if i were you i'd never let me go [ikon; junhwe/jinhwan]
if i were you i'd never let me go
junhwe/jinhwan
pg-13, 9,780 words
Contrary to what the press says, Junhwe does not have an attitude problem. AU (AO3 mirror)
written for nokchaa for the 2016 round of exchangekon!
There are three things in this world that Junhwe’s hard-earned money and YG brand name can’t protect him from. The first is a leaked video of a flat-faced, dowdy fifteen year old version of him auditioning for YG Entertainment with a off-tune rendition of Im Jaebum’s “Confession”. The second is the four episodes of K-pop Star Season 1 where a guileless fourteen year old version of him appears as a member of slap-happy prepubescent boy band “High Praise” (even as a kid, the irony of the name wasn’t lost on him). The third thing, and the bane of Junhwe’s life presently, is Kang Seungyoon’s springtime hit “Stealer”. Today marks its third consecutive week topping Melon, a fact that wouldn’t surprise Junhwe even if he wasn’t obsessively checking the digital charts every day, because he hears “Stealer” everywhere. Constantly. At the salon. At his own company’s building. Every elevator he enters-
“Are you humming it?” Junhwe hisses. He can see the top of Yunhyeong’s hair jolt from the front seat.
“You keep ranting about it and now it’s in my head!” Yunhyeong insists, as the traffic light in front of them turns amber. They’re close enough to make it, but Yunhyeong slows down to a complete stop at the intersection. The car behind them honks, and rightfully so, because Junhwe’s saddled with the only person in all of Seoul who actually pays heed to road rules.
“We’re going to miss the flight,” Junhwe huffs, crossing his arms against his chest. He looks out the window; it’s barely past four in the afternoon but the tint casts the streets in a dusky light. It relaxes him a little, but not enough. “Also, I don’t rant about it. Just because I’m a celebrity I can’t express honest opinions anymore?”
“I mean,” Yunhyeong starts, “you don’t have to express them all the time.”
Junhwe ignores him, slouching against the leather padded seats of the van and fiddling with his phone. “The public has such poor, derivative taste,” he says. “Add some cherry blossoms to your music video and wala-instant number one.”
Yunhyeong laughs just as the signal flashes green. “Interesting point,” he says, doing a quick scan of the crossroad before slowly accelerating. The car behind them honks again. “I just wish you thought of a better way to word that before you told Arena magazine.”
“Don’t they test your driving skills when you become a manager?” Junhwe muses out loud, not looking away from his phone.
“Stop looking at the charts, Junhwe, it makes you mean.” Yunhyeong squints at him through the rearview mirror. Junhwe glares back. “Well, meaner than usual.”
Junhwe’s upcoming Japanese debut is running on a rigid schedule-which is fucking incredible, considering Junhwe’s last Korean comeback suffered so many delays that it eventually ended up coinciding with the return of the Nation’s Fedora, Kang Seungyoon-but YGEX doesn’t play around. Junhwe’s been flying in and out of Japan so often the past few weeks that sleeping in his own bed comes with an odd feeling of displacement; too accustomed to plush hotel pillows and freshly laundered quilts and covers.
“You’re quite the jetsetter,” Jinhwan comments. “It must get lonely.”
Junhwe entertains the thought for a second. “Not really,” he says.
Jinhwan raises an eyebrow, offering Junhwe nothing but a peculiar twist of his mouth before turning back to the interviewer and repeating the words in Japanese. The interviewer nods, pressing the recorder against her chin. She’s pretty, in that pristine and clean-cut way Yunhyeong is so fond of. Junhwe’s gaze wanders to the back of the photo studio where Yunhyeong’s sitting, playing an impromptu game of dibidibidip with the rest of his staff using a rolled up magazine. Maybe Junhwe can get her number for him later. It might work out-Yunhyeong’s Japanese is better than Junhwe’s, at any rate.
“Junhwe,” Jinhwan’s voice cuts through his thoughts and Junhwe’s eyes snap back to the front. The interviewer laughs, fingers with perfectly filed nails coming up to cover her mouth. Definitely Yunhyeong’s type. Jinhwan’s smiling too, but Junhwe doesn’t miss the stiffness of his jaw.
