"I'm confused. I thought this was what you wanted," Namjoon said, looking at Jungkook with one eyebrow raised as though trying to determine his mental acuity.

"I know, I know," Jungkook said, exhaling heavily. "I do...it's just..." He trailed off, hoping Namjoon would be able to somehow just innately understand all of Jungkook's convoluted thoughts on the subject, but no dice.

"It's just what?"

Jungkook sighed. After they'd gotten back to their school, they had packed up the extra wheelchairs, and the others had headed out to go home. Jungkook had stayed with Namjoon in the gym, discussing what to do with the form.

"Jungkook, if I don't sign this and submit it to your caseworker, then you'll receive whatever the alternate sentencing was," Namjoon said. "That would be, at the very least, a large fine."

"I know," Jungkook said. He hadn't forgotten his miserable day in court, and he wasn't keen on remembering it either. He could still see the boy's mother, unable to look at him, her face worn and tired likely from days of watching over her son in the hospital. His own mother, caught between work shifts, tight on money and just doing her best to raise him. The relief on her face when she'd heard that there was an alternative to monetary compensation. "I can't pay the fine," Jungkook said. "I just...if you sign the form, then I..."

"You wouldn't have to quit the team," Namjoon said, tilting his head slightly. It was clear to Jungkook that he couldn't at all understand Jungkook's thought process on the matter. "You could continue to play, if that's what's holding you back."

"It's not," Jungkook said. "I just...I guess I used to think that doing this – being a part of this team, getting the form signed – would absolve me in some way. That it would be like I had been forgiven. But that's not how it works, is it?"

He looked up at Namjoon, hoping for some words of wisdom from his senior, but Namjoon just shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've never paralyzed someone with my car before."

It may have been a poor attempt at humor, but the comment stabbed at Jungkook nonetheless.

"Jungkook, I'll be honest with you," Namjoon said. The form was sitting between them on the bench, signature not yet appended. "I didn't want you on the team in the beginning."

Jungkook looked over, feeling hurt for some reason even though he knew he had no justification to feel that way.

"I was informed of the general details of your case, and I felt that what you did was very hurtful. I'm a firm advocate against texting and driving, and what resulted in your case was harm to two young men."

Jungkook frowned, shaking his head. "There was only one boy in the car," he denied immediately, feeling a wave of panic rise up from within him. Had there been two occupants? Had he hurt more people that he'd been unaware of? Did he have to carry twice the guilt now?

But Namjoon just shook his head. "Certainly, the young man in the other car was severely harmed. But Jungkook, you were harmed too. While you may not see it this way, you are also a victim of your own actions."

"No, I..."

"You have suffered, haven't you?" Namjoon asked. There was no softness to his tone, nothing that made his words sound sympathetic, and yet the words themselves seemed to imply as such. "You've been irrevocably changed from this incident, haven't you?"

"I have," Jungkook said quietly. "But it was my fault. If I cut myself with a knife, I would deserve the blame for those actions because they were my own."

"But you'd still be a victim," Namjoon argued. "Although that's neither here nor there. What I'm trying to say is that, initially, I believed that you were guilty of a rather horrendous offense. I thought that having you participate in our program would be, to put it mildly, a slap to the face."

Jungkook's face burned. It felt like he was being held up, examined, and judged in front of a gym full of spectators rather than simply Namjoon.

"But our roster was short of players, so I agreed. I will also admit that there was a reprehensible part of me that thought you would feel guilty by meeting other paraplegic persons, so I will take responsibility for my will to increase your suffering in that regard."

"I did feel guilty," Jungkook mumbled. He felt like crying. To have Namjoon just openly dissect him like this – especially after they'd been apparently only pretending to be friends for a month – it was brutal. "I looked at them and thought, 'They're my fault.' It doesn't make sense, but...I felt responsible, somehow."

Namjoon nodded slowly. "I wanted you to feel that responsibility, I think, because it felt to me like you were getting off rather leniently. So I agreed to let you join the program, thinking that I could, in a sense, add to your sentencing. I'm sorry for that," he said after a moment. "That wasn't my decision to make. I thought myself smart and wise enough to judge others, but I had no right to do that."

He clasped his hands in front of him and looked down at the gym floor that was lined with dark scuffs from tire treads and sneakers. "My only consolation is that my initial intentions backfired. I could see that you felt guilty upon meeting the others as I'd hoped, but as you began to learn more about the them, you began to see that Jimin and Hoseok don't think of themselves as victims. They don't identify with the victim that you've been envisioning in your mind. They might miss the things they've lost out on, but they've found a way to make the best of what they have. And I've watched over the past month as you began to realize that. Your sense of guilt began to decrease."

