Seems as though they’ll forever be cursed to this realm of misunderstandings, exchanging heated glares and phrases with a bite to their exit. “That was pretty good, think you can win?”
their relationship has always been built on misconceptions and miscommunications.
and the funniest thing is: it’s basically a circle of indifference, where the two parties never bothers digging into the truth, finding out the real core of the other person. does he wish things were different? yes. he hates how distant they are from each other despite being sort of in the same group of friends. however, at this point, if mina never puts an effort to get to know namjoon, maybe she just doesn’t want to be around him. period. so he never thinks about pushing her into spending time with him. he respects boundaries, okay? why make her uncomfortable?
however, what he hates the most is how she makes him out to be a monster. either she never looks beyond his mask or she looks too much into him. she might be more perceptive than he thought as well. does she know that he's in the industry not because he's passionate about music? (oh believe him when he says that some people feel more entitled when they claim that they're in the industry because they love music. they look down on you for pursuing this only for the money.) is she one of those people?
regardless, they have to put aside their differences because... yay! team spirit! when you band together and focus at the task at hand, you can succeed! and you'll find that friendship is within you all along! whoo! that's what isac is all about, right?
well, that's just what they want you to think.
he tries to swallow back the bile that came with her words. she might not mean it in the sarcastic manner namjoon perceived it as, but namjoon is much too blinded by his biased perspective. he calms himself down. she doesn't mean it that way. she doesn't mean it that way. he convinces himself and (miraculously!) he can stop himself from shooting death glares to her.
"maybe? i'm not too sure. if we can keep this up maybe we can," he says in a tone as flat as possible, making him sound so emotionless. because no reaction is better than negative reaction, right? at least, that's what namjoon concludes from seeing how people grow from sending hate comments regarding his dancing to no reaction of it at all.
he sits back down and puts down his bow. he feels his arms arching from how much he had to pull back the rope just earlier. he doesn't know how hard it is to do archery. the people in the movies make it look so easy.
"good luck." this time, it's more genuine. maybe this competition means more to her than it does to him, the least he can do is pretend that he cares. "you can do it."