“Sorry, what was that?” Junhwe asks, smiling politely.
“What kind of girl catches your attention?”
He’s been asked this question so often that if he had to write a Japanese phrasebook it’d be on the first page, with other commonly used expressions such as ”Good afternoon” and “I’m South Korea’s rough and manly vocal Koo Junhwe”. In fact, he’s been asked the question so often that Jinhwan could just answer it for him; Junhwe doesn’t even need to open his mouth.
As it is though, Junhwe loves opening his mouth. He grins, lounging back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. ”I like sexy girls,” he says in Japanese. “Really really sexy girls.” Then he adds in Korean, “I’m into girls who look like they despise me.”
Jinhwan grabs a water bottle from the floor and pushes it into Junhwe’s hands. Junhwe furrows his eyebrows, is about to tell Jinhwan that he isn’t thirsty, until Jinhwan turns and gives him that look, the one that begs no argument-the one that always, without fail, makes Junhwe want to argue. Fortunately, despite what recurrent lectures from Yunhyeong might imply, Junhwe does know how to act professional. He takes a gulp of water while Jinhwan translates for the interviewer, whose eyes widen imperceptibly as she nods.
“It’s not an answer she hears very often,” Jinhwan explains to Junhwe.
Junhwe tries not to look too self-satisfied. A futile attempt, he can tell from the way Jinhwan rolls his eyes. Junhwe shrugs. “I try.”
Jinhwan buys them dinner that night, just like he always does when Junhwe is in Japan. It’s less a tradition and more a consequence of Yunhyeong being a self-proclaimed “foodie” and Jinhwan-the hyung and immersed expatriate-feeling a certain level of investment in the quality of yun_yumyum95’s instagram posts. Junhwe just likes eating.
Jinhwan takes them to an izakaya located in the middle of an alley, a short walk from their hotel. It’s signboard outside is dim, almost inconspicuous even in the night, and the interior is so narrow that Junhwe’s suddenly self-conscious about how much space he takes up and has to walk sideways past the bar so he doesn’t knock into any patrons. Jinhwan swears by the place, the food, and the fact it’s out of the way enough that no overly curious fans should find them. Junhwe is dubious, up until Jinhwan pours him a second cup of sake and begins waxing nostalgic about the time he ate here with Mizuhara Kiko.
“Did you talk about me?” Junhwe asks. On his other side, Yunhyeong chokes on his edamame beans.
“Did I talk about you with Mizuhara Kiko?” Jinhwan asks, laughing. “No, there wasn’t really an opening. She was doing a shoot with Ceci in Japan, we talked about clothes a lot.” He pauses, perking up suddenly, reminding Junhwe a little of a cat. “I like this song,” he says.
Junhwe strains his ears to listen, catches the vaguely familiar, muffled sound of a guitar above the bustling conversation around them. It becomes obvious to Junhwe when it hits the chorus, and he scowls at the bar table, skewering a piece of chicken with one chopstick. The only thing worse than hearing “Stealer” in general, is hearing “Stealer” sung in Kang Seungyoon’s vacant Japanese.
Yunhyeong pats Junhwe’s back like he’s consoling a child. “He’s a little insecure,” he explains.
Junhwe schools his expression into a neutral one. “Your music taste sucks,” he tells Jinhwan plainly.
“I really like the bridge,” Yunhyeong says.
“It’s nice isn’t, it?” Jinhwan agrees.
“No.”
“You know, Seungyoon came to Tokyo last week, I was interpreting for him.” Jinhwan looks at Junhwe softly, considering. “He reminded me a little bit of you.”
Junhwe’s mouth falls open in shock. “I am nothing like him.”
“I said a little bit! You’re similar during interviews. Really honest, bordering on indelicate-”
“Indelicate?”
