A/N: It's just a long philosophical conversation if you have time to read it.

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When the nurse returned from her office, Seokjin helped her get Jungkook to lie down in the bed and then sat at his bedside on a stool next to the bed. They stayed like that without speaking for a moment, Jungkook's half-closed eyes seeming to indicate that he was going to fall asleep soon.

Taking advantage of the fact that Seokjin was in the infirmary, the nurse told him that his medicines for this month had been delivered and gave him a bag with the small cardboard box that contained them.

"Thank you," Seokjin thanked her gratefully.

Once a month in fact, Seokjin's mother had his medicines delivered to him so that he continued to take his treatment correctly and that ventolin is always available.

Because unlike other students, Seokjin couldn't go home on weekends, waiting for the holidays to do so. Taehyung stayed with him and never came home, saying that nothing made him want to come home.

Namjoon came home at least once a month to see his parents and Seokjin had understood that when he was in middle school and Namjoon was in high school, all the times he said he came home from school once a month to see him was a lie: it was indeed his parents and not him that he took the time to visit.

Seokjin sighed and pushed Namjoon out of his thoughts, focusing back on Jungkook.

"Don't worry Jungkook," Seokjin told him before he fell asleep, "Tae seems like he hates you, but deep down he cares about you, I'm sure."

"One: what makes you think I'm worried," Jungkook replied hoarsely, "two: it's not just an impression, Taehyung hates me and it's mutual, you are naive to believe that he cares even a little about me."

Seokjin frowned.

"This is the second time I've been called naive this morning and I don't like it," he replied, frustrated remembering that Yoongi had told him that too. "You can proclaim loudly and clearly that you hate each other unconditionally, but I believe that deep down, there is a part of you that doesn't really hate the other. Just because your parents hate each other doesn't mean you and your cousin have to hate each other too, it's ridiculous!"

"You talked to Yoongi recently, I can hear it," Jungkook replied, remembering Yoongi's words.

"What does this have to do with Yoongi?" Seokjin wondered.

"He called me a dog," Jungkook told him, suppressing a grimace of pain as he changed his position on the pillow to better observe Seokjin, "saying that the only reason I hate Taehyung is because my parents told me to."

"Yoongi is so perceptive!"  Seokjin exclaimed, sitting up to help Jungkook reposition the pillow correctly so he was more comfortable.

"Do you think I'm a dog too?" Jungkook grumbled, displeased.

"No, I wouldn't put it like that," Seokjin told him kindly, "but even if the way he says it is a bit harsh, I think Yoongi is right: you shouldn't let your parents stop you from getting along with Tae, he's your family and besides, you're free to be friends with whoever you want. Maybe you two could become good friends and then later team up so that both of your businesses are as powerful as each other. That would be great, right?"

Jungkook stared at Seokjin then chuckled, seeing that Seokjin was truly sincere in his words and hopes.

"Why are you laughing?" Seokjin asked, puzzled.

"That's what I was saying, you're really naive," Jungkook remarked. "No one wants to be equal, what we want is to reach the top and at the top, we are alone. There will be no one else with me, especially not Taehyung."

"But-"

"No, Jin, listen to me," Jungkook cut him, "stop trying to reconcile us both, our relationship is none of your business."

Seokjin remained silent for a moment, saddened by Jungkook's reaction.

"Is this the kind of life you want to have? Being at the top alone, having cut all ties with your family?" he finally asked sadly.

"My parents did just fine this way, I will too," Jungkook replied.

"That's not true, your parents aren't happy," Seokjin replied spontaneously before placing a hand over his mouth, instantly regretting what he had just said.

His apprehension grew when he saw the expression on Jungkook's face hardened. 

"I'm really sorry, don't get angry with me, I didn't tell anyone what I heard and I don't want to talk about it again with you," he said quickly.