Jungkook's breath quickened. He'd noticed that too. How he'd used to be consumed with thoughts of the accident, and now, they were just sporadic. The irony of it was that he felt guilty for not feeling guilty more often. It was strange, even to himself.

"That's when I began to see this change in you," Namjoon said, still looking down at his clasped hands. "When you felt the guiltiest, you were the most self-driven," he continued. "I could see that you were going through the motions in order to appease your own needs. But when your guilt began to lessen, I saw that you were working less for yourself and more for others. It seemed to me as though you'd stopped identifying Jimin and Hoseok as mere stand-ins for the victim of your car crash, but you began identifying them as the individuals that they are with unique hopes and aspirations. Then you began to work harder to help them achieve those aspirations."

Namjoon looked over at Jungkook, who had gone still. He didn't know what to expect from Namjoon because he'd never seen this calculating side of him before. Or he had, in quick glimpses, but he'd never been on the receiving end of it, had never felt the coldness that came with the precision.

"The very fact that you're reluctant to have this form signed," Namjoon began in a quiet voice, "tells me everything I need to know about whether or not you have adequately reflected on your past actions."

Jungkook was quiet for a bit. He'd never felt the age gap between them as severely as in this moment. "I don't know," Jungkook said, looking up at the ceiling of the gym that yawned far above them. "To simplify it to the extreme, I did something very bad, and with this program, I may have done something good. But in the end, best case scenario, those just cancel out. I don't feel like I've surpassed what I did."

"You see it as a zero-sum game," Namjoon concluded, "in which you've benefitted from this program, but someone else suffered from your actions. However, I don't believe that's quite right. For one, I think you understand by now that these things don't 'cancel out,' that a good does not erase the existence of a bad and vice versa. But even if they did, there are other factors that you've left out of the equation."

Namjoon hesitated before pointing to himself. "I...must admit that I initially started this program because I was looking for a way to set myself apart from other college applicants. At the time, I thought I was doing a good thing, and that it didn't really matter as to why I was doing it. I simply thought it was, to borrow the colloquialism, two birds with one stone. However, I realized very quickly that if I could label your actions as selfish and ignore my own, then I was behaving in a hypocritical manner, which I detest."

His gaze softened slightly as his hand dropped to his side. "But I have to say that my motivations have changed. My father has been pushing me to apply to a number of prestigious universities, but..." Namjoon gave a small laugh that caught Jungkook off guard. It was sharp in a self-deprecating way, completely unlike Namjoon. "I didn't even put this program on my applications. I didn't want it to be considered when weighing me as a candidate because I felt that it would be unjust."

Jungkook looked over, shocked. "But...what will happen to your applications, then? Will you be accepted?"

"Probably not," Namjoon said with a shrug. "My father will be angry with me." A small smile lit up his face as though the idea were unfamiliar but entertaining to him. "But I would rather be rejected on my own principles than accepted on fake virtues."

Jungkook was quiet, trying to decrypt and process everything Namjoon had said. "So...do you still despise me now?" he asked, immediately feeling selfish for asking the question after everything Namjoon had said, but he hated the feeling in his stomach of having the floor fall out from under their friendship.

"No," Namjoon said, looking directly at Jungkook. "I rather admire you. And that's why I would like to sign the form, so that you can continue to heal and grow." He pointed to Jungkook. "Don't forget, Jungkook. You may be at fault for the accident, but you're a victim too. This paper-" He paused to hold up the form. It looked awfully official under the overhead lighting, lots of small text and enumerated clauses. "-doesn't mean shit."

Jungkook had to refrain from gasping since he'd never heard Namjoon swear, and Namjoon paused to clear his throat.

"I just mean to say that we both know that having this document signed has very little to do with your perception of what occurred and your reflection on the matter. But it will prevent your family from having to cover a large fine, and no matter how far your guilt extends, I hope that it spares your family."

Jungkook ducked his head down, feeling tears sting at his eyes. He wasn't sure why those were the words that had hit him after all they'd discussed, but the emotions within him had been building and swelling since they'd first sat down. "All right," he mumbled. "You can sign it."

"Thank you," Namjoon said, and Jungkook felt the odd sensation of their roles being somehow reversed, that he should have been the one thanking Namjoon instead. "Will you continue on the team?" he asked before looking down at the paper and pulling a black pen out of his bag.

Jungkook held his breath and watched as Namjoon signed and dated the form before he was able to breathe again and respond. "I want to," he said, sighing as he looked up at the gym ceiling. For some reason, it had felt cathartic for Namjoon to tear into him, to tell him that he'd been despised and reviled, because someone had finally verbalized how Jungkook had felt about himself, and if Namjoon had pardoned him, then maybe he could do the same for himself. "But there are some people I need to ask first."

--updated 08/12/20 (mm/dd/yy)--