Chapter Text
“No,” Hongjoong says as soon as he sees the predicted cast list. He points at his publicist slash manager slash best friend for emphasis. “Absolutely not, no way, not on my mother’s life will I take this part and you can’t make me.”
“Yes way,” Seonghwa tells him matter-of-fact while distractedly tapping away on his phone, totally ignoring the threatening finger waving in his face. “The director asked for you specifically and you are contractually obligated to do what I tell you.” Seonghwa pauses to look up at him with his mouth pinched inward. “You need this, Hongjoong. After the last couple of films…”
Seonghwa trails off and Hongjoong groans, dropping the sample script to the floor and curls himself back into the welcoming embrace of his high threadcount sheets. He knows, he knows this is not going to be a role he can realistically turn down—not when it’s indie darling Chae Hyungwon, for some reason, lining out in perfect black lines how this character is made for Kim Hongjoong and Kim Hongjoong alone. You don’t say no to Chae Hyungwon. Hongjoong doesn’t say no to Chae Hyungwon when he’s already fairly sure his own name has been blacklisted from most major production studios.
“Thanks for the reminder,” he huffs. “Not as if I don’t see all the blog posts and the paps yelling about me being washed up every time I try to go out to dinner with anyone in public.”
“You’re not even thirty,” Seonghwa tries for reassuring, “You can’t be washed up before you hit the big 3-0, everyone knows that.”
“Tell that to my dwindling brand deals and Rotten Tomatoes,” Hongjoong mutters, hidden in his blanket cocoon. “Do I really have to work with him, though? Really, really?”
Seonghwa sighs, sits on the edge of Hongjoong’s bed and rips away his covers in one swift motion. “Really, really, Hongjoong. I’ve already told the studio yes on your behalf.”
“Ugh,” Hongjoong tells him feelingly.
He shifts around until he can bunch both feet under Seonghwa’s thigh for balance as he dangles his head off the end of his bed. He read somewhere that increasing blood flow to the brain helps with cognitive function or something. Probably information gleaned from one of the many crunchy yoga magazines Wooyoung left around his house after their workout sessions. If no extra brain power materializes, then maybe it will at least let him black out for a few minutes and pretend he’s not about to spend an intimate four months filming nonstop with an actor he despises.
“Quit pouting. You never know, he might drop this project in favor of something else.” Seonghwa soothes a placating hand up Hongjoong’s left flank. “He’s—ah—a pretty popular pick right now.”
“He won’t.” Bitterness sits thick in his throat. Hongjoong breathes through his nose and uses the muscles Wooyoung and Jongho have spent countless hours trying to strengthen by folding upward into a sit-up. “It’s a Chae Hyungwon movie.”
Hongjoong flops back, this time letting his fingers dangle until they touch the hard wood of his floor.
“You don’t say no to that.”
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The thing is, Hongjoong has been working in and around acting circles since before he could string more than two words together at a time. His mother started him young: ads for baby food, toddler apparel, an orange juice promotion that paid their mortgage three times over, appearances on daytime talk shows and tawdry soap operas as a child abducted by their estranged father who turned out to actually be the dead brother of another character who slept with his wife. From there he branched out to game shows geared towards kids and preteens before graduating to teen dramas.
For the longest time, his only claim to fame aside from toddler adverts was a character he portrayed on a long standing high school drama that played late enough to be after any prime time slots, but not so late their target audience slept through it. Lee Wongsik, a basketball player too short for the court who tried desperately to make varsity and never succeeding. There was a vague plotline of him trying to chase after one of the school’s cheerleaders, only to end up snubbed and falling into the waiting arms of his best friend slash calculus tutor played by Park Jiyeon. Vague in the sense it was only halfheartedly shoved into the script during the last three episodes because a school sports drama wasn't holding the attention of the coveted 18-30 female demographic and romance was just the ticket to keep their ratings up.
She still calls him up to brag about being his first beard before swerving the conversation around to bitch about her stylist team not letting her wear mesh tops in public. Hongjoong would hate it if he didn’t love her so fiercely.
Their after school romance actually managed to rocket him to the top of the list of names for male leads in romcoms. It was steady work from the ages of eighteen to twenty-five, but…
Hongjoong had been handed mediocre script after mediocre script that his manager at the time forced him to accept despite his concerns about the quality. His last five movies had all been flops and all the blame for it had been placed at his feet and his feet alone. Nevermind his peers working alongside him. Nevermind the scriptwriters churning out the same drivel over and over again because it was easy to come up with another boy-meets-girl meetcute every six months without trying to add substance. Nevermind the directors and producers only making the films for the payout. Nevermind that the company he signed for only allowed him to be typecast as the plucky male lead.
Rotten Tomatoes gave his last three performances such low scores even his social media accounts began to get bombarded by internet tough guys doing the equivalent of pointing and laughing at his face in his mentions.
By twenty-six he’d been labeled a washed up character actor and slowly, by inches, the brand deals and the lucrative sponsorships began to disappear. He stopped being invited to industry parties. No more standing lunch dates with production office heads. No more lounging around the back seat of high dollar limousines while some new upstart director fed him champagne and—
Well.
Eventually his label dropped him like a hot potato before their name became tarnished for keeping him under contract.
And who did they pick up in his place?
Jeong Yunho.
A new face on the scene who became popular after appearing in the background of an Ariana Grande music video and then again speaking two throwaway lines in a Spiderman flick starring Tom Holland. He’s young, and tall, and he’s somehow managed to get himself top billing for nearly every movie genre under the sun. The label propped him up as an everyman actor: horror, suspense, romcom, sci-fi, even a western. All of them blockbusters. All of them award winners.
Exactly one year his junior, Jeong Yunho has more trophies and awards and nominations under his belt than Hongjoong could even dream of touching in all of his twenty-something years of acting. Which is why sharing the spotlight with Yunho as the second lead is especially humiliating—the lead actor position should be his and his alone.
To say Hongjoong hates Jeong Yunho would be an understatement.
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The only people that stuck by his side were his yoga instructor Wooyoung, his weight training slave driver Jongho, and his best friend Seonghwa, who decided to take reins of his career back and started to mercilessly hound other studios to give him a chance. Horror teams, sci-fi networks, monster of the week survival shows—anything and everything Seonghwa could get his hands on that was not Another Romantic Comedy. Seonghwa is a great manager, and an even better friend, if Hongjoong is forced to be honest, but his name doesn’t throw enough weight around to get Hongjoong the kind of gigs he needs to retire in luxury.
“You’ve got a scheduled park walk with Sophia at 3,” Seonghwa tells him while they work their way through lunch, saag paneer and chicken tikka masala with a plate of beef samosas shared between them that Hongjoong actually has to fight for. “Remember to smile this time like you two are actually dating, please?”
Hongjoong crinkles his nose. “But we aren’t.”
“The public doesn’t know that.”
“The public is fucking stupid.”
Seonghwa kicks at his ankle beneath the table. “The public pays your bills and keeps us both employed by being invested in your personal life. Just accept the free publicity and do what you do best by acting happy. Donghun swears he can get you on the front cover of Entertainment Weekly.”
Hongjoong swishes the green sauce around on his plate and wilts. He only agreed to do this stunt after being caught almost-not-quite making out with one of the male backup dancers for some boy band he’d never heard of at an event in LA. Hongjoong had been drunk, a little high, and a lot brave from not being in his home country full of homophobes and its own brand of skeezy paparazzi. Hongjoong had felt safe at the time in leading tall, dark, and American to a dark corner to try his luck at getting to second base when a bulb had flashed bright across his vision.
Running off with his tail between his legs, Hongjoong had made a frantic call to Seonghwa to cover his ass before the pictures got out.
Seonghwa had him stepping out with a new Victoria’s Secret model within fourteen hours.
“I hate this,” Hongjoong directs at the sad remnants of blended spinach. “She only knows how to say four things in Korean max and all of them are variations on ‘hello, where is the bathroom’.”
“She’s a nice girl.”
Hongjoong wilts further in his seat. “I guess, yeah.”
His friend says nothing for a long time while Hongjoong works his way through the last samosa, mopping up the last of the sauce on his plate with it and grumbling happily around the mouthful.
“Hongjoong,” Seonghwa murmurs low.
He looks up, brows raised. “Hmm?”
