the terms of surrender ch.1 - jeon jungkook
pairing - jjk x reader contents - you met jeon jungkook eight months ago during rehearsals for an upcoming performance with your group, Bloom, and though you feel a tug coming from his direction, your management forbids anything from developing, so what, then, will happen when your groups are set to perform together at the upcoming MAMAs? word count- 4.6k+ words warnings - nothing tbh aside from eye fucking and cussing
The first direct rule given to you was simple. Do not be alone with him. Not because he was dangerous, because he wasn’t, not because you were dangerous, because you weren’t, but because the room changed when Jeon Jungkook walked in and apparently everyone with a paycheck from your company had noticed.
The second rule came after the first, hidden in prettier language, softened with phrases such as professional boundaries and brand alignment and fan perception risk. Your manager said it while scrolling through her tablet, her voice careful, diplomatic, almost bored.
No unnecessary physical contact, no off-camera closeness, no personal conversations where staff could not be present, no giving fans something they could possibly misunderstand. The last one made you laugh, which was a mistake as your manager immediately looked up at you. You stopped laughing then.
Because fans did not misunderstand, not really. They noticed, compiled, slowed footage down to half speed and circled hand placements in red. They made timelines out of blinks. They caught glances even when you swore you hadn’t given any.
And Jungkook? God. Jungkook looked at you like he had never learned how not to.
You had met him eight months prior in Los Angeles, in a rehearsal room that smelled like floor polish, iced coffee, and expensive perfumes. BTS had been there for a private industry showcase. Bloom had been flown in too, still riding the strange, dizzying momentum of being called ‘global’ by every magazine that wanted to make your existence cleaner than it was.
Global was polished and strategic, good for the numbers and the wallet.
It did not sound like five girls from five different countries crying in airport bathrooms, memorizing choreography until five am and waking up three hours later, arguing over who had stolen whose setting powder, and smiling through interviews where people asked you to represent entire continents before you had even eaten breakfast.
You were Bloom’s leader, which meant you were the one who answered when no one else knew what to say.
You were the one who corrected pronunciation, soothed nerves, translated when needed, lied when necessary.
It meant that when your youngest member missed her mother so badly she couldn’t sing, you sat on the bathroom floor with her until her mascara dried. It meant that when your oldest member got called intimidating by a producer who was too scared to call her talented, you smiled with teeth and asked him to repeat himself.
It meant you always entered rooms first. Always.
That day in L.A, you entered the rehearsal room first, too.
And Jungkook had been sitting on the floor with one knee bent, hair damp from practice, oversized black t-shirt clinging slightly at his collar. He had looked up when you walked in.
Not at Bloom, or the stylists trialing you, or the staff holding different clipboards and tablets like holy documents.
He looked at you. For one unbearable second, his expression went still, and then his mouth curved. Small and private and almost rude with how quiet it was. You stared back because you were taught that leaders didn’t flinch.
He had said, in English, “you’re the leader?”
“You sound surprised,” you replied with a lifted brow.
His smile widened. “No, it just makes sense.”
It shouldn’t have been anything but a polite comment, a passing exchange between two people who understood exactly how many cameras existed in the room and in the world. But something about the way he said it rooted under your skin.
So you tilted your head. “And you’re Jungkook.”
He pressed a hand to his chest, exaggeratedly wounded. “Only Jungkook?”
You looked over him once, slow enough to be a problem but quick enough to deny it if asked. “Should I add something?”
His tongue poked the inside of his cheek. One of your members made a strangled noise behind you, and behind him, Jimin started laughing. That was the beginning. Not of anything real, or anything that was important.
There was no beginning of anything real between idols like you and Jungkook. There were no movie montages, no midnight walks, no holding hands across tables in restaurants. There were no soft-launch Instagram posts, no casual mentions in interviews, no “we met naturally and fell in love” explanations that would not detonate both of your careers on impact.
