for what it's worth (i hope you enjoy the show)

He hated strip clubs.

Not in the high and mighty moral sense. No, it wasn’t anything dramatic like that.

They just made him uncomfortable like every overly masculine environment did. Too much noise, too many people pretending they were cooler than they actually were. Too many strangers touching each other beneath flashing neon lights while bass rattled through the floor hard enough to feel in his ribs.

And that was exactly why his friends found this whole thing hilarious.

“Oh my God,” one of them wheezed as he reluctantly followed them through the entrance. “Look at him. He looks like he’s about to cry.” 

“I don’t want to be here.”

“It’s your birthday.”

“All the more reason for me not to understand why you’ve forced me to come here.”

His friend slung an arm around his shoulders, clearly drunk, nearly stumbling sideways as he dragged him along. “Twenty-three years old. Girlfriend that’s clearly an AI-generated catfish. Still visibly nervous around women. Tonight we will fix you, brother, even if it kills us.” 

Heat instantly crawled up his neck. “I’m not nervous around women.”

“Bro, you apologised to the bartender because she asked what drink you wanted.”

“Yeah, well, she looked busy.”

His friends groaned in unison.

The club itself was dimly lit. Music pulsed through the air, thick and deafening. Spotlights swept lazily across the stage, catching on glittering bodies and jewelled heels, turning skin gold beneath the haze of smoke and coloured light. 

The dancers looked unreal beneath the lights. Confident smiles, moving with practised ease while men watched them like they’d forgotten how to breathe. Some leaned close enough to whisper into customers’ ears, leaving lipstick stains on collars. Others drifted through the room collecting bills between manicured fingers like it was the easiest thing in the world.

Overwhelming. He wanted to leave immediately. 

Instinctively, his hand slipped into his pocket for his phone.

One unread message.

And just like that, the uneasiness in his chest eased slightly.

did you survive the birthday celebrations

currently trapped in a strip club against my will

baby 😭

you? in a strip club?

i look like i’m being held hostage 😭 
take a picture

A quiet laugh escaped him before he could stop it.

Immediately, his friends noticed.

“Oh my God,” one of them said flatly. “He’s texting the chatbot again.”

“Firstly, she’s not a chatbot. Secondly, she texted me first.”

“You’re not helping your case, man.”

Another friend leaned over to glimpse the screen before groaning dramatically. “I still think she’s fake.”

“She’s not fake.”

“Come on, dude, she’s waaaay too pretty to be real.”

They always did this.

Every single time.

Maybe because Jimin was unfairly beautiful. Maybe because the idea of someone like her wanting someone like him felt statistically impossible to them. Or maybe because they’d spent eight months hearing about a girlfriend none of them had ever actually met.

But she was real. 

He knew the sound of her laugh better than he knew some people’s faces. Knew she got quiet whenever she was stressed. Knew she had a habit of replying instantly at three in the morning but disappearing randomly during the afternoons with vague excuses about classes or work.

One conversation turned into five.

Five turned into nightly calls.

And somewhere along the way, she quietly became his favourite person. The best part of his life. He couldn’t imagine what his days would be like without her in them.

Even if parts of her life remained frustratingly out of reach.

She lived ‘abroad,’ studied something she never explained properly and worked somewhere she described only as ‘nowhere interesting.’

Whenever he tried asking for specifics, she always redirected the conversation effortlessly.

At first, he assumed she was hiding another boyfriend, maybe rich parents. Then maybe something worse.

But over time, he stopped trying to force answers out of her. Because regardless of whatever she was hiding, it never changed the fact she stayed on the phone with him until sunrise discussing everything and nothing.

Never changed the fact she remembered the tiniest of details about him nobody else bothered to notice.

Never changed the softness in her voice whenever she said his name.

And honestly?

He was deeply, madly in love with her.

Which was probably pathetic considering he’d never even touched her.