unintended consequences
title: unintended consequences
pairing: kim dongyoung/reader
genre: meet messy!au/interviewer!au/actor!au/enemies to coworkers to lovers!au
summary: kim dongyoung, kim dongyoung...who the hell is kim dongyoung? the question ran through her head endlessly when she was in the middle of a red carpet, having studied enough about everyone to take place on any interview, but something about his name just didn’t connect to her memory. the recording of their interview, extremely awkward and improvised, ends up in the most well-known of sites, viral thanks to its awkward repetition from phone to phone. oh, she knows who kim dongyoung is—the reason why she lost her job as an interviewer.
type: fluff/angst/romance/humor/drama
word count: 26,229
Everything is about imagination. Romance is, in a way, part of our imagination. With our own very nerves, we craft images of who we imagine to be our soulmate—the reception of our interests in said person translates into connections of love and desire. Working is about imagination, too. Those who are creative will, forever and always, end up at the very top of work ladders. The reason? Simplistic. People love a good image, a nice daydream, a mind that will always look ahead, more profoundly, whose mind will always be running and creating more and more. Endless, this cycle is, but in her line of work…reality is reality.
Gossip magazines are known for their exaggerations. Two actors could be dating and suddenly it’s blasted as some irrationality. People could simply smoke a cigarette and it’s already on every headline. Nonetheless, this is the side that people judge—paparazzi with cameras, interviewers that pry too much, non-studious people who make money out of exploiting the real artistic essence of interest. Plucking those misconceptions away is as tough as the word can get. Hated. Ignored.
Forgotten.
Typical journalists never last in her environment. The box is already complicated; three-dimensional, understandably so, and she has to stand out from that. Her strong fingertips—all caused by endless hours of typing on a computer to get her column to be filled with interesting, yet professionally acceptable articles—are holding onto a pen. Ink-less, it is, glistening on its platinum glow when she holds it close to the man in front of her. Sprawled on a love-seat, to be exact, eyes widened with adoration the more she repeats the questions that shall be delivered elegantly to actors and actresses alike in less than twenty-four hours.
“Mr. Lim, it’s a pleasure to see you here on our red carpet today,” This is typical. Studied. The type of interviewer greeting that comes with those who are fashion enthusiasts or simply socialites asking surface-level questions. However, this is not who she is.
The ups and downs of her cameraman’s voice sounds like puberty. Growth of a twenty-seven-year-old man, in a way, someone who clearly keeps his youth even with the passage of time. Nothing like the actor she has in mind, but no less intriguing than any other celebrity could be. Jason fixes his glasses, plays with the strands of his bleached hair before speaking. “The pleasure is mine.”
“Your last movie was inspired on a memoir written in 2004. What do you think are the correlations between yourself and this character, inspired on a real person?” Like an arrow, questions should be aimed to celebrities to judge them as thinking and reasonable beings. To be a performer, there needs to be some capability of learning lines—but the strength of the delivery of emotions is worth studying. While her articles may not be the most popular in between headlines, for they are not captivating enough or filled with drama, they are…hers. They study what real actors want to be asked; about their performance, not their personal lives.
This imaginary microphone—a pen, if she’s honest—is taken in between the long and skinny fingertips of her partner in crime. Jason, whose face is normally behind a camera pointed at her, and who has accompanied her through thick and thin while building her career. The skies suddenly changed their dulled colors when her boss, finally, rang her phone for something else other than complaining about lack of substance in her articles. For the first time in her journalistic career, she gets to do something important. Interview celebrities live while on the red carpet. “Oh my fucking— You’re going to kill this. I claim it.” Jason’s high voice speaks through the air, pulling the hood of his sweater over his head just when he stands up.
Other than him, no one would know that her eyes can barely stay open after endless studying of the latest works of each of the invitees to the red carpet. Every single one of them, written down on a document, read by her at any given time in which she doesn’t have to work on articles. From movies, to shows, to musicals, to personal relationships, to anything of the like; confirmed invitees were studied by her, ready to ask just the right questions for cinematography enthusiasts. “You really think so?” The hopefulness of her voice shouldn’t have showed through in such a lightweight matter. Her pen rests on her chest, hands clasped together in what seems to be naivety. “Because I’ve been studying every question for the past two months.”
“Well, duh,” Jason’s voice rings through the hotel room when he leans over her vanity, playing with the strands of his hair to fix it. Hours of the journalist interviewing him must have taken a toll on his look, tired beyond relief. “You’re the most intelligent of our team. Only you would prepare this much.”
Questionable, really. She is the most enthusiastic of her team; the only one that remembers the exact day in which journalists are celebrated worldwide, the only one that reads articles and departs them as books, whose diction battled the ones that beauty pageant contestants had to practice, because she believes in the magic of interviewing. It shouldn’t be about asking: ‘Who designed your dress?’ if it’s not Fashion Week. Talking to actors should deal with acting. “I prepare this much because I’m not exactly the smartest of the bunch, you know?”
With a quick motion of his legs, Jason turns around to look at her, long body seated on top of the vanity. “Don’t steal my title. I’m a cameraman for a reason.”
A small smack to his shoulder should suffice, much more now that she can finally close the document on her tablet and let out that one breath that had been suffocating her for the past hour of asking Jason any possible question to every invitee of the red carpet. “Now that this is over…I should really start worrying about what to wear tomorrow.”
Freeze-frame worthy is Jason’s face when he hears those words escaping her lips. “Y—You still haven’t thought of your outfit?”
Staring down at her t-shirt and leggings, the shake of her head is given. “I’m not much of a fashion lady.” She replies, quite clear in the way she seems to have, at least, three gray t-shirts in her wardrobe and a lot more leggings than she’d like to admit. “Hyoyeon sent me some clothing for me to wear. Some dresses and whatnot, but I haven’t even opened the box. I’ve been too busy revising—”
“Where’s the box?”
“On top of my luggage, why—?” The question is not finished when she watches Jason overtake the room with long, purposeful strides, taking the big box in between certain fingers before dropping the package on top of her undone hotel bed. “…Okay, let’s look at what I have here, I guess.”
“I am the one deciding.”
“Uh…why?” She asks, resting her hand on top of the lid before Jason could open it, but for someone so skinny he seems to have a bit of strength in him, popping it open even through her attempts of stopping him.
“You’d pick whatever is most similar to t-shirts and leggings, and let me tell you something: you’re going to be live to the world tomorrow. Through YouTube or the TV, people are going to look at you.” As if the constant names, questions and reminders inside her head are not stressful enough, Jason’s words seem to deflate her confidence a bit. Maybe…she should have taken more care of what she is going to wear tomorrow. “And I may not look like it, but my girlfriend is a columnist in the fashion area of our magazine, and also the one that sent you this package, so I get to pick.”
The blossoming love between the tech enthusiast, sci-fi lover, cameraman Jason and Hyoyeon, a fashionable woman with love for Louis Vuitton more than life itself, will never be understood by her. But, in comparison, Jason does dress slightly better than her, and he plays around with patterns and colors more than she does. “I’ll let you as long as you pick something nice.”
His fingers wrap around the last piece of clothing, a violet dress that screams ‘90’s diva’. Fitted all around, with a few shining spots under the faux lights of the hotel room (is it nighttime already? She wonders), the straps show support to the delicate, yet there, neckline, length supposed to reach a little bit under the middle of her thighs. “I know mad shit about dresses, but this one looks like it could make you look good—”
“And like I’d want to show my boobs to the entire country in a live interview.” She concludes, deep frown only highlighted when she realizes how her arms are crossed over her chest. “Hyoyeon always wants to get me in dresses, but I swear to God—” Still, plastered on Jason’s face, is a look that tells her to wear it. “I haven’t even shaved my legs and I’m not going to wear something that will make me look bad.”
“You’ve never tried a dress like this.” Jason says. “Besides, don’t you think it’s pretty?”
“It is,” The mumble she gives out is cut short when her hand reaches forward to feel the fabric. Soft, tight, it looks like it’d give a nice shape, too. “Should I just go for it?”
“If Hyoyeon picked it, I’m sure no one is going to think it’s a bad look.” The cameraman conquers, reaching inside the box to point out different dresses. “And the rest are even more revealing.”
“What’s with Hyoyeon and having me wear revealing dresses?”
“Ask her, not me.” Jason points out, tossing the dress towards her way before she sighs.
“If this dress doesn’t work out, I’m wearing a t-shirt and some leggings.”
“It’ll work out.”
She doesn’t know if she wants him to tell her that about the interview or the dress, but with her mind preoccupied with other matters, her hands hook around the dress, moving to the bathroom to try it on and forget about the pressure of her interview program for the slightest bit.
###
The energy is buzzing, even for everyone who watches through a screen. Translated into absolute delight; a night of recognition and love to the most given and talented of actors, actresses and performers, all given to a red carpet. If someone dared to squint and look at her, they’d see just how confident she is, despite the dress that has her shying away with her body language. One arm crossed over her chest, taking leverage on the elbow that crooks up to hold the microphone up to the actors and actresses that come over to her; legs crossed, some would think her heels must be killing her in the position she is, but the choice made by Hyoyeon in what shoes consist of is not necessarily uncomfortable. If anything, the breeze is what makes her feel most uneasy, as well as the weight of the jewelry falling from her earlobes, the necklace resting in between her collarbones and down her chest. Of course, not to forget the tightness of the dress, just a little bit too revealing for her liking.
Glitter in everyone’s gazes. Shining. Rich. Everyone on there is dressed to utmost perfection, pride on their faces from the hard work, earned through recording, shooting, scripting, producing, acting and the words are told by themselves. The invitees drop one by one, specially in the order that she had studied—the sources of her magazine are rarely wrong, after all. The camera is pointed at her, but most of the time concentrating on the celebrity ahead of them. The questions flow from her lips elegantly, smartly, at one point she really thinks she is just simply having fun, jitters of happiness fluttering up her stomach and bringing a smile to her face.
This is what hard work looks like. Rather, the conclusion of it.
Thunder is not what breaks the atmosphere of tranquility, for the afternoon is too heated to change weathers so suddenly, but the shouts and screams of overexcited fans could have made her fall out of pure surprise. Scanning the red carpet, in between the masses of photographers going crazy to take pictures of this one celebrity, her eyes meet the person that seemed to have destroyed the afternoon—and night—for other fellow performers.
An angel in disguise, some would call him, with that serious look on the expression of the man now standing on the red carpet. The white suit on his body is fitted, put exactly to the width of his shoulders, to fit the length of his long legs and make him look like the epitome of a daydream. She can already imagine the magazines going crazy about this one outfit on this…unknown celebrity. This…whoever this is.
No companion, she notices. The black-haired angel moves further in front of the cameras, now approaching interviewers one by one, but she can’t still find a name for him. Of course, he has to be known—the cheers for him say so much about it, of fame and overrated-ness, but the name never comes up to her mind, or it never reads in her mental image of the list of invites.
Who, out of the invitees, would have such a face? Such physique, that she can’t find words in the tip of her tongue, can’t speak like the skilled journalist she is.
That comma hairstyle frames his oval-shaped face perfectly, as if made for him. His eyes, leaned upwards, are the most powerful point of his face, paired with straight eyebrows that, in one way or another, give him an air of mightiness. His nose, short, small, as if crafted by an artist—and those lips, that had little to no importance for her, until he gave a smile to the interviewer next to her, moving closer and closer to her spot.
And who the fuck is this guy?!
What can she even ask him?
Taking Jason by the shoulder, and thankful that they are on commercial break, she leans over to talk to him away from the microphone. Better, it is, to avoid mistakes. “Who is this guy?”
“Kim Dongyoung. Duh.” Jason says in a hushed whisper, earning a glare from her and a scrunch of her nose.
“Who the hell is Kim Dongyoung?”
Not enough time is given to her when cheers get closer to where she is and once, she turns, the sight of the unknown celebrity has her swallowing harshly. Throughout her two years of her professional journalistic career, she has never been the type to embark in small, fast conversation in interviews. Not even for the written ones. In the depths of her brain, asking for something simplistic just speaks wonders about her research skills, but in this one occasion, she’s left stranded, looking ahead at the man who shares a smile with her before looking towards the camera—
“We’re on air.”
With numb fingers, her microphone goes forward for Dongyoung to speak. She has one of her own, practically pressed to the side of her face. Much to her distaste, however, her shaking motions must have caught him off guard, immensely so now that his lip is hit by the microphone, that precious gummy grin of his long forgotten. “Oh, sorry.” She speaks fast, as quickly as she can without making it suspicious. “Welcome, Kim Dongyoung. It’s a pleasure to have you on our show.”
Dongyoung, whose face is now filled with seriousness, tries to give a tight-lipped smile as he raises his hand to shush the waves of fans cheering for him. “The pleasure is mine. I’m a huge fan.”
Oh. Oh, fuck, he shouldn’t have said that. This is a clear sign that he wants a nice interview, one that cannot be made up from the ignorance of her brain. Since when was he invited?! “So are we.” Lying through her teeth seems like the fitted option as of now. One look at his brown eyes has her breath caught on her throat, her free hand twisting behind her back. “Dongyoung, who designed your suit?”
…This is not the kind of journalist she is, much less the kind of interviewer she desires to be, and the stare Dongyoung gives to his body is brief before parting his lips to answer, equally as monotone as her voice: “Prada.” His fingers toy with the edge of his white blazer, making her speak into her microphone.
“It looks good.”
“Thank you. This night is very special for me, so me and my team had been working to put this look together for so long.”
“So…” A trailing voice, uncertain eyes, an actor like him must have noticed the tightness of her movements, the sweat pooling by her forehead, the absolute fear of fucking this up. Her mind, however, going a million miles per hour, tries to think of movies or shows that he has been in. “That’s nice, actually. Yeah, pretty nice. It’s rare to see someone like you without a companion, is anyone going to join you soon?”
Dongyoung’s eyebrows turn into a frown, body visibly tensing the more he straightens his back, as if wanting to pull away from her. One stare into his group of fans has her realizing that they’ve fallen quiet, much like the actor in front of her. This is the moment she feels as though her walls are crumbling down, knees shaking and failing to control the weight on her heels, wanting nothing more than to erase herself out of existence. For a second. A brief one. “Not really. I—Uh, I’m in a moment of my life where I consider I should be judged by my talent, not who I’m accompanied by.”
“Of course,” And then, it clicks. That name…that name sounds similar to one she had read, perhaps she could come up with something— “In the movie Homme Fatale, you were bound to mix the historical genre with comedy? What were the hardships of mixing the comedic relief of your character along with such a serious matter—?”