There was only accidental eye contact across rehearsal rooms, messages left unread for hours because responding too fast felt dangerous, inside jokes spoken through microphones while managers stood ten feet away… A friendship everyone pretended was normal because pretending was easier than admitting. Besides, you were good at pretending, you’d built an entire career out of it.
Tonight, though, pretending felt harder.
Because MAMA rehearsals were running late, your feet ached, your hair was coming loose from its painfully perfect ponytail, and Jungkook was standing across the studio in a black beanie, watching you lead Bloom through the transition into BTS’s formation.
Maybe watching was too gentle of a word. He was studying you. Your reflection caught his in the mirror, and you looked away first like a coward.
“Again from the top,” you called, clapping twice.
A chorus of groans came from your members.
“No complaining,” you said automatically.
Mina, who’d been born and raised in Korea and had, for some reason, never feared consequences in her life, threw her head back. “Our beloved leader’s trying to kill us.”
“I’m trying to make our work cohesive,” you argued.
“We already look cohesive.”
“You look sweaty,” You smirked.
“I look hot sweaty, try again.” She said with a kiss blown your way. You caught it, crushed it in your fist, and flipped her off through the mirror.
From the corner of your eye, you saw Jungkook laugh.
Your stomach did something humiliating as the track restarted.
The choreography for the collaboration stage was ambitious in the way entertainment companies loved: dramatic, slightly impractical, clearly designed to become viral within twenty minutes of airing. Bloom opened the performance with sharp and clean formation work influenced by each of your backgrounds– hip hop, contemporary, dancehall, even flashes of traditional movement your choreographer had carefully woven in after weeks of conversations with all of you.
BTS would enter halfway through.
Jungkook’s part crossed directly behind yours, and that was a problem.
You had known it when they first showed you the blocking. Your manager had known it too, because her face had done that awful neutral thing people did when they were screaming internally.
Jungkook passed behind you on the count of six.
Your shoulder dipped, his hand never touched your waist, it only hovered near it. That was the choreography, that was the excuse, that was the actual nightmare.
Because every time he moved behind you, your body knew he was there before your mind could catch up. Heat at your back, the shift of air, the faint scent of detergent and skin and whatever fucking cologne he was wearing that made you want to commit several stupid, career-ending decisions.
You hit the next move too hard.
“Careful,” Jungkook murmured behind you.
You did not turn around. “I’m careful.”
“No,” he said, voice low enough that only you could hear over the music. “You’re frustrated.”
Your jaw tightened as his laugh brushed against the back of your neck. You missed half a count just barely, almost no one noticed.
When the music finally cut, the choreographer called for a water break. Your members scattered immediately, some collapsing against the wall, some checking their phones, one filming a dramatic fake death on the floor for behind-the-scenes content that would absolutely never be approved.
You went for your water bottle near the speakers, grateful for something to do with your hands.
Jungkook got there first. He picked it up and held it out for you. A simple enough gesture. Still, your manager’s head followed the movement from across the room.
You saw it, and Jungkook saw you see it. His smile faded slightly.
You took the water bottle without letting your fingers brush his. “Thanks.”
“Wow,” he said softly. “So formal.”
You unscrewed the cap, shaking your head at him. “Would you prefer I bow?”
“Maybe.”
You gave him a look and his eyes brightened.
“A little one,” he added.
“You’re annoying.”
“You once told me I was charming.”
“I’ve matured.”
“In eight months?” He laughed.
You shrugged at him, taking a deep swig of water.
He leaned one shoulder against the mirrored wall, still breathing hard from practice. Sweat darkened the hair near his temple. His cheeks were flushed, and it made him look younger and more dangerous at the same time. Like he could just grin his way through a locked door or a heart.
“You disappeared after the Grammy rehearsals.”
You continued to drink your water, which was a terrible choice because it gave you too much time to think and not enough to breathe. “I’ve been working,” you tell him finally.