“Well, he’s indelicate, you’re just stupid,” Jinhwan corrects, grinning at Junhwe’s visible indignance. He nods to himself, slumping in his stool and taking a sip of sake. “Yeah, reminded me of you, a little.” He’s slightly flushed, Junhwe notices. Under the tawny light of the restaurant, his skin is a darker shade along the apples of his cheeks and down to his neck.
Junhwe shakes his head. “My answers aren’t stupid,” he says curtly. Jinhwan chuckles and wags a finger.
“That’s because you’re not the one who has to think about what you’re saying, word for word, and then repeat those words to another person in a different language.”
“When you put it that way,” Yunhyeong interrupts, “you deserve a raise.”
“I do, don’t I?” Jinhwan lifts his cup, but Junhwe catches his wrist before it touches his lip.
“Stop drinking,” Junhwe mumbles, prying the cup out of his hands. And Junhwe should stop drinking too, because it’s like his visions been filtered through a vignette, everything faded and out of focus except for the way Jinhwan tilts his head at him questioningly. “You have a low alcohol tolerance,” Junhwe explains.
Jinhwan accepts this easily, shrugging and pouring himself a glass of water. Junhwe watches him for a few seconds, then comes to his senses and quickly looks away.
Junhwe’s feelings towards Jinhwan aren’t the most professional. To put it in franker terms, Junhwe has a crush. A bad one, at that. He can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but it’s managed to gather a hell of a lot of momentum along the way. In the beginning it’d been innocuous, the fluttering in his stomach a small thrill and easy pick me up to get him through an exhausting day of promotions. Fast forward a year later and now there’s a lot less butterflies involved and a lot more introspective sulking.
Because if Junhwe’s being honest with himself, having a crush on someone who’s paid to be around him just feels like pandering to his own character flaws. The way these things go, he might as well just be one lonely night and a bottle of soju away from sleeping with Yunhyeong.
As if reading his mind, Junhwe feels a kick against his right foot. He looks up to see Yunhyeong’s eyes flicker towards Jinhwan before settling themselves back on Junhwe knowingly.
Junhwe feels the back of his neck heat up. “What do you want me to do?” he murmurs, it comes out louder than he’d meant it to and Jinhwan turns towards them.
“Do what?” he asks, leaning forward.
Yunhyeong stares at Junhwe intently, and it’s the exact same fucking look he gives Junhwe when he catches him smoking. A moment passes in silence, and then Yunhyeong goes back to toying with the food on his plate.
“Nothing,” he says.
The harsh truth is: Junhwe’s Korean comeback hasn’t been the raging success that the money invested in it was relying on it to be. He doesn’t understand the financial aspect very well, but Yunhyeong had assured him that there’d been no losses. Just a loss in face value, apparently. It doesn’t look good after all, losing out on awards and hype to an artist from Mystic Entertainment. An artist who used to be an ex-YG trainee, no less.
Fortunately, rather than being shelved for the next few years until the obligatory last comeback before military service, the strategy YG has implemented to salvage his reputation actually involves releasing music. Junhwe was meant to promote a follow-up single, one he liked better than his lead single “Apology”, but that plan had been scrapped and instead the company was going to release a digital single in collaboration with Bobby.
Junhwe and Bobby have a complicated history that they’re both aware isn’t really as complicated as they think. They’d been trainees in the same group until Bobby had debuted as soloist, and were awkward in a non-malicious, flat soda kind of way-it just was what it was. After Junhwe had debuted, Bobby had told him to stop calling him sunbae because Junhwe looked like he was strangling a kitten while saying it, and they’d finally started to get along. A fly on the wall of the studio this afternoon, however, might find that difficult to believe.
“Stop!” Bobby calls, making a large ‘X’ with his arms.
“What did I do wrong this time?” Junhwe asks. He can see his own surly reflecting staring back at him from the recording booth window.
“You need…” Bobby looks around the room, like the word he’s looking for might be written on one of the decorative gold records hung up on the walls. “You need to sound a bit more… loving? In a cute way. Don’t make my panties wet, make me want you as my boyfriend.”
Junhwe’s mouth curls up involuntarily. For several reasons. He only voices one of them. “Hyung, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that suits the song.”