In the blink of an eye, Dongyoung leans over the microphone. Face vacant of that liveliness that represented him at the beginning of the interview, lips quirking up in a sarcastic smile that barely lasts when he says. “Well, I wouldn’t know, because that’s a movie my brother was in. Not me.”
Shit, Kim Gong Myung, not Kim Dongyoung— “Ah, yeah, my bad,” A brief chuckle leaves her lips, staring towards the camera before resting her hand against her forehead. “I’m so sorry.”
“It’s alright.” Dongyoung says, looking over to the side where his manager is making signs for him to pull away as soon as possible, simply giving a curt nod. “Thanks for the support to my brother, either way.”
“I—”
“Everyone, have a nice night.” The speech is given to the camera, a wave of his hand and soon after, he’s gone into the masses of people, leaving her with her heart racing rapidly when—thankfully—another commercial break resurfaces. Fear, all coming from embarrassment, the tears that threaten to appear on her eyes are blown away by Jason. Quite literally. The man that supports her through everything is blowing soft gushes of air on her eyes while she looks up to stop the crying.
“Don’t cry. Don’t cry. You still have other interviews to do—”
“I’m going to fuck it up. Let’s just cut it right here.” Her voice breaks, long gone that posture of a journalist she had, and it takes a few movements of her hands to blow air at her eyes to stop the tears. Though, the shaking continues to be there. “I didn’t even know who he was.”
“How didn’t you—? You know what? Whatever. It happens. You just need to move on and pretend nothing happened.”
Though, there are matters in life that are meant to be lessons, and with her nose still sniffling away the embarrassment from before, she continues on with this huge lesson of life. Mistakes are made by everyone, just that not a lot of people end up doing them on live TV. It will be alright, as long as not that many people were tuning it, it is going to be a forgettable interview.
…Or, she hopes the twenty-five thousand viewers think the same way.
###
You know, for someone who didn’t give two shits about multiplication back in elementary school, it has become a huge karma in her life. Twenty-five thousand views on a livestream of a red carpet had turned into one hundred thousand views on a YouTube video, soon after reaching the one-million-views milestone. At this point, five days after the incident, she is terrified of even looking at her phone, much less searching her name up on YouTube to see the amount of views on her worst, most memorable interview.
Her bet goes on five million views, but she may lose her money at this point.
Not to say that she had not looked at the video of her imminent death, the moment her soul left her body and dissipated into the limbo, a hell so much worse than Dante’s inferno; because, in retrospect, she has, a bunch of times on the day after the red carpet. Her pride teared apart just a little bit more when she saw the expressions on Dongyoung’s face, lips parted in an uncomfortable smile, eyes widened when her words ruined the moment a little bit more. His body tensed, broad shoulders moving uncontrollably at one point, needing to find a way to get out of there as soon as possible. His image could have been tainted by this, perhaps his expressions would be laughed at on the internet once the initial shock passes by, but he would never lose as much as she did. Her job, to be exact, coming from the text her boss had sent her three days ago.
This is what people fail to express after putting celebrities on a pedestal. That they, on the long run, could be the cause of someone’s destruction with the power they have. Dongyoung, though looking like an angel that night, had destroyed her entire career in the blink of an eye, like a wrecking ball that overtook everything in her life. The world hated to see one of the most beloved actors not be recognized by someone who did their best on an interview with someone they didn’t even know, and as always, journalists are placed on the villain role. It’s fitted for them. It’s fitted for her.
It’s the reason why, even as of now, seated in front of Hyoyeon and Jason, there are people looking at her. Young fans, to be exact, perhaps teenagers, going crazy over the fact that actor Kim Dongyoung had an awkward moment once in his life.
What about her?
What about her job?
The clicking of cameras is what has her sighing, stabbing more of the greasy, soy-sauce coated noodles in front of her, not caring that they are steaming when she plops them inside her mouth with a devastated sigh soon after. It’s even more pathetic that, once she pays for this meal, it will mean a negative sign in her savings, which she should be taking into consideration for paying her rent. Who would even want her as a journalist anymore? After all, she embarrassed the ‘it-boy’ of acting in public television.
The first person to react is Hyoyeon, already dragging her seat with a loud shriek before sticking her chest forward at the group of teenagers harassing them with pictures. “They better not bother you in here. You’ve barely eaten the past few days and I’m going to kick their asses if they make you feel any worse.” But Hyoyeon doesn’t realize that being protected by the ‘mom-friend’ of the group is even more degrading. Once back on her seat, with her left hand resting on top of Jason’s thigh under the table, Hyoyeon’s eyes look for hers, but she doesn’t relent. “Don’t pay attention to them—”
“How can I not? I get death threats in the mail, Hyoyeon. People hate me around the entire country.” She points out, watching the noodles swirl on her plate, leaving imprints of sauce on the white ceramic. “It’s not my fault I just didn’t know who Kim Dongyoung was. Sorry, I’m not one of the women that gets their panties wet while watching one of his movies. I haven’t even watched any of them.”
Jason, as dumbly charming as he is, speaks from his spot, fixing the thick bottle-lenses glasses from falling from the bridge of his nose. “You actually should. Dongyoung is an expert in mystery movies. I haven’t watched any actor do it like him—ouch.”
A sharp pinch on his thigh from his girlfriend must be what cut his sentence short, having Hyoyeon give her a faint smile. “They’re not that good, honey. If he has not made a statement to the public after that awkward interview, that means he’s not a good person.”
Does it? Lately, she has been questioning that endlessly. Maybe, she should have really studied more—let the confidence slide and grip onto some nervousness. Perhaps, Dongyoung was equally as uncomfortable as her. Not because she didn’t recognize him, but because she had asked him exactly what would have hurt him at the time— “I get him, though. He just got out a break-up scandal, I’m sure his team is telling him to let the wolves eat me alive and then, he’s off the hook.”
Hyoyeon, now even more interested, picks a nice amount of noodles up with her chopsticks before speaking up once again. “About that…Yuno was the one to write an article about Dongyoung’s break-up in our magazine, and the sources say that he’s the one who cheated. Though, it has always seemed fishy to me.”
The adoration in Jason’s face is clear when he nods at his girlfriend. “Yeah, I also read over it. It is told that he cheated, but it’s never said with who or why or when or how.”
“Guys, he’s a celebrity.” She cuts the chase, the past few days making her hyperaware of her surroundings, of the reality she has lived and the world that she had tried to push herself into. “Celebrities are like that. They have everything but they always want more. I’m not surprised.” Though, part of her mind had always wanted to treat celebrities more than an image. Thinking individuals, able to feel passion and love for what they do, humans just like her that are excited about cinematography, art, speaking, and anything of the like. Wrong, she had been.
“True…” Jason mumbles, lips puckered up when he hears another shutter of the cameras, now widening his eyes towards the group of teenagers.
“Hey!” Hyoyeon calls out loudly, ready to scold the teenagers when she rests her hand on top of the woman’s.
“Let them.” Must be the loss speaking, the tiredness of her brain after so much turmoil. Dongyoung is probably somewhere in his mansion, watching the pictures that are released of her, or reading over his next script and his prepared answers for interviews. Once Hyoyeon is seated again, not forgetting to send a glare to the other people by the restaurant, she speaks. “I may move to Argentina at this point. Just run away, become some newspaper girl there, not stay here and wait for one of his fans to kill me.”
“Don’t say that,” Jason, the voice of reasoning, the person that had been there with her when everything happened, speaks softly. The delusion she feels tears at her, hopelessness shown in her unkempt hair—she hasn’t washed it, hasn’t brushed it, much less has she put on a drop of makeup. She doesn’t feel like it, all she feels like doing is standing up and stomp over all the judgements, running far, far away from the articles made by her own people. “Just…try for other magazines. Your talent is phenomenal, you understand movies like no other, and have studied cinematography for long enough. I’m sure a lot of people would want you with them.”
Reminiscent of the reason why she wanted to become a journalist, she wonders if that’s the case. A young girl, she had been, watching fairytales on television and enjoying the craft of the characters, their quirks and perks, the lines that made them memorable forever engraved in her brain. Movies moved her to different parts of the world, brought back feelings that she had never known, and that’s the magic of a good performer. Actors bend or make the movie. “…Maybe—”
“Besides, you don’t have enough money to go to Argentina.”
“Jason!” Hyoyeon scowls, getting a faint, shameful grin from her boyfriend.
“It’s the truth—”
Watching the noodles in her plate, she thinks she needs to fight for this. For the meals she needs to eat, for the apartment she wants to keep, for the lifestyle that she has given herself through her hard work, the name that she has made only to have it torn apart. There is a reason to exist, there will always be, and if her existence annoyed someone once, it’s not her problem. “You know what? Argentina can wait.”
###
The light swirls in the thin air. Bright, matching the stars in the posters around the office. People are going from one edge of the room to other, shoes that are far too expensive for however much these journalists get paid, holding big stacks of paper on their hands of articles that may never be released, at least not as honestly as they should. Journalists are, sometimes, fiction authors. They need to make a reality so fantastic that books such as the Iliad would be ashamed of their mythology history. To gain interest, there needs to be a narrative, but nothing about this place or the many others she has gone to has caught her attention.
White are the walls of the seventeenth place she has gone to in the past two weeks, all of which have served her to miss her past job equally as much. The posters are of different artists; from Elvis Presley to local bands that she has no idea about, to some actors that she can’t even look at without feeling pressured. Her hands, clampy at this point, hold onto her resume for dear life, seated on the uncomfortable metal seats in front of the boss’ office. Too occupied, the boss seems to be, chattering and laughing loudly and casting the sound towards the outside, whatever celebrity that is there with her making it much too obvious that they are sharing a pop-able bottle of champagne, enough to make the interview that much more…interesting.
That, or whoever this is just wants good traction, and to be on the journalist’s side always.
The coffee machine by her side works, but no matter how many times she presses the button that reads ‘latte’, she gets the same Americano as always. The bitter taste has already woken her up, but not in the best of mindsets, looking down at her resume and her goals, all of which had been absolutely destroyed. No one looked at her as just a fellow journalist anymore, she was ‘Doyoung’s enemy’, the one interviewer that hated him so much that she had compared him to his brother, and had asked about a companion when he had gotten out of a longtime relationship.
Come to think of it, she sounds like the devil with a microphone in hand, and this all happens when asking the questions that everyone else asks. What works for everyone, maybe, just doesn’t work for her.
And she can’t even get a free latte, as it seems, because this fucking coffee machine only knows what an Americano is—
“Oh, Dongyoung, you really have a way with words.” The laughter of the boss in question has her looking up. Slowly, almost as if she’s in a thriller movie and needs the monster to disappear before she fully looks at it. Her life is not a movie, quite clearly, so she ends up making direct eye-contact with the man that had stomped on her life, danced a flamenco song, and left it in shambles. Dongyoung, with his hair still parted perfectly, now looks more casual. Gray hoodie on top of a black t-shirt, ripped jeans that show those legs that she had checked out on the red carpet, but the mere sight of him has her standing up.
The owner of the magazine in question may have noticed the struggle of both people in the same room. Dongyoung, whose face gets filled with recognition, his smile changing to a frown as rapidly as it changes to a look of pity. And she, of course, is the one that can’t hide the absolute fear she feels at that moment. Fear and hatred, mind her, because all she needed was a statement from him to fix her reputation. “I—” She starts, not finding the words in her to say anything else, because the owner of the magazine now seems to be drenched in shame. If anything, she may start apologizing to Doyoung for the mere presence of the journalist. “Here’s my resume, but I know you won’t call me.”
Her rushed steps are only heightened when she hears someone following her, looking over her shoulder by the time her name is called. Dongyoung’s hand is lifted in the air, as if to catch her attention, but the troubled stance inside of herself settles a fire alarm in her brain, making her rush down the set of stairs instead of taking the elevator. The ceramic glides against her sneakers easily, running and running down the endless number of stairs while Dongyoung speaks.
“Hey, wait up! I need to talk to you!”
“Don’t you dare get close to me!” And it’s even more of a surprise when Dongyoung’s long legs are able to skip two or three stairs per step, leaving her at disadvantage no matter how fast she tries to move. “What do you want? Do you need to ridicule me more? Isn’t it enough that half the country hates me because of you?” This exact mindset is what has her stopping, because this man, this man in front of her, breathing rapidly after rushing behind her, is the one that had made her life lose meaning, lose the North that had characterized her for so many years, the only passion that she ever had lost in time and essence because of his mere existence.
“I’m so sorry you’ve been getting hate.” But he doesn’t know that there’s nothing she hates more than that pitiful look on his face, eyes glistening, eyebrows turned downwards, lips pressed in a sly pout, absentminded at that. “I didn’t mean for it to get viral, but you should’ve denied the interview if you didn’t know who I was. You literally made a fool of me on air and—”
“Of you?!” Now, without a job, she can treat a celebrity exactly like who they are. Human beings, just like her, just like the one man in front of her who feels remorse because his image was slightly tainted. “You only care about your image? Every show on TV has been making fun of my mistakes. Fans take pictures of me and ask me why I even did that to you…” Her voice lowers, headache thumping on her temples the more she looks at him. “And you dare to tell me I made a fool of you on TV? No one will hate you, you’re the victim here, I’m left as some villain—”
“I want to mend it, just let me speak!” Dongyoung tells her, moving to stand in front of the stairs when she tries to walk away from him once again. Now closer, she gets to see the droplets of sweat on his collarbones, the rosiness of his lips when he talks softly. “I’ve been in scandals, with my ex, at least. The public will always see what the celebrity wants them to see, I just need you to play along with me and in some months, you’ll have your job back.”
“You don’t mean it—”
“I mean it. I’ll get you back in your magazine if you just stop insulting me and let me tell you my plan. Well, the one I came up with just a few minutes ago when I saw you in front of that office.” Dongyoung rushes to get his words out, eyelashes softly fluttering on top of his cheekbones, catching her full attention when she gives a step back and crosses her arms over her t-shirt cladded body.
“What do you have in mind?” Though, the resentment in her tone has not subsided in any way, glaring at him as if all the pain her mind has gone through for the past few weeks could be thrown his way in the form of baggage.
“My personal assistant left the job after my scandal with my ex, so…I need a personal assistant.”
“I’m a journalist, Dongyoung. I may not have looked like a good one in your eyes, but I’ve done some pretty good articles—”
“Let me speak.”
“You just say nonsense.”
“Well, fuck, look who is talking. You confused me with my brother.” Her lips get sealed by those words, looking over to the side simply not to smack his face away from her trip down the stairs. “Normally, personal assistants tend to appear in pictures taken by the paparazzi, or in ‘behind-the-scenes’ videos, or even in the background of interviews, but no one pays attention to them. They are the closest to celebrities, almost like a confidante, and still people don’t care…” His voice trails, certainty shown in his expressive features, lips quirking up in a small smile when he says: “If people saw you in pictures with me, in videos, in whatever it is that you can get on, as my personal assistant, they’d think we just ended up becoming friends even after the interview. If I forgive you, the world forgives you.”
Tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear, suddenly interested in his words, the rational part of her decides to intervene. “Why can’t you just make a statement saying you forgive me and I’ll be off to my old job sooner?”
“Because people won’t see a growth. If they see us acting closer, like we’re friends and you’ve grown to know me, they’ll think that we truly changed from the first time we met. Besides, not to sound like a stuck-up asshole, but…my friends get good opportunities in this business.”
A scoff leaves her lips, shaking her head at him. “How long would I be your personal assistant for?”
“…Until people eat up that we’re friends, I guess.”
Her eyes are starting to hurt from the migraine that creeps up on her, rubbing them furiously to the point she sees stars behind her vision. Or maybe, it’s the radiant smile he gives her, gummy as always, pleading her in that awkward and expressive way of his to just let him mend things. “Well…it’s either this or starving in Argentina. Deal.” With an extended hand, she grips his. The skin is soft, clear as day that he hasn’t worked a day in his life, and the coldness of his rings caresses the crevices on her dermis. Her other hand looks for her phone, however, eager to start a job that actually pays rent. “Give me your number and I’ll get on working.”
Dongyoung takes the phone in between his hands, speaking while he looks down. “A—Argentina? You were going to Argentina?”
“It’s sarcasm.” She replies, making him look up before nodding once.
“Ah…I see…”
And he expects someone to believe that they’ve become friends and gotten over the initial shock of the interview?
He better put that supposed acting skill to good use, then.
###
“Oh, my Goodness, you’re the new personal assistant, right?!”
Upon entering the set, the least she would have expected is to hear the overexcited tone of a male. Her eyes that had been inspecting the place, from the high ceilings, the tremendously bright lights, to the flooring with the decorations in wooden and darkened tones for what seems to be a police department, are suddenly settling on paying attention to the person before her. A little bit over thirty, rounded cheeks with freckles falling along them, his height serves to make him look taller, that buff body of his different from his sweet-looking face.
Oh, but she knows him, and a nod from her is enough for the cables in her brain to connect in images of revindication. The manager that had called out for Dongyoung in that red carpet, that’s who this man is, though his clothing was a lot posher at the time she saw him, his hair far more styled than the straight cut that it is right now. “Sweet.” He adds, perhaps unfamiliar with the amount of hate she has gotten, or far more interested, to the point of being blinded by the news, by the fact that there is someone new on the team. “I couldn’t wait for the day I’d stop being his manager and his personal assistant. I’m glad it happened sooner than later.” He speaks in a rushed manner, moving somewhere and leaving her stranded, not until he turns on his heels and points for her to follow him. “You’re coming, you know?”
Still, far too interested in the sights around her, she follows after him. Dongyoung had not texted her until a week later, after informing his team and sending a contract her way, one that had been read by one of her lawyer friends and approved thanks to her lack of employment. Nonetheless, his comment was brief once he did talk to her—to meet him on Monday, at nine in the morning, in the set for his newest series. A crime TV show, at that, something so unlike him and yet, extremely fitting for his thriller and mysterious ways in acting.
“I’m Moon Sujin. Dongyoung’s manager, by the way. Well aware of who you are, too.” The lively man says with a big smile on his face, as if it could never disappear from his features. Good for him, she thinks. “His idea was…interesting, once he told me, but I read over your resume and I think you’d be intelligent enough to be his personal assistant.”
He says it as if this is supposed to be more difficult than majoring on something, than following a career on journalism, than writing article over article based on facts. A smile graces her features when they enter the small cafeteria by the set. New electronics, to be expected, are there, glistening in gray colors and almost too pristine looking until Sujin opens the door of the refrigerator, getting out what seems to be some breakfast. “I think I can manage. Being some celebrity’s personal assistant shouldn’t be so difficult.”
“Dongyoung is nice, don’t get me wrong. But he’s picky.” Sujin says, fingers working on placing the meals on the containers in a plate before settling them inside the microwave. The minutes read two, to be exact. “Loves his sleep more than one would think. Oh, he doesn’t like messing up his free time, so he likes to have everything scheduled out. You got here a little early, that’s good, because he likes his breakfast to be at nine before his real schedule starts at nine fifteen.”
Of course. Of course, Kim Dongyoung just had to be picky and selective over anything else. At this point, a little voice, faint in the distance of her brain, is telling her that he probably picked her as his personal assistant just to make her life even harder to deal with. “…What if I don’t do stuff how he wants me to?”
“He’d probably get a bit pissed. Though, it’s not that scary, to be honest.” Sujin’s happy tone is starting to get to her nerves, much more when he gets the food out soon after. “So, typical breakfast for Dongyoung.”
“Alright, shoot. Is it crème brulé or something?”
Sujin pushes the plate towards her hands, the heat of it connecting to her skin and making her hiss. A bag is placed over her shoulders, her arm lifting up just so he can slot it around her body. “His breakfast has to be full, because sometimes he eats lunch late, depends on how the recording or the schedule goes. He likes to have sandwiches, but since he doesn’t like the cheese to be cold, I heat them up. I’ll make sure to send you the recipe of the type of sandwiches he likes, it’s his mom’s recipe.” The image of Dongyoung being picky about sandwiches brings a groan from the depths of her soul, looking to the side to see the black bag now resting against her waist. “Those are the cold things he likes to eat. He doesn’t like green vegetables on their own, so I make them into a smoothie. I’ll also send you the recipe. Uh…he likes his fruits sliced, make sure they don’t get too brown, and it should be fine.”
“Wha—? Why?” She asks, lifting her eyebrows in complete trigger at the fact that this is the angel that the country adored, that had made her seem like the worst person alive. “…Can’t he just eat normal sandwiches? Why do they have to be his mom’s recipe?”
Knowing more than she ever could, clear from his features when he sighs candidly, he leans his weight against the refrigerator. “He’s homesick.”
He’s not the only one. What would he feel if he was in her position, ignoring every call from her family members after the incident with the interview? She’s too ashamed to tell them that she’s struggling with money, to start with. “Yeah, so?”
“So, he likes to feel like he’s home through his food.”
“I can see that much. Anything else that he may need? Do I have to do a dance when I deliver his food?” That sarcasm, typical of her now that she is out of the journalism world, has Sujin chuckling.
At least, he does get sarcasm. Unlike some actor—
“He’ll tell you what he wants. He’s a man of routine, so you’ll see the pattern with each day that you spend with him.” Sujin answers, slipping away from the refrigerator before moving towards the door, opening it wide for her. “The cheese’s getting cold. Go to the end of this hallway, turn right and read over the names of the dressing rooms. The one has a paper that says ‘Kim Dongyoung’ is where you’ll find him.”
Difficult. Oh, it is extremely difficult just to stand there and watch Sujin say all these things with so much certainty, a daily routine to be exact. There is a reason as to why that personal assistant left, after all. Closing her eyes, she steps away from the cafeteria and looks at the hallway ahead. Empty, the faint chatter from outside is everything that can be heard after Sujin’s footsteps are too far away for her to hear. The gray walls and white lights lead the way the more she follows after Sujin’s instructions, name after name on the door suddenly coming to the halting conclusion of Kim Dongyoung. A nightmare, this is what this needs to be and if she pinches herself another time and doesn’t wake up, she might actually lose it—
The first problem of the day surfaces when she realizes she can’t actually open the door, both hands resting under the plate, and if she puts it down, he may actually not eat it, saying it’s germ-filled or something. Once again, patience overtakes her, thinking of this as a job that will help her pay rent, get her journalist reputation back and then, forget about the existence of actor Kim Dongyoung. With this mindset, one of her hands lets go of the plate to balance it on only one, opening the door with one swift twist of the gold doorknob, not having enough time to gush at the decorations of Dongyoung’s clearly expensive dressing room.
“Morning, Dongyoung. I brought you your food and met your manager—” Once she opens the door fully and looks away from the plate on her hands, she feels her throat going dry and her plate almost slipping from her fingertips. There he is, the heartthrob of the mystery genre, leaning over his vanity and reaching for a graphic t-shirt, fingers dumbly wrapped around it when he stares at her with a surprised expression on his features. It is at this exact moment that she forgets the normal mannerism of knocking before entering any place.
Dongyoung’s torso is highlighted by the golden lights of the vanity, a thin silver chain glistening under the light. His broad shoulders look soft in texture, trailing down to his subtly toned abdomen and the pair of leather pants that hug his long legs. There is a leather jacket on top of the vanity, maybe it is meant to match with that, but the more she looks at his features—the elegant, soft makeup that covered his handsome face in more glow, the less she wants to stay there for a second longer.
“Oh shit, sorry, my bad!” She exclaims far too quickly, hand coming in contact with the doorknob once again and twisting it just in time to close the door behind her, back leaning against the material before slowly dragging herself down on it, just a little bit, not enough to rest her weight against the floor.
The reality is, there is a reason as to why women—and men—go crazy for Kim Dongyoung and if his shirtless body is anything to go by, she may understand it, but she doesn’t want to be one of those people. The least she wanted was to work for him, and there she is, standing outside and waiting for Earth to eat her alive along with the imminent awkwardness that just has to linger in between the two. She is a journalist, she knows how to speak to people without stuttering, but what is it about Dongyoung and herself that makes her act, sound and talk so irrationally and stupidly?
Not only did she compare him to his brother—or confuse him, really—, not recognize him, asked him—unknowingly—about his ex…but now she had also invaded his privacy and seen him shirtless.
Getting dressed, rather.
The door opens with softness, almost as if he expects her to give up on the job right then and there, and she may have had it not been for that pitiful look on his features thrown her way. His face softens at the sight of her, sighing deeply when he opens the door wider, enough for her to catch a glimpse of the dressing room. Big mirrors, a few seats, a TV and a leather couch. Some hats for his character, probably a police officer according to the rumors Hyoyeon had gotten from the magazine she worked for.
Her eyes automatically trail down to his chest, seeing it cladded on that shirt he was trying to put on in the first place, and the leather jacket does match the pants. “Knock next time, will you? And don’t look at me as if you’ve seen a ghost.” Dongyoung comments, tilting his head to the side before pointing to the dressing room. “Did Sujin send my food with you?”
The door closes the moment she steps inside, all thanks to Dongyoung who moves towards the vanity after taking the plate from her hands. Her fingers hook around the strap of her bag, settling it down on the vanity beside his food to get his green smoothie out, as well as his container filled with fruits; apples, pears, watermelon and some strawberries, as it seems. “He did. I only had gotten here when he was already so happy about me being your assistant.”
“He’s my manager, but he can’t stand some ordering around.” Dongyoung’s answer is cut short when he stabs the lid of his smoothie with his straw, putting it up to his lips before giving it a sip. His face clearly shows that he really doesn’t like green vegetables, scrunching up at his nose and parting his lips in a silent gag.
With the silence settling around them, she decides to speak up on the only thing that has been going through her head for the past few minutes. “I’m sorry for not knocking and for walking in on you changing.” Though, she looks anywhere else but his eyes when she admits so.
“No worries.” Dongyoung swats the matter away softly before taking a bite of his sandwich. Awkward, once again, Dongyoung has to clear his throat to catch her attention and have her looking at him. “I need you to do some things for me today, though.”
“What would that be?” She asks, already looking for her phone to write down what she has to do, only to hear Dongyoung chuckling. “What?”
“Do you type fast?”
“Of course, I’m a journalist. Why?”
“Because I ask for a lot of things.” Dongyoung confesses, thinking of it as the best of comedies when he laughs at her, head thrown back and eyes closed tightly before breathing out softly.
“You’re such a celebrity.”
“And you’re such a whiner.” Dongyoung retorts back, looking at her from the corner of his eye before muffling his own voice with his sandwich. “First, I would like for you to go pick up my dog from the hairdresser in a bit. Also, I already ordered lunch ahead and you have to pick it up, as well. There’s a car for my personal assistant, by the way, I’ll give you the keys in a second.” Oh, and the job comes with more and more perks…everything sounds absolutely delightful, so much so than the more she types, the more she feels like writing at the end: Kim Dongyoung is a privileged asshole with a nice face and damn me, a nice body. “Uh…you forgot my scripts, by the way, but it’s okay, I snatched them away from Sujin before I came here.”
“Y—Your scripts?” She asks, quirking one of her eyebrows up to see Dongyoung getting something out of the drawers of the vanity before settling it down on it with a loud thump. “Jesus Christ—”
A folder, as thick as a textbook, is now seated on top of the white ceramic. “This is my folder of scripts. I’m working on a historical film later this year, so I’ve been reading that. There’s this show, so I have all the scripts for the next fifteen episodes here. I also have some variety shows to attend to and they, also, have scripts. Without counting some comedy film I’ve already done, but Sujin has forgotten to get that out of this folder.” Dongyoung comments, the amount of projects under his belt enough to make her head wonder how in the world he is able to remember so many characters, all those words— “Most actors don’t ask for this, but I’m afraid I’ll forget my lines so I ask my personal assistant to bring it along everywhere. It may be a heavy folder, but it has my entire life in it.”
That, she can understand. Though, she’s more of a technological woman if anything, but for how hard she studied the questions for her latest interview, only to be ruined by him, she could understand his fear of forgetting one of his lines. “I’ll carry it.” She answers, already reaching for it and resting the plastic against her chest. “So, dog, lunch, scripts. What else?”
“Cancel the dinner I was supposed to have with my acting committee today. I’m not feeling it and I’m also busy with shooting, so send an email.” Jotting that down on her phone, now with the weight of that folder on her arms, she is surprised when she watches Dongyoung stand up from his seat, standing in front of her with a smile. “And I’ll give you until two to be back here. That should be enough.”
“Dongyoung, do you know I am technically not a personal assistant and that I’m doing this to get my career back?”
He gives her an ashamed smile, his teeth shown in it when he whispers a small: “I’m sorry. I’ll give you until five past two?” The thought alone has her wanting to rub her temples, but with the weight of a two-year-old in the shape of a folder now on her arms, she doesn’t think she can even muster to do such thing. “Listen, I know I sound like an asshole, but all these things are important things. We’ll have fun along the way.”
His face says it all. Dongyoung, outside of acting, can’t hide his expressions on what he feels. Remorse, as if he’s a child that broke a vase and now wants to glue it back together. She may give him the benefit of the doubt but only because— “I’m sure your dog will make me feel better once I got pick them up.”
“…And I ordered lunch for both of us, so it shouldn’t be that bad being my personal assistant.” Dongyoung says, looking down at his phone before rushing towards the door. “I have to go. Recording should have started by now.” She is about to comment on his food, for he’s only taking his green smoothie with him, but once she turns to look at his plate, it’s empty. The sandwich is long gone, along with the fruits.