He nods, unconvinced. “So, if you’re working, you’re never anywhere else? Ever?”
“Typically when I’m working, I’m working. So, yes.”
His smile twitched, and then faded as he watched you. Flirty Jungkook was easy. Teasing Jungkook was manageable. You could parry him, roll your eyes and simply walk away and pretend like your pulse was normal. Quiet Jungkook made everything more complicated.
He looked down at the floor between you, then back up. “Did I do something wrong? During those rehearsals, I mean. I thought we were getting along.”
The thing you hated most about him settled heavy between the two of you. His sincerity. You wished he had more ego, it would have been so much easier if he were arrogant in the way people expected him to be. If he acted like his attention was a gift, or if he flirted because he knew you would blush and not because something in him actually softened when you walked into a room.
You looked towards your members.
Mina was laughing with Taehyung over something on her phone. Your youngest, Hana, was speaking shy Korean with Namjoon, who listened with his whole body like he had nowhere else in the world to be. Lila, the middle child, bickered with Jimin over contemporary dance. Staff lingered nearby, watching all of you.
Always watching.
You lowered your voice, “No.”
Jungkook’s brows drew in, “That’s hardly an answer.”
“It is an answer, though.”
“A bad one.”
You laughed once, but it came out brittle. “You’re such a brat.”
“You don’t like that?”
Your eyes cut to his, and there it was again. A little spark. A terrible little thread between you that neither company had managed to cut, no matter how many rules they printed or whispered in hushed tones.
For a second, you let yourself look at him. Really look. You looked at the tiny scar on his cheek, the silver hoops in his ears, the way his gaze flicked down to your mouth and back up so quickly that anyone else might have missed it even if you did not.
You didn’t miss it at all, which was the whole problem. “You can’t say things like that,” you said.
His face changed, not dramatically, Jungkook was far too trained for that. You both were. But his expression lost some of its warmth, like someone had dimmed a light behind his eyes.
“Right. Okay.”
Your throat tightened at the clipped words. You hated them, hated how small they sounded. Hated that you put them there.
“Jungkook–”
“No, I know.” He nodded once, glancing towards the staff. “Rules.”
You should have let his words sit there. You should have accepted a clean exit. Instead, because apparently you hated yourself, you said, “it’s not just rules.”
His attention returned to you so fast it was painful. “No?”
“No.”
The studio felt louder suddenly, even though no music was playing. Sneakers squeaked, someone laughed, a manager coughed. The hallway outside of the room leaked in other noises, too, other rehearsals, other idols, other perfectly controlled disasters.
You gripped your water bottle. “You know what happens,” you said. “If people think there’s something.”
He looked at you for a long moment before asking quietly, “is there?”
The answer had been there for months, sitting between your ribs like a bruise you kept prodding just to see if it still hurt, yet your heart dropped anyway. You looked away, and Jungkook laughed under his breath, but there was no humor in it.
“Okay.”
“That’s not fair.”
“I didn’t say anything,” he shook his head, smiling even though it didn’t reach his eyes.
“You said ‘okay’ like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like I just hurt your feelings.”
His eyes sharpened slightly. “Didn’t you?”
The room tilted and you wanted to snap back. You wanted to tell him he did not get to put that on you, not when both of you had signed contracts longer than some marriages, not when Bloom was still fighting to be taken seriously, not when one wrong rumor could turn your leadership into selfishness and your ambition into betrayal. You also wanted to tell him you were tired.
Tired of filtering yourself, tired of smiling when interviewers asked whether Bloom’s “diverse concept” made it harder for you to be a unit, as if friendship was only believable when everyone came from the same place. Tired of being responsible, tired of wanting one thing that belonged only to you.
But Jungkook was looking at you like he would listen to all of it, and that was dangerous too, so you swallowed it all down. “I’m trying not to.”
His face softened, a little devastation still present, before he nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
The choreographer clapped from across the room. “Five minutes! Back to positions!”
