When Seokjin and Jimin woke up on the morning, neither Hoseok nor Taehyung were in the room. They had not heard an alarm, in bad shape as they were and since it was Sunday, they didn't care what time it was.

They took turns going to the bathroom, Jimin lending Seokjin some clothes because he didn't really want to walk down the hall back to his room, even though the distance was ridiculously short. When they were washed and dressed, both realized that, although hungry, neither wanted to leave the room.

Jimin's face was still swollen and had turned purplish and yellow in places. In addition, he limped when he walked and his bruised side made him suffer and wonder if he had a broken rib. He would have to go to the hospital to have it confirmed, but he didn't intend to, because of the disturbing questions it might raise.

As for Seokjin, his arm especially hurt, where his burn had been bandaged. The pain and the itch competed with each other and sometimes he wanted to rip off his bandage to scratch his skin and tear it off if necessary. He stopped himself, judging that he had a chance of healing well and coming out with a discreet mark. But even more than the pain, what kept him from going out was his fear of meeting one of the boys from the Midnight club.

What would happen if he came across one? Would he drag him up to the fifth floor to torture him again? Would he act as if nothing had happened during the day, before taking revenge at night? Or would Taehyung manage, as he said, to use his name to protect him and Jimin?

They decided to settle back on the bed and start a card game while waiting for the return of Taehyung whom they had tried to contact without getting a response for the moment.

After some time, the sound of the door unlocking made them turn sharply towards the door.

"Hey you two!" Hoseok said as he walked in with a lunch tray from the canteen. "I figured you wouldn't want to go to the canteen."

"Oh thank you Hobi, that's really nice-" Seokjin started before freezing, seeing the person accompanying Hoseok carrying a second tray.

"Hey Jin," Joonwoo greeted kindly, with his usual good nature, as if the events of the day before had never happened, "hey Jimin."

Seokjin felt a shiver throughout his body. What was he doing here? Was he coming to pick them up to take him and Jimin back to the fifth floor? But he remembered that the Midnight Club only allowed deviant behavior at night. By day, it was just the Orators club, an elite club with exemplary behavior members. That reassured him somewhat. 

"What are you doing here?" Jimin immediately said aggressively, placing himself in front of Seokjin as if to protect him.

"Relax Chim," Hoseok tempered using in a natural way, the nickname Taehyung had given him the day before and which he himself had adopted with joy. "Jonnie One is there as the perfect student president that he is : he just offered to help me bring your breakfast."

"A perfect president? My ass!" Jimin replied, without seeing the scandalized look that Seokjin gave him behind his shoulder and which shook Hoseok into a fit of laughter and stretched Joonwoo's smile.

"And he also has a message for both of you," Hoseok admitted.

"Oh yeah ? So spill it out and leave," Jimin retorted fixing Joonwoo with a hard stare. 

Joonwoo placed the tray he was holding on Jimin's desk and continued to smile at them, with a bitter smile this time, as if he was disappointed in what he had to say to them. 

"Taehyung went to plead your case to the director," he announced, which caused Jimin and Seokjin to exchange glances because Taehyung had kept his word and gone to defend them. He continued regretfully : "You are no longer allowed to be part of the Midnight Club." 

"What a shame, we were having such a good time with you," Jimin quipped. "You will pass on my regards to others. Oh, and tells Jaekyeon that I will miss him, especially his little right hook who gave me a good facelift."

Seokjin knew that Jimin best expressed his emotions through irony, but for his part, even if he was deeply relieved by the message carried by Joonwoo, he absolutely didn't want to talk to him and was waiting for him to leave to let his relief burst forth.

Joonwoo smirked upon hearing Jimin's response. His next remark made Jimin lose his smile:

"Mr. Kang told me to tell you that you have to return to class tomorrow, Jimin. As you are no longer part of the Club, you are not entitled to any preferential treatment. »

Jimin grimaced at hearing about "special treatment" but only replied:

"Okay, I get it. Now get out and stay away from us or Mr. Kang might feed you to the rest of your crazy friends." »

Joonwoo gave him an eloquent look that announced that he was in absolutely no risk and that Jimin knew it full well. Then he turned to Seokjin who immediately looked away.

"How's your arm?" he asked.

Surprised by his apparent concern, Seokjin looked at him but did not have the opportunity to respond because Jimin, angry, did it for him:

"Badly, how do you expect him to go after what you did to him?! If only I could, I would kill you here and now for that, I swear!"

"If only you could," Joonwoo replied with a calmness that irritated Jimin.