Maybe, she should pay more attention to the job instead of arguing with him.
“Good luck?” She asks, though it’s meant to be an affirmation. While walking alongside him on the hallway, Dongyoung lets out a chuckle, taking a sip of that disgusting smoothie.
“Thank you. You, too.”
###
With her back directly pressed to the backrest of the couch, her legs part non-elegantly, head leaned back, a rough sigh leaving her nostrils. Granted, Dongyoung’s household is as equally as comfortable as the first time she was there, nine days ago to be exact, and while it’s nine at night—the usual time in which Dongyoung is back home, has eaten, and can finally spare her the benefit of going back home—the chattering around the mansion’s living room is enough to make her feel tired, as well as interested.
From the ceiling to the floor, the big windows in Dongyoung’s household show the stars, casting down on the extremely clean piano in front of it. The living room, however, departs from that elegant spot into something more leaned back. The interior designer definitely made a study of Dongyoung’s personality—gray and whites, a few blacks, so elegant that it almost hurts the eyes, but has the essence of a young guy, spacious enough for him to bring anyone he wants, for party-goers to get far too close in this place because they want to, not because they need to, and while she often gawks at the new spots she gets to discover of Dongyoung’s glass home, crafted at the excellence of him, his friends don’t seem to mind.
If she really studies them from up close, there is no reason why they would care. Johnny’s wrist is perfectly wrapped by a Rolex, holding a flute glass up to his lips to take a sip of his drink, sharing that enormous couch with her and another man and not being even remotely close to each other. The other man in question, Jungwoo, sports that new unreleased Gucci collection that Hyoyeon had not stopped talking about all over his body. Wealth, both of them just exude privilege.
Though, both of them have clicking links in her mind, more than Dongyoung ever did before their dramatic interview. Johnny can be seen with one-liners in movies, matched with upbeat tunes that are meant to accelerate the heart, more often than not cladded in clothing that shows his hard work on the gym, the stunts he does enough to gain him some recognition. An actor, just like Dongyoung, just for more of a different genre—action. The way he holds himself shows his pride in his craft, though that does not make him unapproachable, a smirk had plastered on his face the moment he met her not too long ago.
Jungwoo, she is more of a fan of. Not necessarily as much of a fan of him as her ex-editor, Sungmin, was, but she has watched all his movies. The rom-com actor, the one that has anyone muffling their screams into their pillows, wishing that they had someone that loved them. The sincerity in his tone has the watcher falling in the traps of his plush lips, delving into the intense romances that he is put in, and his eyes are the trappers of his movies, matching him into any possible desirable character. Looking at him is even more difficult when she is reminiscent of her past relationship, for she had watched too many of his movies in hopes of seeking that warmth that seemed to lack back in the day.
Her name is called into the thin air, dreaming cut to a short and bursting her out of her bubble when she realizes that there may have been a possibility that she was halfway into passing out on Dongyoung’s couch until Johnny called her. Opening her eyes groggily, she looks at the man with a movement of her head before he smiles. “I’m your biggest fan, you know?”
“Fan?!” Dongyoung and her ask in unison, turning to look at each other just in time to catch their states. Dongyoung is sprawled on the couch across from them, drinking from his own flute glass while he speaks to his friends. His legs are parted, one of top of the headrest, the other caressing the ground, one hand placed on top of his abdomen, body cladded on a casual outfit. “Sorry.” He utters, looking at her for a brief second before she returns her gaze to Johnny.
“You have to be joking.” She says with a half-smile, only to have Jungwoo shaking his head from the other end of the couch.
“He’s not. We had the best laugh with your interview.” Jungwoo says excitedly in that soft tone of his, her smile dropping and making her cheeks deflate almost immediately. Sometimes, she even forgets about the interview that happened a little bit over a month ago. Perhaps, it’s the self-protection system inside her brain that is trying to make her feel better, or it simply is starting to become irrelevant to her. A mistake, one of too many.
Though, this hurts her, leaving her with a short mumble that says: “I see…”
“Guys, don’t say that.” Dongyoung points out, a lift on his tone when he sits up on his couch. “She was taking it seriously. It’s mean of you to tell her that it was funny—”
“Because of your face, asshole.” Johnny interrupts him, searching for something on his phone as he smiles to himself. “You just made it difficult for her, but thanks to that moment we got the best pictures from Dongyoung. We have been using it in the group-chat endlessly.” The screen of his phone is turned towards her, cropped images of the funniest facial expressions from Dongyoung made for everyone to see.
“We admire you. You really made Dongyoung uncomfortable.” Jungwoo says, that little glint of mischief in his eyes unexpected from him. Once he takes the last sip of his glass, cheeks tinted thanks to his tipsiness, he rests his hands on his knees. “Ever since his girlfriend broke up with him, we haven’t been able to have a good laugh with him. The moment that interview happened; we saw some expression on Dongyoung’s face that looked…alive, for the first time in a while, at least.”
But, what a way to be alive. The moment she saw him on the red carpet, she would have thought of Dongyoung to be the happiest man in the world, and for her to step over it thanks to ignorance had made her feel a bit guilty. She had ruined his night, just like how he had ruined hers. “Damn, thanks, I guess?” She scratches the back of her head, looking towards Dongyoung who seems to be ready to argue.
“I was not acting as if I was dead. I was just going through a scandal—”
“A fake scandal, at that.” Johnny answers, making her turn to him. The image of Hyoyeon talking about Dongyoung’s scandal appears inside her brain. Dongyoung had supposedly cheated, putting him as the bad man of the relationship, though there was little to no information about it. Would asking be wrong…?
Dongyoung leans back on his couch, the leather rustling when he rolls his eyes. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Tabloids blew it out of proportion.”
“Did they?” She asks, too softly that she thinks she was the only one who heard it, but Dongyoung opens his eyes just in time to look at her.
“You may think they didn’t because I’m a celebrity and you’re a journalist, but most of your people really just want a story out there, so they create anything—”
“I know, but I’m not like that.” She says, trying to clear her name because, most likely, those men in the room only knew her as that one woman that had gone viral for embarrassing Kim Dongyoung. Or disrespecting him, rather. Her love for journalism goes past gossip. “Gossip exists for a reason, and most of the time my people—like you said—write articles and our bosses tell us to make it more interesting. I was actually against that. I’m a cinematography-based interviewer and journalist. I am more worried about your talent than I could ever be about who you were with.”
Dongyoung frowns at that, seemingly interested in what she is saying, as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders. “Then…why did you ask who was my companion in the red carpet? Weren’t you trying to get me to talk about my break-up?”
“No. Dongyoung, I was not trying to compare you to your brother or get you to talk about your ex. I just didn’t know who you were. Entirely. Nothing. Zero. I had to ask the common stuff.” She replies, biting the inside of her cheek before she hears Johnny whistling from beside her.
“You want to know the details about Dongyoung’s break up, though?”
Dongyoung’s face stops showing a small smile, thrown her way to be exact, when he hears those words. Taking the few droplets of alcohol inside his flute glass, he throws it Johnny’s way and it clings to his face, thankfully not landing inside his eyes. “Do not dare paint me in a bad light in front of my personal assistant.”
“…And our hero.” Jungwoo corrects, bringing a smile up her features before she stands up.
“Actually, to spare Dongyoung the headache if you drunkenly confess something to me, I’m just going to go home.” She pulls the fabric of her t-shirt down, moving away from the couch and going over to where Dongyoung is seated. Her hand reaches forward to pat his head, a way of showing him to be weary of how much he drinks. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Be careful, okay?”
“I will. Good night.”
“Good night.” She tells him, moving towards the set of stairs that lead to the excellently protected door with, like, a hundred codes, but not before throwing a wave of her hand over her shoulder. “It was a pleasure to meet you, guys!”
“Same!” She hears Johnny say, but her mind is too occupied in connecting the dots of the story that is Dongyoung and his ex. It’s none of her business, it shouldn’t be, to pry on personal information has never been like herself. Gossip is not part of her, actually, but that curiousness that overtakes her only comes because of Dongyoung. He seems serious, in most occasions, easy to tease and to anger, but overall…he’s inoffensive. Nothing about him screams cheater, though faces can be seen but souls can never be discovered. That thought lingers inside her head, for his friends find it funny and Dongyoung seems ashamed of it.
…Do they think it’s fun that he cheated?
Or did he really cheat?
Johnny did say it was fake—
The crisp air of the night touches her skin, moving towards the car in a hassle, wanting to get out of there as soon as possible. Celebrities are the same—they are heartless beings, looking for more and more to take, and he shouldn’t be any different. If anything, he’s the most celebrity-esque person to ever exist. In some way or another, she’ll get a confirmation that the angel-faced actor is nothing more than a cheater.
###
“Hello, class.” The person in front of her, an instructor at that, extends their hands freely, landing all fingers together in a curve as a way of relaxation. A deep breath in that she is supposed to mimic—if Dongyoung doing the same action by her side is anything to go by—is given by the yoga instructor, spreading her fingertips once again. “Today, we’re doing friendship yoga. This will strengthen professional bonds along with friendships.”
The trails of sleepiness cling to her eyelids, shown in her body with how relaxed it was before the yoga instructor spoke up about whatever ‘friendship yoga’ is supposed to mean. For such an early morning in Dongyoung’s free day, the least she would expect him to do is yoga. His sleep is almost a sacred thing for him, if not the only thing that he will ever love more than anyone, so for him to wake up early when there are no recordings and to invite her to join him along the way seems suspicious. Enough for her to stop rubbing at her eyes, staring at Dongyoung inside his own personal gym with fire beneath her eyes, burning with the rampant hatred she feels for him right at that moment.
“What?” She utters in a whisper, nearing him, now realizing the exact reason why he had asked her to come in comfortable clothing. Wearing an oversized shirt and sweatpants, Dongyoung seems to get ready, but her most comfortable outfit is, surprisingly but also not at all, a pair of leggings and a t-shirt. “…You never told me we were doing yoga. We—You have friends to do this with!”
“We’re always arguing, so I thought doing something together would help us…stop arguing. Let everything go, you know?” While the excuse makes sense, much more when her sleepy state has her looking at Dongyoung for a second longer, collarbones peaking from his white t-shirt and making her stare down momentarily, reminiscent of the time she saw him without that white fabric on top of him, it still doesn’t settle well with her. The yoga instructor in front of her, however, sporting a relaxed smile on her features, seems to find the situation funny, if the smile is anything to go by. “Do it for me, please?”
“…I get a little bit more of money at the end of this month.”
“Wow, is spending time with me really that tedious? Enough for you to ask for more payment in your salary?”
“Dongyoung, I don’t need friendship yoga. We just need to—”
Her voice is cut to a halt when she feels someone’s hands resting on top of her shoulders, kneading the muscles there only to feel the tightness hurting to the most profound particles of her being. Her eyes widen in surprise, hearing the soft hum of the instructor, Duri, who starts to talk after rubbing at her trapezius. “You need to let go of this pent-up tension you have with you. It’s only dragging feelings of negativity towards your soul. You have the same issue as Dongyoung, too explosive…” The slow tone of her voice has her sighing, pulling away from her with a tug before standing in front of Dongyoung.
“I don’t have any problem, because I’m doing this and then, I’m getting out of here.” Duri seems to be pleased by her answer, moving towards her laptop to hit the space bar, the Bluetooth speakers bathing the sun-lit gym in a soft, relaxing tune, mixed with the sounds of rain. Faux, at that, the day is as shiny as ever.
“I need you two to trust each other…place your hands together, mimic the motions of the other…”
Dongyoung splays his hands in front of her, extending her own fingertips to match the circular motions he is doing in the air, the warmth of his skin seeping into hers when she starts talking: “Where did you even find her? I didn’t know you practiced yoga.”
“Jungwoo does, he recommended her to me once and I never called her again.” He whispers back, only to have her snorting out a laugh.
“And you’re getting me into this?”
“He said it would strengthen—”
“No talking, we’re relaxing…” Duri sighs the words out, making her straighten her back before the instructor’s fingers point towards the electric blue yoga mat on the flooring. “I need you to kneel there, in front of each other.”
By his sweet face, there is a look of annoyance, kneeling down at the same time that she does and looking her way. The sunrays lay on top of his tired expression, probably not getting enough hours of sleep just to strengthen whatever friendship they don’t have. If getting him to drink his greens, picking up his dog and spending time with him at almost every hour of the day is friendship…then, she has a new concept of it.
“Closer.” Duri instructs, almost gasping when Dongyoung moves closer to her, his face looking ahead at her when his chest presses to hers. The expanse of his body clouds her, vision becoming blurry when inspecting his face to the point she has to look to the side. “Now, grab each other’s arms around the elbow area and lean back slowly. This will show that you trust each other…and it will also release any remorse inside of you.” The dramatic punctuation of the word release has her pressing her lips together, reaching for Dongyoung’s skinny arms and gripping them in between her fingertips, leaning back by the time she feels the muscles of his abdomen pressing against hers.
His chuckle is drowned by the music, much more when he says—and sarcasm has finally made a way to his voice—. “This is so relaxing, Duri.”
“Release that hate. Come on.” Duri, taking it far too seriously because it’s her job, would probably lose her cool if she saw the expression on her face, but a minute or so pass by before she asks them to go back in position. “Now, sit down on the mat.”
Following after her instructions, she looks over her shoulder to talk to Duri. “…What do we do after?”
“Rest your feet against the other’s. Place your legs up high, without bending your knees.”
“I don’t think I can do that.” Dongyoung mutters, pressing her feet to hers before she lifts them up in a hassle, straightening her legs to the point Dongyoung’s feet slip away from their position against hers and she ends up resting hers against his calves. “Oh shit, wait, I can’t extend my legs that much—”
“Ooh, I’m more athletic than Kim Dongyoung? Who would have thought?”
“I don’t put my legs up in the air all the time!” Dongyoung complains, placing his legs down before pushing at her shoulder, almost making her lose her balance, but she retaliates soon enough, pushing at his shoulder as well.
With a frown on her features, though playful, she answers his comment: “And you mean to tell me I do?!”
“That’s—That’s not what I said!” The blush on his features is funny, making her push her lips together when Duri rests her hands against Dongyoung’s shoulders, leaning him back on his mat without saying much. Her annoyance levels must be higher than Dongyoung’s mansion itself.