The spell broke. You turned away first because that was what leaders did, they moved forward and set the tone. They did not fall apart beside barres and walls while one of the most beloved idols in the world looked at them like there was an inkling of possibility lying between them.
You took your place at the center, and Bloom formed behind you. BTS moved into position around you. Jungkook came to stand at your back again, close enough for choreo, far enough for rules. In the mirror, your eyes met his that were now cloaked in professionalism, calm and unreachable. It should have been a relief, it should have helped you, but it didn’t.
The music started and you hit the first count perfectly. So did he.
That was the cruelest part of it all, and the most beautiful. You were always best when you were pretending nothing was hurting.
By the third run-thorugh, your body has stopped feeling like yours. It belonged to the counts, the holds, the drops, the turns, the looks.
You made an effort not to look at Jungkook again. It wasn’t written in the choreography, obviously. No choreographer in their right mind would write do not look directly at Jeon Jungkook unless you are prepared to ruin your own life beside the formations.
But it might as well have been there, honestly.
Because every camera in the practice room seemed to find the two of you. Every staff member seemed vaguely aware of the invisible string between the two of you. Every reflective surface was another traitor waiting to catch your eyes drifting where they really shouldn’t. And Jungkook was being good now. He did not tease, did not murmur anything under his breath when he passed behind you, did not hover by your water bottle, did not throw secret smiles your way in the mirror, did not make some quiet, stupid joke just to see if he could crack a smile on your face.
He did everything right and was professional and distant. And you hated him for it, almost as much as you hated yourself for wanting him to stop.
“Again,” the choreographer called. “Bloom, sharper on the second transition. BTS, give them more space on the cross. Jungkook, watch the distance behind YN.”
Your spine went tight as Jungkook nodded. “Yes.”
Your mouth pressed into a tight little line, and Mina, stationed just behind your right shoulder, leaned in close enough that her ponytail brushed your arm.
“You’re doing that thing,” she whispered.
You didn’t move your eyes from the mirror. “What thing?”
“The murder face thing.”
“I’m focused.”
“Totally. Super focused and not at all planning an assassination.”
“I’m the leader. That’s part of my charisma.”
“More like emotional constipation.”
You almost laughed, but Jungkook shifted behind you, stepping into position, and whatever humor had tried to climb its way up your throat died a pathetic little death.
Mina followed your gaze in the mirror, and her expression softened in that annoying way friends had when they knew too much and could do nothing about it. “Ah,” she mumbled, “So it’s that thing.”
“There’s no thing,” you hissed through the side of your mouth.
“Girl–”
“Mina.”
“Respectfully, you and that man have been eye-fucking in 4k since Los Angeles.”
You whipped your head toward her. “Mina.”
She smiled brightly, all innocence, then snapped back into position as the music started up once again. You missed your entrance by half a breath. It wasn’t visible or badly, but you felt it and Jungkook did too. His eyes flicked to yours in the mirror, and that was all it took to tap a little crack in the carefully built wall.
His gaze dropped away again, and the absence of it sat against your chest like a dumbbell. You danced harder, possibly too hard.
There was a vicious satisfaction in pushing your body past the point of elegance. In letting the ache behind your ribs sharpen the feeling into movement. You hit the floorwork like it owed you money. Snapped your head so cleanly on the turn that one of the assistant choreographers actually muttered, “Oh, wow.”
Good. Fine. Let them see leader YN.
Let them see Bloom’s anchor. The girl who could switch from English to Korean mid-sentence without blinking. The girl who could carry questions for five people in interviews and still smile when they asked something insulting. The girl who knew how to bow, how to laugh, how to soften her accent when needed, how to straighten her shoulders when some executive talked too much about marketability. Let them see everything except the one thing you were failing to kill.
The music cut on the final pose. Silence slammed down afterwards as applause filtered in from separate corners of the room.