“You sure you don’t want to just...” Seonghwa doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t reach over to touch him, but Hongjoong can tell by the flex of his fingers that he wants to. “You know I’d support you. Wooyoung and Jongho and your fans would support you, I’m sure.”
Hongjoong swallows the last of his meal, rough. It sticks in his throat for a second before he can push it down, washing away the flavor with deep gulps of water. “I’m fine. This is fine.” His fingers jitter where they wrap around his glass. He grins a little self-deprecating. “Everyone in show business is a little gay, hyung, but you’re not allowed to be fully out unless you want to never get another job again.”
Seonghwa’s mouth tugs down in a frown so deep it’s almost comical.
Hongjoong flicks a wadded up piece of his napkin at Seonghwa’s forehead to get him to stop. “You’re going to give yourself wrinkles.”
Seonghwa blows out an aggravated breath. “If I have wrinkles this young, it’s only because dealing with you is a literal nightmare . The last time you went to a party I think I aged ten years worrying about you.” He wipes at his face before pinning Hongjoong with a look more at home being directed at sad puppies or, like, orphans or something. It makes Hongjoong's skin itch. "But really, say the word and I'll end this hetero-facade once and for all. No more fake dates. No more publicity walks."
"No more job," Hongjoong helpfully points out. "Leave it alone, Seonghwa. Tell me more about this movie you've signed me up for before I need to leave for my not-date with a nice lady with a toilet obsession."
Seonghwa drops the subject and pulls out the sample script from his briefcase to go over the details.
The script they’ve been given is just the bare bones overview with a few choice lines pulled out of the main dialogue to catch his interest, which is not unheard of considering the extent some studios go to avoid information leaks. Heaven forbid a careless actor leaves their entire script laying around on a Starbucks counter somewhere and the whole thing gets uploaded online before filming can even finish.
“You’re going to have to lose some weight for this,” Seonghwa warns him. “You’re playing an emaciated widow so the muscles are going to have to go limp for a bit.”
“You mean I can skip being tortured by Jongho three days out of the week?” Hongjoong throws his hands up and crows loud in victory, heedless of the stares directed at their booth. The staff had been kind enough not to seat anyone in their general vicinity in the back corner, but the restaurant is still slowly filling up and patrons at the front are starting to get wise to the fact a celebrity is in the building. “That’s just a bonus.”
“Don’t let Jongho hear you say that or he’ll use you as a bench press,” Seonghwa says dryly. “It’s a little less than ten kilos though, think you can handle it?”
Hongjoong eyes the empty plate of samosas longingly. Maybe he should have savored the last one a little longer, a last hurrah before he has to switch his diet up something resembling a bird’s. Goodbye buttery Indian food, hello boiled chicken and leafy green kale. “Sounds easy enough. How much time do I have before filming starts?”
“Two months.”
“Easy.” Hongjoong leans back against the sticky vinyl seating and props his fingers over his stomach, twists his and Seonghwa’s legs together beneath the table for balance. “Wooyoung will be thrilled he gets to force feed me those toxic green smoothies he’s always making after our bikram yoga sessions. Anything else I should know about?”
Seonghwa rolls his eyes at him before glancing back down to silently read over the requirements listed on the attached contract. “Mmm, looks like they want you to go back to black instead of keeping the red.”
Hongjoong resists the urge to pout. He likes the red, makes him stand out in crowds. He’ll just have to dye it back when filming is finished.
“Other than that, it’s just the usual: no speaking of the project outside of press junkets, no spoiling the endings, bad publicity is not good publicity so keep your head down and out of trouble, etcetera, etcetera.” Seonghwa glances back up with an interesting slant to his mouth, like he can’t quite believe what he’s reading is real, and clears his throat. “There’s a sex scene.”
Hongjoong cringes. “With me?”
“Yes.”
He rubs a palm over his face. Awesome. “Who’s the lucky lady playing the dead wife then? I'm assuming it's the dead wife anyway for a flashback. Can’t wait to smack pelvises together like animals while a hundred cast and crew watch.”
“That role is still in the air as far as I know, but, ah—” Seonghwa rolls his lips between his teeth for a second before continuing. “It’s not with the wife. It’s with Yunho.”
The sound of the restaurant’s noises slowly filters out over the blood rushing in his ears sudden and hot. His face goes a little numb from the shock.
“Excuse me?” Hongjoong croaks.
Seonghwa slides the pack over and taps at a particular paragraph with two fingers. “Says so right here.”
Hongjoong doesn’t bother reading it over in favor of boggling at Seonghwa as if his manager had grown several heads and turned neon purple. “Seonghwa, did you sign me up for the Korean version of Brokeback Mountain?”
Seonghwa winces. “I swear this is the first time I’m seeing it, Hongjoong.”
“You didn’t read this over before you decided to accept?” Hongjoong asks shrilly and crumbles the paper beneath his palms when he slaps them down to the table. Several heads turn again, and he can just barely hear the low whispering gossip already starting up.
“It’s a Chae Hyungwon flick,” Seonghwa says nervously. “I didn’t read it over because—I’m sorry, but you really can’t afford to say no to this. It’s this or nothing.” He tugs the thin stack of papers back to his side of the table and redeposits the whole of them into his briefcase again. “No one else has been asking for you, Hongjoong,” he quietly confesses. “Not after the interviews you did for Love Comes Knocking.”
Hongjoong breathes deep to calm himself, to cool his nerves and try not to appear completely unhinged in the middle of the day. Love Comes Knocking was the last film he’d been the leading actor in where he played a haggard mailman who struck up an unlikely romance with a reclusive book writer on his daily route. The premise was flimsy, the dialogue awkward and stilted, but it was a paying gig and at the end of the day he managed to make the ugly uniform shorts work for him at least. Even though the film flopped, his ass looked amazing in the huge posters nailed along theater walls.
Unfortunately, his co-star was a total cow and took pleasure in chewing him out for the littlest of things, like looking at her too long during a scene or reciting his lines perfectly so that her own flubbed speeches made her look that much worse. He’d even gone so far as to chew four cloves of raw garlic before the climax of the movie, their momentous kiss in the middle of a busy street, and took immense pleasure in her gagging afterwards.
He’d made the mistake of mentioning it—several times—in various interviews thinking it would be something funny to laugh about. A fun ‘hah hah’ onset gag to make their onscreen relationship and offscreen working friendship more believable.
Too bad that had backfired and now an entire guild of actresses were after him to make a slew of formal public apologies for abusing his co-star that he outright refused to do.
He’d been veritably blacklisted ever since.
Hongjoong rubs tiredly at his eyes. "Fucking...tell me I'm not a closeted gay cowboy at least."
Seonghwa shakes his head. "Just a closeted gay widow who runs a book shop and paints in his spare time." He leans forward to rest his elbows against the table. "Hongjoong, I know this isn't normally something in your wheelhouse, but Hyungwon asked for you. There's pride to be had in that alone."
"I'm aware." Hongjoong tugs at his bangs out of nerves. "Just. There are going to be rumors after this, you know? I'm not sure—and with him of all people, I can't—" He gives up trying to articulate himself and ends up flopping boneless against the table. "This movie better win me Best Actor or I'm doomed."
"You've been doomed." Seonghwa gives his arm a squeeze before waving over their waiter so he can finally pay the bill. "Buck up, there's a Victoria's Secret model waiting to throw bread at some ducks with you."
Hongjoong offers a weak thumbs up. "Fantastic."
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The not-date with Sophia isn't particularly fun, especially when she towers over him by a good ten centimeters and speaks so little Korean most of their conversation is in broken English. She’s very sweet though, sports a thick Russian accent, and holds on to the curve of his elbow like a proper girlfriend as they slowly make their way around a pond newly installed outside a luxury mall. He’s not exactly sure what she’s doing hanging around Seoul for the last two months, but he’s not going to complain. Having her around has saved him from certain humiliation when showing up at a club with her on his arm overshadowed the single blurry picture of him shoving his hand under the shirt of that nameless backup dancer.
There are no ducks circling the pond today, so they decide to ditch the bread in the back of Hongjoong's Range Rover in favor of just taking a leisurely stroll.
Donghun props himself up ahead with his giant camera to ‘catch them’ canoodling in public.
Hongjoong hides a yawn behind a palm under the pretense of covering a laugh.