They never spoke together again about the conversation between Mr. Jeon and Mrs. Kim that they had overheard in the Kim forests and Seokjin didn't want to talk about it again. He had not forgotten Jungkook's threats, nor those of his father and Taehyung's mother. 

Jungkook for his part had questions to ask Seokjin, but he didn't feel up to having that conversation right now.

"I know you didn't say anything," he finally said. "I'm grateful by the way."

"You are?" Seokjin was surprised.

"Yes, it's important to me that my father's affair remains a secret. Everyone knows that rich people like us do not marry for love, it is not a secret but an adulterous affair and above all, with one's own sister-in-law, it is guaranteed disgrace for my family." 

"So you know your parents aren't happy together?" Seokjin wondered, less interested in the dishonor than in Jungkook's admission about his family's lack of happiness. "Even before what we heard?"

"Of course I know that. Marriages are arranged for mutual benefit, to rise to the top and have powerful heirs, nothing more. This is the life I would have too, this is my destiny."

"But you're not your parents Jungkook and you have the right to choose your own destiny!" 

"This is the destiny I chose," Jungkook replied.

"Is this really what you want?" Seokjin insisted.

"Yes, that's what I want," Jungkook said, closing his eyes.

He opened them again when he heard Seokjin muttering:

"I do not believe you."

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said I don't believe you," Seokjin repeated with conviction.

"And what gives you the authority to say that?" Jungkook replied, "you don't know anything about being an heir, you are the son of a maid."

"I know what I am, that doesn't stop me from having an opinion," Seokjin replied sulkily, "Everyone wants to be happy, you two I'm sure, because the heirs are humans like any other after all."

"Your opinion about us is wrong," Jungkook sharply contradicted him. "We do not seek happiness against power. Our power is the most important thing for us and that's enough for us, happiness is just a bonus that we can do without. We are above everyone, we have responsibilities that you have no idea about but it's the best place and we don't want to change it to become inferior citizens like you. No, the best place is to be even above all the other most powerful Chaebols, and that's the one I'm aiming for. And knowing myself, I will get there."

He had regained his condescension but Seokjin found that it didn't suit him at all. Nothing Jungkook had said appealed to him and he had the impression that even in Jungkook's eyes, whose heart seemed to scream to Seokjin the opposite of what his mouth was saying.

 Indeed, this brilliant destiny he was aiming for would certainly make him rich and powerful but did not bring him happiness, beyond the first satisfaction of having reached the summit where he would be alone for the rest of his life, to fear that his competitors would steal his number one place. The satisfaction would be temporary while the suffering and loneliness would be eternal.

"Yes, Jungkook, you will probably get there, but once you reach the top, you will be miserable and you will regret it," Seokjin told him gently. 

"I won't. I will be rich and powerful, it is you who will remain miserable and pathetic." 

Seokjin shook his head. 

"Not being rich and powerful doesn't make you pathetic, Jungkook. It's being alone and unhappy that makes you feel like that. You say I don't know what being an heir is and you're right, because I'm not one. But Namjoon and Tae are heirs like you and having grown up with them and having gone to schools like Gugbo and Eunma, I think I'm starting to understand you a little."

"And what do you think you understand? Tell me everything, I'm curious," Jungkook taunted.

"Okay, I'll tell you," Seokjin said with conviction, "I think it's just a facade when you say you don't mind crushing others and being alone. I believe it because I saw how happy Tae was to have escaped this solitude to which he thought he was condemned like everyone else. I believe it also because I know Namjoon suffers from this."

"Namjoon doesn't suffer, he plays with everyone and squashes others like gnats to stay on top," Jungkook replied.

"That doesn't mean he's happy if he's just following the path that was laid out for him at his birth."

"Why are you so convinced that our birth privilege is something wrong? Wouldn't you just be jealous actually?" Jungkook asked.

"No, that's not true, I'm not jealous" Seokjin retorted. "I feel sorry for you, is that wrong?"

