#and it's a gift for one of my fave wonwoo stans that denies she has wonwoo as her 1 on her bias list

[dropsofletters]

the beat of a love rhyme [jww]

— summary: up-driven music, blasting parties, glasses of champagne clanking in between drags of smoke—the seventies are wild, but she’s at the peak of her career. part of one of the most popular funk bands of this decade, their vocalist at that, with a fulfilling relationship, rows of people screaming her name…life is good.

until it isn’t.

her band decides to split and she’s left as a solo artist. the only thing she has left is jeon wonwoo, her manager, and the connection that has grown in between them in endless years of accompaniment.

as it turns out, he’s all she needs—saccharine sweet, paradoxical, elegant, kind. much different from the world she had once prided herself for being part of.

— title: the beat of a love rhyme — pairing: jeon wonwoo x reader  — genre: funk band!au ; manager!au ; friends to lovers!au ; 1970’s!au  — type: fluff ; suggestive ; drama ; angst  — word count: 13,740

She once saw the world she had constructed fall down to her feet. Watched betrayal collide against the strong walls of her universe, tumbling it down, masking it in shadows and dust. For once, while standing in the studio, sporting enigmatic and outstanding clothing and a smirk that slowly dissipates, she doesn’t feel like herself. Stardom tastes nothing like the saccharine-sweet dessert she had once thought of it to be.

Music is one of those things—everyone loves it, adores to sensationalize the artists that they listen to on the radio and that they attend concerts of, but they don’t think about how wrong it is. Managers that are manipulators, magazines that are stalkers, drug dealers that are leeches looking to destroy them and earn their money while at it. Of course, how to forget?…band members that leave the group because a lead vocalist is, well, fucking stupid.

They all start the same. The Beatles. Kiss. They are friends that get in a group together and then, they’re no longer as good of friends as they were in the beginning. One person wants to write certain kind of music, another one is too lost in between someone’s legs to even care, then…there’s what her friends are doing.

The Moonlit Dolls are a funk hit. Ask magazines, newspapers, even that one housemaid that lives next to you and bumps her hips and head to the beat of their songs. It happened in 72, when one roll of a song made it to the radio and soon after, they found a manager. Youthful, nervous, just trying to prove his boss right about his sense of music.

That’s Wonwoo, outside the booth that contains the seven women of the funk band that once consisted of friends that drank beers together and decided to make a group. Perform dancing and singing to their heart’s content, with pianos, trumpets, and a whole lot of shiny dresses. She was the lead woman, and now?

“We’re kicking you out of The Moonlit Dolls.” Sunshine, the pianist, says with one hand spread on top of her waist. Her hair is puffy, tight curls accompanied by tinted sunglasses and a body-tight dress, orange under the golden lights.

She scoffs after hearing it the second time. “Yeah, right.” Tugging at the oversized jacket, belonging to her baseball player boyfriend, that rests over her shoulders, a smile appears on her features. “I am The Moonlit Dolls, Sunshine. You ask anyone and the only person they’re going to care about is me.”

Prickling with harsh words will give her a benefit in this fight. Kiara, the chorist and bass player, gasps from her spot. Sunshine is all sex dreams and radiant smirks. Kiara is ignited cigarettes and broken wings. “You can’t say that…”

“Calm down, Ki.” Sunshine says, extending her hand towards the smaller, weaker woman. “I’m not letting this bitch keep the group.”

Why is no one talking? She asks herself. There are two producers and her manager, Wonwoo, outside. Everyone else had decided to switch managers when they reached stardom in 75 with their single “One More Song”, but she had kept to his side.

“It’s my group. I was the one with the idea.” She utters, fixing the microphone and putting on her headphones “So stop whining about and trying to be a leader when I need you to do your job and play the piano, as you should.”

“We’re tired of being your little backup girls.”

She raises her eyebrows at that, bitter as bitter can be. “Maybe, if you worked on some good publicity, you wouldn’t be my backup girls.”

Scandal after scandal had cladded the group, and while being the leader, she had to stand every question and tidying wave. Men in music do it all the time—being in threesomes, being improper outside, doing drugs, smoking cigarettes, screaming to paparazzi but have a group of women singing and playing funk music do it and it’s a fucking headline. And the worst kind.

Her girls just loved a bit of irrelevant, awestriking fun…and she was the one to protect them.

Look how that turned out.

Star, their drummer, screams a bit louder than the rest. She’s a mood-maker, even in the worst sense of the word. “And you’re a good example?!”

“Mention one scandal from me.” The vocalist says, shrugging her shoulders when she spares a glance towards Wonwoo. The man hovers over the sound booth, thick eyebrows perpetually placed in a frown, as if studying the situation.

Star sighs dreamily. “I don’t know, maybe that you’ve fucked the entirety of the country’s baseball team.”

Looking over her shoulders, anger is swallowed down by the lump on her throat. It hurts. The six women that had been there for her these past few years now have turned against her, and even worse, they think of her as some kind of monster. Have someone to lose and you’ll cry them once every blue moon. Imagine having six.

“Oh baby,” She feigns a moan, battling her eyelashes in the process to bring a smirk over her features. “I like men with big baseball bats. Thick. Long. Know what to do with them…is that what you wanted to hear? Is your little businessman boyfriend too little in that department for you?”

“Cock-thirsty bitch.” Star cusses, moving forward as she tightens her fists.

Instead, she chuckles. “Does that make your betraying-bitch ways any better?”

Blood boiling, ears tinged in heat, she doesn’t pay much attention to what she says until she feels Star’s long nails piercing through her scalp, holding onto her hair and tugging at it as shrieks leave her lips. Fighting with them, even physically, would have never crossed her head but hey…

If she’s going to end up having a scandal, she better go all the way with it.

Her hands settle on Star’s slim arms, moving her around and pushing her against the drums, tussled to the ground by her force. Star pulls her down, pushing her body to the ground to tug at more of her hair and just when she’s grabbing onto the woman’s face, fingers digging onto her cheeks, she feels the pressure on her head dissipating, but not leaving her without a headache.

The next thing she sees is a pair of worried brown eyes staring down at her, the golden lights of the ceiling a halo around Wonwoo’s brown hair, soft strands cascading down his face when he wraps his fingers around hers and puts her up, behind his suit-cladded body.

“Stop it.” He says, never one raising his voice. Star doesn’t look any better, tears cladding her vision as she stares back at her. “Do you think it’s fair for her to just tell her now that you’re leaving her out of the group? You’re going to destroy her career.”

“It has always been about her!” Sunshine says, far stronger than Star in her poise. “She’s the one writing, composing, singing, presenting. If she’s so good, she’ll do well…but we can’t be The Moonlit Dolls and the bitch that stands above everyone. This isn’t what a group is about—”

“What is it about?” Her voice lowers, getting away from Wonwoo’s shadow, bottom lip trembling to try to keep strong. But she can’t. She’s losing her group and her sisters. Though, they don’t consider her family anymore. “Talking about me? Judging me? Making decisions without including me? Is it about envy? If you really love someone, you’ll want to see them succeed, not push them to the ground to step on them.”

Sunshine pulls her sunglasses down, rolling her eyes in the process. Silence eats the atmosphere when she says: “You did that to us for years.”

“…Well, not anymore.” Her shaking fingertips wrap around Wonwoo’s, interlocking their hands together to keep sane. The only person that is left of the beginning of it all…and now, she’ll have to start again. “You’ve got it. Be the Moonlit Dolls. I couldn’t give less of a shit. I hope you’re happy.”

“Wait, no—” Wonwoo says, tugging at her. “It’s not fair. We can talk about the contract with them. I’m—”

“I don’t want to work with them anymore.” Her voice is soft, odd for a frontwoman, but when looking into her manager’s eyes, she wants to find solace…peace… “Please, let’s just go home.”

It doesn’t take much more than a nod from him and a tug of her hand to get out of that fucking studio.

###

One rule before getting on a stage or even doing a presentation at school. You don’t think of everyone naked; much less do you take deep breaths. You just of how comforting it will be to come back home to the person that supports you through it all. Now, that’s how she has gotten through stardom.

The beaming lights of the city cast down on her face, shadows highlighting the tears that stream down her face. The sleeve of her sweater, bathed in a citrusy scent, rubs at her tired eyes for the umpteenth time when Wonwoo finally says something.