Sophia shifts until she can thread their fingers together. In English, she says, “I go home Saturday.”
Hongjoong squeezes her fingers gently. “How long?”
“For three months. Then America. I was only here for, ah—” Sophia’s eyebrows furrow over the top of her Chanel sunglasses. “How do you call it—work study? Homework?”
“Models have homework?”
She shakes her head as they round the first bend, ignoring Donghun scurrying ahead of them again and propping himself up on a bench. “A college course. Double—tandem language learning as part of the Angel training.” She grins a little bashfully. “My Korean is very poor, but my English is much better?”
Hongjoong gives her knuckles an affectionate pat because, really, Sophia is adorable when she’s not trying to be supermodel hot. “Languages take time. I think you’ve done very well for how long you’ve been here.”
Sophia preens and leans her cheek against the side of his head in thanks. “Thank you.” They pause to smile at each other while Donghun shouts praises and suggestions before continuing along the last curving pathway to the parking area.
“Are you excited to go home?” Hongjoong asks after another carefully arranged Kodak moment. “I imagine it’s been rough being so far away.”
Sophia nods. “I miss the food. My deda and babushka. My friends.” She gives his chest a poke with the tip of a well manicured finger. “You visit Russia and I will feed you drink to put some hair on your chest.”
“My Russian is worse than your Korean,” Hongjoong genuinely laughs. “You’d be tired of me within a week.”
Sophia hums. “Generous. Maybe three days.”
Donghun's last picture is of Hongjoong covering his mouth to cover his laughter as Sophia giggles beside him. It doesn't get the full spread, but they do make the bottom left corner of Entertainment Weekly's cover with a tagline of, 'Kiss of an Angel: Sophia and Hongjoong still going strong?'
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Once Seonghwa faxes over a signed copy of the contract and is given the all clear, someone from Lotte runs over a copy of the full working script to Hongjoong’s home, demanding another signature for the delivery so adamantly Hongjoong is almost afraid he’s going to request it in blood. It takes Hongjoong two hours and a healthy swig of bourbon before he even has the courage to crack the binding and find out exactly what he’s in for with this new adventure.
The film focuses primarily on Jeong Yunho’s character. Jacob, a Korean man adopted to an English family when he was a baby, is desperately trying to find and reconnect with his birth mother, but finds himself struggling with the language barrier. By day he works at a design firm as part of his visa and by night he’s tracking down potential leads, studying the language, and exploring his homeland.
Hongjoong bites at his thumb as he reads.
One day, while following an old directory listing to a home on the outskirts of Jeonju that ends up being a now empty lot, Jacob runs into Ji Sungjoon, Hongjoong’s character, stretching outside of his all-in-one home, art studio, and book shop and they share an electric connection standing across from one another. Sungjoon, only 32, is a sad, lonely widow who is still coming to terms with his grief. The book shop is only a small storefront he keeps as homage to his late wife, something she’d desperately wanted for herself before she’d passed away from a lingering illness. Sungjoon is stubborn, refusing to let the books go in a bid to keep her memory alive, and ends up leading Jacob to a section of Korean language books to help him study. Eventually Sungjoon shows off some of his paintings when Jacob questions the ink stains along his shirtsleeves that hang off his body as if Sungjoon is made of nothing but skin and bones barely held together.
Jacob is compelled to come back the next weekend, bringing along his design work for Sungjoon to judge. Sungjoon is delighted, pours over the crisp architectural lines and marvels at Jacob’s talent.
They come together gently, slowly. Sungjoon begins to heal, gains some of his weight back thanks to Jacob’s gifts of lunch and dinner that he brings along on every visit, and grapples with his new and confusing sexual preference. Jacob finds his birth mother—who isn’t what he expected and casts him out with handfuls of salt as if she’s trying to banish a spirit—and ends up crying on Sungjoon’s doorstep begging for acceptance. For love.
Hongjoong stops reading there because he can see where the script is going. This is the part where the two characters think oh with just the right amount of inflection, and fall into each other like a head on collision, inevitable and a little cliché, maybe, but sweet. Objectively the story is beautiful and he can definitely see Chae Hyungwon’s flair for bringing out the hidden tragedies in the human experience, but…
It’s dark when Hongjoong drops the script to his floor, leaning back against his plush loveseat and staring at the ceiling.
This is going to make or break his career.
"A gay romance," he groans at the ceiling. "Shit."
Hongjoong isn’t confident it’s going to be the former.
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Park Jiyeon calls him the next morning.
“I heard you’re getting picked up for a Chae Hyungwon film,” she says as soon as the line connects, “and you didn’t even call to tell me? You bitch!”
Hongjoong grins against his pillow. His voice is throaty and gravel rough when he finally replies, “Good morning to you too, love of my life.”
Jiyeon cackles. “Hi, babe. But seriously a Hyungwon? Why didn’t you call me so I could congratulate you first? I’m so mad at you!”
Hongjoong rolls over until he’s situated dead center in his bed, starfished out over the sheets so the soft sunlight filtering in through the window can warm his skin. “Who’d you hear this from? I only found out about it yesterday myself.”
“A connection at Lotte.” Hongjoong can almost picture her face as she pouts, twirling a lock of jet black hair around her finger and bouncing her leg impatiently in front of her giant vanity. “They’re actually going to be the head stylist working with you so you’d best suck up to them for my sake.”
Hongjoong snorts. “Why?”
“Because I said so,” Jiyeon says clipped. “I have a vested interest in keeping them happy.”
“You never mentioned dating anyone.”
“And you didn’t bother to call me when the Hyungwon script came through,” she whines. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really happy for you, but friends are supposed to tell each other things. Important things! Things like crazy amazing movie deals!”
Hongjoong stretches with a groan before smacking his lips together noisily against the receiver just to hear Jiyeon call him old and disgusting. “If it makes you feel any better, I don’t quite believe it myself. I’ve been waiting for someone to come busting down the door to tell me, ‘oops! Wrong guy! So sorry, but we’re not interested in a glorified show pony’ and take the script back. Maybe set my contract on fire in a little doggy bag by the front door on their way out.”
“Babe, you are so fucking talented and they picked you because you’ve got the acting chops to back it up,” Jiyeon says firmly in a tone that suggests he might have brain damage if he doesn’t agree. “No one is going to come knocking on your door to take that away. Let’s get brunch so I can tell you how amazing you are in person, yeah?”
Hongjoong’s heart swells with affection. Park Jiyeon is the kind of person that will call you out when you’re being an idiot and then fiercely defend you if someone else tries to do the same. She’s the only good friend he’s managed to keep outside of people he pays and he is continually grateful for her support.
“Wish I could, but it’s diet time. Wooyoung is going to be here soon to force me into spandex and sweat for three hours.” Hongjoong glances at the clock on his bedside table and winces, there’s less than thirty minutes before Wooyoung shows up.
“Maybe next time, then.” Jiyeon is interrupted by someone’s voice in the background and she leaves him with a rushed, “I’ll text you my next free day. Bye!”
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Wooyoung is uncharacteristically kind to him this morning by only forcing him into strange and spine bending positions for two hours instead of his usual three.
“So tell me about the new movie,” Wooyoung says at the tail end of their last cooldown pose. “Seonghwa mentioned the cast list is making you grouchy.”
Hongjoong takes one last deep breath before letting his jellied legs drop him to his mat, sweat trickling down his neck to soak his workout tank. His lungs are on fire. Even at the beginning of April, it's warm outside and Wooyoung decided it was best to crank up his thermostat until the inside of Hongjoong's apartment resembled a goddamn sauna, like working out in the middle of Satan's asscrack. “Not the whole list.”
Wooyoung leaves the room to drop the temperature and turn on a fan, coming back with a tall glass of water and a few ice chips already melting in one of Hongjoong’s bowls. Hongjoong drains his glass in two gulps and presses the chilled glass to his overheated skin with a moan of pleasure.
Wooyoung digs his toes into Hongjoong’s thigh. “You sound like a porn star.”
“Bring me another glass of water and I’ll act like one too,” Hongjoong says with a wink, poking his tongue out in a lewd gesture that makes Wooyoung laugh.
His yoga instructor dutifully brings him the giant pitcher of filtered water from the fridge and they attack it with single minded enthusiasm until it’s two thirds of the way empty and Hongjoong’s stomach actually throbs with how full he is. Hongjoong wonders if he'll slosh when he works up the nerve to stand up and walk.