"You feel sorry for us?" Jungkook repeated, stunned. "Are you stupid or something? We're rich! Worry about yourself instead of worrying about us!"

"I'm already happy, thank you, so I can worry about you and share my happiness with you," Seokjin said to an even more stunned Jungkook. 

"Eh?"

"And I repeat to you that money does not buy happiness. One day, Namjoon told me what it was to be an heir..."

You don't know what it's like to be an heir, the only thing we have, since we don't have our father's affection, is the money and the goods that he will leave us. If I don't have that, I will have suffered for nothing. I refuse. 

"...Namjoon has always surrounded himself with a lot of friends, but he said they were his future associates, so I don't think he really feels surrounded by friends who care about him. As for his parents, they don't seem to really like him, they value him as an heir, not as a son. He looks lonely and even though he seems happy in front of others, I know he is suffering. He feels that his father does not love him so he does everything his father asks of him to satisfy him and then be able to have his inheritance. Just like you, who suffers and takes drugs to try to be happy."

And like Yoongi who says he's better off on his own, he told himself.

"It's a very sad life from my point of view," he added.

Jungkook frowned upon hearing Seokjin talk about his drug use. He hastened to change the subject. 

"It's strange, I don't see you keeping Namjoon company, his loneliness doesn't pose that much of a problem for you," Jungkook said, feigning indifference but actually wondering with interest. Why did Seokjin seem so close to Taehyung and on the contrary so distant to Namjoon? "You told me before that you and Namjoon loved each other a lot, am I wrong?"

"That was before he hurts me," Seokjin said sadly. 

"He hurt you?" Jungkook said without being very surprised even though he remembered the boundless affection that Seokjin seemed to have for Namjoon when he chatted with him at the Kim party. "Well, I told you, Namjoon is the person I distrust the most. He was hyocritic with you and you saw nothing but fire, didn't you?"

"Yes, you were right, " Seokjin admitted, "I trusted him with all my heart when he said he was my friend but deep down he treated me like his possession, the same way he probably behaves with others. He shamelessly hurt me by pretending it was Tae, just to keep me with him, without considering what I wanted. He believed that because he was rich and intelligent, he could manipulate me like a thing and possess me. But now that I know, I refuse that. I want to be a free person and achieve my dreams, I can't stay friends with a person who selfishly tramples on my dreams without any thought for my feelings."

"In the same way that I hurt you and jeopardized the realization of your dream and that makes you refuse to be my friend again," Jungkook understood. 

He understood why Taehyung wanted so much to hide what he did to Seokjin during the championship finals before making up with him. For Seokjin, who was an extremely kind and generous person, there was only one thing that seemed truly unforgivable: attacking his dream. If Seokjin found out what he had done in order to make him give up, it was a safe bet that he wouldn't forgive Taehyung so easily this time. 

Seokjin bit his lip nervously, wondering if it was a good idea to speak his mind. But as he was always sincere, he admitted:

"No, I don't think Namjoon and you hurt me the same way. He was my lifelong friend and had my complete trust, so his betrayal hurt me much more than yours. As for you, I know you weren't in your normal state that night after what happened between your dad and Tae's mom. You were hurt and you hurt yourself and that's why you hurt me, right? For a long time, I thought I couldn't forgive you, but since we've been playing together on the same football team, I've been having a good time with you and I don't know if I really want us to remain enemies anymore," Seokjin admitted.

"Does that mean you're considering becoming my friend again?" Jungkook asked, surprised.

"I don't know," Seokjin said honestly, "but for that to have a chance of happening, I don't have to feel like you're a danger to me. I believe there is a lot of anger and resentment in you towards Tae's family and feeling like you want to hurt Tae by using me doesn't make me feel safe around you, especially now that I know it was you who told Yoongi that Tae slept in our room. I know you want to hurt Tae. And probably because of that, you want to hurt me too, right?"