“Please, try not to raise your voice, we’re in a moment of relaxation…” This is serious for Duri, enough to have the smile erasing from her features when Duri pulls away from Dongyoung, now laying down on the mat, to look at her. “We’ll do some carrying yoga positions. Dongyoung will be under you, his feet supporting your weight by your center,” Duri’s hands place themselves on top of her own abdomen, showing exactly where they should be located. One look to Dongyoung’s face shows the same mortified expression that must be on hers, the closeness in between the two unbearable when they are face to face. Eyes widened, lips parted, they can barely speak when Duri continues explaining. “And you’ll get to do several positions of your own. Extending your back, your legs. This will make you trust him. Jungwoo told me Dongyoung trusts you a lot with his life, so you need to trust him as well.”
The rumor that goes around Duri’s lips brings confusion to her. Dongyoung trusts her, that much should be knowledgeable but still, it surprises her. He trusts her enough to carry one of his oldest cars around when working, to listen to what his friends say and to be around him, even when she’s a journalist. He trusts her enough to let paparazzi take pictures of the two together, never thinking about it twice. These thoughts go through her brain when she stands in front of Doyoung’s extended legs, her fingers slotting in between his when his feet prop themselves on her abdomen.
“Do you trust me?” She asks, and soon after Dongyoung lifts her up in the air. From the position, the air is knocked out of her lungs, Dongyoung’s legs wobbling a bit before he gains his balance again. Her fingers tighten around his, looking at his expression while he bites down on his bottom lip to keep his strength.
“I do,” He huffs out, finally learning how to find his equilibrium, looking up at Duri to wait for more instructions, but when the woman starts speaking, something seems to bite at his curiousness. “Do you trust me?”
“…I don’t know.” She utters softly, the air in between them cut by Duri’s voice.
“You’ll trail your feet down her thighs and she’ll have to straighten her back. The only way to keep that position is if she wraps her calves around your legs and you two keep the equilibrium. Once you do, let go of her hands.”
Why can’t she trust Dongyoung? Is it because she feels like she knows so much about him that she doesn’t know him? She knows his daily routines; that he brushes his teeth far more than he should, that he simply can’t stand that green smoothie that Sujin keeps making, and that he calls his mother in the middle of the day to ask how she’s doing. He’s sharp, but he’s not prickly—he’ll never hurt anyone he loves, practically beaming the moment he talks to his family. She knows he is irregular with his exercising, that he rolls his eyes at whatever Johnny says but that he inherently listens. There is so much she acknowledges about him, but there are plenty of things in his story that are inconclusive, as if, in a way, he doesn’t trust her as much as he claims to say.
She straightens her back, but immediately loses her balance even when Dongyoung feet are propped on her thighs. “Do this properly, you got us in this position!” She tells him, a little bit enraged at the faux relaxing music, at herself, at Dongyoung for even thinking that this was going to unite them, but she gets a scowl from him.
“If I put my feet any further up your thighs, I’m going to end up tying your tubes.” The comment has her closing her eyes as if not to laugh, the seriousness of the situation cut short when she wraps her calves around his own legs, hands shaking while they hold onto his. “I’m sorry I got you into this. For making you lose your job, for having your as my personal assistant and for making you do questionable yoga.”
She leans forward, not sure if she wants to let go of his hands at this moment, because it feels warm and safe. Warmth, safety, two things that she would have never compared Dongyoung to, but now looking at him from above, she sees the peaceful on his gaze. Part of her knows that he never meant it, for all of this to happen, it took two to dance into this mess that they are now in. “I’d trust you more if—” A gasp leaves her lips when Dongyoung lets go of her hands, mixed with the squeal she lets out when she extends her arms to keep her balance. “If you just opened up to me more.”
“I feel like I know nothing about you, as well.” Dongyoung complains, her eyes trailing down to look at his extended hands, just in case she falls. Would he do the same if something went wrong now that they are a team? “M—Maybe it was a bad idea to try to get to know you more through yoga.”
She chuckles at that, for the first time feeling like she is not tied to Dongyoung simply because of her job. This thread of lines around her chest, all burning into her skin, hurting her in prickly grips, lets go with a liberating force. “It was not the conventional method, but I think it’s…fun.”
“I think so, too.” The sound of Duri pushing the space bar on her laptop is the only thing that is heard after she turns the music off. The tall woman places her hands on top of her hips, one leg jolted forward to show her distaste. “So, are you going to actually pay attention and have fun or should I just tell Jungwoo that his plans of having you two become friends are pointless?”
Jungwoo, the man that had called her his hero. Of course, this couldn’t have been only Dongyoung’s idea.
Speaking of the man himself, his legs give in finally, bolting her body forward until his legs are resting on each side of her body, parted, and her elbows dig into his chest uncomfortably, stealing a breath away from him. Dongyoung’s ears are closed in pain, rubbing at his thighs when he speaks to Duri. “Yeah, Duri, I’m sorry…but I don’t think neither of us are fitted for this.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll just pick my stuff up and go.” Duri’s relaxed tone says before taking her by the arm, dragging her up and away from Dongyoung in a matter of seconds. “If I were you, I wouldn’t trust him. There’s a saying about men with weak knees; they never support anybody.”
Dongyoung frowns at that, two lines forming on top of his nose when he sits up on the yoga mat. “Well, it’s not always I have to support my personal assistant on my feet, thank you very much.”
Absentmindedly, he had done something. In the depths of her soul, she feels as though Dongyoung is not much of an enigmatic, well-prepared, immaculately logical villain that waits for the right moment to stab her in the back. He is, just like he said that time by the stairs, simply trying to mend a mistake he made.
But now, at the beginning of their day together as personal assistant and actor, the uncertainty of it all falls on the fact that she doesn’t know if that makes her feel better or worse.
###
The security system beeps after she inserts the code, opening the door with her free hand, the other holding the container that includes Dongyoung’s food, ready for another day or recording. This time around for his movie, just a clarification that her phone brightened her mind with once she had woken up, alarm sounding like the shrilling touch of nails against a whiteboard. Once the door closes behind her, she basks in the mere silence of the dimly lit room—big windows, this mansion may have, but with Dongyoung using black curtains to keep his privacy to the highest amount, the place looks as if it was the doom when he is not awake, bathed in the glow of his security system only.
The more she walks into the place, up the stairs carefully and into the living room, her fingers trail over the curtains and pull them slightly, the welcomed sight of the Sun bringing warmth to her body. This routine of the past two months has been liberating in a way—different, like an intern in some magazine that works immensely different from the other ones, but refreshing in its outcome. Walking up another set of stairs, the playroom is the first thing she sees—too many videogames that she’d rather skip looking, she has already been threatened by her own thoughts to simply skip work and play there for a while. You know, just for fun.
Though, fun it is to work with Dongyoung. Watching a new sight of an actor such as himself, too well-prepared and obsessed with following the script, is something any journalist would wish for. Sometimes, when they do get to his mansion to share dinner—just like they do with lunch—, she swears she sees him opening up more. Not about his past, itself, but about his beliefs. What he finds right, wrong, annoying, interesting. What movie he likes, her opinion on it taken into consideration, and the films will even be played in the background if they have time.
Opening the door to Dongyoung’s room, not knocking after he told her that he’s a, through and through, heavy sleeper long ago, the same darkness has her sighing. Her fingers touch around the place to find any kind of surface; whether it is his desk or his vanity. Much to her delight, his desk comes in contact with her hands, feeling his laptop and his phone on top of it. Once the bag is settled down softly, the curtains are pulled in a hassle, trying to make as much as noise possible to wake up Dongyoung.
Or annoy him, God only knows what she wants.
…But maybe, it’s to annoy him.
For someone whose color-scheme around his mansion is white, gray, more shades of white and some black, his bedroom seems to be livelier. Brown shades, some beiges, some darker, all around the decorations, from the cushions on his bed to the blanket thrown over his body, fluffy enough to make his slim body disappear on the king-sized bed. The wood of the desks looks rich, barely even rough under her fingertips, sturdy for the amount of pictures he has around it, as well as some of those expensive matters that he keeps lying around—some jewelry, a ring that he always likes wearing without meaning at all, and his laptop that could very well have android qualities and speak to her one of these days with how expensive it is.
“Morning, morning, Dongyoung. We have a movie shoot today, and Sujin said you have to be there early because paparazzi are already crowding the street and you’d get there late if you don’t wake up now.” She speaks, voice quick when she goes over the first bit of his day, the patter of his dog’s paws making her smile softly as she picks the white poodle toy dog from the floor, lifting her up until she is resting on her waist. “Dongyoung, I said good morning. Even your daughter is asking for you—”
When she pulls the covers away from his body, she doesn’t expect him to let out the noise he makes. A soft, guttural moan that falls in the back of his throat. Resting on his abdomen, arms sprawled on top of his pillows, Dongyoung’s cheek is squished against the material, barely opening one eye to look at her. The worst part is that she feels her heart pick up when he closes his eyes again, giving her a smile in the softest but slowest of matters when he realizes it is her.
Once his body twists, the sleeve of his tank top falls off, showcasing his shoulder for her to look at before clearing her throat. Dongyoung reaches forward, patting all over her body blindly, patting around her arm and knee. “Where’s the booze button? I need to shut you up for, like, five more minutes.”
“You don’t have five more minutes.” The hardest part is to not concentrate on Dongyoung. She excels at it in most occasions, rushing through everything just to not stay there for too long and hence, not being able to look at how absolutely breathtaking Dongyoung is even early in the morning, void of any trace of makeup, hair done a mess.
He sighs, rubbing at his eyes and extending his limbs with a soft gush of breath escaping his lips. “Can’t you just be pretty and not tell me anything once?”
“That’s not my job.” She tells him, putting his dog down before moving towards where he is. Kneeling beside the bed, she runs her fingertips through Dongyoung’s hair until he is smiling once again, utterly pleased by her ministrations. That is until she tugs at the strands, bringing that beautiful frown out of him. “My job is to get you out of your bed so you can have millions of women around the country dying for you, so…wake up.”
When she stands up, Dongyoung gives one final turn on his bed, finally sitting up just in time for her to look at the way he runs his fingers through his achy scalp, yawning softly and extending his arms over his head. He may not be regular on the gym, but his physique has always been quite artistic to her. As if, in a way, he’d never realize just how some sculptures could envy the beauty that he holds. “Joke’s on you.” Dongyoung says, ignored by her when she moves towards the door and opens it quickly, Dongyoung’s dog—Mio—following after her.
“Why?”
“You’re still pretty even when you’re talking shit endlessly.” The comment falls on deaf ears. An actor like him, who probably saw women of the highest of calibers every day, could never consider the interviewer obsessed with t-shirts and leggings as a pretty woman. A normal man? Probably, the type to have a nine-to-five job and probably two women liking him, not someone like…Kim Dongyoung, the country’s heartthrob.
For, uncertainty will always be a dress she wears around him, and it has been settled by her to always hate the garment. “…Just s—shut up.” She fails on keeping her stutter in when she shuts the door behind her, and she swears she hears Dongyoung chuckling to himself.
The more she spends days with Dongyoung, the more she realizes just how different they are, and no matter how much he tries to integrate her into his world, she’ll never match. The darkness of his mansion is not for her, much less is it the coding system. The van is a little bit too much and the shutters of cameras when the two of them get out of the automobile makes her squint her eyes, while he is looking ahead as if the blinding lights don’t bother him. Dongyoung talks to her as if there are not hundreds of people around them, as if the paparazzi could not hear what they are saying, and she has to pretend like she is not bothered about the people that step on her feet or that point their cameras more at her because: the scandal of having her, that one interviewer that everyone thought Dongyoung hated, around him is just too much to bear, too beautiful to grasp.
But this is what this is. A scandal, a call for attention, nothing more, nothing less. Dongyoung would never be seen, even when dead, around someone like her in a normal setting—with an average outcome, a love for cinematography and journalism. Dongyoung is seen around actors, dating models and actresses, be-friending those who are around his net-worth, not because he needs it…but because that’s his line of work. Those are all the people he knows.
And had she not committed such a mistake, he would have never given her the time of the day, much less would have become friends with her. They would have been kept separated, sufficiently close for an interview, but never enough to have everyone shooting pictures of them looking for answers.
He doesn’t realize it, either, when she walks a little bit quicker just to get away from the cameras. They have enough pictures, hopefully his plan works soon and she can have her job back…because spending more time with Dongyoung will only bring her closer to this feeling she can’t quite explain, that tightness around her heart that only keeps her at ease when he is around.
###
“Hey!” Dongyoung calls out for her, typical, much more when he’s about to shoot. Seated by the makeup artists, she looks up from her phone to see Dongyoung waving at her, right in front of the cameras with a faint smile on his features. The set today looks different—a bed, dimly lit, with red covers and what seems to be a mess around it. One of the most difficult scenes for the actors, and even for her to watch. “Care to help me practice my lines?”
Her eyebrows shoot up, laughing at Dongyoung straight to his face. Absentmindedly, her fingers point at her chest, settling her phone down in the process. “Me? I’m your personal assistant, not your co-star. Let me be.”
“Come on, the actress hasn’t gotten here and I want to see if I can say things well.” Dongyoung utters, the reason as to why the makeup artists behind her sigh dreamily. The Dongyoung effect, maybe, or maybe she just keeps that sigh to herself whenever the man smiles at her a little too sincerely. “I’ll give you my script, you’ll play the prostitute.”
Those words make her halter her steps even when she has already stood up from her seat, scoffing at his words right after he says them: “Way to go, I’ll be the hooker.” Though, she snatches the script away from his hands. The lights of the set feel even harsher in that spot, the camera pointed directly at her, making her freeze in fear. A soft breath leaves her lips, barely audible and shaky, ripping through her chest while she tries not to remember the last time she was in front of a camera. It all went badly; clammy hands, stuttered words, blank spaces in her brain. “The cameras are not going to be on, right?”
“No, no, they will not.” Dongyoung tells her, looking at her face for any signs of discomfort before calling the cameraman. “Hey, care to point it another way while she helps me practice?”
His realization, sharp and intelligent, has her lessening the tension on her muscles when she looks down at the script at hand. There it is, the hooker character that she is supposed to play. “Tell me this is not the sex scene, please.”
Dongyoung laughs at her words, wholeheartedly, one hand brought to his chest when he lets the sound live in a free manner in such a filled and cramped space. “Pre-sex scene. Why? Want to help me out with the other one?”
Groaning, she tilts her head back, covering her face with the script. “It’s already difficult for me to have to watch you shooting that softcore sex scene. I don’t need you reminding me that I’ll be here for it.”
“Whatever,” He mumbles, taking his seat on top of the bed before pointing at his script with his hand. “Read the first line. It’s yours.”