“Really though, tell me who’s got your panties in a bunch.” Wooyoung rubs a single thin ice cube over the pulsing vein in Hongjoong’s neck to help. “It’s not that woman from the mail carrier movie, is it? I figured she’d show up to maim you if your names were on the same docket.”
“It’s worse.”
Wooyoung blinks down at him. The ice cube pauses over his neck for so long Hongjoong can track the feel of water forming beneath the ice. “Worse?”
Hongjoong blows out an irritated breath. The trickle of ice water over his skin is heavenly but the rapidly disintegrating cube is making that section of his skin go numb and achey. “Jeong Yunho is playing the main lead.”
“Oh! I’ve seen him in a few things.” Wooyoung finally takes his hand, and the ice, away to flop down beside him on the floor. “Dude’s super hot, even San says so and you know how picky he is. What’s wrong with him?” Wooyoung props himself on an elbow to lean over Hongjoong’s face, eyes comically wide. “Does he fart his way through scenes? San had to work with someone like that before and he said it was like trying to talk with sewage in his mouth.”
“That’s nasty.”
“I know, right?” Wooyoung collapses all of his giggly heavy weight onto Hongjoong’s chest without warning. “Gimme the gossip about this Yunho guy.”
“Wooyoung-ie, please tell me you know he’s the one that replaced me at JDB.”
Wooyoung freezes. Hongjoong feels a little guilty for making Wooyoung react this way, but his ousting from the company had been a particularly horrible point in his life and just thinking about sharing the screen with Jeong Yunho, of all people, has his nerves on a razor thin edge. Wooyoung had seen him spiral for months; not sleeping, barely eating, spending more time drinking at celebrity hotspots than he did anything else just to keep a handhold on the limelight while his last remaining sponsorships shriveled up.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” Hongjoong moodily picks at his shirt clinging to his torso. “I honestly hate his guts and just thinking of this movie, I just—” He kicks a foot angrily in the air reminiscent of a toddler fit. “I hope he flubs every single one of his lines and gets booted from the project.”
Wooyoung wordlessly removes himself from the floor to bang around in the kitchen. Hongjoong leaves him to it, drowsy from the workout and too lazy to find out what exactly his friend is doing. More than likely the blender is going to turn on and he’ll be forced to chug some horrifyingly green beverage that tastes like grass and citrus.
He hears the microwave beep, but no blender.
Hongjoong peeks an eye open when Wooyoung comes back and drops next to his side with a tiny oomph and the smell of hot cheese.
“You know what we should do?” A bowl full of wonderfully salty nachos has miraculously materialized in Wooyoung’s lap instead of the usual green sludge. “We should watch a bunch of his scenes and make fun of his nose or something. You can say all the nasty things you want to say to his face now so you don’t feel compelled to do it later.”
Hongjoong crinkles his nose. “This is not an episode of Gossip Girl, Woo.”
“Have you ever even watched Gossip Girl?”
“I have not, no.” Hongjoong finally props himself up while Wooyoung fiddles with the remote, eyebrows raised in challenge. “Seriously?”
Wooyoung offers him the bowl of artery clogging goodness. “Yeah! Come on, hyung, let’s just watch his greatest hits on youtube or something and talk smack about them. It’ll make you feel better.”
Hongjoong has to begrudgingly admit that Jeong Yunho has undeniable talent for acting, each character they watch on his huge television screen is worlds apart from the last, like day and night, as if he’s not the same person beneath the special effects prosthetics and makeup. Realizing Yunho may actually not have stolen his spot at JDB just because he has a pretty face makes Hongjoong frown at his half-empty bowl of now soggy nachos.
It’s one thing to have a mortal enemy who is bad at their job and only stumbled into their position because of connections. It’s an entirely different ballpark to find out the enemy is actually stupidly talented and—
Wooyoung pokes his toes into Hongjoong’s legs beneath his coffee table where they’d set up camp on the floor. “He’s good.”
“Whatever, I still think he’s a sneaky snake in the grass.” Hongjoong gives Yunho’s onscreen cowboy persona the evil eye, so distracted by Yunho’s windswept and dusty appearance that he doesn’t immediately catch Wooyoung sliding the bowl back to his side of the table. “I bet he’s a total diva on set.”
"I think you're just saying that because you secretly want to hold his hand and, like, kiss him," Wooyoung informs him around a mouth full of cheesy nachos. "You only ever get this prickly around boys you think are cute."
Hongjoong scowls fiercely and stretches across the table to take his food back. "I do not."
"Like a cactus," Wooyoung stresses, but deigns to relinquish his ill-gotten goods with minimal bitching.
Hongjoong takes what little is left of his snack and slinks up to his couch to curl around the last remaining crumbs of diet-ruining goodness. On screen, Jeong Yunho is sharing an impassioned kiss with a woman dressed like a saloon girl and his stomach goes a little hot and squirmy at the knowledge he’s going to be on the receiving end of that same kiss somewhere in the next couple of months. Out of disgust. Obviously.
Wooyoung props his chin in his hands and grins at him with both eyebrows quirked in amusement. “Admit it, you think he's hot and you can't wait to see those muddy dungarees up close and personal.”
"I admit nothing." Hongjoong throws the wettest chip of the bunch at Wooyoung’s face and delights in the way Wooyoung screams his disgust at being pelted by soggy velveeta. “But when I see him tomorrow for the first meeting with our director I'll be sure to let him know my yoga instructor is thirsty for his cowboy hat.”
Wooyoung flicks some of the cheese scraped from his cheek at him. “Just try not to fall on his dick too fast.”
"Shut the fuck up."
---------------------------
There’s a certain amount of immunity to pretty faces that comes along with working in movies and entertainment, because popping wood on set just because someone attractive touched him during a charged scene just means a grueling ten minutes of willing it away and hoping the lighting doesn’t get fucked up to the point they have to reset the entire scene again and waste film. Resources. Time. Everyone waiting for him to calm the fuck down so they can get their lunch break in before craft services starts packing up.
Because Hongjoong is nothing if not a consummate professional who hates the very mention of his co-star’s name, he should be doubly ready to meet Jeong Yunho face-to-face. Working through Yunho's impressive list of imdb credentials with Wooyoung has definitely helped dampen the kneejerk 'shit he's cute' feelings only barely overshadowed by the jealous dislike simmering low in his guts. He’s even got his paparazzi friendly smile in place behind his gigantic sunglasses he’d swiped from the last party he’d crashed to help disguise any pinched face glaring.
“Be nice,” Seonghwa hisses in warning against his ear as the sound of feet approaching echoes down the corridor. “And take the sunglasses off, you look like an asshole.”
“I am an asshole, hyung,” Hongjoong tells him, but deigns to remove them anyway. Just as he’s pocketing the accessory, Jeong Yunho rounds the corner.
Though whatever he was expecting, it wasn’t...this.
Jeong Yunho is dressed down in black joggers and an old ratty t-shirt with a snapback flipped backwards to show off his forehead. He’s leaned over the script they’d been sent the previous week while a man nearly as tall as him points at something with one hand and waves a cellphone around in the other. Yunho doesn’t have makeup on. No sunglasses. No designer shirt or bag or shoes. Nothing at all to suggest he’s a highly paid actor who’s already appeared in movies alongside huge celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio.
If anything it makes Hongjoong hate him more.
He glares. Seonghwa apparently notices the hostility and nudges an elbow pointedly into his side.
“Stop.”
“You stop,” Hongjoong mutters under his breath before he steels himself and raises a friendly hand in greeting. “Hey, co-star!”
Yunho looks up from the script, goes wide-eyed, and then spins back around to face the other direction to crouch down and put his head between his knees while the guy next to him starts laughing loud and pitchy. Hongjoong blinks. His hand is still awkwardly raised in the air.
“Um,” he says.
“Sorry, sorry,” the guy with Yunho says placatingly between giggles. “I’m Song Mingi, Yunho’s manager, and this one is just a little starstruck. Please hold.”
They watch as Mingi starts slapping at Yunho’s back. “Dude, come on. You weren’t even this bad when you met Tom Holland. You’re embarrassing both of us, idiot!”
“You said it was just us and the director,” Yunho groans into his hands. He whispers something Hongjoong can’t quite catch that makes Mingi laugh harder, tears beading up in his eyes.