“Better,” the choreographer said, nodding. “Much better. Take ten. Then we’ll run it with the cameras for the behind-the-scenes content.”
Your members collapsed immediately while you stayed standing. Your lungs burned, your knees trembled faintly. Sweat had slipped down the side of your neck and beneath the collar of your cropped rehearsal top. You lifted a hand to wipe it away, but before you could, a towel appeared in front of you.
Black, folded once, held by a tattooed hand. You stared at it.
Do not be alone with him. No unnecessary physical contact. No personal conversations where staff could not be present. No giving fans something to misunderstand.
A towel, arguably, was not personal, or a confession. A towel was fabric.
Your life had become so absurd you could laugh. You took the towel, and this time your fingers touched, just barely. A brush, a spark, a crime scene. Jungkook stared at your hand like he felt it too.
“You’re pushing too hard,” he said quietly as he let go of the towel.
You dabbed the towel against your neck and gave him your prettiest, coldest smile. “Thanks, coach.”
His jaw flexed. Mina, from the floor, suddenly became very interested in stretching. Across the room, Namjoon looked over with a cautious expression.
Jungkook stepped closer by half an inch. It was still technically appropriate, still public, and still enough to make your entire body pay attention.
“You have got to stop doing that.”
Your smile stayed in place. “Doing what?”
“Turning everything into a joke when you’re upset.”
“Better than wallowing in misery.”
His eyes held yours and his voice dropped. “Are you sure?”
Your stomach twisted and you looked away, first again. You hated that pattern. Hated that he asked questions like both of you weren’t surrounded by people whose job it was to make sure your lives remained profitable and uncomplicated.
“You don’t get to do that.” You said.
“What?”
“Act like I’m the only one choosing this.”
His expression shifted, a flash of hurt, there and gone. “I’m not.”
“You are,” you laughed.
“I’m standing right here.”
“That’s not the same thing. You know it’s not.” The words slipped from your lips softer than you’d meant for them to.
Jungkook glanced past you, toward the line of managers pretending not to monitor every breath, then he looked back. “No,” he said. “It is not.”
For a second, neither of you said anything else. The practice room continued moving around you. Staff adjusted the cameras and someone laughed near the speakers. One of the BTS members, probably Hoseok, said something that made Jimin nearly choke on his water. Hana layed flat on her back timed her own death.
Normal and easy things. Things that, realistically, should have pulled you back into yourself. They didn’t, though.
Because Jungkook was still watching you with that unfair, unbearable softness. Like he understood that you were not angry because you didn’t want him, but that you were angry because you did. Too much. At the wrong time, in the wrong industry, under the wrong lights.
He took a breath, and when he spoke again, his voice was carefully neutral. “Do you want me to stop?”
Your fingers tightened around the towel. You knew exactly what he meant. Not the choreography, or the teasing, or the almosts. All of it.
The looking and waiting and finding you in every room. The way his smile changed when aimed your direction. The messages that never said enough to be dangerous but said too much to be considered harmless.
You could say yes. You could absolutely say yes. It would be kind, probably. Clean and mature. The responsible and leader thing. Yet your throat closed heavily around the word. Jungkook watched your silence register. He nodded once, slow and wounded in a way that made your chest ache.
“Okay.”
“You keep saying that,” you whispered.
“Well, you keep not answering.”
Your eyes burned, which only made you more furious.
“You want an answer?” you asked, still quiet.
“Yes.” He replied with a sharp gaze.
“No.”
Jungkook went still the same second you did.
The room didn’t stop, but it felt like it should have. Something catastrophic had happened. You had said one small world in a rehearsal room full of people, and somehow it felt like glass cracking underfoot.
His lips parted slightly. You looked down, panic blooming hot in your chest.
“I mean–”
“No,” he repeated softly.
Your cheeks burned. “Don’t.”
His voice was almost nothing. “You don’t want me to stop?”
