???
If Jungkook and Jimin were a man and a woman the events of the last two weeks would be a HARD LAUNCH, and EVERYONE KNOWS IT.
It is only — I repeat: ONLY — heteronormativity that keeps the majority of ARMY from assuming they are dating. That’s it. That’s literally the only reason anyone in the fandom is even arguing about what they are right now. (Well, that and rival ships, which at this point should really only be referred to as patched-together inflatable rafts).
Call them just best friends. I respect that take! Some people don’t see the romance and tension and affection that I see, and that’s cool! Call them the best of friends.
But for the love of god stop minimizing their closeness. Stop pretending they treat anyone else in the band the way they treat each other. Stop pretending that they’re not choosing each other over and over and over again.
And don’t call them fake, or forced, unless you want to talk about the fact that everything we see about them is official content. Not unless you want to pry open the can of worms that is your parasocial relationship with them and acknowledge the hard truth that you actually don’t know either of them at all.
But one thing we know? They know each other. Like. Reaaaaallly well.