Seonghwa clears his throat. “We should probably let the director know you’re here.”
Jeong Yunho straightens quickly and adjusts his snapback so the brim faces forward. From this angle, Hongjoong can just make out the back of his ears turning red. When he finally turns around, Yunho’s face is almost as flushed to match.
Hongjoong narrows his eyes. What’s this guy acting cute for? What’s his angle?
“I swear I have better clothes than this,” Yunho blurts out. “This was—If I had known you’d be here, I would have—”
“Would have what?” Hongjoong bites back a grin. “Shown up in head to toe Gucci as an intimidation tactic?”
Yunho blanches. Seonghwa inhales sharply beside him like he’s gearing up to break up a cat fight.
“N-no, I just, um, I wanted to make a better impression than this.” Yunho waves vaguely at his somewhat hobo-chic appearance. He coughs and hides the bottom half of his face behind the script as Mingi and Seonghwa shake hands in the background. “Sorry for being weird, I just—I’m just a really big fan of yours. This is like a dream come true to be working with you.”
Hongjoong manages a coy, “Oh!” of faux-surprise before Yunho is grinning wide, obviously pleased with himself.
Shit, he’s got dimples. He’s always been so weak to dimples. Hongjoong can already hear the phantom sound of Wooyoung laughing at him.
“Well.” Hongjoong licks his lips, suddenly feeling off-footed and off his game. “I look forward to working with such a big fan then.”
Yunho opens his mouth to say something more, but they’re interrupted by a gangly looking man with a mop of curly black hair blinking at them sleepily from the door to his office. He’s got one fist rubbing at his eye and the other clenched to the door handle like he needs it to keep upright.
Chae Hyungwon yawns. “I see my stars have arrived. Come in.”
---------------------------
The office is sparsely decorated with a collection of framed certificates along the back wall and a singular potted plant behind the director's desk that is covered in a tornado's wreck of papers and sticky notes.
Chae Hyungwon is intimidatingly direct. With his fingers steepled beneath his chin and his gaze sharp, he tells them point-blank, “The reception for this film is not going to be kind. I need to know you two in particular are prepared for the nuclear fallout of this project. You can thank the homophobic dipshits running the news outlets who are about to hound you about your sexuality just for playing a role. Though it's not my intention going into this, you two could end up becoming social pariahs for a long time after the premiere.”
Hongjoong wishes Seonghwa were here to answer for him. He and Mingi were left to stand outside for this first interaction with the director, and Hongjoong instantly misses his best friend’s sturdy presence like a limb, because Seonghwa always knows what to say when Hongjoong is tongue-tied and flapping his mouth uselessly hoping sound will fall out. Like now, for instance. He wants to say oh yeah no this is totally fine with me, but the part of himself that’s actually goddamn queer and terrified of being outed has stolen his vocal chords. A good look for him in the middle of his first fucking meeting.
Yunho apparently has no such qualms and shrugs both shoulders. “Won’t bother me. Someone made a whole group on Facebook dedicated to spamming slurs on my instagram account just because I was asked to get shirtless and grind on another male dancer in a music video.”
Hongjoong watches Yunho lean back in his chair with his heart beating in his throat.
“I’ve heard worse,” Hongjoong says finally after a period of silence and is proud his voice only shakes on the first and third syllables. “It’ll be fine.”
Hyungwon purses his mouth, gaze resting unerringly on Hongjoong’s face as if he sees right through him. “And when your girlfriends have a problem with being connected to the ‘gay actors’ after this is all said and done?”
Yunho adjusts the brim of his cap and mumbles an embarrassed, “Don’t have a girlfriend to worry about and I'm not really...looking.”
For his part, Hongjoong brushes off the concern. Sophia is going to be leaving the country anyway, their companies will be announcing the split two weeks before filming begins and then Hongjoong will have the requisite one week silent treatment from social media before posting something sad and wistful on instagram wishing her well. It won't save him from the worst of the rumors, but it will give him at least a smidgen of heterosexual credibility before filming starts. Something to hide behind at the very least.
Chae Hyungwon gives them one last beady-eyed glance. It feels like being scrutinized for a test Hongjoong hadn't known he was taking.
"Welcome aboard, gentlemen," Hyungwon finally declares, and reaches over to shake both of their hands before settling back into his plush office chair with a tilted grin, one edge of his mouth quirked up. He sweeps his arms wide. "Finding Home is going to be my magnum opus and I am telling you both now: the second you step out of this doorway, you are under my control. Jeopardize this movie and I will not hesitate to ruin any future career you thought you had in this business."
Hongjoong gulps. Beside him, Yunho nods fervently. Hongjoong doesn't know how much of that is Yunho being a snot-nosed little weasel and how much of it is him straight up agreeing out of terror.
"Good." Hyungwon leans back in his chair satisfied. "Now, I'd like to introduce you to one of our major screenwriters. Or, I guess I should say, the screenwriter since all I really did was bully him into finishing and fixed the typos when he was done."
At Hyungwon’s beckoning, a door to the side of the room they’re in opens to reveal a man the size of a house, his neck thick and bulging, muscular in a way that comes off as a threat despite the shy bowing as he enters the room.
“Lee Hoseok,” Hyungwon tells them and his voice is fraught with unspoken tenderness. “Who, unfortunately, has demanded to be listed under a pseudonym.”
“Yes, thank you.” Hoseok shoots their director a look. “You could have just introduced me as Wonho, you know.” Hyungwon yawns and waves at him to carry on. Hoseok pinches the bridge of his nose briefly before continuing. “Nice to meet you. I’ll be acting as the wardrobe adviser as an excuse to be on set.”
Hongjoong clenches his hands into fists as a distraction. No one that huge should be this pretty.
“I don’t want anyone to know who I am just yet,” Hoseok confesses, clearly uncomfortable. “But I still would like to be directly involved in the filming process, if you two don’t mind.”
Hongjoong shakes his head. “Perfectly fine by me.”
Yunho quietly offers his own agreement.
Hyungwon huffs at Hoseok's back, busying himself with straightening the piles of papers on his desk. “Honestly, just let me put your real name on this thing. It’s gorgeous.”
“No.”
“But—”
“Hyungwon,” Hoseok says firmly and, incredibly, the director wilts to his desk with a frown and a muttered, “Don’t gotta be mean about it.”
“It’s nice to meet you,” Yunho, the kiss-ass, says, reaching over to shake Hoseok’s hand. “Your script is amazing.”
“Thank you,” Hoseok says softly. “It’s very near and dear to my heart.”
Apparently bored of introductions, Hyungwon claps once, sharp, to get everyone's attention. “Well then, gentlemen, shall we discuss the first round of scheduling?”
---------------------------
“They weren’t really what I was expecting,” Yunho muses as they make their way back towards the entrance hall. Through the double glass doors leading to the parking lot, Hongjoong can just barely make out Seonghwa and Yunho’s manager getting friendly against the hood of his Range Rover.
“What were you expecting? An old man?”
Yunho pulls his cap off his head to hide the bottom half of his face beneath the brim. “Would it be bad to say yes?”
Hongjoong laughs despite himself and the the fact he still doesn’t like Yunho, hates his stupid face besides. He's decided it would probably be best to at least make the token effort to be friendly so as not to sabotage his tenuous placement on the cast. Hyungwon could still decide to go with someone else up until filming actually begins.
He's just gotten a hand on the door handle when Yunho stops at the entrance and licks his lips once, which are so visibly chapped Hongjoong just wants to grab his chin and scrub at them with the lip balm Jiyeon threw at him from her latest advertisement deal.
“Would you want to get coffee or, uh, dinner sometime? So we can review the script together.”
Hongjoong hesitates. “Maybe just coffee.” He pats at his stomach. “Can’t be too bad since I’ve got some weight to lose before June.”
Yunho’s eyes are locked on Hongjoong’s hands, tracking the movement. “That’s a shame.”
“It is,” Hongjoong agrees, secretly preening at the sort of compliment, before pulling out his phone. Yunho looks a little confused, mouth poked out in a small pout. “Gimme your number so we can set something up.”