“They didn’t deserve you.”

Maybe, Wonwoo is the person she wants to make proud, whom she wants to return to, even when they are just friends. A manager on the rising, trying to get his job going, in 1972, when he found a group of women in some bar. At the time, Wonwoo was a lot more youthful, peppering around nineteen-year-old and not technically her manager. An intern? Sure. The man in the small lettering of books when remembering The Moonlit Dolls? Of course. But Wonwoo only got to be her manager five years later. This year, actually.

Now, he’s different from how she remembered him. Wonwoo was a lot shyer, music-loving, sporting graphic t-shirts and carrying CD’s in his backpack just in case. His features were sweeter, of course, less of a frown and more of a curve to his cat-like lips, but Wonwoo has pampered himself well enough. A gray suit covers his tall and slim body on most occasions, tied to his waist to utmost perfection, with his hair smooth against his scalp and sleeked back, with one strand that always escapes it, and of course, he leaves the CD’s in his newer, far better car now.

Sighing, she rests her head against her seat, staring at his profile as the mansions and beaming lights let her know they are nearing her house. “Who are we lying to, Wonwoo?” She asks, voice raspy. “All my shit is getting out now. They’re not the type to keep their lips pursed and all the songs I composed are going to stay with her. I know Sunshine—”

“They’re copyrighted. They can’t do that.” Wonwoo’s voice, warm like a day at the pool in summer, makes her chuckle softly, not even parting her lips to do so.

“Copyrighted under The Moonlit Doll’s name.”

“Then…” Wonwoo trails, fingers skimming over the wheel professionally. Looking at him from the side, Wonwoo doesn’t look half bad. Maybe, that’s why her boyfriend is always over-the-top jealous about her manager. “We can turn you into a solo artist. Elton John did it. John Lennon did it. Hell, every single one of The Beatles decided a solo was good. Even Ringo.”

“Elton is Elton. I’m me.”

“More of a reason. You’re enough—”

“Woo.” She cuts off, leaning over to his side of the car, head resting on his shoulder to seek for the comfort of him. “It’s not about the music. It’s about the fact that those women, my sisters, my girls, decided to just cut ties with me.”

Wonwoo’s breath ghosts over her forehead for a second when he looks over his shoulder to park in her garage. His arm extends behind her seat, the warmth of him seeping through his suit. “So, you can only rise from this. It will hurt for a while, and I’ll give you enough time to heal all you need, but you can’t consider them your sisters. Not after what they did to you. Not how they talked to you, either.”

With that, he parks the car, but she doesn’t move her face away from her spot next to him. He’s the only thing she has left of her old life, before the big mansion, chef, workers, studio albums and stardom.

He calls her name softly, and she hums.

“You don’t consider them your sisters, do you?”

“The kind of sisters that you hope never get written in your father’s will. Yeah. That kind of sisters.”

Her manager chuckles at that, soft and tender. “I’ll support you through everything.” With that, he opens the door to the driver’s seat. “But I need you to sleep the sadness off and for god’s sake, to stop crying. They’re not worth the tears. Sure, it hurts…but this happens. Every group falls down.”

Lumping against the seat, her fingers clumsily hook on the door to open it. “Then, why are they so popular?”

“People love friendships.” He says, and when she turns to look at the side and get out of the car, he’s already holding his hand out for her to take. She does, eyes connected to his as he speaks. “And they love groups of people they can choose from. You know, ‘my favorite was totally Sunshine because she’s hot’ and that’s all there is. Sex sells, but friendship does, too.”

“I have to stay with sex, then.” The door closes behind her, coldness seeping through her legs when she walks towards her spacious mansion. Eight rooms, ten bathrooms, enormous living rooms and parties, and she still doesn’t feel a thing for this place. It’s not home.

“It’s not necessary when you have talent.”

“Tell that to the talented women in this industry that are only paid attention to if their nipples peak through their shirts.”

“…We’ll do anything to make you shine for who you are.”

“I, no longer, have a ‘we’.” She doesn’t tip-toe around the subject, turning around and walking backwards when talking to Wonwoo. “I’m alone! I’m fucking alone and I don’t know what to do. I’m not used to being alone!”

Wonwoo sighs. “How many people does it take to make a ‘we’?”

The question has her frowning. “I don’t know—”

“It’s logic. You do know. The least amount of people you need to make a ‘we’ is…”

His voice trails when her back connects against the entrance of her mansion. “Two.”

“And did I leave you?”

“No.”

“Then, we’re a team. We’ll always be a team.” Wonwoo conquers, his hands coming in contact with her shoulders when he pulls her to the side slightly. “So, I’m staying here tonight and make sure you don’t party until ninety percent of your body becomes alcohol.”

A smile tugs at the edge of her lips. Well, maybe she’s as trashy as her ex-bandmates said. “People like you are always so responsible, aren’t they?”

Wonwoo opens the door with the copies of her keys he has with him, turning on the lights and greeting one of the maids by the entrance. “Tell me you wouldn’t have done it.”

She chuckles. “Oh, I would’ve smoked a cigarette out of someone’s ass right now with how shitty I’m feeling.”

Never would she have thought that would make Wonwoo grin. “That’s a pun?”

Her eyes look up to remember what she said before laughing at her words. “I’ve never eaten ass, but maybe the factor of shit possibly coming out could be the reason why I’ll never try it.”

Something in his eyes is dulcet. You see, silence has its own taste, and there, with her nose clogged up from so much crying and lips burning from so much biting, she basks on the way Wonwoo smiles and watches her when he extends his hand and pats her head. “You’re something else.”

Out of all the times she has heard it, this one feels nice—sincere. “That’s the only thing I have ever been.”

“Go to sleep. I’ll stay down here and arrange a few things.”

“My career?”

“Maybe.” Wonwoo shrugs, taking off her boyfriend’s jacket from her shoulders and placing it neatly on the couch. “Go sleep those tears off.”

Saluting him, she winks at him as a goodbye. “On it, dad.”

Wonwoo closes his eyes tightly, a chuckle ripping through his vocal chords. “Don’t call me that.”

“I won’t…dad.”

She hears him groan as she goes up the endless set of curved, marble-toned stairs and that alone makes her feel like maybe, not everything is fucked.

###

Rule number one of life. Never say never.

Never say everything.

Never say fine.

Just, don’t say shit.

Wonwoo has stayed in her place for the past three days, asking her chefs to make her complete meals, making sure that she—at least—ties her hair away from her face as she relishes on her sadness. Lets it broom and breathe out as she sips on her coffee and reads the newspaper. Two days ago, a man died when swallowing a bone, just yesterday, they talked about the feminist movement and today, she’s in the headlines when she scalds her tongue with coffee.

“Wonwoo!” She shouts out, loud and clear, enough to rip her vocal cords. Anyone who listened to her would have thought two things. One, Wonwoo is her child and she’s trying to scold him to bits and pieces or she’s Wonwoo fan, and hence, absolutely crazy enough to scream his name like that.

It’s not always that the man she loves decides to speak nonsense in the newspaper.

Or rather, break up with her through an article.

THE DEVIL IN A SHORT SKIRT – Why the King of Baseball, Jae Kim, decided to break all ties with most famous female funk singer?

For once, she didn’t know she had broken ties with Jae. Two days ago, to be exact, he was cooing on the cellphone, whispering sweet and dirty nothings of how much he missed her, how he craved to touch her skin, how he had thought of all the sins possible with her in mind. That’s not love, but it’s stardom—Hollywood bleeding the perfection that everyone envies.

Now, when Wonwoo appears in the pristine kitchen, breathing heavily as he had ran all the way through the mansion, she’s reading the article. His picture is there, enough reason to show he had actually been interviewed. Jae throws his head back in laughter, thick and muscular thighs parted with his skillful fingers wrapped around a glass of champagne. His long brown hair is pushed away from his face, his chiseled face, squared jaw and thick lips parted in sweet laughter.

“It was crazy, man.” He said, according to the reporter, with a frown of his lips. “I’d be scared of her, much like the girls were. She was too strong. Too receptive. She tied me up to the bed one night and left me there until the morning. I’m not too perfect but damn...I couldn’t hold on.”