You closed your eyes for a second. Coward, coward, coward. When you opened them, he was closer than before, but still not close enough for anyone to scold. Close enough, though, that you could see the sweat caught along his collarbone. The chain around his neck. The way his breathing had changed.
“I don’t know what I want,” you lied.
Jungkook’s face softened and it offered you a tiny mercy. He knew you were lying, but he let it rest between you all the same.
“Okay,” he said again, but it sounded different.
Your manager called your name, too sharp and timed. You stepped back immediately, and Jungkook did too. The towel remained in your hands as your manager approached with a smile that did not touch her eyes.
“YN,” she said in English because it made reprimands sound less public in this room. “Camera blocking is next. We need to discuss your center mark for the bridge.”
You nodded. “Sure.”
Her gaze flicked to the towel, then to Jungkook, and then back to you. “I’ll take that.”
For one wild, childish second, you wanted to outright refuse. It was a towel. A towel. But it had touched his hand before yours, and apparently that was enough to make you pathetic or sullied.
You handed it over, watched as your manager folded it once, then tucked it under her arm like evidence. “Come,” she said.
You followed, because that is what you did. You followed rules even when you hated them. You protected the group even when it meant cutting pieces out of yourself. You put Bloom first, always, because the girls trusted you. Because the company trusted you. Because every interview called you a leader like it was an honor instead of a beautifully constructed cage.
At the monitor, the assistant director replayed the last run-through.
You watched yourself on screen and smiled at how untouchable you looked. Jungkook moved behind you like a shadow with restraint. His hand hovered near your waist, never landing. On camera, it looked intimate anyway. That was the trouble with almost-touching, sometimes it looked worse. The assistant director paused the frame and your manager sighed through her nose.
“Here,” she said carefully. “This is too close.”
The choreographer leaned in. “It’s the formation.”
“We need to adjust it.”
“It will affect the transition.”
“Then affect it.”
Your stomach sank, from the other side of the monitor, BTS’s staff had gone quiet too. Jungkook stood several feet away, arms crossed loosely, expression unreadable.
The choreographer pulled back the footage and paused again. There you were, frozen on screen, your back arched into the move. Jungkook behind you, eyes angled down, hand suspended near your hip like he was holding himself back from touching something holy or forbidden or both.
Someone cleared their throat.
Your manager said “fans will slow this down.”
No one argued because everyone knew she was right. The room seemed to shrink around you. A strange humiliation crawled up your neck, not because you or Jungkook had done anything wrong, but because desire, even buried beneath clean choreography and professional distance, had apparently found a way to show its face.
You looked at Jungkook and found him already looking at you.
Not flirty now, or playful. This was something else. Something unnervingly close to being sorry.
The choreographer sighed. “We can move Jungkook two counts later. Have him cross behind Taehyung instead.”
Your manager nodded immediately. “Better.”
Something inside you dropped and you felt ridiculous for it. It was choreography, it should have been a relief to not have his hand hovering near your waist. Instead, it felt like being erased from the only place where you were allowed to almost have him.
Jungkook’s face did not change. “Fine,” he said.
You wanted to scream as the choreographer clapped. “Okay, reset positions. We’ll try the new blocking.”
Everyone moved and you moved with them. The shape of the entirety of the room changed around you. Jungkook no longer stood behind you. Taehyung did instead, kind and easy and so unaware of the way your throat tightened when the music started again. Jungkook crossed behind him, not you. The choreography worked, but it looked cleaner, less dangerous.
Your manager watched the monitor with visible relief. And you, Bloom’s leader, America’s polished export, the girl trained to carry herself like no one could touch her, danced like nothing had been taken from you. In the mirror, for just one second, Jungkook’s eyes met yours from the wrong side of the formation. Too far away and somehow too close.
You didn’t miss his hand near your waist, necessarily, but you missed the restraint. You missed knowing he was close enough to want you and disciplined enough not to ruin you, which was, undoubtedly, the saddest thing you had ever wanted from anyone.