This may be serious for him. To be under the lights must not be difficult for him, much less in front of a camera. Her confidence, now further deflated with the death of her job, becomes even lower the moment she reads the first line. Acting is just that; the unity of words, scene, camera-work and storyline to make everything function as if it was part of real life, a story to be told, but when she reads over the first scene, perhaps expertly played by the real actress, but not like herself, the words die down on the tip of her tongue. “Aren’t you—?” She cuts herself short, shaking her head. “I can’t do it.”
Dongyoung looks around at that, crossing his arms over his chest when saying: “It’s just a line.” But it’s definitely not a line that she’d say in front of people, much less when she remembers that someone is going to say this line to Dongyoung’s character, while dressed in that leather jacket that will always have a spot in her heart—even more so now that they added badges to it. This is just a line, part of what the character has to say, and the image of Dongyoung kissing this character—the first one in the season, is enough to have her blood boiling, just the slightest bit. Enough for it to be noticeable to her, at least. “…Why is it so difficult? We’re just acting.”
“Ugh, you’re insufferable,” She says, looking down at the blurring script when she reads out. “Aren’t you supposed to be the officer here? Go ahead, handcuff me—” Once she reads over the line, she tosses the script at his chest, watching him laugh with glee and bringing a grin up and out of her. “How do you expect me to say that line?! The only thing that needed to be added there to make it even more cringe-worthy is something along the lines of ‘daddy’, like what the hell is this?!”
Even someone from the production team seems to be laughing at her reaction, and Dongyoung has very well spread his body on top of the bed while laughing. “It’s not supposed to be sexual yet, oh my God—!”
His fingers hook around the script, resting it on top of her thigh just as he hears her speak. Adoration is written on his features, perhaps enjoying too much the fact that he gets to fluster her. “Yeah, what is it supposed to be?”
“A legit handcuffing scene. You’re on the wrong page. I realized when you picked up the script, but I let your mind reel whichever way you wanted it to go.” Dongyoung answers, giving her just enough time to launch her fists forward and hit his chest softly, his ribcage vibrating with every ounce of his laughter. “You’re so dirty without letting anyone know.”
“Shut up. I thought it was something else.” She answers, only to have Dongyoung wiggling his eyebrows.
“Oh, I know.” He answers, soon after patting the spot beside him before she takes it, looking into his concentrated eyes while he moves to the right page. “You don’t have to act them out…or say the entire sentence, you can just say the initiation and make sure that I say mine properly, word by word.”
This is the part of him that people never evaluate; that, had she known of him at the time, she would have loved to interview and question the time they met. He’s given to his work, entranced in the worlds of bringing a character to life, make it his, but also differentiate himself from the person that he is in front of the camera. The few undone buttons of his shirt under the leather jacket are not enough to take her gaze away from his concentrated eyes when he says line after line, perfectly, his hours of studying the script coming to a good conclusion for this show. Once it launches, people are going to fall in love for his character…but, who knows? Her problem may not fall on the character, per say, but on Kim Dongyoung himself.
###
May the laughter never die down, she hopes. May his always remain loud and clear, with a gummy smile paired in between even when she doesn’t get a front row sight of it just like now. Duri would have been proud of them if she saw them, time after her class, limbs interlocking with one another while they toss and torn on the flooring. His punches are soft against her face, and she lands some kicks on his side in this play-fighting thing that has been going around for the slightest of whiles. After all, when Dongyoung said ‘fight me’, she loved to take the literacy of it and turn it into a reality.
But not a lot of people get to see this—the raw side of Dongyoung, the one that shows just how ticklish he is, or that one moment of the night in which his retainers are on and he looks a thousand times less…celebrity-like. Gorgeous beyond explanation, he will always be, but this sight of him as she lands a soft punch on his gut, one that has him faking a gasp, is one that she doesn’t want anyone else to see.
Hyoyeon questions her reality at times, and Sujin turns a blind eye into the situation. Her take on it? She doesn’t want to conceptualize it. Days without Dongyoung are rare, but how can they not be when he calls her just for everything and anything. She doesn’t want to think of the fact that play-fighting with him feels as though she is fighting with herself, because she would love to be able to wrap her arms around him and simply hold him close for eternity. For once, she’d like for him to laugh with her and never again feel like she shouldn’t get too close. This flutter in her soul makes her think if this is as endless as it feels, or it’s just a matter of time before magazines start calling for her and she has to leave.
Now, seated beside Dongyoung and tickling his sides, the sound of his laughter is addictive, so much so that she feels egotistic simply holding him here. With her. People love to think that they have become friends, that he has forgiven her, but no one would ever dare to look too close. Hyoyeon and Jason may be right, questioning her intentions of ever wanting to go back to interviewing when she has been so happy there, with Dongyoung, attending him but also having attending her.
Making sure she eats.
Always sending her a goodnight text.
Boosting her confidence with little comments here and there.
When she stops, Dongyoung is still laughing, but he may not realize that she is smiling—but not enjoying this moment as much. Journalism will always be her one lover, but…this she feels has been dead long before, only to be brought alive for him. This sense of passion for something else that isn’t cinematography, instead of looking for movies to live a life of her own, she has…a story. A story that initiates, develops and ends.
“D—Did I punch you for real?” Dongyoung asks, bottom lip stuck in between his teeth when he asks her such thing, and she wants nothing more than to punch some sense into him. For him to fire her so she doesn’t have to look at him for longer and wonder what it would be like if famous actor Kim Dongyoung fell for her. If, for once, she would be as confident as she was back then and ask him the questions she has always wanted to unthread from its confines.
What happened with your last relationship?
Why does everyone think you cheated, Dongyoung?
…If you did, would you do it again?
Has your nice-guy image only been a glimpse of my imagination?
“No,” She answers, patting his abdomen just by the time she stands up, pointing towards the kitchen with a soft shrug of her shoulders. “I just got hungry. Maybe, we should be eating instead of playing around like that.”
“Come on, don’t be boring.” Dongyoung points out, reaching for a strand of her hair and pulling it softly. “You were the one that started the physical fight. I’m more of a debate guy myself.”
Though, she can only give him a short chuckle, hoping that he doesn’t realize that she already knows the matter…knows him for the person he is daily, and yet fears ever knowing him more, because these glimpses of his life have been enough to have her falling in love.
And he’ll never fall for someone like her.
###
Movement will always be a strange matter to her; how electricity deals even with the slightest of glides of her fingertips against the fabric of his tie, rubbing the soft and delicate material in between them before tying it snugly. Some movements can’t be felt, like the one that her heart is doing to go unnoticed by him, and the faint buzz of the elevator that holds them up and towards Dongyoung’s interview. The brown walls, dim golden lights, will never do justice to the man in front of her, always so polished when cladded on a suit, never close enough for her to remember everything about him.
Dongyoung holds beauty in him, he must know this, or at least she hopes he does. In him, even in the most intricate parts of his personality that he never gets to enjoy, and a word will never be told about this to him out loud, much less when she is talking about other things to him. Like, let’s say, how he needs to talk in this interview—how to avoid questions, how not to, how to answer some of the most difficult ones perfectly, how to probably become one of the wittiest celebrities nowadays. While voicing out the turning gears inside her head that are telling her, begging her, to compliment him is as difficult as it can get, speaking about journalism and interviews…not so much.
“What do I do if they ask about you? What do I say?” Dongyoung asks, this elevator going far too slow or the skyscraper just has too many floors. His eyes are what captivate her first when she finds herself still holding onto his tie, the elevator not powerful enough to move her out of her spot there, in front of him.
Everything with him feels like it shouldn’t electrify her this much, that it shouldn’t feel as though her hands are cramping and her heart drops to the pit of her stomach. As if, for some odd reason of the complexities in the chemistry of the human body, she can’t help but smile in most occasions when around him. “You just say we’re friends,” She tells him, tugging at the tie on his neck and hearing a breath getting caught in his throat. “And that I have to do your ties when you loosen them because you’re a poor excuse of a celebrity.”
Dongyoung frowns at that, pressing his index finger to her forehead in a teasing manner, making sure to rub it on the skin and bring a chuckle out of her. “You’re my assistant, you have to do something.”
“Oh, I do something.” But, one simple glance at him already feels like he is pulling her closer and closer to the depths of the masses that fall for him. For this image that Dongyoung has that exudes comfort, that screams romanticism in the oddest of ways—the type of man that will probably most likely prefer to stab his tongue with a fork than to say something remotely cheesy, but on the long run…will probably sneak in something romantic.
“Like what?” He prompts, still staring at her and her hands surprise her when they glide down to rest on the fabric of his black blazer, matching his hair, parted exactly how she met him—how she likes it, really.
“…Like trying to forget that you look this good right now.” She whispers, fingertips splaying across his heart, as if hoping to hear a heartbeat equally as rushed as hers. She can’t feel him, but her eyes can make out the figure of him when his eyes widen for a fraction of a second, lips parting ever so slightly just when his eyes glide to look at her features, everything around her face that can have the lights on top of them glistening even more on his brown irises.
“Is that so?” Dongyoung asks, face growing closer to hers when his eyes connect to her lips, his tongue slotting out to lick at his. “Because I have an image in my head I can’t really forget, and it’s all your fault.”
That breathlessness that characterizes her when around him makes its presence known when she breaths out the question: “What is that image you’re talking about?”
“You, the afternoon we met.”
Her fingers push together, suddenly hyperaware of where she is. The numbers on the elevator get closer to their floor, she is far too close to him, and she’s there because of that damned afternoon, not because of anything else— “Yeah, I don’t think you’ll ever forget that, I embarrassed us—”
Dongyoung’s fingers spread around her waist, thumb coming in contact with her ribcage, soft caresses of the digit against the fabric of her t-shirt. So unkempt, yet in her most natural stance. “It’s not about that. Why don’t you ever let me speak?”
“…Because you always say something stupid.”
“Either way,” Dongyoung rolls his eyes, a small smile appearing on his features. The elevator keeps buzzing in the background, softly, almost not perceivable if it was not for the overdrive of the adoring nature that blooms inside her chest when around him. “I never got the chance to tell you that you looked like a dream that time around. That violet dress…” His voice trails, his thumb pressing down on her skin softly, stopping his ministrations as if to ground himself. His body is close, close enough for the warmth of him to radiate over her, abdomens pressed together, and if she looks at him close enough, she swears she can see a blush under all that makeup. “All I kept thinking about was you in that dress the entire night.”
“Yeah, and also our interview.” She replies, breathy enough that the laughter that follows soon after dies down when she realizes the closeness of him. A thick gulp of her own is enough to showcase just how affected she is—thanks to his existence itself, to the way they met, to the situation in which they are in, in which she can feel every movement of his lungs against hers, back dipped to be closer to him, wanting to wrap her cold fingertips on the back of his suit, trailing down his shoulders, give him that one kiss that he seems to silently be begging for.
“Also, our interview.” Dongyoung replies. “Though, no matter how cringe-worthy it was, it got us to meet.”
“I’m glad it happened.” The situation falls on her like a bucket of cold water, because she was glad it happened. As in, Dongyoung had brought so much joy into her life that, in a way, it was meant to happen to her that said interview went wrongly.
“Huh, what did you say?” Dongyoung questions, one of his big smiles on his face and just when she is about to return it, the sound of the elevator doors opening dings rather too loudly, like the shatter of glass against the flooring as Sujin speaks in a cheery tone.
“Dongyoung, people are already waiting for you!”
Nothing would hurt more than the slip of his fingertips on her waist, like the sigh that left his lips when their bodies were no longer pushed together, when the pure magnetism of him is enough to make her feel powerless only she sees him slipping away from her. Not for long, however, because she needs to follow after Sujin and Dongyoung when the manager’s fingers reach for her wrist, dragging her away from the elevator that welcomed a sense of realization. Dongyoung had been equally as captivated with her as she had been with him the time they met. Or so she wants to believe.
###
After-parties are, to put it simply, the culprit of most of the scandals that celebrities get involved in. There are too many secrets to be discovered when being a journalist in the middle of an after-party event, but since the title just simply stands as her degree and not her occupation currently, she has to act as Dongyoung’s personal assistant only. Standing near the bar with him, a bottle of beer brought up to his lips while they converse about this and that, she finds herself leaning away from the gossip her eyes could capture—and could possibly confirm to Hyoyeon for a premise—to instead concentrate on him. What’s new? She doesn’t know, but it always feels as though watching him is a refreshing moment each time. Different, Dongyoung will always be different from the rest, and in the best of ways.
The buttons of his white shirt are opened, giving a glimpse of the necklace around his neck, that one ring he likes shining far too brightly when resting against the freezing cold bottle of beer. After hiding away from the world for the season finale, barely doing so much as eating if she doesn’t pressure him to do so. As it seems, now that the first season is recorded and will eventually be released to the world, Dongyoung has some time to enjoy a cold treat, though the tiredness in his features is far too much for her to bear. Still beautiful, yet endlessly tired, enough to have him complaining about it every once in a while.
At least, he voices out his concerns.
Dongyoung’s eyes widen momentarily while he is speaking, something behind of her making him widen his eyes and this is enough to be denoted with how expressive he is. Maybe, he’s a good actor—but he’s not good enough to lie to her. His body grows uncomfortable at that moment, leaning forward to where he is as if to cage her from whatever is behind her, a protection of sorts that she despises the moment she sees the tight-lipped smile he gives her.
Whoever Kim Dongyoung is, whether a character or not, he always tries to shelter her. Guilt may be the reason why he does this, but she has never been made of glass. The journalism world is not easy; it’s all about competition, about stepping over someone and getting that one column in the magazine—Dongyoung, though sweet, could never protect her for long enough. Even then, when the ache of her mistake at the interview had subsided, there is still hate thrown her way, fingers pointing at her lying ways, as if she’s some gold-digger that is trying to cling to him. Nothing will ever be sunshine and rainbows, and this is what shatters her about him, what keeps her away from falling fundamentally into his arms, even when it’s not reciprocated.
Dongyoung will hide anything just to protect her.
Once she turns, the body of a woman she recognizes fully is the first thing she sees. Too far away for her to fully see the smile on this woman’s face, but it’s there, a wave sent her way that has Dongyoung scoffing beside her. His ex, that infamous ex that she had little to no information about, at least no more than what she knew as a journalist. His co-star three years ago in some movie that he was part of, the romance on the screen showcased into his real life and turning everything around for him. The scandal—with not enough details, as well—consisted on Dongyoung cheating on her, the cause of their break-up.
And she’s tired of Dongyoung, in a way, of this protective band that he keeps around him in case someone gets too close. There has been enough time for them to meet, for her to talk about past experiences with him over dinner, for them to share enough words that she doesn’t think there could ever be enough time to express just how close they had gotten. At least, on her part. Just now, it downs on her the reason as to why it’s so difficult to trust Dongyoung, why the world will always feel too artificial when around him—
He is just mending a scandal, but he never speaks about the reason why the scandal happened on the first place.