God!

Speak of a fucking bastard!

He was the one tying people up, if she is sure of something.

The rest of the article objectified her, to bits and pieces, enough to throw the newspaper across the kitchen, watching the papers fall apart as a dulling scream leaves her lips, coffee splattering across the walls when she splashes it away from her cup.

“Fuck!”

How could the man that she loved treat her in such a way? Spoke about things that he should have never talked about—bragged about how it was like to bang the hottest member of a girl group, of a funk band. Talked about her consumptions, her supposed addictions, spoke of her as a pair of tits and an ass that he touched and claimed as his but he couldn’t hold onto because a body was a thing…but certainty, confidence, ambition? Oh, that’s too fucking much.

That’s a woman. He wants a maid.

He wants a hole to fuck.

Her hands cover her eyes when she hears Wonwoo speaking, a curse leaving his lips. “This fucker. I told you not to get with him—”

One year back, when Wonwoo was totally right about dating her ex boyfriend’s best friend, Jae Kim, and also another baseball player. Maybe The Dolls weren’t so wrong when they said she had a thing for men like that.

“I know.” She speaks softly.

“Let me call the publicity team and just talk about this. We need to make a conference and throw him to the ground. He doesn’t deserve to talk such obsenities—”

Instead, she extends her hand, waving her fingertips. “Give me the car keys.”

Wonwoo looks into her eyes, studying her, more put together than herself. Did she even take a shower yesterday? She’s not sure. “Why?”

“Wonwoo, I said—”

“I’m not letting you drive anywhere alone.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he keeps his voice poised and she does her best not to stomp her foot like a child. “You want to talk with Jae.”

Maybe, he knows her a bit too much. “He said—”

“Stupid things.” Wonwoo waves the newspaper in the air. “He said things that should have been kept in between two people and he doesn’t deserve words. He deserves—”

“Oh, I know what he deserves.” She waves her fingers again. “So, you either let me go or I’m walking all my way there.”

“Are you going to kill him?”

With a sigh, she tilts her head to the side. “Wonwoo, do you think I would kill someone?”

Her manager blinks a few seconds before chuckling. “No, but I’d support you if that’s what you were trying to do.” He says, throwing the newspaper to the island. “What’s the plan?”

“You let me drive, and you don’t say a thing.”

“…For the first time in my life, I don’t want to stay silent because I don’t know what you’re planning.”

Though, the coldness of the car keys rests against her hands, with enough quickness for her to go to the living room and take Jae’s signed baseball bat in between her fingers, swinging it once and twice before resting it against her shoulder.

“I’m planning to be the kind of woman he’s scared of.”

Wonwoo raises his eyebrows at that. “We’re not killing him.”

“I’m not planning on killing him.” She looks at the bat in between her fingers. “I could get this up his ass, but he’s not in his mansion. He’s somewhere in the country, bragging about how he had me in his sheets so…I’ll do the second best thing.”

The manager sighs deeply, rubbing his temples in the process. “Tell me this will be therapeutic.”

“Oh, this is a before and after.” She whispers, walking over to the door. “You’re about to see the birth of a new woman.”

Jae Kim is one proud son of a bitch. Tall, handsome, with a dimple on his left cheek and an ass to die for. He’s everything she ever thought she wanted—with not enough spice, but with a smile that could make up for his lack of words. Then, he spoke too much and without caring if paparazzi trailed after her, she went over to his house.

They want to see the devil? They’ll get it. Not in a short skirt, not being banged into oblivion in Jae’s car like he had said, but banging his car instead.

The same one that he had spoken about in that infamous magazine.

Wonwoo rushes out of the car when she swings the baseball bat in the air and smashes Jae’s car’s windows. One. Two. Three and then, four. Each and every single one falling to pieces in shreds of glass against her slipper-covered feet.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Wonwoo questions, standing by her side and sheltering her of any sight of paparazzi.

“Destroying the car that he relished about fucking me in.”

Though a small smile appears on his face, Wonwoo clears his throat before it could fully show his thoughts. “While I think he deserves it, this is bad publicity.”

“Woo, one thing,” She says, swinging the bat and hitting the passenger’s door in the process. “You lose all your friends that feel like your family and they out to the world that they’re going to continue to be a group while you’re left alone and the man you love suddenly uncovers that all he thought about you is that you were a vagina with legs that he only stayed with because it feels good, amazing, spectacular to just fuck someone people want to be with…and you have to act well. Because people want you to be perfect. That’s all you are to them. A board to judge, compare to others and…” Hitting one of the lights, the apples of her cheeks lift up. “Fuck that. I don’t need that. The good girl of funk died today.”

Instead of judging her or leaving her alone, she feels Wonwoo’s fingers sliding through the baseball bat before testing the waters and moving it around his palm, rotating it to catch the best hit. “Why do you have his bat?”

“That’s the bat he used for winning on his latest baseball season.” She replies, looking inside her car and getting out the sharpie she uses for signing autographs. “So, I’m ruining it, just like he destroyed my dreams of love.”

The man stays silent when he swings for the first time, destroying the remaining glass at the front as a shaky smile takes over his features. “What are you writing?”

“Just a message for the paps.” She leans over the hood of the car, hair done a mess, t-shirt oversized on her body and accompanied by basketball shorts, leaving everything to the imagination. Completely different from how she was with The Moonlit Dolls. “If they want my response, I’ll give it to them.”

The sharpie writes over the yellow hood of the car, Wonwoo reading the message out loud as she scribbles it down in neat letters. “Rot in hell, trashbag. P.D, you weren’t that good at playing…me or baseball, I don’t know anymore. ”

With that, she throws the baseball bat inside the car, resting her hands in her waist and looking at the mess she’d done.

“Wonwoo?”

The wind whisks against their bodies. Wonwoo, polished. She, on the brink of crying. But she won’t anymore—she’s tired of it.

“Yes?”

“Take me home, please.” She breathes out. “I need to start writing songs for that asshole.”

###

Think of your favorite album. All time favorite. The kind that you’ll cry and bang your head with when you turn fifty and you just need to remember what it was like to be young. And there it is, the nostalgia. The ‘it’ factor that people love and adore.

It takes months to make a great album, but for her, it has never taken this long.

Two months of staring at her ceiling, trying to return to the persona that she had crafted. The lover girl of funk, who sang into a microphone about the sincere, soft love she had for her now ex-boyfriend. For the guy with the bat that swung at her heart, destroyed her career momentarily, and whined like a bitch to the media when she destroyed his car.

One of the many cars he has, at least. He’s filthy rich.

But love songs aren’t as easy to write anymore. Leave it to the ballad lovers and the people who still believe in romance, but she is not one of them. In most occasions, she just goes back and forth, greets her workers around the house, talks to them for a few minutes that turn into hours and then, she uses the excuse of going back to writing. She tries to rhyme something with ‘boy’ and it just ends there.

She’s not in love with music anymore.

The strings of her guitar become lonely, plucked and exchanged for a piano. And there, seated in front of the endless rows of keys, she can’t think of anything either. The same thing happens over and over again, roaming around the house like a ghost only to meet with her manager at the end of the night. On the rare occasion, someone wants an interview…but given that the press coverage given by newspapers and magazines had died down after The Moonlit Dolls came out with their album as six, she’s left wth silence.

Until today.

Wonwoo is a routinary man. He likes his coffee lukewarm. He enjoys the same kind of music he did when she met him. He wears scales of grays, blacks and whites, and they’re always the same shade. His hair never follows after his instructions with that one strand that always stands out on his forehead, so it’s not surprising when he enters her mansion at eight thirty-seven in the night.

With her legs extended on the armrest of her leather couch, she jots down on her notebook, not caring that her short red silky robe had fallen off one shoulder, the lace of her bra barely peeking through when she sends a smile his way.

Pink is not Wonwoo’s shade. Not until today, when his cheeks blare in said color and he puts his hands on top of his eyes.

“Shit, fuck. I’m sorry.” He turns around, stealing a chuckle from her when she sits up on the couch. Wonwoo believes in the rhymes in gentlemanly words still, and she doesn’t know why. Maybe, he’s the only thing left of real men in this world. “I—I didn’t know you weren’t decent…or…can you just tie your robe properly?”