He searched Jungkook's dark gaze. Most of the time, this look was friendly, maybe in a hypocritical way but Seokjin didn't see it that way. But when it landed on Taehyung, this gaze was mocking and hateful. And that evening, at the Kim's, that look had seemed cold and dangerous to Seokjin when Jungkook had threatened to kill him if he told what he had heard before threatening to ruin his sports career by making him pass for a drug addict...  Seokjin shuddered just thinking about it, because he had been very scared.

What was Jungkook's real face? he wondered. Was he really a monster in the making, like his father, Mr. Jeon? Like Namjoon's father? Like...Namjoon? But some things told Seokjin that Jungkook wasn't inherently evil.

"You had no qualms about hurting me before so why did you save me earlier at the risk of hurting yourself Jungkook?" Seokjin asked, while Jungkook still didn't answer. "Sometimes you make me feel like you consider me an inferior being whom you despise, and other times you make me feel like you care about me. I don't really understand you."

Jungkook didn't understand his inconsistency towards Seokjin either and that's what made him so silent. Furthermore, he seemed perplexed by his own action because he had never thought of others before himself and there, he had hurt himself without thinking while trying to protect Seokjin.

"Just now, I didn't think, I just jumped up to stop you from hurting yourself, my body moved on its own, there is no other explanation," he finally said. "It was a reflex." 

"Oh, so that's it," Seokjin said, a bit disappointed.

Jungkook nodded. He stared at Seokjin who was now looking down at his feet and who was no longer speaking.

"I never wanted to hurt you," Jungkook finally told him, catching his attention again. "At the Kims, I know I hurt you by drugging you and threatening you like that, but I blamed myself as soon as I came to my senses, that's the truth."

"Really?" Seokjin asked, hopeful again.

"Yeah, I'm sorry Jin. I'm sincere," Jungkook apologized, holding the gaze of Seokjin who seemed to be struggling with himself to determine if he was telling the truth.

Seokjin knew that many people took advantage of his gullibility and Taehyung and Jimin had made it clear to him enough that he shouldn't take people's word for it. 

However, he wanted to believe Jungkook, if only because Jungkook did not hesitate to hurt himself to save him and previously, he had already saved his life on the football stadium. Could such a person really be inherently evil?

"As for hurting you in the process of hurting Taehyung," Jungkook continued, "to be honest, I admit that I ended up telling myself that I didn't care if it happened, as long as I achieved my goals, telling me you were nothing to me, just Taehyung's friend. But who knows why, suddenly I feel like I care and don't want to hurt you."

Seokjin didn't know if he should be offended by the beginning of his speech but the ending reassured him. However, he wanted to try to resolve things between Taehyung and Jungkook so that he no longer found himself caught between the two.

"Do you really have to hurt Tae?" he asked in despair. "He doesn't intend to hurt you, you know? He just wants to live his life and be happy. He's not like Namjoon, he doesn't care about his family business and the competition between your two families. Can't you give up this hatred between you and try to make peace with him despite your parents' hatred?"

Seokjin seemed pleading and his gaze was full of hope.

"Do you want to try to convince me to give it up in exchange for your friendship?" Jungkook asked in a weak tone that was intended to be mocking but which appeared to him to be very serious.

"Would you accept?" Seokjin asked, without really believing it. How could his insignificant friendship hold up against Jungkook's undying hatred of Taehyung?

"Would you sell your friendship? I thought you were an honest person, but if you sell your friendship, it must not be very sincere," Jungkook pointed out.

Stunned and feeling like Jungkook had set a trap for him into which he had fallen head first, Seokjin replied sulkily:

"No, I'm not a hypocrite, it was you who asked me and I just answered." 

"Does that mean you'd honestly be my friend?" Jungkook asked, skeptical.

"As long as you behave like a good person, we can be friends," Seokjin replied.

"Do you think I'm capable of it? Being a good person?"

Seokjin didn't know if Jungkook was making fun of him so he said seriously:

"Yes, I believe so. And not because you're a footballer," he hastened to add.