“Oh! Right! Yes, yeah.” Yunho fumbles for a moment, finally digging out the latest iphone from the depths of his sweatpant pockets. He scrolls for a while, eyebrows furrowing in confusion. “Sorry, the company gave this to me the other day and I’m still figuring out how to use it. I haven’t even memorized the new number yet, if you can believe it.”
Hongjoong wants to laugh. What grown adult doesn’t know their own phone number? He holds out his hand. Yunho blinks at him owlishly. “Pull up your keypad and I’ll just call myself. Easier to work with, yeah?”
Yunho nods eagerly and hands it over.
“Were you nice to him at least?” Seonghwa asks on the ride home. “To Jeong Yunho. His manager is really sweet so I’d hate to have to tell him you’re actually a dick outside of the movies.”
Hongjoong leans his head against the passenger window and closes his eyes. “I gave him my number.”
Seonghwa chokes.
He feels the car jerk slightly to the side and resists the urge to smirk.
“You—what?”
“Gave him my number,” Hongjoong repeats with a grin. It’s always fun to catch Seonghwa off guard like this. “We're going to braid our hair and paint each other's nails and trade gossip about boys. We might even do brunch.”
“Don’t scare him off,” Seonghwa warns when they’re pulling in to the entrance of Hongjoong's locked gate. “You can’t afford to lose this project.”
Bitterness floods his mouth. Hongjoong doesn’t slam the car door on the way out, but it’s a near thing. “Quit reminding me.”
Seonghwa follows him inside with a contrite expression. "Hongjoong, I didn't mean—"
"No, no, it's fine, just keep bringing up the fact I'm a shit actor without any future prospects." Hongjoong throws his keys at the catchall bowl near the door, uncaring where they land in his rage. They make a satisfyingly sharp jingle when they hit the floor instead. "I know I pay you to keep me in line, but fuck."
Seonghwa tugs him into a hug and holds Hongjoong's head to his chest, fingers dipped into his hair and petting gently along his spine. "I'm sorry, I wasn't trying to upset you."
The heat of Seonghwa's hand bleeds through the thin material of his shirt, a warm heady weight. Hongjoong wedges himself closer so he can slide his mouth against the barely there grain of Seonghwa's stubble. "Kiss it and make it better."
"Hongjoong," Seonghwa says in warning, but he's fisting Hongjoong's shirt and scraping his nails over Hongjoong's scalp when he does it, so Hongjoong decides it's worth ignoring to pull his manager into his bedroom, push him down to the very expensive linens, and go to work obtaining a wicked case of beard burn as compensation.
---------------------------
The next day, Hongjoong wakes up hanging off the side of his couch with a pleasant ache in his jaw and still faintly buzzed from a night of working through a bottle of expensive wine Donghun had sent over after nabbing the corner of Entertainment Weekly. A small thank you for cooperating so the photog could sell his story for a not insignificant amount of money. Seonghwa is conspicuously absent, though not unusual for the morning after. Hongjoong never asks him to stay so Seonghwa never does.
Jongho enters his vision with an unimpressed look on his face, holding Hongjoong’s half-dead phone over his nose so Hongjoong can see the handful of texts and missed calls. There's an alert that his name has popped up on Soompi of all places.
“Rough night?”
Hongjoong smacks his lips together. His throat feels gritty and thick, like he'd swallowed cotton and didn't bother trying to wash it down. It tastes like something has died in his mouth overnight and he grimaces. "Maybe?"
Jongho bullies him upright and points Hongjoong in the direction of his bathroom. "Go get washed up while I go through your kitchen and throw out everything you're not supposed to eat for the next few months."
There's a protest sitting on the tip of his tongue that Hongjoong bites back in favor of getting clean. He has to brush his teeth twice, before and after his shower, because his mouth is seriously grotesque with a mixture of wine and the aftertaste of numbing lube still clinging to his tonsils. When he looks in the mirror and realizes his eyebags have somehow doubled overnight, he makes himself as presentable as possible and pretends he's not having a midlife crisis over playing in the same movie with goddamn Jeong Yunho.
Who he hates.
Who he's going to have to makeout with for the world to see.
He wanders back in to find Jongho throwing everything that has more than approximately zero grams of sugar and anything remotely resembling a carb from his pantry into a a plastic tote. It's not one Hongjoong recognizes from his own stash in the garage, so his trainer had probably stopped at the hardware store on the way in.
“What do you want to do with all all your banned food?” Jongho holds a box of Fruity Pebbles up with a grimace. Snob. “Most of this is going to go bad before you’re allowed to put weight back on.”
Hongjoong shrugs. “Donate what you can and throw out the rest. Or take it home to your lovely wife, I don’t care.”
“Please don’t call Yeosang my lovely wife,” Jongho groans. “We’re not even—”
“You two are so fucking married it gives me literal hives,” Hongjoong interrupts. “Dude, please, he makes you sack lunches before you leave the apartment. Daily.”
Jongho colors and turns away so he’s speaking more to the cabinets than he is to Hongjoong. “He’s a nutritionist, he just wants to help.”
“I watched him kiss your cheek that one time I came over to pick up those evil weight bands you forced on me for Glove’s Off,” Hongjoong continues mercilessly. In a poor approximation of Yeosang’s low register, he simpers, “Oh Jongho darling, please take this sack of roasted chicken and boiled greens and these almonds I’ve activated with my love.”
“That is not what Yeosang says or even what he sounds like.” Jongho throws a box of crackers at his head. “And what even is an activated almond?”
Hongjoong shrugs, debating opening up the box of now forbidden contraband for a taste of empty calories. “Something I saw on the internet, I don’t know.”
“You’re weird.”
“And you’re married,” Hongjoong says simply. He sends a text to Yeosang that’s just a sad face and a sympathetic your husband is over here denying you act like a 50s housewife.
Not my husband, Yeosang sends back.
Jongho opens another cabinet and sighs, loud. “What did we say about keeping cake mix around when you know you can’t cook?”
“It’s just add water, Jongho. That’s not cooking.” Hongjoong types out, but you activate his almonds right? And has to turn on his side to hide his snickering against the couch cushions.
“You still have to bake it in the oven,” Jongho points out as he bends down to cover the first plastic tote with a lid and pull out a second larger one. “The last time you tried to use your oven you almost burned down your house.”
When he looks back at his phone, Yeosang has sent a picture of Seonghwa’s face scrunched up in disgust they all use as a meme along with don’t know what that means, don’t want to know what that means and tell hubby to bring back kfc or i’m not going to have his robe and slippers waiting for him when he gets home.
Harsh, Hongjoong replies and finally drops his phone to the table so he can watch Jongho bang around in his kitchen. “You’re exaggerating. Just because I fell asleep while a pizza was in there one time doesn’t mean I’m going to make the house explode trying to bake a cake.”
“Jury’s still out on that one,” Jongho says and closes the last of the cabinets, the lid to the newest now full tote, and turns back with his hands on his hips to survey the void of nutrition now residing in Hongjoong’s kitchen. “We should probably hit up the grocery store before anything else.”
Hongjoong gets up to drop the box of crackers to the donation pile, for once listening to the tiny voice in his head begging him not to ruin his not yet begun diet, and grabs his keys. “I guess. Are you going to bully me into buying quinoa?”
“For starters.” Jongho inclines his head to the side. “Remind me: you’re not allergic to kale, right?”
Hongjoong is already pulling on the ridiculous bucket hat he hides under for grocery runs and sliding his feet into a pair of obnoxiously bedazzled Gucci slides. “I am the most allergic to kale.”
“Great! We’ll pick up at least three bunches.”
Their first stop is to a local shelter to drop off the totes of food. Hongjoong watches two men help Jongho unload and secrets an extra handful of bills into their hands while their supervisor isn’t looking.
He shadowed a homeless man for two days as part of research for a role and witnessed how little the people staying there were allowed to keep at the end of each work day: some for the room and board, some for the supervisors coordinating jobs, some for the luxury of renting a blanket for the night, and almost never enough to save to get back on their feet. He had to sell his second car to afford it, but the morning of the third day Hongjoong showed up at the shelter with enough clothing to dress an army, envelopes containing enough cash to pay for a modest extended stay at a hotel, and paid out of pocket for anyone willing to go to rehab.
The news picked up the story and called him a saint, which made him feel even worse, because Hongjoong had only done it out of a selfish desire to make this one pocket of human suffering go away. A one time payment to do good so he could feel better about himself and nothing more.