Loud laughter leaves her lips when she fixes the robe around her body. “Sorry. I was just immersed in writing.”

That makes him drop his hands, though the perfect view of his tinted-red ears becomes the least of her worries when he widens his eyes. “You? You’re writing?”

Shrugging her shoulders, she stands up from the couch. “I think I have the title song of my next album.”

Wonwoo nears her when she sits in front of her piano, an angel in the way his eyes twinkle. “Oh, for your solo?”

“I don’t have a group anymore,” She breathes out, turning her face to the side and looking at his features from up close. The scent of champagne clings to her, dizzy in the way her eyes crinkle and her lips purse. “So, it’s my solo. I’m completely alone in this world, so the least I can do is fight in it.”

Taking the seat next to her, he says: “You’re not alone.”

She sighs at those words. “Woo,” She instructs. “Why have you never been in love?”

He raises an eyebrow, silent for a second, before answering: “Who told you I haven’t?”

“You’ve never talked about it.”

“I don’t work with you to talk about me.”

“But you tell me everything.” The singer elongates in a whine. “How much you love your mom, how your hands tremble sometimes, how your stomach hurts when you eat certain foods. That one trip you had when you were a child and how you wish you could go back to your peaceful place…” Her voice becomes quieter. “I just assumed you’ve never fallen in love…or that you’re just not interested in dating.”

One of his index fingers presses to a piano key before chuckling. Soft, tender, with his thin lips wrapping around his perfectly sculpted teeth. “I have. Tons of times.”

“Tons?”

“Like four? I don’t know.” Wonwoo shrugs. “Love is easy to feel. Hate? Even easier. It’s the hold-out that I can’t deal with. There’s always something that ends it all.”

Resting her cheek against the piano, she breathes out the insecurities that had wrapped inside her body. “I think the same way.”

Wonwoo shakes his head at that. “No.” He denies. “You’re too loveable to believe that.”

Rolling her eyes, she straightens her back. “What says that about me? The short skirts? The upbeat songs? The dating scandals? The money? The hits?” Finally, she reaches a peak, hovering her fingertips over the keys. “I want to be loved for who I am when I’m at my worst, when I can’t even get up and out of the bed. I want to be loved with my insecurities, when they take the best of me and make me lose all judgement, all rationality…” She stops. “And that won’t happen. I won’t be loved for who I was, so what’s the point in pretending to be the pretty, sensual, coquettish ex-doll?”

“What do you mean?” Wonwoo questions, voice raspy, worry bleeding on his tone.

“I don’t need men looking up my skirt, people paying to hear the love songs I write about men that never deserved me.” Continuing, she presses down on the keys, a melodramatic tune starting it all. It’s a new beginning. “I don’t want love, Wonwoo, because it’s all I’ve given the media and look how they’ve paid me. I want power, irony, hate, I want to have a voice so strong people like me will start to think that it’s okay to be alone. That we rise when we don’t depend on others.”

In typical funk fashion, the beat picks up and Wonwoo smiles at the melody. “How’s the song called?”

“Still working on the lyrics.” She says. “It starts off slow, the rain after that moment where life seems not to have a continuation and then, it picks up. People want a show? They’ll have it. But they won’t have the real me anymore.”

Wonwoo closes his eyes, shoulders swinging to the beat as a cat-like smirk takes oves his face. “Who are we getting?”

“I want a wig.” She says, earning sweet laughter from her manager. “And a suit. I’m tired of skirts. I want suits of all colors, bright, tight, loose. I want people to judge me for my dancing skills, my singing, not how sexy they think I am.”

“What color? The wig. What color should it be?” He questions, his gaze burning on the side of her face when she continues playing.

Recalling the shade of his pretty cheeks, she turns to him. “Pink.”

He repeats: “Pink?”

“The brightest pink you can find.”

“Okay,” Wonwoo tilts his head to the side, taking the notebook on top of the piano in between his hands and reading the lyrics. “Wait, why is called ‘I Died’?”

“Because the past few months have felt like that. Like I’ve actually died.” She conquers, shrugging in the process and haltering the song. “But I’m ready to be born again and under my own terms.”

“We’re still going with funk?”

“It’s my soul. I can’t leave funk.” She confesses. “But we’re working on an album and next month, we’re releasing it.”

Wonwoo shakes his head. “Oh no, I’m not about to overwork you.”

“Consider it this way,” Smirking, like she always does, ready to bite the bullet that life brings at her, she rests her chin on his shoulder, staring up at him. “I’m overworking you, sweetie.”

###

Wonwoo was once young and stupid. Think about it this way—what nineteen-year-old guy packs a diamond ring on his pocket, bought in the cheapest price he could find, to confess to the woman he loved since he was fourteen that the only person he saw himself with was her? Even if they weren’t together, to begin with, and she had given him all the signs of ‘I’m into anyone but you’?

That would be nineteen-year-old Jeon Wonwoo. Dumb. Stupid. A reader, but the words he figured out in books definitely did not give him more life-knowledge.

While entering backstage to the concert of the singer he represents, he remembers why he didn’t become Mr. Denied that night. He met her. Seated in that old, raunchy bar, he watched as the woman he loved—Joohyun—got off the stage, her long hair swinging on her curved back, each juncture of her clothing with her body almost making him salive until he saw her.

In a short dress, a little bit drunk, jumping up to the microphone and apologizing for the interruption but introducing themselves as The Moonlit Dolls. Seven women together, just having fun, trying to make whatever they were work.

Joohyun was talented—sulky, tender voice and moving hips that had any man to her mercy, but she didn’t have much to her apart from that. Sang Frank Sinatra on the rare ocassion, but could never write, never perform, never compose. The Moonlit Dolls had just that, and while his boss had initially denied Joohyun when he tried to get her a contract, he had a gut feeling that The Moonlit Dolls were right up his alley.

What did he do? He got them to accompany him on the next Monday to his office, and the young intern that was Jeon Wonwoo got his first recognition for finding a hidden gem.

He pulls the curtains that separate the stage to the back, and what he sees is adorable. It warms his heart in every possible way, feeling as though he’s back to when he was nineteen and he had completely forgotten about his unplanned future with Joohyun just to hear her sing. This time around, she’s not wearing her short and tight skirts and the lights of the stage cast down on the bright pink wig that rests above her shoulders. Though, her vocals never falter and her chorists accompany her with as much excitement as her smile plasters for the public to see.

His old boss, a man that now represents The Moonlit Dolls, had asked him a simple question when the group departed her. “Why do you stay with her?” He asked, with his belly shaking with every word he said, his thick moustache rubbed in between his fingers.

At the time, he only answered: “Because she’s my friend.” Though, now that he thinks about it, seeing her there, she bleeds every portion of music. Raw. Enigmatic. Beautiful.

Wonwoo always had a thing for music.

But—

“Jeon Wonwoo,” A dulcet, saccharine-sweet voice speaks over his shoulder and he turns around to see a much shorter woman. Ali, the stylist behind this new change in funk, smiles up at him while she cradles her notebook to her chest. She’s maybe two years older than him, with a rounded face, big brown eyes and her hair almost always tied in two braids. Cute, really. “Didn’t think I’d see you here today.”

“It’s the first concert. I had to be here.” Though, he was trying to calm down the paparazzi outside. Some celebrities had attended and they were trying to see who was the singer’s next love affair. He crosses his arms cross his chest, taut muscles contracting under the suit before he smiles down at her. “The wig is cuter than I thought it would be.”

“It’s a challenge.” Ali says, looking over his shoulder to stare at the woman dancing on stage, feet keeping up with every word she said. “But she makes everything work. Besides, I’d love to be the one behind this new era of funk with her styling.”

“The suit is gorgeous.”

“Thank you. Had to contact a few people to get it perfectly styled, but she rocks it.” Ali’s voice trails at that moment, a smile taking over her rounded cheeks when she swings back and forth on the sole of her feet. “Wonwoo?”

The man hums, quirking an eyebrow in the process. “Yes?”

“You haven’t called me again.”