The actress is gorgeous; typical as typical can get. Long hair cascading in waves, beautiful eyes enticed by her elongated eyelashes, the redness of her lips could be caused by the drink on her hand, but not enough information about Jo Seoyeon will ever be enough for her to get interested on anything she does. What keeps clouding her brain in uncertainty right now is Dongyoung, now fully aware that she has looked at his ex.
“Did you really cheat on her?” Cutting the chase, the confidence that had once took over her when on interviews resurfaces simply to ask that question, but she’s not asking as an interviewer—she’s asking from the point of view of a person that likes Dongyoung, that has seen him at his best and worst in the past few months, and needs the answer of a part of the situation that had wrapped her up with him, on the first place.
Dongyoung’s eyes grow cold at that, the inside of his cheek bitten expertly when he places his bottle of beer down on the pristine and black counter by the bar. “No, of course not,” He complains, a tilt to his voice that comes with a raspy tone. All thanks to the drink, his first one of the night; he seems to have grown unused to the alcohol. “Do you really think I would—?”
“That’s the thing Dongyoung, one thing is what I think and the other one is what you plan to tell me.” She replies, biting down on her bottom lip to stop herself, but this is not enough to water the rampant fire inside of her. “Because—you’ve been telling the world, the paparazzi, the country, everyone that we are friends and sometimes, I really do think that we are friends—that is, until I realize that you keep things hidden from me.”
“You’re going to think I’m a pussy.” Dongyoung squints his eyes, looking at her after he babbles that nonsense her way. Truthfully, maybe he is ignorant to the advances he has in her heart, that almost absolutely nothing about him could make her think he’s a coward—only this, this hiding he does is cowardly enough for her to point it out.
“I’m not the kind to call you a pussy,” She quirks an eyebrow. “You know what you could be a pussy for? Not talking about this. Whatever happened needs to be sorted out, not with the world, but with yourself—”
“That I got cheated on? That’s what you want to know?” The strain on his voice could very well belong to one of his most dramatic scenes, but the edge of his tone is so much like Dongyoung that she knows she has hit a nerve. More than hit, stepped on it repeatedly, like hitting an elbow but instead of a hit it’s a whole fracture. His chest rises and falls, looking into her eyes as he speaks. “That her team did everything and anything to put me as the bad guy, gaining me a whole lot of backlash? I had two scandals all in less than a month, and I didn’t even defend myself for neither of them. I was scared. Is that what you want to hear?”
“If it’s the truth, it’s exactly what I want to hear from you.” She bites back, placing one hand over his back and surprisingly, he doesn’t pull away. “What really happened?”
“I—I was travelling for…for some movie.” Dongyoung indicates, hand lifting up to swat into the air as if the memory is worthless. “Got to her mansion to surprise her, saw her with a guy, made sure to tell her just how much of a scumbag she is, left. Next thing I knew, I was on all tabloids painted as a cheater, without proof, but people seem to believe her because she’s so nice, and so small, and so sweet.” His eyes roll at that, running his fingers through his hair and rubbing at his scalp. “I had to own it, what else could I do?”
To imagine Dongyoung in such a situation—happy, ready to enter the household of a loved one, and to have his hopes crushed by the sight of his girlfriend cheating on him makes her blood boil. Skin to skin, soul to soul, whichever way the cheating was, it had destroyed him romantically and…professionally. “You could have given your side of the story, Dongyoung. Just because you’re a guy…you shouldn’t be targeted as the cheater.”
“Ah, but I was. If I complained, I’d only be seen as a liar…” Dongyoung says, looking over to the side when the bottle of beer lifts up to his lips, taking a swig before sighing heavily. “I’m sorry I never told you. I thought you’d be pointing fingers at me because you’re a journalist, you’d probably believe the tabloids more. Dongyoung, can’t keep his dick in his pants, cheated on his girlfriend.”
Her fingers reach forward until her arm is wrapped around his shoulder, bringing him closer as if to, for once, shelter him as well. Being in the eye of the paparazzi while going through a break-up, betrayal mixing with anger, must have taken such a huge toll on him that it could have turned him into a bitter, rotten man. “I know you...all I need is some honesty for me to know whether you did or did not do something. If we’re friends, you need to open up to me.”
Dongyoung smiles at that, the edge of his bottle of beer resting in between his lips when they meet gazes. “I’m sorry if I was not entirely honest—”
“Ah, I wasn’t entirely honest either.”
“How so?” Dongyoung’s smile drops, her own appearing on her face when she nudges his side, his own hand coming to rest at her waist when she whispers.
“That I prefer Jungwoo’s movies over yours.” The comment is supposed to cut the ice that is now falling into droplets of water in between them, comfort settled into the once enemies as Dongyoung chuckles at her words.
“Hey, me too.” He answers, as always filling her with laughter absentmindedly. One look at him is enough to satiate this feeling inside her, craving for more of him but settling for what’s closer…to have him as a friend.
###
The harsh tug on her shoulder should be a clear indicator of who is touching her, too harsh and with hands too calloused, though that can only be felt through the slots of the gloves on this person’s hands. The kitchen is packed by four people now; Sujin, who is already placing a green smoothie on Dongyoung’s hands, the actor himself and this person, who speaks her name in a soft tone.
“Ouch, hello to you too, Youngha.” The mumble that lips her lips has Dongyoung laughing from the other side of the room. His chauffeur, a person that she has gotten to know quite too well, goes by the name of Youngha and while everything about her screams ruggedness, there is some kind of sweet nature deep in her soul. Though, her strength is something else, she should probably consider leaving Dongyoung stranded with the chauffeur project and simply dedicate her life to professional boxing.
“Is my boy over there bothering you too much?” The woman over her forties say, ruffling her hair when she looks ahead at the man already making a face to the smoothie wrapped by his long fingertips. Sujin is already talking to him about the lengths of his day, and she should really be paying more attention—but in her defense, she is paying attention to him. Dongyoung, cladded in a black shirt and sweatpants, his weight pushed forward slightly thanks to his leaning-back posture on the counter, arms more prominent, the muscles in them defining themselves softly. His hair is falling in bangs over his forehead today, dreamy beyond relief, one of his legs crossed over the other and elongating them even more.
She does deserve an award, for standing him and for not accidentally confessing to him. “He’s been treating me fine, but you know…he’s always bothering me either way. Too picky.” She answers, watching as Dongyoung takes big bites of the sandwich in between his fingertips. The recipe is aced by her hands by now.
“I know,” Youngha answers, pointing at her phone resting on the table. “It’s vibrating. I think you’re getting a call.”
Ever since she got the password to the shared business e-mail for Dongyoung, she has kept her phone silent. Too many emails, which she doesn’t really feel like answering most of the time, and she shouldn’t in the first place, either. However, the screen illuminates with a contact name that she’d never thought she’d see again when she lifts the device up to her face, jumping out of her seat when she voices out her concerns.
“It’s my ex-boss, oh my God!” Though, she picks up immediately, eager to know that Dongyoung’s plan may have worked for something, three months after its start. The button to put her on speaker is glided by her fingertip, watching as Dongyoung nears her with an astounded expression on his face, lips settled in an ‘o’ shape and eyebrows joined together when she speaks onto the phone. “Hello, Mr. Han. Why do I get the pleasure to receive your call?”
The joyous sound of a coo from her elderly ex-boss has her smiling, much more when she says: “Ah, my darling columnist, you don’t know how much I’ve missed you.” Enough now that Dongyoung has hired her as his personal assistant, that her name is more known and her face is more recognized. People know of her now, of course Mr. Han would miss her. “How have you been? I’ve seen you around Kim Dongyoung nowadays.”
“I’ve been good. Thank you for asking.” She answers. “How are the children?”
Dongyoung sighs audibly at the sound of the woman’s voice. “Lovely. They have been asking about you nonstop.”
“Is that so? I thought they didn’t even know about my existence.”
“They do now!” Mr. Han laughs joyfully, dramatically, just like any other woman that has lived her life through gossip. Not to be misunderstood, Mr. Han has been around the scene since the sixties, practically tuning the entire journalism scene into its own axis to make it her own. “By the way, honey, I won’t take any more time from you…do you think you could meet up with me one of these days? I was reading over your denied articles and I can’t believe I passed these gems by.”
This is what Dongyoung had promised at the beginning of their plan—his friends will always get great opportunities. The image of her white desk, her old laptop, the pencils and pens she kept on some holder nearby in her office is enticing enough for her to part her lips to speak, but one glance up has her seeing Dongyoung’s angry expression. His hands snatch her phone away from her hands, her eyebrows raising in anger when she tries to go over the counter to snatch the phone away from him.
“Hi, Mr. Han, it’s very nice to hear from you. It’s Kim Dongyoung here.” Before Mr. Han could say any more of her hypocritical greetings, Dongyoung continues speaking. “I’d love for you to keep talking with my friend, but after firing her on the spot without even considering how it would ruin her economically…I don’t think you even deserve a columnist like her with you. All you’re doing right now is bringing someone popular along with you, even though when she was only known as a journalist, not as my friend, you could not give two fucks about her.” The sincerity in him is to be expected, but her eyes widen frantically as she tries to get him to stop, hands colliding against his forearm to have him release her phone.
“Dongyoung, shut up—!”
“Ah, Kim Dongyoung, you have some attitude to you.” Mr. Han scolds him in that tutted tone of her, as if she’s trying to play the situation off lightly.
“She doesn’t need you or your magazine. I’d give her a magazine of her own if she asked me to. Just…don’t go around and pretend like now she’s such a worthy journalist for you, when you never cared for her.” Dongyoung answers, pressing his finger against the red button on her phone to end the call.
The air feels dense, one last smack landing on his chest when she realizes exactly what he had done. That one opportunity to get her job back, exactly what he intended to have happening on the first place, is suddenly thrown into the trash, leaving her in the turmoil of being Dongyoung’s personal assistant for…however long he wants. “Dongyoung, you don’t get to have choices in my life like that.” She says, tucking a strand of her hair behind her ear
Dongyoung, now breathing rapidly, leans over the counter until they are face to face. “I meant it. When I said I’d get you your journalism job back, when I said I’d give you your own magazine if you wanted to…just give me time. I don’t need you taking any job, much less one that never appreciated you, just because you want to get away from me.”
“It’s not about getting away from you, you know this.” Her voice is soft, understanding the caring nature under his actions, before sighing deeply. “It’s about…I’m not a personal assistant, Dongyoung, I love journalism and I don’t want to have this job forever. I want you as a friend, I just don’t want to leave my passion behind, either.”
“And you won’t,” Dongyoung says, his eyes skimming over her features before sighing deeply. “I can promise you that much.”
Sujin points at his watch, the tapping of his fingernail against the glass sounding softly around the kitchen. “Dongyoung, we have things to do. Leave the drama for later.”
His eyes, filled with guilt, give her his utmost sincerity when he says: “Just give me a little bit more time.”
###
Two days is all it takes to have Dongyoung texting her to meet him at the dressing room. This time around, however, the set is different—his historical movie is going to start its recordings soon, at least the ones that can be done in the city currently, and the dressing room is in some field instead of a set with a ceiling itself. The rush is still there, however, opening the doors of the moving dressing room in a hassle just to see over three women working on Dongyoung’s makeup, hair and that gorgeous outfit that makes him look as if he was taken out of the 1600’s.
The extensions on his black hair are a look that she isn’t sure if she likes, but the delicacy of his features when she moves towards him, getting a good glimpse of the makeup being patted to his face, is something she will never be able to forget. His hand comes forward even when his eyes are closed, patting around the surfaces until he gets to her knee, touching it softly.
“Dongyoung, did you just text me to touch my knee? You said it was an emergency.” She replies quickly, earning well-deserved laughter from Dongyoung as he opens his eyes. The gold eyeshadow could barely seen had it not been for the bright lights of the vanity illuminating them for her, or maybe she just noticed because her intent is always on Dongyoung.
“I wish it was for that,” Dongyoung replies, reaching for his phone and unlocking it in a quickened manner. “I had a few calls with magazines I had interviews with. I’ve been calling the entire morning, which is why I had you away from here looking for my favorite vintage Versace jacket. Which I am guessing you didn’t find.” The playful tone of his voice has her cursing out loud, because he said it was necessary and she had been looking everywhere for that Versace jacket that he said was in his closet, but his closet is far too big for her to find something specific. “Because it’s actually here.”
“You fucking asshole—” She mumbles, half of her body resting on top of her vanity before nodding at him. “What was that for?”
Dongyoung turns the screen of his phone towards her then, having her squint to read the fine black letter of an email. God, she hates those. “I’ve been calling magazines and I had Sujin send me your resume, so I’ve been looking for a good position for you in some magazine, as an interviewer as well as a columnist. You’d have your own spot in cinematography in the magazine, will give you an editor and whatnot…I found you a job.” Those last few words are only heightened in excitement when her surprise is even bigger, watching the name of the magazine at the end of the e-mail that takes her in. That’s the biggest magazine on the whole country, over sixty years of absolute delight in the journalism field—
Her hand comes up to her mouth, fingers shaking when she realizes just exactly what Dongyoung had done. He had kept his promise, but not only that—he had given her more than he had initially promised. The sadness on his features is there, a little pout in his smile when, for some reason, she doesn’t even care about the makeup artists around him and latches herself into his arms, his own wrapping around her waist when she clings onto his shoulders. Hugs shouldn’t feel this good, this tight, like she’s letting go of him to go to something bigger, something better…something that was entirely planned by Dongyoung.
“Oh my God, I love you! How could you do this?” She asks, tears already prickling at her eyes by the time Dongyoung chuckles. He doesn’t realize that the first few words may mean something else, his fingers caressing at the skin of her waist, now uncovered because of the hug and the raise of her t-shirt.
“I know you wouldn’t be happy being my personal assistant forever, so I had to let go of you.” Dongyoung answers, making her sigh when she lets go of him and takes him by the cheeks. One of the makeup artists whines at her action, making her pull away with her hands lifted up in the air.
“Sorry.” She says, taking his phone from his hand and reading the e-mail again. “Oh shit, I’m really—”
“Yes, you’re going. You start in three days. They’re preparing your office.”
“My own personal office?”
“Your own personal office.” Dongyoung complies, patting his makeup artists’ hands away to push them away. “Come give me another hug, I’m going to miss you so much.” His voice is serious, his hands spreading just in time for her to go to his arms again and hug him as she will never see him again, which may not be the case at all, at least not from her part. His arms take her in securely, making her feel safe when he rests his chin against her shoulder, chuckling softly at her quivering form. “Don’t cry.”
But how can she not cry when the realization of being in love with Dongyoung downs on her with whiplash, leaving her dizzied and romanticizing him? “…I will miss you so much, too.”
