Jungkook–Jimin relationship

The Jungkook–Jimin relationship is one of the most visible and durable bonds within BTS. The book presents it not as a rivalry created by unequal attention, but as a relationship shaped by shared origins, synchronized performance, long-term dependence on the group, and mutual care. Jungkook and Jimin occupy different but complementary positions in the public image of BTS: both are major performers, both belong to the group’s original dance line, and both remain connected through a closeness that persists even when sections of the fandom attempt to turn them against each other.

Shared Origins and Familiarity

Jungkook and Jimin share a connection to Busan. Jungkook’s regional speech appears particularly often when he is with Jimin, who also grew up there, or with V, who comes from the same Gyeongsang region. The book treats Jungkook’s Busan dialect as part of his charm rather than as a remnant he successfully discarded. Its masculine, somewhat grave local associations can give way in Jungkook’s speech to a softer and more endearing cadence, especially in informal interactions. Around Jimin, that regional familiarity functions as a reminder of an identity that existed before Jungkook became a global star and before either performer was absorbed into the Seoul-centered elite of K-pop.

This shared background is important because BTS built much of its identity by refusing to conceal where its members came from. The group’s use of regional speech in songs such as “Paldogangsan,” and its later return to hometown pride in “Ma City,” turned outsider status into a source of strength. Jungkook and Jimin therefore share more than a private friendship: they participate in a group history that treats local identity, accent, and difference as material for collective pride.

Artistic Partnership and the 3J Dance Line

Their professional relationship is most clearly expressed through performance. In 2021, after the release of the “Butter” remix with Megan Thee Stallion, J-Hope brought Jimin and Jungkook together to prepare a special dance for Megan’s verse. The three performers were the original 3J dance line, and Jimin described the rehearsal as their first such gathering in four years. The reunion carried the pressure of an established standard: they wanted to demonstrate the powerful synchronized dancing they had not shown together for some time.

The resulting thirty-second dance break was choreographed by Nick Joseph and filmed in a HYBE rehearsal studio marked by neon-purple lighting. J-Hope supervised with Son Sungdeuk while the three dancers worked through the sequence in loose sweatshirts and sneakers. Jimin and Jungkook’s partnership was visible in the precision of the process. They repeatedly watched each take, returned to complicated passages in front of the mirror, checked the alignment of their feet and hands, and examined the smallest differences on the monitor. Their shared perfectionism made the rehearsal both demanding and playful: they smiled at their own inability to accept a supposedly final version, then filmed another.

The joke about a “final-final-final” take carried a serious meaning. The trio’s repeated revisions were treated as an obligation to the fandom, whose time, money, and emotional investment BTS takes seriously. J-Hope’s leadership over more than eight years had helped shape both Jimin and Jungkook, but the two younger performers also shared the impulse to keep improving beyond the point at which a professional schedule had technically ended. After the recording was closed, they changed into white clothes and returned to attempt the sequence once more. Jungkook practiced the hand movements beside the monitor, and J-Hope asked whether they should do it again. The scene presents Jimin and Jungkook not as competitors for the same spotlight but as partners whose standards reinforce each other.

Brotherhood Within BTS

The relationship is also framed through the larger emotional structure of BTS. Jungkook entered the group as the youngest member and initially appeared shy and respectful toward the older members, who treated him like a younger brother. In the 2017 Los Angeles encounter described in the book, the members adjusted Jungkook’s denim shirt collar while he remained modest and unobtrusive. The group’s care helped create the environment in which his natural charisma could emerge without requiring him to demand attention. Jimin belongs to that protective older-brother circle, but his bond with Jungkook is distinctive because their closeness combines caretaking with direct artistic equality.

Jungkook later described the six older members as the people who formed him, saying that he had absorbed their knowledge, personalities, and shared dreams. This account places Jimin inside a found family rather than outside it as a separate counterpart. Jungkook’s development is represented as a collective creation: he became himself through the influence of all six hyungs, and the bond with Jimin is one strand of that wider formation. The relationship therefore carries both intimacy and institutional force. It was made in dormitories, rehearsals, tours, broadcasts, and years of shared work, rather than in a single dramatic turning point.

Their connection is especially meaningful against the physical and emotional demands of BTS’s career. During the group’s Wings performances in Santiago, Jungkook became dangerously exhausted, requiring massage, cooling measures, and oxygen between stages while the other members watched with fear. The episode revealed the vulnerability beneath his “Golden Maknae” image and showed how the group’s expectations depended on one another. Although the cited account does not isolate Jimin’s individual response in that moment, it places both performers within a collective system in which each member’s condition affects the others and the audience’s expectations are carried as a shared responsibility.

Mutual Support and Fan Conflict

The book directly contrasts the genuine closeness between Jimin and Jungkook with the hostility of akgae culture. Some fans support only one member and resent the others for supposedly obstructing that member’s progress or receiving too much attention. Jungkook has been targeted by such hostility because of his visibility and official central position, including criticism of his 2016 performance of “Rainism,” which some viewers regarded as a Jungkook solo with the other members reduced to backing dancers. The resulting competition can make the relationship appear adversarial from the outside, even when the members themselves do not behave that way.

The author describes encountering a Jimin akgae who responded with hatred after the author praised Jungkook’s appearance in a Vogue article. The fan could not accept praise for Jungkook in place of praise for Jimin. The episode exposes the distortion produced when a shared group is interpreted through ranking and possession. In the book’s account, the central irony is that Jimin and Jungkook are incredibly close, support one another’s solo careers and achievements, and maintain good relationships with the other BTS members. Their bond thus contradicts the antagonism that some fans project onto it.

This contrast also clarifies the relationship between individual popularity and collective identity. The international ARMY helped carry BTS into global prominence through online coordination, translation, promotion, and collective action. Yet the same highly invested environment can produce factional conflict. The book distinguishes the majority of fans, who are described as kind and committed to BTS’s messages of love and acceptance, from the smaller but more conspicuous groups whose hostility reinforces the stereotype of the irrational K-pop fan. Jimin and Jungkook’s mutual support stands as an implicit rebuttal to that stereotype: their careers are not presented as a zero-sum contest.

Continuity Beyond the Group’s Pause

The relationship remains part of the group’s continuity as BTS enters periods of individual activity and military service. Jungkook’s solo career grew rapidly, culminating in “Golden,” a solo showcase for 2,800 fans at Jangchung Arena, and performances that established him as a global pop star. Even in this individual phase, the book locates his achievements within the bonds formed by BTS. Jungkook repeatedly attributes what he has achieved to his six older brothers, and the group prepared individual music, videos, and other content so that fans would have material during military absences.

Jimin and Jungkook also appeared together in the reality show Are You Sure?! during this period, while Jungkook released his own documentary and the single “Never Let Go.” These projects do not erase their individual identities; instead, they show how solo careers and group relationships can coexist. The members’ strategy was to keep the collective presence alive while allowing each performer to develop separately, making separation less desolate for the fandom and preserving the expectation of reunion.

The relationship’s emotional force is finally connected to Jungkook’s bond with ARMY. At his Golden showcase, he thanked the fans and expressed disbelief when one of them said he would have succeeded at anything. Jungkook answered that he had become an incredible person only after meeting them. That humility echoes the way the book describes his relationship with Jimin and the other members: achievement is never treated as purely individual. Jimin and Jungkook may stand together in a dance break, apart in solo promotions, or within the broader machinery of military service and national representation, but the narrative keeps returning to the same principle—that their public identities were built through shared labor, shared loyalty, and a collective life that fan rivalry cannot fully divide.