Wonwoo doesn’t do relationships often. Not because he doesn’t believe in them, but because he doesn’t have time. Try to explain to someone who wants undivided attention that your utmost priority is your client, who is coincidentially a woman that a lot of people desire, very famous, filthy rich, and who is broken down to tears because of everyone around her leaving her but you. You, Jeon Wonwoo. It’s difficult—so, Wonwoo resorts to the easiest thing, a fling or two with close friends and a promise to call again.

He normally does. With how crazy the world is and how little he knows about strangers when having sex, he would much rather have it with people he knows. Someone whom he recognizes he has a connection with.

Six months ago, Ali was it. She practically put candles up when he went over to his apartment and it felt nice, to be treasured and worshipped for once. To be the center of attention, but each time it happened, he scavanged out of the bed and went over to his client’s mansion.

To check up on her. To make sure she was eating right. To just hear her speak, talk about everything and nothing at the same time.

He doesn’t do that with the people he sleeps with and Ali’s speeches are interesting, though not groundbreaking.

He bites his bottom lip, hissing in the process. “Sorry, I was coaching every city we were going to attend to and I stayed over at the mansion a little too much in the process. I—I haven’t really been alone…”

“Wonwoo.” Ali stops him, placing one hand on top of his chest. “Listen, I look like I’m not the type but I’m the kind of woman that says it like it is. I like you, and I’m sure you liked me when we were together because…it seemed like it. You’re not my first, I know how an interested man looks like.” She whispers, long eyelashes fluttering against her wide eyes. “But if you love her, if you love someone else, I can’t be with you—”

I’ve loved tons of people, he told her months ago when she wrote the song she’s closing this concert with.

But how could he love her? The thought had never crossed his brain. Adoration, yes, of course. He doesn’t think he could ever fully let go of her, but loving the singer that had never looked twice his way?

“I don’t love her like that.”

Ali chuckles. “I believe you,” She says. “But anyone would think otherwise. You’re glued to her hip all the time.”

“She’s my client.” Wonwoo proves with a swat of his hand. “I have to be by her side.”

The shorter woman inspects his features, calculating each of his movements before humming. “You sure?”

Smiling, he says: “Or I could just prove to you how little in love I’m with her.” Though, the words leave his lips and they don’t sound quite right to his ears, much less when he hears the melody of a saddened tune, the start of the song that watched her rise again.

He tries his best not to turn around, but his eyes waver towards where she is sitting, playing the piano with utmost conviction.

“I’m alright with that.” Ali says, trailing her hand down to his abdomen before letting go of him. “Call me next time you’re alone, will you?”

Though, the nod he gives is only to stop the conversation, turning around when Ali is gone to look at the woman on stage. The beam on her features is brighter than ever, but he knows better than to trust it. Tears and frowns gather in the worst of days, and he’s not sure if he’s ready to leave her alone just yet.

###

“”Haven’t seen these in a while.”

With his fingers palming around her hair, she looks over her shoulder to capture the glimpse of the man she knows a little too well. Wonwoo looks like he had just woken up from a nap, not quite used to the jetlag of being in a tour bus with her just yet. Years will pass by and still sleep will ride over him in tidal waves, clashing him to the bed and leaving him petrified.

For the past two months of touring, she has been a new persona. Pink hair, eccentric high notes, suits that cover what had once been the reason why she earned so much money—she took the reigns of her life based on what the headlines said. Wrote songs about betrayal, overconfidence, loneliness, ego…and they became hits.

The radio won’t stop talking about her pink locks, swinging hips and hateful words. And that’s what she wanted, until the lights dimmed and she was back in her tour bus, staring out the window to the cars passing by in silence. None of them would stop if they just knew the real her. The romanticist that feels a bit broken.

“I feel the same way sometimes.” Shivering, she rubs over her arms, connecting her gaze to the road once again when she feels Wonwoo sitting with her on the red leather seat. A brown sweater covers most of his body, accompanied by baggy pajama pants. “The character is starting to take over me and when I’m not as confident as I am on stage, it feels…weird.”

Wonwoo rubs at his left eye, sighing deeply when he says: “I don’t want you to become her, the woman on stage, permanently.”

She chuckles. “First time I’ve heard a man say that.” Her voice lowers, resting her cheek against the couch as she looks into his eyes. “Why?”

“You’re fantastic as you are.”

That’s her cue to let out the least lady-like snort. “Oh yeah, what screams fantastic about me?” She asks, turning around to sit properly and not get dizzy by looking at the road for too long. “My waving feelings? My grounding insecurities? The fact that I can’t fully voice out how I feel unless I do it in a symphony?” The words leave her a bit too quickly, and Wonwoo’s lips curl when he shakes his head.

“Try again.” Wonwoo indicates. “There’s good in you.”

Bringing her knees up to her chest, she rests her chin in between them. “I guess.” A mumble leaves her. “But I don’t see it…” Her voice trails. “My sister once told me there is someone for anyone. That person that will love my flaws as much as I hate them…but they always leave after getting a taste.” She says, eyes twinkling with indemn sadness. “Sometimes, I wonder if whoever created the world forgot to create someone for me. Decided that I wasn’t worthy of a fairytale and—”

Her manager back at her, his hand coming up to her cheek and rubbing over the skin. “Do you know you have a mole here?” His thumb touches, softly, almost like a kiss against her face. She closes her eyes tightly, humming in acknowledgement. “I always thought it added something else to your face. It didn’t make you uglier and it didn’t make you prettier. It just made you…you. If the night sky wasn’t tainted by stars, would it be half as sensationalized as it is now?”

She opens her eyes then, leaning into his warm touch. Craving. Needing. Wonwoo feels a thousand times more necessary these days—and she knows she could probably live without him, but she doesn’t want to. They could give her the most perfect man to have as a manager and she still wouldn’t take him…because they are not Wonwoo.

“Maybe, my personality has a thousand moles.”

“All of us have flaws. Some better than others.” Wonwoo whispers, tracing the strands of her hair and tucking them behind her ear. Since when have his brown eyes become her axis, the reason why her anxiousness doesn’t creep up on her? “Maybe, if you loved yourself with as much strength as you loved the people that broke you, you wouldn’t be having these issues.”

Pressing a chaste kiss to his palm, she breathes out a warm gush of oxygen. “I wonder if someone will love you with the strength you deserve to be loved with, Woo.”

A small smile takes over his features. “I sure hope it happens one day.” He confesses.

The singer, however, is more observant than she lets anyone believe. “Maybe Ali is on the way there.”

Wonwoo shakes his head, laughing. “Absolutely not.”

“Oh, come on, Woo. You’re totally getting it on with her.”

Though, she would never understand why his cheeks blare with her but at the mention of having sex with her stylist, he doesn’t react. “…How are you so sure?”

“One, you two got awfully close at the tour and I know when two people are fucking.” She replies, placing her hand on his thigh when she leans forward, as if sharing a secret. “Why her?”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes, but he’s still smiling. “I’m not talking about this with you.”

A whine rips from her throat. “You knew everything about Jae and I!”

“Because the motherfucker got out of your room with his dick out. I didn’t decide to know about you two and your rendezvouses.”

Sighing, she whispers. “True.” Still, her finger pokes his side. “Well, an eye for an eye. Tell me—”

At the repetition of the last two words, incessant, he sighs.

“She’s just there, okay?” His voice is soft in the mellow night. “It’s not the truest romance. We just help each other not feel as lonely. I don’t have the time to have anyone when…”

Her eyes widen, looking up and down his features when she completes his sentence: “When you have me.”

“That’s not what I mean—”

“You’re…God, you’re always taking care of me. That’s why…”

Grasping her face in between his hands, Wonwoo speaks a tad quicker than usual. “I choose to wake up every morning and spend every possible time with you. Not because I’m your manager, but because you’re the best person I have ever met and I adore you to bits and pieces. Me being with you has nothing to do with you.”

Before nonsense could drape from her lips like a shower of insecurities, Wonwoo interrupts her with a kiss on her cheek.

“Now, let’s go to sleep and stop overthinking. You’re giving me a headache and I don’t have to listen to your thoughts all the time.”

Cackling, her fingers interlock with his, dragged somewhere on the tour bus to take a nap…or have a good night of sleep, for the first time in a while.

###

“Maybe, it’s time you move on, you know?”