"Okay, I think it's time for you to go, Joonie," Hoseok decided, "let's let these two little ones eat in peace, anger is not good for their recovery."

Jimin glared at him when he heard him call him that, but he was nevertheless grateful for Hoseok's concern even if he showed it with a lightness that made it seem like he was making fun of him.

"Okay, but I have one last message for them," Joonwoo said, "this one's not from Kang but from me. I advise you to stay on your guard because Mr. Kang doesn't like having his hand forced like Taehyung did."

Seokjin was disturbed by this warning which implied that the danger might well come from Kang and not the Midnight Club but Jimin didn't let that deter him.

"So you came to threaten us after all, right?" he said to Joonwoo with contempt. "Do you think we're going to be scared and beg you to take us back? Forget it because it won't happen." 

"I think he just wants to warn us," Seokjin intervened, his eyebrows furrowed because he felt that Joonwoo had not come with a bad intention. Unsure of himself, he asked: "P-president, can you... can you please answer a question?"

"Which?" Joonwoo wondered, curious to know what had suddenly decided Seokjin to speak to him despite his obvious fear of him.

"Why do you let Mr. Kang tell you how to behave?" Seokjin had the courage to ask.

Joonwoo frowned, visibly perplexed.

"What makes you think it's him who tells me how to behave and not the other way around?" he asked. "Do you know how insignificant this man is to me and my family?"

Seokjin was slightly taken aback but insisted:

"Were you really like this before you entered Eunma? Before Mr Kang and the Midnight Club ? I'm sure that it's not the case !"

Hoseok looked shocked by Seokjin's words.

Jimin was disappointed to see him once again believing that everyone was good by nature.

Joonwoo was taken aback. He opened his mouth but didn't answer right away and Jimin took the opportunity to intervene. 

"No, Jin, don't try to reason with him or see good in him. He may have this face and these good manners, but in reality, he is a scoundrel of the worst kind. You saw him be himself last night, you saw his true nature !"

The nature that Mr. Kang told them to release, Seokjin thought.

"That's right, Jin," Joonwoo agreed with a new coldness, catching Seokjin's attention, "listen to your friend and don't be so gullible or it will play bad tricks on you. By wanting to fraternize with demons, your soul will end up being devoured, didn't you know that?"

Seokjin swallows hard as he sees Joonwoo's gaze staring at him menacingly. But he still wasn't scary: he remained gentle, contrary to his word.

"If you join again the Midnight Club or if you are so keen to frequent its members, I'll be the first to gladly hurt you, remember that," the older concluded. 

With that, he left the room. Hoseok sighed and before following him, he said melodramatically:

"He has terrible secrets too, what a shame you don't know them..."

"I won't take the bait, you moron!" Jimin shouted, angry, as Hoseok closed the door. "He wants us to buy Joonwoo's secrets," he informed Seokjin, seeing his perplexed look.

"Why?" Seokjin asked, intrigued.

"Because it amuses him," Jimin said, shrugging his shoulders. "That's how he is." 

"Or maybe he's trying to tell us that I'm not entirely wrong and that there are things we don't know about Joonwoo?" Seokjin ventured with hope.

"It doesn't matter, we don't need to know anything about him. Let's stay away from Joonwoo, as well as Namjoon and their whole group, okay Jin?" 

"Okay," Seokjin agreed and Jimin was glad to see that he wasn't trying to argue further in Joonwoo's favor.

But Seokjin suddenly realized a terrible thing: how was he going to stay away from Heungmin since they played in the same soccer club? Should he quit the high school team to stay away from his demon captain, losing what he loved most in Eunma?

Terrified, he remained faced with his dilemma, not daring to talk to Jimin for fear that he would tell Taehyung and they would push him to make the choice to leave the team against his will.

"Chim?"

"What?" Jimin asked settling down at his desk to eat.

"Nothing, I just wanted to see if you recognized you," Seokjin joked before settling down in front of Hoseok's desk. 

"Oooh Jinnie! Aren't you going to start making fun of me too?!" Jimin moaned melodramatically.

Seokjin laughed and it temporarily put the worries out of his head.

In the days that followed, Seokjin discovered that he had nothing to fear from Heungmin because the captain of the football team who had injured him so badly and who had shown a deep dislike towards him in the privacy of his club had regained a kind attitude towards him. 

A horribly false attitude, he knew it now and he did everything to be irreproachable and not give him a good reason to punish him at the corner of an empty corridor, despite Taehyung's assurance that no member of the club would do anything to harm him and Jimin. Obviously, he never saw Heungmin alone, but there was nothing to indicate that he had ever been otherwise than a kind captain of a football team. It was scary.