###
“You did not.”
Eating with her group of friends once again, though from different magazines at this point, is more than she could have ever asked for. Months ago, she had that same meal of noodles practically bathed in soy sauce, wondering if she’d be able to pay for something like this again—and with the payment Dongyoung gave her as his personal assistant, along with her new salary as a journalist and interviewer in the country’s most prestigious magazine, she is more than thankful to have a meal with Jason and Hyoyeon once again. Spending a lot of time in the celebrity world seemed to have pulled her away from this.
Jason’s hair is now longer, not bleached anymore but in its natural black color, tied behind his head to show an undercut, probably something that Hyoyeon recommended for him to try. Hyoyeon, equally as gorgeous, not wears an engagement ring on the hand that holds Jason’s under the table, looking at her with nothing less than distaste after telling her the entire details of what Dongyoung had done, not forgetting the adventures that had gone through since the beginning of their job together as…coworkers?
Celebrity and personal assistant?
Friends?
Hyoyeon pats her fiancé’s thigh, absolutely mortified by what she said, her thin eyebrows drawn together in a frown. “You mean to tell me that a guy treats you like this and you still consider that he’s not into you?” She asks. Oh, of course, she must have slipped somewhere into the story how endlessly in love she is with Dongyoung, and how okay she is with the unrequited love as long as she continues to have him in her life. Warmth is necessary, and instead of going back to the snow, she’d rather have the sun and never reach it.
“Oh, he’s so into her.” Jason says, playing around with his chopsticks as if a set of drums is on the table. “You should’ve seen his face when he was approaching us for the interview. He couldn’t get his eyes off her.”
Reminiscent of that confession at the elevator, she twists on her seat and muffles her sigh with a bit of her food, munching on it as she speaks. No longer does she have to worry about people taking pictures of her without her consent, thankfully. “That’s because someone,” A pointed glare thrown towards Hyoyeon. “Gave me a dress that had half of my boobs slipping out.”
“Ah, you looked hot, come on. Even you know this.” Hyoyeon complains, taking one of the noodles on her plate and tossing it at her, landing on her hair before she swats it off. “Stop being childish and recognize that he is so into you.”
Though the image of waking up to Dongyoung in his king-sized bed, only to see his sculptured face and gummy grin early in the morning, is more than she could ever wish for and a desire that she has deep in her soul, it’s too…impossible. “He’s not. He probably likes actresses like his ex—”
“He likes you.” Jason says. “He gave you the best job ever, he has told you things he hasn’t told anyone, not to mention that all those pictures released of the two of you have him looking at you as if you’re the universe itself.”
Whoever has seen Dongyoung from up close knows that, if anything, she was the one that looked at him as if he held the entirety of the universe, never-ending, scary on its way but enticing in another, in his eyes. She plays around with her food, shaking her head at his words with a smile on her face. “He just sees me as a friend, that’s it. He’s a celebrity and—”
“You’ll never know until you ask him!” Hyoyeon points out, shaking the table when she lands a palm on it. “Listen, with you he wasn’t a celebrity, or the country’s most loved actor…he was himself with you.” Still, this gets no reaction our of her, the conversation has been going around it for long enough for her to convince herself that she is never going to tell him, too afraid of rejection. “…You cried when you left your job as his assistant.”
A gasp masks this. “I cried because he got me a job.”
Hyoyeon, always smart, shakes her head. “No, you cried because you were afraid that after leaving that job you weren’t going to see him again. And you fear this because you love him. Why don’t you want to just accept you love him and just tell him?”
The room falls silent, though it doesn’t, it just feels like it may have. The restaurant is still packed, with families feeding their youngest ones, couples spending time together, friends joining in laughter…and she’s there, feeling alone even when she’s accompanied, so thankful but still longing to see Dongyoung after weeks of working at a magazine. Texts are not enough, neither are videocalls, and meeting up with him has been almost impossible when he’s in France for the release of his latest movie, one that he recorded last year. “Ah, it doesn’t matter,” She tries to play off, swatting her hand as if it is nothing. “He’s in Paris, either way. He’s going to be having his movie released and he’s going to attend some red carpet, possibly a party after, and now that I’m not there…he may find someone.”
Jason widens his eyes at that, snapping his fingers at the idea that crosses his head. “Tell your magazine to have you interview him and his cast on the red carpet. It would gain lots of traction, which is good for the magazine, for your past scandal and he would get to see you.”
The idea of seeing Dongyoung again, on the red carpet, to make up for that one time in which she ruined it all, and to see him again, brings a flutter up her spine when she stops chewing on her food to say. “Should I?”
Now more excited than ever, Hyoyeon stands up from her spot, the chair dragging in the process when she claps her hands together. “Yes, yes, call your magazine! I already have the dress that you’re going to use in mind and oh my God, how many days do we have to prepare for this?”
“Four…if my magazine says yes…” Taken away by the narrative her friends propose, she follows after Hyoyeon’s steps, leaving Jason behind to pay. She’ll pay the half after. “Should I even do this?” Though her phone is already up her ear, and she may be even more eager than them to just see Dongyoung.
“Oh, not only you should,” Hyoyeon confidently says. “You will.”
###
With a new cameraman rushing behind her, not sufficiently comfortable with him yet to scream at him to hurry up like she would with Jason, the sole of her heels digs into her skin the more she runs into the red carpet, searching for that perfect spot that could capture the cast’s—and Dongyoung’s attention—. Nonetheless, the jetlag and the hours of last-minute studying had made her wake up late and without the help of either Jason or Hyoyeon to help her with that damned dress, she had gotten out of the hotel a little bit later than expected.
Exactly by the left corner of the red carpet, near where the limousines and cars would park when delivering the celebrities one by one, is where she ends up standing and only then does she realize just how heavy this necklace is on her neck, patting it with her fingers to make sure it stays there. Hyoyeon had made it sufficiently clear for her to know that this necklace is worth, at least, seven of her salaries and she should protect it with all her might. The leverage is well-welcomed, much more with the spurts of nervousness growing like flowers all over her body, but not enough to have her covering herself like the first time.
When Hyoyeon said she had the perfect dress, she meant it. Red, this time it’s the color of passion, like the one Dongyoung had both taken from her but given it back from her with her journalism job, the sleeves long even when they are trailing down her shoulders. The length is elegant, but it snatches her waist a little too harshly, leaving her with shortened breaths that capture themselves on her chest. Or…is that because she is genuinely nervous of seeing Dongyoung, not after years but after weeks of not meeting up with him, and to see the surprise on his features?
The most she hopes is for him to be happy, at least relieved to see her, for having her magazine send her there last minute had taken a toll on her. Playing on her hands is her career, one that could be absolutely destroyed if the expression on Dongyoung’s face is of distaste. That thought crosses her head over and over again, making her move backwards and forward with those heels, the straps digging on her skin like restraints, but not powerful enough to keep her in place.
When the cameras start flashing immediately, cheers being heard in the forms of screeches and shouts of his name, her heart picks up its pace so rapidly that she almost swore she had a mini heart attack then. Her hands, clammy like the first time, hold onto the microphone with tight fingertips as he nears the red carpet. His poses are simple, one hand resting on the pocket of his gray suit, the color of his tie in a color of orange—an odd combination, but it looks good, something that she would have never thought of him using, too much of a lover of black and white.
His hair is sleeked back, just how she likes it, and just when he nears the masses of interviewers, she steps forward. Calling his name comes easily, professionally, at least this interview is not live and that may be the reason why she is so confident. Dongyoung’s ears, as if perked up by her voice, check around the groups of journalists until he finds her. His eyes meet with hers, breathing heavily for a second longer than she imagined, a smile caressing his features when he rushes towards her, his arm extending to wrap around her shoulders, his other hand waving at the masses of people going crazy for him.
But even from up close, and not screaming, there is someone going crazy for him…not the man in the suit, but the man inside that soul. The man that had given everything to her in the form of friendship.
“Kim Dongyoung, it’s so nice to see you again. You look amazing this evening.” She comments into her microphone, earning a smile worth a million diamond rings from Dongyoung, who takes the microphone from her hands and speaks into it with glee.
“I’m so happy to see you here, you don’t know.” He pulls away for a moment, his eyes inspecting her body before chuckling at her. “Red, that’s a nice look on you.”
“Thank you. So, Dongyoung, your latest movie includes—”
The redemption tastes sweeter than she imagined, but the departure of the man after such a successful and full interview is what hurts the most. Dongyoung’s broad shoulders is the last thing she sees when he goes onto another interviewer, far enough until he is inside the place in which his movie is going to be broadcasted in. He’s a celebrity, and she’s just an interviewer…but there is a lingering memory there, not of being his personal assistant or his friend…but something else…
As if his eyes hold something that she doesn’t quite know how to express. Gratitude? Adoration? Respect?
From the expanse of the couch on her hotel room, bigger than the one she was in before the disastrous red carpet with Dongyoung when they first met, she gets to see the recap of her interview. Everything looks fine, but from up close and paying attention to it, putting that observational eye that journalists have into it…she does see glimpses of what Jason and Hyoyeon had been talking about. Dongyoung’s eyes never leave hers, nodding intently to her words, smiling so brightly that the flashes of the camera could never hurt him…because he’ll always shine brighter. His arm never left her shoulder until the interview was over and even then, Dongyoung’s eyes lingered on her a little bit longer.
But it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be that Dongyoung had some kind of interest in her, and it couldn’t be that when she hears a knock on her hotel door, standing up with a groan and opening it with a harsh pull, she sees him, out of all people, standing in front of a cheap hotel’s room with his hands interlocked in front of his body. Dongyoung nods as a greeting, leaving her more dumbfounded when his suit is long gone, just like her dress is, now changed for casual clothing and—
“Shouldn’t you be in some party?”
“I skipped it, but I also locked myself out of my hotel room accidentally. Had to call Sujin, he told me he had been texting you and also, I asked him for your hotel’s address so I could visit you.” Dongyoung explains in a monotone voice, moving his hands the more he delves into the story. Laughter is caught in her lips, shaking her head at his antics before opening the door wider.
“I’ll let you in.” She says, looking up and down his body when he enters. That typical black-on-black outfit choice of his will be the death of her. “What did you bring with you?”
Dongyoung’s fingers hook around the CD on his fingers, swaying it in front of her with glee. “It’s my favorite early 2000’s movie. I was hoping we could watch it.” He says, splaying himself on the couch with extended arms before waving his fingers at her, as if calling out for her to take the seat beside him. “You didn’t expect me to see you in that dress, and red, out of all colors…and not want to see you, right?” The question is muffled when she lays down by his side, taking his hand that is on the headrest and putting it over her shoulder before sighing.
“Only the dress?” She prompts, lifting an eyebrow at Dongyoung, who clearly matches the atmosphere of Paris. The jetlag, the hard work, the running…everything is worth it when she gets to see that gummy smile again.
“…And you. I missed you like crazy.”
“I missed you, too.”
The movie, though interesting enough to have her paying attention to the storyline, is not the main thing on her mind. The feeling of his body by her side is what keeps her tranced, watching the movie with him and a little bit over the one-hour mark when she starts to feel the aftereffects of being so close. Dongyoung is a pillar, a guard in a way, the one person that had taken her confidence with him and brought it back full force, mainly because he didn’t mean to snatch it away on the first place. Months ago, she would not have hesitated to put him in his place, but now she finds herself hesitating to get closer…to admit to him that she wants nothing more than to have him for herself and herself only.
Because she’s egotistic, but she’s naïve enough to not act upon it. It’s only when his hand trails down to her waist, grasping on the fabric of her t-shirt like he always does, that her gaze finally pulls away from the movie to look at him. The horrid lights of the hotel room don’t take away his beauty, looking at her with curiousness in his eyes the more he inspects her features, head tilted back just slightly before he nears her. The couch ruffles under his weight, sounds softly when he is looming over her just slightly.
The way he looks at her, brown eyes settling on her lips, is enough to take her breath away. Much more when those lips—one that she had never even paid attention to when they met—near hers until he is speaking so closely that a gush of his breath is oxygen for her lungs. “You know…I’m not good with words.” Dongyoung whispers, his other hand parting on her thigh until his fingers grab on it softly. “…Which is why I always compliment the dresses, and never the person that wears them.”
She chuckles, airily, albeit a bit scared of the situation…of him, swallowing her whole with the feelings she has for him. “What does that mean?”
Dongyoung looks down, rubbing his lips softly against hers, the shadow of a kiss falling on top of her skin, enough to have her puckering her own as if to reach him, but the contact is cut too soon. That does not mean he pulls away, however, because he doesn’t. “That all this time, from the beginning, I’ve been not going crazy for the dresses…but for you.”
This moment, she wants to treasure forever. This moment is the consequence of something that was once unintended, but has now all her intention when she says. “…You say that as if you didn’t know already that I was in love with you.”
Dongyoung’s lips trail from the corner of her lips, leaving soft and dreamy kisses on her cheeks, her jaw, down to kiss a small flower of growth on her neck before going up to her lips again. He laughs, actually, though too soft for it to be funny. “I didn’t know until you said so.”
“Everyone is in love with you…” She answers, craving for him to finally kiss her, but also fearing the conclusion of it. “How are you going to even add me into your life? Your fans are going to hate me again if I dare touch you as something more than your friend.”
“…Do you really think I care about that?”
“You may.”
“I don’t,” Dongyoung answers, pressing another fleeting kiss to her lips before sighing against them. “I care about you because I’m, also, in love with you and if I keep talking, I’m going to ruin the mood, so let me kiss you before I go insane—”
Just like how she had always dreamed of since the time her feelings for Dongyoung blossomed into something else—though, she may never know when that happened in all those months of being together daily—, her hands connect to his back when his lips finally lay down on hers. His mouth parts softly, jaw tightening the slightest when he takes his precious time into kissing her profoundly, like he wants to thread her soul with his and leave it there forever. In a way, she doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to forget the feeling of his chest to hers, his hand caressing her thigh, his grounding palm on her waist, tongue running over her bottom lip slowly before he takes the lead again. By the time her breathing is ragged, kissing him with more fervor just to keep him there—with her, in that moment in which he is not a huge celebrity but hers instead, she finally hears the echo of his words inside her head.
I’m, also, in love with you.
That means…Dongyoung loves her. It’s difficult to think about—an interviewer, who almost lost her entire career to him, loves him back.
His teeth are grazing against her bottom lip when she speaks in between a chuckle, grabbing his cheeks with her extended palms. “I hope this means you’re my boyfriend now, because if it isn’t…I’m going to kick you out.”
Dongyoung smiles, that cheery grin that she will never get enough of, when he presses a smooch to her lips before saying: “That was my intention all along.”
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