When Wonwoo was nine years old, he asked his dad what love was. He said it was a long time. His mom, on the other hand, gave him more of a dreamy answer. She plastered a smile on her face and changed what his father had said initially—she mumbled, while scrubbing on the dirty plates of shared dinner, that love was patience. He never asked again, for Wonwoo thought he would never get to understand it fully.

But Ali doesn’t feel like love. Not with her eccentric baby blue dress and the lights of the club bathing over her body. Not with the way she brings her beer up to her lips after taking a puff of a cigarette. Instead, she dangles her legs off the seat she’s perched on, staring at his client and friend as she talks to a tall, blonde man while dancing, a smile forever taking over her face when in public.

Wonwoo stops holding her waist to pull away, leaving his drink to the side to quirk an eyebrow. These parties are not his thing—he hates club as much as a forty-year-old man who just wants to go home does, but he has to attend them from time to time. It’s publicity for his client and connections with other artists come from this in most occasions. Ali just decided to tag along, something about the killer look she put on their shared client that she just had to see.

“What are you talking about?” He questions, but when he takes a sip of his drink, his hands placed on his lap, he studies the person they are talking about and indeed, if looks could kill, this one would take him straight to the grave. A yellow bodysuit covers her body, the wide pants making her hips stand out, just the tiniest bit of skin, enough for imagination, showcased around her chest but the diamond necklace around her neck spoke of expensiveness.

“You know,” Ali says, jutting her chin out. “She’s earned far more as a solo this past year than she did in The Moonlit Dolls and it’s obvious every manager in the game wants her now.”

Wonwoo chuckles. “She wouldn’t trade me.” If he’s certain of one thing it is that they’re here to ride or die in this long road that is success. He will stand by her side until his last breath lets him—

Ali shakes her head, fingertips scattering across the collar of his shirt, her index finger toying around his collarbone. “Babe—”

“Wonwoo.��� He corrects, looking at her from behind his rounded glasses. “I told you not to make this too personal.”

The stylist rolls her big eyes. “All I’m saying, Wonwoo, is that she’s talking to Ahn Seojun right now. The son of one of the biggest managers in the game—”

His teeth tighten under the force of his jaw when he stands up from his seat. “I don’t care. I’m sure she won’t—”

“What’s with this blind trust you have with her, Wonwoo?” Ali questions, tipsy when she gets up from her seat, eyes blaring with anger. He stops on his tracks, turning around to look at her, her scent repulsive in tainted alcohol. “She’s no angel, let me tell you.”

“No one is.” He replies, voice vacant of any extra feelings. “I know she wouldn’t leave me for Ahn Seojun or whoever his father is.”

Ali pushes at his chest, a huff leaving her lips. “Get it through your head. What you have with her is not normal! This is not the relationship a manager has with his client!”

Shaking his head in the process, venom bites at his words, but respectfulness is always kept in what he says. “And you shouldn’t care—”

“Wonwoo, I fucking love you, alright?!” The older woman screams at the top of her lungs, tears cradling her vision when she drops the bottle to the side, pieces scattering across the floor. “And all you fucking do, all y—you’ve managed to do all along is love her. I’m sure you’re with her—”

The man in question raises his eyebrows, taking her by the shoulders to stop her from hitting his chest any longer. Well, that’s trouble. Maybe, it wasn’t such a good idea to get involved with someone from the same staff team as himself.

“I’m not.”

“Look me in the eyes, Wonwoo!” Ali exclaims, voice ragged. “Look me in the eyes and tell me it has never crossed your head that you could be in love with her.”

Three seconds of silence follow after his words.

The darkened walls and moody atmosphere of the club becomes more interesting, eyes wandering as he thinks of all the years he had spent with her. When awakening to the sight of her, smiling down at him and asking him to join her for breakfast, had he thought of love? When seeing her in her robe, ready to work on a new album, had he thought of love? When listening to her pleas of forgetting her past, when growing up was harder than even thinking about the future, mixed with the tears of memories she could never get rid of, had he fallen in love?

He’s not sure. He told her once, a little bit over a year ago, that he had fallen in love a bunch of times…but they had never quite felt like this.

“Wonwoo?” Ali’s voice wavers when she questions him again, but Wonwoo simply purses his lips together, a tight line made out of them.

Love is the patience of knowing she would never be his, but for him to wait forever until he saw her happy. Truly contented. That’s what love is.

And he’ll die one day, most likely, telling his children or grandchildren that he had fallen in love with someone once and he never could say it, but that he did his best to have her live her truest love story. With someone who isn’t her manager, of course.

“I am not in love with her.” Wonwoo lies, fixing the coat over his shoulders. “But you’re fired, Ali. I can’t have you create drama between my client and myself.”

The curses that follow after him when he turns around and goes look for her won’t haunt him forever, but they do that night.

###

A gush of air is stolen from her lungs when the new stylists wrap a corset around her waist over her suit, the lacey white material contrasting against the beige walls backtage. She’s about to perform for a show, and they love seeing better—perfect bodies, sculpted smiles, kicking off with an enchanting lifestyle. No one realizes that celebrities are not truly what they show.

“I can’t believe she said that.” The pink wig had been exchanged for a lukewarm blonde, her eyes elongated by thick eyeliner, the shortest stylist fixing the tie around her neck, the dark gray suit matching his own. Anyone would think she inspired herself off him.  

Little does Wonwoo know that she did.

“Woo,” She starts. “I would never, ever, think of replacing you with anyone. Much less whoever that Ahn guy is. We were just talking about Queen’s latest album because it was a banger. Can’t blame me for being a bit jealous of Freddie thinking about it before I did—”

“I know you’d never replace me.” Wonwoo conquers, pushing himself away from the wall to get closer to her. The stylists move away when he nears her, his hands resting on her shoulders when she fixes her lipstick, thumb rubbing sightly to make the pink a bit duller. “I’m sorry I made you lose your stylist.”

“You should be sorry about the new stylists wanting me to wear a corset.” She jokes, placing both hands on her chest. “The ladies look good, but I’m afraid I could split in half if I reach a high note with my chest voice.”

The man by her side, with long hair in the styles of The Beatles in Yellow Submarine, widens his eyes when he gasps. “Shit, guys, we forgot about the boots!”

The woman by the tie gasps. “No way!”

“Where are they?” Someone else says.

“They’re in the car. They were too heavy to bring them all the way here. Sorry!”

The singer raises her eyebrows at that. “What do you mean too heavy? I have to dance with those—”

But the stylists don’t listen to her, rushing out of their places to get to that goddamned car. Instead, she chuckles at Wonwoo’s reflection, turning around to interlock their hands together. Typical nature of two friends, right?

“You look beautiful, but this is not you.”

“That’s what people like.” She replies, eyelashes fluttering when she looks up and down his face before humming. “I’m sorry I had you break things off with Ali. I just—Well, you decided it. How could she have thought that you were in love with me?”

Wonwoo becomes silent for a second before a broken smile appears on his features. Maybe, he feels uncomfortable about the situation? After all, he has always been a bit closed up about relationships. At least, that’s what she thinks.

“I would be fucking lucky, Woo.” She says, turning around and bending over the vanity to run her fingers over her mascara-coated lashes, not missing the blush that takes over his features. “A handsome, capable, loving, caring, intelligent and sweet man deciding that I’m worthy of love? His love? I’d die on the spot.”

Wonwoo chuckles at her words, juvenile in its approach, when he rests one hand on the small of her back. “You’ll get him one day.”

“He better hurry, then.” Her answer comes quickly, turning around until her chest is pressed to Wonwoo’s, his eyes lost in something she can’t quite pinpoint. “I’m a romanticist, man. I just…I just need a man who knows that he wants me with so much force that he’ll do anything to make me feel loved. And let me love him back, of course, I’m not as egotistical—”

Anyone who looked at Jeon Wonwoo in all his glory—covered in a suit, with glasses and his hair pushed back, would have never thought of him to be the type to be surprising. Though, when his lips melt against her own in the sweetest of touch, capturing her breath when he closes his eyes delicately and lets his body cover her own, her back digging onto the edge of the vanity, she feels a part of her dying. Dying in the best sense of the word, like how it feels when someone goes to sleep and they disconnect for a while.