Jungkook chuckled.

"Oh Jin, you've matured since we met, you no longer take footballers for perfect people."

"I grew up," Seokjin said proudly, not seeing that the other was making fun of him. "It's a little thanks to you and to your wickedness towards me." 

 "So why do you think I, a wicked person, I'm capable of being a good person?" Jungkook mocked.

"Because you have a perfectly functioning heart," Seokjin told him bending down and pointing a finger towards his heart.

"Excuse-me?"Jungkook said, stunned.

"Your heart is working great," Seokjin repeated, as if it were perfectly clear that way. "It feels pain, guilt, jealousy, anger but it is also empathetic. The proof is that you are not capable of letting someone suffer in front of you, even if it's me, someone you consider pathetic."

"I told you my body moved on its own," Jungkook replied.

"But that wasn't the only moment. In the Kim forest when I had an asthma attack you worried about me and when I also had an asthma attack in the field before that, it was you who saved when you hardly knew me." Seokjin pointed out.

"I have a good heart because I saved your life?" Jungkook asked without conviction, "that seems very fragile to me as reasoning, maybe I just wanted to save you so I could use you better against Taehyung. Tell me something else that proves it, something that has nothing to do with you."

Seokjin should have been offended but in reality, he was happy to see that Jungkook looked like he wanted to be convinced. He didn't have to think long and said to him gently:

"Jungkook, you are suffering from this life you live that doesn't make you happy and which does not make you dream, right? That's why you try to be happy even if you don't use the right means. That's why you do drugs: because you feel unhappy. You are just a boy who seeks to be happy and for that, you have to accept that you have your own dreams, not your parents'. 

Stop wanting to be perfect for them, to work twice as hard to be better than the opponent they chose for you; and start living for yourself, according to the person you want to be. And also, you need to stop wanting to crush others to achieve being the most powerful and believing that you absolutely have to be the richest to be the happiest."

When Seokjin stopped, he was very happy with what he had said to Jungkook. If he had managed to change Taehyung, he told himself he could do the same with Jungkook.

Jungkook thought about Seokjin's words a long moment and as the latter seemed to be waiting for a response from him with hope, he said:

"What you say is really profound Jin, you are much smarter than you seem."

"Thank you," Seokjin said happily. 

 "Is this how you get all the heirs into your pocket? By talking to them about happiness, friendship and saying that money doesn't buy happiness? You are just an ignoramus, Jin, you know nothing about life."

"What?" Seokjin said, taken aback by Jungkook's reaction.

"You have always lived on the Kim property, surrounded by wealth, my uncle took care of your education and you study in the best schools. It was in a life of luxury that you decided that money didn't buy happiness even though you made no effort to achieve it. We'll see if you're still happy the day the Kims deprive you of their wealth and influence. Without them, you're nothing but a pathetic boy with a dream, and I refuse to be like you, to live miserably for a stupid dream and a few friends."

Mute with shock and hurt, Seokjin stood up. Jungkook saw that his fists were clenched and shaking.

"I made you angry," he noted, trying to sit up in bed but giving up when his head started spinning again. Because of that, Seokjin towered over him with all his height, as if in a reverse balance of power which made Jungkook uncomfortable.

Seokjin gave him an angry glare that disturbed Jungkook.

"How can you say I don't make any effort to be happy by myself? You are not the only one to suffer, I suffered too because of who I am and it's not living with the Kims that made me happy contrary to what you may believe. I didn't choose where I was born, where I grew up and I didn't choose who I am, any more than you did. Despite everything, I try to make an effort to find happiness by myself with my friends without hurting others and I have a dream dear to my heart that I want to achieve. It's not stupid, you have no right to say that!"

Out of breath, he took the time to catch his breath before concluding:

 "I'm trying hard to build the life I want to live but you... you chose to be mean and selfish, like your dad. Well, stay like him, nasty and unhappy, I don't care anymore!"