Chapter Text
Namgyu remembered what he thought the first time he saw Thanos at club Pentagon: "Damn that idiot is hot." Since then, every night that Thanos had come back to the club, he had been his fucking dog, fetching him drugs all over Seoul, taking videos of him for his social media account, getting him free drinks... He had also listened to all of his stupid songs, well, not all of them were stupid, but like a majority of them was yeah. He had stalked him on social media and had watched all of his interviews and filmed live performances. He truly was obsessed.
But then Thanos' carrier had crashed down, caught in a drug scandal (seriously though, what did people expect? The guy was a rapper, come on), and he had not been back to the club. Namgyu would not have seen him there anyway, he had been fired from the place a couple of days after Thanos' life had gone to shit. He had been late and high off his ass one too many times for his shift.
Several months after that, after Namgyu had wasted all his money on drugs and those stupid fucking MG Coins, a weirdo in a suit and a briefcase full of cash had made him play some childish games before giving him his business card and telling him he could earn like a billion wons if he played some more games.
Imagine his surprise when he saw Thanos again in the Games. Had he been religious he would have thought that this had been the result of a divine intervention. He was not that naive though, if God was real and if he had his best interest at heart, then maybe he would not have sent him to be kidnapped and put into literal death games.
The rest is history; they played some deadly games, saw a lot of people die in gruesome ways, got into fights with other players and then the games ended when the Xs won.
When Namgyu was literally kicked to the curb in his underwear after the people who kidnapped him nicely brought him back home, he just went home and checked his bank account to see if he had just been fucked over. He was genuinely surprised to see that he did in fact earn just enough money to clear all of his debts almost entirely.
He was so ecstatic about it that it took him a couple of days to realise that he was still a broke piece of shit and that he needed to find a job fast or he would lose his apartment, which he had miraculously not been evicted from. He ended up finding a job as a bartender in a crappy bar, but hey, a job was a job and that was enough to pay the bills for the moment. In this weird haze, he had somehow completely forgotten about the object of his obsession for the past few months.
Thanos, for all his obnoxiousness, was surprisingly difficult to find. There was nothing on his social media accounts, not even on the one only hardcore fans knew about, and no one had been talking about him recently except for a few concerned fans who were worried about the absence of news. Yeah, that was concerning, how could a guy with bright purple hair and crazy colourful clothes living in Seoul of all places could be so invisible? Well maybe he was actually not in Seoul.
Before the games, Namgyu had done a pretty deep dive on Thanos' past, which had been surprisingly difficult. His real name was Choi Su-bong and he was originally from a small countryside village. During the video of Thanos that had been shown during the games, he was standing before the Han River Bridge, but come to think of it, a couple of months after his carrier had gone down the drain, he had disappeared from the public's eye. Thanos had said in the bathroom that he had planned to jump off the bridge the day the recruiter approached him, maybe he had come back to Seoul for that but had moved back in with his family in the meantime.
Somehow that was enough proof for Namgyu to go look for himself and he bought a train ticket to butt fucking nowhere as soon as he had a couple of free days from work.
When he arrived in the small, depressing village, he wondered how someone like Thanos could have come out of there. He really must have stuck out like a sore thumb as a kid.
Because Namgyu did not actually know the exact address of the Choi family, he had to ask around for a bit. It did not take long at all before someone from that minuscule village pointed him the way. He followed the directions he was given before finding the Choi's household. The house was small, they did not seem like they were doing well financially, the wooden steps to the front door were all dirtied and worn down from years of use.
Namgyu steeled himself and knocked on the door three times. When it opened, an old woman who looked like she had not seen the sight of a bed or a beautician for quite some time greeted him.
"Who are you?" she asked curtly.
Okay, he did not expect that. Maybe he had expected Thanos opening the door, tears in his eyes as he kneeled in front of his saviour that had come to take him away from this miserable place, so what? A guy could still dream, no? He certainly did not expect a Yubaba looking old hag to speak to him like he was nothing more but a twinky looking Jehovah’s witness.
"Hi hum, I'm a friend of Than- huh Choi Su-Bong. Is he here?"
The woman's eyes widened for a second before she slammed the door shut in his face.
Ok, he did not make all that way to this shitty fucking village to be ignored by old witches. He slammed the door with his fist again and waited for an answer.
"Go away! I'm sick of all you weirdos trying to act like you know my son! Get lost before I call the cops!" she yelled, her voice muffled by the door.
Alright, first of all he did not think that there were any cops in a fifty kilometer radius around this pathetic excuse of a village. Second of all, she was Thanos’ mother? What the hell did he put her through to make her look like that? Nevermind, even though Namgyu had not known Thanos for long, he could see how his personality could wear someone down that way. Also how many people had been looking for Thanos? And he certainly did not look like a degenerate fan did he...? Shut up.
"I'm not playing any games! I really do know him, I can prove it, if he's here tell him to look by the window, you'll see!"
He waited for a minute, she did not respond. Namgyu had never been a patient man.
"Oh come on! I can take him back to Seoul if you want, I'm sure you don't want your adult son to be living with you. Especially if that son is Su-bong." Damn saying that name felt weird.
After a bit she said through the door "Well at least you know him well enough to know how much of a pain in the ass he is..."
Namgyu chuckled "Yeah he really is. Come on, at least tell him that Namgyu is here."
"Alright..." He heard her footsteps get further away.
Namgyu sighed and sat down on the dirty front steps. A couple minutes later he heard her come back.
"He said he doesn't know anyone named Namgyu." she said with distrust.
That motherfucker, why the hell was he lying like that? Did he not want to get away from that shitty place? Did he not want to see one of his old friends? Well they were not really friends, more like drug buddies or allies or whatever but still. Or maybe that fucking idiot had just genuinely forgotten him, he could not even get his name right for fuck's sake! Now Namgyu was pretty pissed off, he had always had a short temper but he was usually pretty good at controling it. It was more useful to kiss up to dipshits than to confront them. That is why he and Thanos got along so well. Or he thought they did anyway.
"Okay he's lying! I know him I swear! I can get him out of your hair, really! Just let me talk to him." he shouted through the door, damn at this rhythm, his throat would get sore. "Look, if I didn't know him personally, would I know that he tried to jump off the Han River Bridge a couple weeks ago?"
Okay, that was low. Maybe Thanos never even told his mom about what he had been about to do back then, Namgyu did not know if they were close like that. But he had to shoot his shot; he really had no real other way to see Thanos.
"I can help him back on his feet I promise, I'm his friend." he said softly. He really was a good actor when he wanted to, not that he did not want to help Thanos, he just did not know if he actually could.
Because he had his back to the door, he fell over backward when Thanos' mom opened it. She looked at him like he was a moron but she stepped aside for him to get on his feet and get in.
"Alright" she said, a tremor in her voice "I believe you, you can go talk to him. He's upstairs." she jerked her chin up.
"Thank you" Namgyu said, his cheeks slightly pink.