Wonwoo tastes like the coffee he had earlier this afternoon, with the stain of his heart dragging across the way his lips softly part and breathe out utmost adoration. Her eyes close when her hands relax against his chest, devoring the feeling of being unique for once. Of having someone, that person, even for just a second. He’s soft, albeit a bit lazy, delicate in the way he approaches the kiss and molds his hand against the small of her back, abdomen flushed against hers.

When she seeks for more of him, he pulls away, his eyes crinkling under the weight of his smile when he says.

“I hope you find someone who loves you like that someday.”

Though, his cheeks blare in all shades of pink when he pulls away, fixing his tie when trying to leave.

“Wonwoo?”

“Yes.”

Before she could tell him anything else, the stylists come back with the huge—just not to say humongous—shoes.

And Wonwoo leaves without listening to what she wanted to say.

I hope that someone who loves me like that is you.

###

All she can think about while seated next to the host show, perpetuated in a beige suit with his bald head shining under the harsh lights of the studio, is the man that stands somewhere behind the cameras and that had kissed the tenderness of romance back into her heart.

So, she crosses one leg over the other various times, tries to laugh a little harder and opts to make everyone believe in the public, both at home and present there, that she’s lurking for her fans, taking in the love that they’ve gifted her after being away for so long.

The vinyl version of her album rests against the wood of the desk that keeps the host away from her, laughter leaving his lips when he points at it with his extended palm. Finally, she stops looking at Wonwoo, whose eyes are trained in the scenery with a soft smile on his face and instead, she tries to think of something else.

Why would Wonwoo kiss her? It’s not like…it’s not like he was interested in her, right?

“This is a big blow for The Moonlit Dolls, ain’t it?” The host asks, looking down at his notes with the eye of a reporter. “Seven times a million seller and on the top list of songs to play on the radio months after its release. How do you feel about it?”

“It’s…stellar. I feel like I’m over the moon.” She replies, voice sultry, aspiring to sound humble even whens he knows her tears and pain is plasterd on that album. “I couldn’t have done it without my fans.”

“Did you know The Dolls’ latest album only sold twenty thousand copies?” The host looks up and her heart gets caught up in her throat. Those are the people she once trusted and sure, she would have loved to see them fail on the first few months of grieving their friendship…but they were talented. Sunshine, now the composer, had continued down the sexy and romantic vibe of The Dolls. “Critics called it a failed try to make music for housewives that want to be sexy after twenty years of marriage.”

She hisses, her smile long forgotten. “They’re talented. I have nothing to say about them.”

The host, however, listened to her album in its entirety. “Nothing to worry about. Your album said enough.” Laughter coming from the public, the man fixes the burgundy tie around his neck. “Why isn’t Jae in the album?”

There it is. She spares one look towards Wonwoo and she sees his smile faltering, his Adam’s apple bobbing when he swallows harshly.

“I’m sorry, who?” Sarcasm drips from her voice when she fakes a smirk, leaning one elbow on the armrest of her chair before pointing at the public. “I want these people with me to feel empowered. We can feel complete without someone by our sides. That’s my message. I may not have pulled it through in the past, but it’s what I stand for now.”

It’s not half a lie, but part of her wondered if she would ever find love. Maybe, it’s closer than she had imagined.

“I agree. I agree…” Though, show hosts are known to be pushy. “But you dated Jae Kim for three years. You two were practically the new Yoko and John. What happened?”

She shrugs. “He’s…” Her voice trails, figuring out if she should say the truth or spit out irrelevant lies. “He’s not the subject of my inspiration, that’s it. I just like to separate my job from my romantic life.”

“He doesn’t do that.” The host says, fixing the glasses that rest on the bridge of his nose when he puts her album down. “He dedicated his latest homerun to you, you know?”

That doesn’t do anything to help her situation, and what she wants to do at that moment is stand up and tell Wonwoo that the kiss meant something. That Jae Kim himself, the man that broke her heart, could come over tonight and she wouldn’t even look his way.

“That’s good.” She says, trying to keep her stardom intact. People don’t like a bit of sass. “I think I’d rather be known as something else than Jae Kim’s inspiration behind a homerun.”

The host clears his throat, a smile on his face. “Would you ever go back to him?”

It’s her time to laugh, but when she looks towards Wonwoo, he’s already taking off somewhere else. Shit. “No.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t believe in second chances.”

“But all your songs were once about him.” The host curls his hand in the air, as if stating the obvious. Her eyes divert towards him once again. “Is it, maybe, that the ex-doll has found a Ken for herself?”

This interview is going horrid. This is the moment she realizes that no matter how hard she has worked for the past year, she will always be known for something. A sex symbol that hung around Jae Kim and sported short skirts. This alone makes the corset around her waist constraint her from breathing properly when she shakes her head.

“I’d be lucky to have someone else.” She whispers, looking towards the public before squinting her eyes. “…But that’s never possible. You’re either successful or in love, and when I choose to have both, it ends up plastered on the media. Consumed as if I’m a product.” Leaning back on her seat, she connects her gaze with the host’s. “You see, I’d love to love someone, but I’m unable to. How can I promise someone happiness in the world I live in, when I’m my saddest ever since I started being a celebrity?” Her voice departs a little, broken, when she plasters a smile on her face and chuckles lightly. “So, I’m free as a bird as of now, and not returning to the past.”

Though Wonwoo hadn’t listened, she wished he would have. For, she would love to have him by her side, but she didn’t want to taint him, break him quite like the media did for her.

###

One month passes by without the kiss being spoken about, but the tension is unbearable.

Sure, Wonwoo should have never tried to kiss her. He was irresponsible, if not unprofessional, or all kinds of wrong adjectives when he had decided to lay his lips on her, caress her skin with his own, want to do nothing more than to unleash her realest self away from the corset, over the vanity and kiss her until her lips were swollen. He would have, maybe, taken her out for dinner later and hoped to lay by her side by the end of the night, with each breath of her own mingling with him.

But he couldn’t. He knows he can’t. Not when he promised to be her manager, with a contract and all, and wanted her to succeed. What would anyone think of him if they saw her with her in front of a camera? Or even worse, what would the media think? She had gone from successful, rich men with snarky tongues and scandalous sex lives to the tamest man she could find.

His pencil taps against his agenda, seated on the passenger’s seat as he reads their schedule for today.

“We don’t have much else to do.” He states, the black, sleek car they find themselves in matching his dark suit. He stares up, studying her profile when he spits out: “The studio has been scheduled for tonight. You can record anything you want until two, and then, we’re off to sleep.”

Though, she doesn’t seem to be listening, her natural hair tied behind her back, sporting baggy clothing when she lifts herself off the seat the slightest to look through the review mirror. “Shit.” She grits through her teeth, sitting straighter and picking up the pace of the car.

“What’s going on?” Suddenly, she’s rushing through the streets, her eyes widened and her jaw tightened in hatred.

“Someone is following us. The paps.”

“What?” Wonwoo has never been in this position. He’s always the one sneaking her away from the paparazzi, not the man caught with her on camera. “Are you sure?”

A short, sarcastic laugh leaves her at that. “I’ve been in this business for long enough to differentiate a normal car from a paparazzi’s.” Though, she’s rushing through the streets, moving away from their normal road towards the studio to lose them. “I don’t want them to capture you in camera.”

That brings a pang to his chest. Of course, she didn’t mind it when it was Jae Kim or one of her love affairs. Not when she’s in parties or drinking to her heart’s content. That kiss meant nothing to her, perhaps embarrassed her beyond a tainted friendship. “It doesn’t matter. People know I’m your manager either way—”

“I don’t want them to talk about you, Woo.” The nickname drops from her tongue sweetly, looking through the review mirror and giving another harsh turn. “I don’t need them to ruin the only good thing left in my life. I don’t want anyone judging you or comparing you to the past because—”

“Why would it matter?” A bitter tone follows his statement. “I’m nothing special. If they talk about me, they will forget about me as well—”

“Goddamn it,” She curses, harshness in her voice when she tries to voice out her concerns. “Wonwoo, listen to me!”

“I just don’t get you!” His voice rises as well, losing his poised tone. “All celebrities are accompanied by their manager!”