The guys give him discreet nods in thanks and hide the small windfall of cash in their back pockets. Hongjoong doesn’t say anything either, too busy trying to look casual. It won’t amount to much in the grand scheme of things other than make Hongjoong feel a little less like a spoiled brat standing around making everyone else do his dirty work.
Jongho ferries them to an egregiously overpriced supermarket in the heart of Apgujeong that specializes in, like, gym rat culture or something. Every other aisle seems to be populated by women on their way to pilates, from pilates, and muscular guys in ripped tanks arguing over protein powder. Jongho loves it here, because of his job and the chance to expand his client list by doling out business cards. Hongjoong just props his sternum along the top of the shopping cart handles and lets Jongho drag him bodily through the displays of supplements and crunchy new age skin care products—oils and clays and essential oils that do nothing but sit and stink up Hongjoong’s bathroom when he tries them.
The rows of organic vegetables and vegan meal replacement shake that pass as food feels like one long liminal space, a place Hongjoong doesn’t necessarily belong as he follows behind Jongho picking up different boxes and cross checking the ingredients on some app on his phone and Yeosang. Hongjoong sneaks a package of candied jordan almonds in his cart when Jongho isn’t looking.
It’s only when they’re checking out, Hongjoong dutifully pulling out his wallet to pay for the lot, that Jongho sees the unhealthy snack and shoots him a very judgmental and shitty glare from the end of the conveyor belt. Hongjoong blows him a kiss before swiping his card. The cashier keeps glancing up from her register like she wants to say something and struggling with indecision on whether or not it’s appropriate to ask for an autograph or a picture while at work. Hongjoong offers up a PR friendly smile and leaves because he’s not really interested in getting accosted while trying to bag up mayonnaise substitute and fiber supplements.
“You know she recognized you,” Jongho whispers to him when they finally get out to the parking lot.
“Lots of people recognize me,” Hongjoong grumps back. “Like the pap camped out across the street trying to run into traffic so he can get over here. Act natural.”
Jongho, bless him, immediately turns around and makes eye contact with a man carrying a huge camera around his neck, because his act natural was almost always the opposite. Hongjoong can see the paparazzo brighten up at the acknowledgement through his periphery. For his part, Hongjoong just elbows Jongho to get his attention back on track and continues trying to throw everything into the back of his car before the idiot with the camera can get too close.
“Kim Hongjoong!”
Ignore him, he tells himself, reaching for the last bags as Jongho returns the cart. Ignore him and he’ll go away.
“Kim Hongjoong! How is Sophia?” The question is followed by a frankly ridiculous amount of clicks, as if the guy needs thirty pictures of Hongjoong closing his trunk. “How serious are you guys? Is she staying in Korea for you?”
Hongjoong closes his car and walks away, trying his best to ignore the questions without letting the annoyance show on his face. Jongho still hasn’t returned. Hongjoong can see him being waylaid by a woman dressed head to toe in athleisure, internally groaning at having to try and get this bloodsucker to leave him alone without backup.
“She’s fine, thanks for asking.” Hongjoong grits his teeth. He has to dodge the next few questions about what else Sophia may be getting up to, when is she going home, how did she feel about taking Park Jiyeon’s place—
That last one gives him pause. “Jiyeon is just a good friend,” Hongjoong answers with a laugh, and he can’t wait to get her on the phone after this because they hadn’t been the source of gossip for at least two years now so this line of questioning is completely out of left field. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to be heading home and getting these groceries in my fridge.”
The paparazzo’s face twists up in disappointment. Just as he’s opening his mouth to fire off another round of questions, Jongho finally makes his triumphant appearance, standing between Hongjoong and the camera with a scowl and his arms crossed.
“Get out of here,” Jongho says with his voice pitched low. Hongjoong resists the urge to snort. Jongho is about as scary as a baby deer, all doe-eyed and adorable. His arms may be corded up thick with muscle, but they’re used almost exclusively for opening pickle jars and keeping Yeosang lifted in the air when his roommate tries to fight people at parties.
Camera dick takes one look at Jongho’s face and gives a muttered, “Fucking bodyguards.”
They both watch him scamper back to his car parked across the street at a luxury retail outlet.
“Remind me to never get famous,” Jongho says with a frown as soon as they pull out of the parking lot. “Do you seriously get your picture taken just for buying groceries?”
Hongjoong shrugs, unconcerned. “Honestly, not really, but it sounded like he was trying to manufacture some kind of hidden scandal with Sophia and Jiyeon so it’s probably just a really slow time of year. Desperation makes you do weird things.”
“I don’t get it, but okay.” Jongho clears his throat. “How do you feel about grabbing The Colonel on the way back? Yeosang sent me a request so…”
“Only if I’m allowed to keep a biscuit for myself.”
“Just one,” Jongho finally agrees after a moment of deliberation. “No extra butter or anything either.”
Hongjoong pouts. "That's mean."
"That's life." Jongho punches in directions for the nearest KFC in Hongjoong's GPS. "You've got weight to lose for a movie, too much 'last chance' food and you'll be set back an extra two weeks and I, for one, am not going to deal with your bitching when you can only eat birdseed and water at the end of it."
---------------------------
Seonghwa sends him a picture of an article in the middle of Star News featuring a picture of him loading the back of his car with groceries and two paragraphs about Sophia’s modeling diet rubbing off on Hongjoong’s own eating habits. Seonghwa follows that up with a thumbs up emoji, encouragement for landing a small section of a rag mag just for buying goddamn kale, and a reminder he’s got a table read for the first half of the script in three weeks.
Jeong Yunho has apparently seen the same article and sends him a nearly identical text followed by can't even buy groceries these days huh?
No, Hongjoong types back after grimacing at his phone. He'd honestly forgotten about giving Yunho his number the other day. The knowledge his soon to be coworker can easily get in touch with him leaves a sour taste in his mouth. San and Seonghwa both would probably call him a drama queen, but it's fucking Jeong Yunho and Hongjoong can think of at least twenty people on the board of 'Make Kim Hongjoong Apologize for Eating Garlic' he'd rather speak to more.
He sends an additional at least I wasn't buying anything incriminating just so he doesn't come off totally standoffish.
Hongjoong thinks that's going to be the end of the conversation until his phone pings again and Yunho has decided to share his own tales of woe when it comes to dealing with inventive paparazzi and celebrity gossip magazines. Apparently an intern with an eye for crafting somewhat believable conspiracy theories got their grubby mits on a picture of Yunho buying chapstick at a convenience store that just so happened to have a cardboard cutout of Park Shinhye, advertising a new BB cream of all things, and decided it was a sign the two were dating. Because he stopped in front of the cardboard image for more than two seconds to apply his new purchase.
I've never even met her! Yunho bemoans through text and Hongjoong has to hide a snort of amusement behind a hand. It sounds ridiculous, but the amount of rumors he's been the leading man in...it doesn't surprise him Yunho has dealt with the same. He sends Yunho a sympathetic text that says as much.
Fifteen minutes later, when Hongjoong is just starting to really get into stretching his arms and legs out in preparation for more yoga, without Wooyoung's direction since his instructor is off gallivanting around Jeju with San for a weekend retreat, Yunho sends him a final text: Wanna get coffee and trade war stories?
Ordinarily Hongjoong would say no since hanging out with Jeong Yunho sounds like a nightmare. But he's been cooped up in his house for a solid week without any real human interaction and he's bored. And Seonghwa isn't here to tell him no. And he could probably make Yunho buy him food since he was such a big fan and, really, Hongjoong isn't going to say no to free food.
Jeong Yunho apparently lives not even three blocks away at the shiny new highrise apartment complex and they agree to meet up at a bistro Hongjoong frequents that just so happens to be the midway point between both their homes.
Hongjoong doesn’t know what it’s like to not be famous. He’d never gone through that awkward phase of popularity being too much and not enough all at once and phased directly into expecting recognition every time he stepped out of the house. Seonghwa likes to tell him he needs to get his ego under control, and maybe he should, it's just being in the spotlight is the only place Hongjoong knows how to thrive. Demanding everyone's attention just by walking into a room is all he's ever really known, if he faded into obscurity now he'd have no idea how to function as a person.
Jeong Yunho, it seems, doesn’t have the same feelings about stardom.