Seokjin sometimes met the other members of the Midnight Club in the school and most of them gave him smiles which immediately made him turn around, as an intimidated person would have done, but for him, it was more a question of distrust mixed with a fear that was difficult to completely disappear. 

Jaekyeon was the only one with a clearly hostile expression, as if he refused to pretend. Most of the time he was accompanied by Heechan, who was obviously his best friend, which confirmed to Seokjin that he should stay away from him, even if he was in the same class. It was after all because of him that Jaekyeon had hurt Jimin so cruelly so it was better to stay away from him and not annoy him, the same way as his brother.

Seokjin had also discovered with horror that Raenjun was observing him in unexpected places at school and sometimes, following him from afar to continue his particularly realistic drawings of him and one day after his football practice, he even gave him one which showed him juggling a ball. 

The boy's talents were astounding but Seokjin couldn't help but find him scary especially since the only person he knew who was less talkative than him was Yoongi and he hid his emotions just as well as him, with the exception of those he expressed through his drawings.

The only one from the Midnight Club who didn't glance at him was Namjoon : he seemed to ignore him even more than before, as if he were making it a point of honor for it to be noticed.

 Despite their undeniable distance since summer vacation, Seokjin still found it hard to believe that Namjoon had raised his hand to hit him and shamelessly knocked him out. Namjoon had proven with this gesture that he really belonged to this group of Eunma demons and that he should continue to stay away from him. 

Yet, for a moment, he had believed so much that Namjoon would help him...

In the end, Seokjin was convinced that everything had finally returned to normal and was even better since Taehyung and Jimin had never been that close. 

Jimin had distanced himself from Hoseok somewhat, as if he held it against him for sending Seokjin to the Midnight Club instead of him. 

He had missed many dance classes and Hoseok seemed to be particularly unhappy about it. Seokjin had tried to make him understand that Hoseok really cared about him and that he should forgive him because Hoseok needed him. To which Jimin replied that Hoseok didn't need anyone since the only thing that mattered to him were the secrets he amassed and what he could gain from them.

However, Seokjin had the impression that Hoseok was sad about this distance from Jimin even if he continued to smile: his smile no longer had the same warmth. 

He, however, did not insist too much with Jimin, because he was  too happy to see him spending time with Taehyung who had finally accepted that Jimin too was one of the privileged few who could listen to his music.

Jimin also had fun accompanying this music with a few steps of one of the most harmonious and delicate dances Seokjin had ever seen. Jimin had tried to get him to dance with him but as a football athlete, Seokjin's body, so agile when it came to handling a ball, was stiff when it came to dancing and while Jimin and Taehyung laughed at this, he himself was red with shame.

He had finally decided to accompany his friends' art with his own, by juggling a ball, which suited him best. This is how the three friends liked to spend their free time best and those precious moments made them happy.

Neither Taehyung nor Seokjin told Jungkook or anyone that Jimin had cheated on his exams and neither of them ever talked about it, as if they had tacitly agreed that it would never happen again and that it would have to remain a secret between them. A secret that Hoseok and the Midnight Club unfortunately shared with them. 

Seokjin was sure that Hoseok wouldn't betray Jimin. But what bothered him was that Jungkook managed to prove it. Even though Jungkook was sure of it, he continued to work hard to remain the best and ensure that he had the best grades during the next exam session, in all subjects. In doing so, he fascinated Seokjin with his knowledge and the latter kept complimenting him, while Taehyung claimed that he was a Mr. Know-It-All whose sole objective was to be complimented. 

Yet, Seokjin remembered how much Jungkook cared about being at the top and that it wasn't just a way to get compliments: it was his way of existing, the only way he deemed acceptable for him.

During a contemporary history class with their homeroom teacher Mr. Seon, Jungkook once again displayed his advanced knowledge of complex subjects by answering his teacher's question about the Korean historical period leading up to the Korean War.

"It's about World War II and before that, Japanese colonization," Jungkook replied confidently. "In reality, the two overlap since colonization began in 1910 and ended in 1945, which also corresponds to the end of the Second World War which began in Europe in 1939.

Taehyung grumbled "It's time for Jeon's show..." and Seokjin let out a "wow" of admiration while taking notes because it was Jungkook himself who, giving him tutoring lessons, had taught him to take notes as soon as he heard about things he didn't know. 

"What does this imply ?" Mr. Seon asked Jungkook.

"This implies that Korea's liberation is correlated with Japan's defeat in World War II," Jungkook said smoothly. "However, this liberation was not what Korea expected since not only did our country emerge considerably impoverished and ravaged by this colonization but in addition, it was divided in two, occupied and administered by the United States in the South and Soviet Union in the North. This is also what led to the separation into two distinct states: North Korea and South Korea." 