“But you’re not just a manager to me anymore, stupid ass!” She conquers, his voice growing tinier when he hears her argument. She manages to lose them with one more turn, not a fit farther away from the city than they were at the beginning, but he can only concentrate on the way the street lights cast down on her face, shadows merged with beauty. “I—I…The night you kissed me, all I could think about is how I don’t see you the same way, Woo. I’ve never been kissed like that.”

His lips remain sealed for a few seconds, before a grin appears on his face. “Whoever didn’t kiss you like you deserved was crazy.”

“I don’t want people to know about you because I want to make things right.” With that, she parks the car, tall trees and shadowed spots keeping them hidden from the eyes of the world. They’re just two people who no one cares about at that moment. “It’s not about the kiss, but it’s about the person, Wonwoo. I want to be able to have you for myself and I would rot in hell with jealousy whenever I saw you with Ali. I want to be able to feel love and give love to you and only you, because you’re the only person I have known and the only one who has wanted to get to know me.” She turns towards him, fingertips spread on the steering wheel as she speaks. “I don’t need a love story, but I want one with you. Because if there is someone in this world that could be my person, that one created for me, it’s you.”

Emotions wash over him so fast he can’t mention them when crossing his head. Love. Adoration. Patience. Resolution. It’s when his eyes look down at her face, at her lips, the clothing that clads her and differentiates her from the persona she is on stage, does he realize that he was never in love with music…or her music. He wasn’t in love with the rhymes or the love songs.

He was in love with her.

If he had to tell this story to his grandchildren, he wouldn’t know who gave the first step and connected their lips. Her hands fist the edge of his jacket, not caring about the uncomfortableness of the cramped car, kissing him with tenderness and patience, but with that air of necessity that comes with the slow movement of her lips. His hands tangle on her hair, tilting her head to the side as he does what he did a month ago…and God, how he missed it.

He doesn’t know how he spent thirty-one days not doing this, not craving for this.

It’s then he realizes that he hasn’t been in love a bunch of times. Or well, he has—he has fallen in love with her in numerous occasions, like a fool would, dragging his hands down to her waist and bringing her over to his lap as he plants seeds of small kisses across her lips, her cheeks, her neck, her collarbone, a shaky breath leaving her when she rests her hands on each side of his face and pleas—

“Please, Woo. Tell me you’ll give us a try.”

###

1972.

“D—Do you think I ask her to go out with me?”

When he recalls the story of how he found The Moonlit Dolls, he almost always forgets Jeonghan was there. For, the man was wasted, as in, he couldn’t even think straight when he looked up from his position on the table and connected his gaze with the singer he had just met tonight, dancing to her will with an enormous grin on her face.

Wonwoo is there for Joohyun—a lover boy through and through, and he knows Jeonghan is the type to get who he wants when he wants it. With his long black hair tucked behind his ears, his stench of whiskey and his intelligent smirk, Jeonghan could try it with the vocalist and see what ensues, but his stomach twists, turns, in a way that comes with a bit of egotistical nature.

Sure, he’s not going to have anything with her. He’s certain of it, but she’s too pretty for Jeonghan. Too unique.

“I don’t think you should.” Wonwoo says, crossing his arms across his chest. “I think she’s way out of your league.”

Jeonghan scoffs at that, long fingers rubbing at his pink, blushed face before asking: “And who’s a good match for her? You?”

With a sip of his beer and a tilt of his head, Wonwoo studies the woman on stage. No. She’s too impossible. A client is more of what he sees in her. “Only in my dreams.” He replies then, a smile taking over his features when Jeonghan swings him by the shoulder.

“You want her for yourself!”

He chuckles. “I totally do not.” But, he stands up before Jeonghan could—not that it is that difficult, his friend is as shit-faced as he could get—. “I just want to be her manager, that’s all.”

Jeonghan takes the last few droplets of his whiskey down his throat before chuckling dryly. “Give it time. You’ll be head over heels for her.”

And that was the night they met.

###

“It’s still surreal at times, you know.”

Laying next to Wonwoo, with his nimble fingers tracing the curve of her shoulder, his arm weighted down by her back as they look up at the ceiling of her bedroom, his naked torso underneath her cheek while she plays with the outline of his ribcage by his side, never once stopping her train of thought.

His chuckle reaches her face, shaking her slightly when he rests a kiss on top of her head, albeit a bit too short. “What does?”

Though, when she interlocks her bare legs with his, looking up into his brown eyes, she only lets out a soft smile, innocence an irony to the situation they had found themselves in minutes earlier. “That I have a secret boyfriend and it’s you. Out of all people.”

Wonwoo quirks one of his sculpted eyebrows, asking: “Would you want it to be someone else?”

Hovering her face over his, she pecks his lips once before shaking her head softly. “I wouldn’t want anyone else but you.” Though, when she lays back on his chest, his heart still picking up its pace even after four months of dating, she questions: “Does it bother you?”

“What do you mean?”

“That you’re kept a secret.” She mumbles, turning around to rest a kiss on his sternum before resting her chin on top of his hard chest.

Wonwoo has to think about it for a moment. Sure, he had always been the kind of man women would introduce to their parents, whom people made plans with on the long run, but he doesn’t mind it. If anything, he would be petrified if he happened to be caught by the cameras.

So his thumb reaches for her chin, lifting her face up the slightest to part his lips and let his tongue softly caress her bottom lip. He delves into the feeling of her, closing his eyes softly and daydreaming about their future when she relaxes against him.

With one hand resting on her back, and the other sparcing across the mole he adored on her face, he says: “I don’t mind being your secret as long as I’m yours.”

###

WOMEN IN MUSIC – Why the most famous funk singer decided to never date again, and how it worked to her favor in her career.

The eighties are crazy, Wonwoo has figured out. Headlines are better for women, at least, but journalists are still very superficial in what consists of getting to know an artist. With a deep brown suit resting over his body and his hair resting under his earlobes after he had decided to let it grow, he watches his fiancé pose for the cover of her third album.

I Chose You, the album was titled, though no one knew about it yet. The blurring sunshine and pink skies behind her were gorgeous as she sported another styling change, not as reckless and seductive as her initiative in music; and he couldn’t be prouder. There, with the sand bathing his stylish and elegant shoes, he sits back and reads the newspaper. About his girl. Claiming that her last love and the man that broke her heart was none other than Jae Kim.

Her heart’s alright, if anyone is wondering.

But what surprises him is how his new assistant takes the newspaper in between her hands, the tall and slender woman reading over the article with studious and small eyes before gasping lightly.

“Shit,” Hana curses, her bleached and long blonde hair cascading down her back and moving with the wind as Wonwoo studies the celebrity that poses naturally in front of the cameras. “I wonder what it takes to get someone like her to cave in…”

The sun masks the faint smile on his face, his hair moved by the wind when he crosses one leg over the other. For once, he feels tranquil, much more when she connects her gaze with his and sends a smile his way.

“I think it takes bravery.” He confesses, though he’s sure Hana and none of their team know about their relationship. They have kept it a secret, through and through. “She’s too much of a woman for most men.”

Hana nods along to what he says, looking down at the article. “And do you think she’ll find someone someday?”

Maybe it’s crazy, but Wonwoo doesn’t think they found each other. He likes to believe all roads would have led them to meet. “Give it time.” He shrugs. “I’m sure someone will come.”

Though, the laughter that threatens to slip his lips doesn’t leave him, he loves the irony in what they are.

Two people who asked each other where their destined soul was, not noticing that they were meant to be.

Or, alternatively, Wonwoo wanted to ask her out that night at the bar when he met her and Jeonghan was about to do it, but bravery never came his way.

Patience brought him all the power to finally kiss her, though silent in his approach, still getting the best outcome.

PLAYLIST: leave the door open – bruno mars ; adore you – harry styles ; lmly – jackson wang ; hold up – beyonce ; maniac – conan gray ; i hear a symphony – cody fry ; japanese denim – daniel caesar ; vienna – billy joel ; someone you loved – lewis capaldi

#wonwoo scenarios #wonwoo #seventeen scenarios #seventeen #kpop scenarios #writing #wonwoo au #wonwoo fluff #wonwoo angst #seventeen au #seventeen fluff #seventeen angst #manager!wonwoo #i had this idea in my head for a whileeeeeeee #and it's a gift for one of my fave wonwoo stans that denies she has wonwoo as her 1 on her bias list #but whateverrrr