He's flushed red the entire time, nervously glancing around the room at everyone looking at the pair of them propped up at a tiny table close to the back door--and easy escape if they really need it--and has actually signed the back of a woman's receipt when she asked for an autograph instead of telling her to fuck off. Hongjoong usually stares at fans until they go away, metaphorical tails tucked between their legs in embarrassment.
The only consolation is Yunho has decided to wear something better than a ratty shirt and sweatpants. The snapback is still present, but today he's dressed like a celebrity should be: sinfully tight jeans, a black button down Hongjoong had actually considered picking up from All Saints, dressier shoes. It almost looks like he's dressed for an interview for Forbes or someshit, Hongjoong reluctantly has to give him points for presentation.
“So,” Hongjoong starts when they’re finally left in peace, relatively speaking considering the stares and faint whispers. “Have they got you on a diet for the new movie too?”
Yunho shakes his head. “Not really. The only change I have to endure is getting my hair cut. It was going to be a full buzzcut, but Mingi, my manager you met the other day, anyway he managed to talk them into only cutting the sides down.”
Hongjoong leans his chin against his palm and pouts. “Damn. And here I have to lose enough weight to make my cheeks hollow before they add makeup.”
Yunho offers up a pinched and worried look. “They can’t just use CGI for that? Special effects makeup?”
“Hyungwon is known for being physically demanding when it comes to his actors.” Hongjoong swirls the sad no milk, no sugar, no creamer black coffee he’d purchased earlier. It sloshes up the side of the mug and over the tips of his fingers on the last pass. “At least I don’t have to go full Christian Bale in The Machinist. I only have to lose enough to not show up fat for the first day of filming.”
Yunho scowls harder. He’d ordered a tall glass of sweetened tea and a bagel. Hongjoong’s mouth waters every time he glances down and sees the scrape of cream cheese oozing from the middle. “You’re not fat by any means.” Yunho taps his fingers restlessly against the tabletop. “Hey, want to get fro-yo after this? We can call it one last hurrah before you have to really commit to the demon diet from hell.”
“It’s a date,” Hongjoong says playfully. It's worth it to see the way Yunho's eyes widen idiotically before he’s nodding enthusiastically and tugging Hongjoong up by the sleeve of his sweater.
“I know a really cool place that just opened up. The seats are these giant hollowed out eggs that spin around if you pick your feet up off the floor.”
“Can you even fit in those?” Hongjoong wonders out loud. “I mean, you’re so tall, I can’t imagine you’d fit in an egg chair.”
Yunho grins bashfully again, ducking his face down to hide under the brim of his snapback. Hongjoong wishes he’d cut it out. The cutesy act wasn’t at all endearing.
When Yunho finally looks back up, there’s a playful slant to his mouth. “You'll fit in just fine then.”
“Hey! Rude!” Hongjoong smacks at Yunho’s back on the way out the door while Yunho laughs, dodging his swipes and twirling his keys around one finger.
Yunho catches Hongjoong’s last not-quite-joking punch with one hand. “Come on, I’ll even give you a ride.”
“You better,” Hongjoong says faintly. What the fuck, what were Yunho’s hands so huge for? Yunho’s fingers encircle his wrist with room to spare. They could probably span the width of his thighs, a dizzying realization that Hongjoong has no idea what to do with.
The egg chairs at the upscale frozen yogurt place are huge. Yunho smugly folds himself into one chair and flicks a tiny spoonful of vanilla at Hongjoong’s face as revenge for implying Yunho would have to crack his back in half just to fit. Despite himself, Hongjoong has fun. The laughing kind of fun instead of the x-rated fun he’s used to with Seonghwa or sweet boys at parties in LA.
Yunho is still his worst enemy, that doesn’t change, but the experience of hanging around with him isn’t as godawful horrible as Hongjoong pictured it to be.
---------------------------
The next time Seonghwa drops by with his usual stack of tabloids, he throws a newly printed copy of Celebrity Now! into Hongjoong’s lap with his eyebrows raised near to his hairline. “What’s this?”
Hongjoong blinks innocently up from his phone screen where he is absolutely killing it on SuperStar. “What is what?”
Seonghwa flips the magazine open to reveal a blurb about Hongjoong and Yunho laughing together over frozen yogurt. His manager’s voice is entirely too smug for Hongjoong’s liking when he says, “You hate him, huh?”
Hongjoong lets the offensive piece of propaganda slide to the floor and resumes his game. “Definitely.”
Never one to be ignored, Seonghwa squeezes his face in front of Hongjoong’s screen and smirks. “So the fact you were seen together having a fro-yo playdate in the middle of the day with your evil rival when you’re supposed to be on a crash diet?” He pokes a finger into Hongjoong’s cheek just to be a bastard about it. “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”
“Don’t call me a lady,” Hongjoong says and pretends to bite at Seonghwa’s finger. “It was a momentary lapse in judgment from hunger. A fever dream for everyone involved, especially me.”
“Uh huh,” Seonghwa deadpans. “I totally believe you. Just admit you think he’s an alright guy who just happened to sign with the right company at the wrong time.”
Hongjoong bats at Seonghwa’s hands trying to dig into his sides in the hopes of initiating a tickle fight with a scowl, music app momentarily forgotten. “Leave it alone, Seonghwa. I’m just trying to be a good coworker.”
His manager finally relents and backs up enough to rub a hand over Hongjoong’s fringe. “Just be careful.”
“I’m always careful,” Hongjoong says, even though that’s certifiably untrue considering his track record for getting photobombed at parties. He digs a finger through one of Seonghwa’s belt loops with a needy, hopeful whine caught up in his throat. “You should come down here.”
“Hongjoong.”
“Just one little smooch.” Hongjoong blinks up at him with faux-innocence. “Please?”
“It’s never just one with you,” Seonghwa laughs. He sounds pissed about it, but he also leans over to plant a biting kiss to the edge of Hongjoong’s mouth anyway. Seonghwa’s hand is rough when he grabs at his jaw and Hongjoong breathes hard through his nose at the shock of heat the action sends pooling into his stomach. “This is the last time, okay? No more trying me on just because you’re bored after today.”
“Promise,” Hongjoong breathes against the whorl of Seonghwa’s thumb as it traces along his bottom lip, mentally twisting his fingers together at the lie, and reaches for the clasp of Seonghwa’s belt.
---------------------------
Per contractual obligations, Hongjoong is diligent about his diet, about bringing Wooyoung in to work him over and stretch out his limbs. He makes regular appointments to see his GP to make sure his body isn’t doing anything crazy now that he’s not inhaling carbs 24/7.
By the end of May, just before the cutoff point, Hongjoong has dropped 9kg and working on the last stubborn bit of body fat clinging to his ribs. Honestly, he’s proud of himself. He misses being able to eat Fruity Pebbles—to hell with Jongho’s opinions on sugary cereals—but he’ll at least get to start packing the weight back on once filming starts on the second half of Sungjoon’s sweeping romance.
He still hasn’t read the full script. Every time he gets to the scene, the one where Jacob stands at Sungjoon’s door hoping for more than a friendly group hug, his stomach lurches so hard Hongjoong has to put down the script to breathe deep against his knees and swallow back wave after wave of stinging bile. Sophia’s management team sent the go-ahead for the mutual split to be announced this morning, by which they mean they’ve dropped hints on her Instagram and posted something vague on twitter already, so Hongjoong no longer has the security blanket of a fake relationship to hide behind when thinking about kissing a man on screen gets to be too much.
It’s just a movie. He’s starred in countless movies by now, has kissed who knows how many nameless actresses in front of thousands of crew and fans alike. This shouldn’t be any different: it’s a job, like any other, under an influential director’s name, a shoe-in for a best supporting lead award or best actor nomination. The fact he’s going to be in a romance with another man shouldn’t make him this uneasy. He’d done plenty of that in high school with the drama club he’d joined in between filming schedules, playful kissing in front of a laughing audience. Doing this on the big screen is—
His thoughts are interrupted by the soft ping of an incoming message. Yunho has sent him a godawful picture of a cat surrounded by pink emoji hearts and an apologetic mingi told me about sophia, hope you’re doing alright.
It takes every ounce of self-control not to throw his phone against the nearest wall.
Fucking goody-goody Jeong Yunho trying to weasel his way into Hongjoong's good graces. It's not going to work.
Not now.
Not ever.