Many students in the class including Seokjin let out impressed exclamations.

"What a show-off," Taehyung grumbled to Jimin who nodded.

"You're just saying that because you're incapable of doing what he does," Seung chuckled, who for his part admired Jungkook as much as Seokjin.

"Yes, I can easily do the same," Taehyung replied, "I just don't want to seem like an idiot at the top of the class."

Seung rolled his eyes at Taehyung's illogic which, he was convinced, highlighted a real lack of intelligence.

"You don't want to look like an idiot?" Jimin said ironically turning to Taehyung.

"Shut your big mout," Taehyung retorted.  

"Be quiet at the back," Mr. Seon ordered before saying to Jungkook : "That's very good Jungkook. Now who can tell me what happened during Japanese colonization? Taehyung?"

"Time to show us what you know," Seung offered and Taehyung decided in mind that this boy deserved a good slap.

Jungkook turned to Taehyung and gave him a mocking grin to which Taehyung responded with a glare. Then, the Jeon's heir raised his hand again. 

"Professor, I think my cousin doesn't know enough about the history of our country. Let me answer for him."

The history teacher sighed and told Taehyung to be quiet this time, before giving Jungkook the floor since he was the only one who could answer his question.

"So during the colonization, the Japanese government ensured that Koreans assimilated into their culture, adopted their language and enlisted in their army. They were no longer allowed to speak Korean, were forced to speak Japanese, had to learn Japanese history rather than ours, and saw our country's cultural assets completely destroyed, as if to completely wipe out our culture and erase our history."

"That's right," Mr. Seon agreed sadly, "that's why most of the palaces we can visit today are just reconstructions. Do you want to continue Jungkook?" he suggested.

Jungkook nodded and, as if immersed in a story that visibly revolted him, he continued:

"The Japanese also forced our ancestors to work in inhumane, slave-like conditions in mines and in Japanese factories. They therefore enriched themselves by exploiting the Koreans while Korea became poorer, forcing us to participate in their war effort, even though we had not asked for anything."

Horrified expressions, others disgusted, appeared on the faces of the students while Jungkook continued to flaunt the atrocities of Japanese colonization using a "we" that gave everyone the impression that it was they who had been victim of these injustices that he described:

"We were subjected to torture, many women were forcibly recruited to become comfort women for Japanese soldiers and were subjected to rape and other abuses. The Japanese were monstrous, they hated us and did us a lot of harm and for that, I hate them and I will never forgive them for what they did to us." 

Seokjin felt the blow and shrank in his chair upon hearing these words from Jungkook's mouth. Jungkok despised, no, hated the Japanese. What would he think of him if he found out he was Japanese? 

He felt like vomiting, he didn't know the history of his Japanese ancestors at all and had never been interested in it. He believed that the Japanese and Koreans had similar cultures and got along well since they traded together.  He had been wrong. 

He suddenly realized why Mr. Kim had told him to hide his origins as something shameful. However, he would have preferred never to know because now he felt very uncomfortable among his classemates. He felt truly ashamed of what he was. He was relieved that his classmates didn't know of his Japanese origins.

He then remembered that his friends knew he was Japanese. He quickly turned to Taehyung and saw that he was looking at him.

Are you okay? Taehyung's lips asked silently.

Seokjin felt a wave of relief and gratitude wash over him : Taehyung knew he was Japanese and he never blamed him for that. He was going to nod to reassure him when an odious voice declared:

"I agree with you Jungkook, the Japanese are truly the vermin of humanity, we must never forget or forgive what they did." 

It was Heechan. Seeing that he had everyone's attention, he continued :

"They enslaved us and stripped us of everything, our cultural heritage and our economy. Fortunately, the chaebols worked hard after the war to rebuild and enrich the country, and we are their proud heirs. Under no circumstances should we betray their memory and their efforts by associating with Japanese people, much less by becoming friends with them."

Seokjin shrank in his seat at the hateful words and the agreement they produced in the rest of the class.

"Heechan," Mr. Seon called out in a desire to calm the ardor of the teenager that was winning over the rest of the class, "this is a history lesson which is not intended to foster the hatred of our two peoples." 

"If I may say so sir, I find it a little difficult not to feel hatred when a Japanese is listening silently, almost in awe, to the atrocities committed by his people," Heechan replied, turning to stare at Seokjin: 

"Right, Jin?"

______

A/N : Thanks for your vote 💜

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