Bobby leans forward in his chair, looking amused. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Junhwe shakes the lyrics in his hands, “It doesn’t suit cute, it needs something more rough.”
“I know what you mean, I do,” Bobby agrees, resting a chin on his palm. Smugness wells up within Junhwe for all of two seconds before Bobby continues with, “But still, I talked about it with Seungyoon and we both agreed it’d compliment his vocals more if you sounded just a little cuter. Or else it’s just-”
“What?” Junhwe rips his headphones off. Through the window Bobby starts gesticulating wildly, his mouth running with things Junhwe can’t hear. Junhwe stalks out of the recording booth and approaches the mixing table to confront him.
“What did you say?”
“I said Seungyoon thinks-”
“Kang Seungyoon?” Junhwe says coldly. “No one told me he was going to be on the song.”
“Yeah, because we knew you’d throw a fit.”
“I can’t be on a song with Kang Seungyoon, and-” Junhwe’s face hardens, “I can’t do cute.”
“How do you know you can’t do cute if you haven’t tried it?” Bobby slides his headphones back over his ears and starts fiddling with the mixing board. “No point fighting it, you’re either on this track or you’re on hiatus again for another year.”
A side-effect of promoting concurrently in two countries is that occasionally, Junhwe forgets there’s an endgame to his absurd international schedule apart from the frequent-flyer points he’s been racking up. This is why, when he walks into YGEX’s recreation room to find the space decorated with streamers and large white cake placed on a table in the middle, the first thing out of his mouth is: “Am I off the track with Seungyoon?”
Yunhyeong wraps an arm around Junhwe’s shoulder from behind. “No,” he says. “It’s an album release party.”
“But the album’s not being released for another week?”
“Yeah, but you won’t be in Japan then,” Yunhyeong says. “We just wanted to celebrate it early.”
All in all, it’s a dressed down affair; Junhwe can tell it was hastily planned because he recognises the cake from a bakery near yesterday’s fansign. Despite that, and despite the fact Yunhyeong had assured him that there was no way he could wriggle out of doing the track with Seungyoon, Junhwe lets himself have a good time. He eats the cheap cake, chats with a few staff members until his social energy is mostly depleted, then finds a seat near the back of the room and takes some time to collect himself.
There’s a reason Junhwe doesn’t feel lonely having to constantly travel to Japan, and that’s because he’d rather sleep in strange hotels than the bed he’s made for himself back in South Korea. Japanese promotions ending mean he has more of himself to wear out back home, and suddenly the party seems a lot less celebratory and more like a goodbye.
He’s contemplating whether he can convince sajangnim to let him debut in China when there’s a scrape of a chair being pulled up next to him. Jinhwan takes a seat besides Junhwe, his hair wet, his movements a little frantic like he’s running on too much energy.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jinhwan apologises, breathing heavily. “I had a job this morning, and the meeting I was in ran overtime, and the traffic was terrible and then it started raining.” He shakes his hair, spraying bits of water over Junhwe’s face.
“It’s fine,” Junhwe says, scooting his chair a little away when the arm of Jinhwan’s sodden coat slaps against his cheek. Jinhwan notices and gives Junhwe an unimpressed look. “What!” Junhwe protests. “You’re so… wet.” It’s sentence he’s imagined saying to Jinhwan many times, but in a lot more exciting contexts. Junhwe takes a long drink from his solo cup to purify his thoughts.
“I came for you!” Jinhwan exclaims. Junhwe almost chokes on his soda. “I was going to bring you a gift when I go to Korea, but I might have to reconsider.”
“You’re going to Korea?” Junhwe asks, sitting up in interest.
Jinhwan nods, holding up two fingers in a ‘V’. “In two weeks!”
Junhwe almost lets himself get excited, until he remembers. “Oh wait, Jeju right?”
“I’m going back to Korea for the first time in eighteen months and you think I’ll just be in Jeju?” Jinhwan snorts. “I’m visiting my family there first, but then it’s Seoul.”
Junhwe nods slowly, rolling the information around in his head. Jinhwan on his turf. Jinhwan in a situation where he doesn’t have to do things like ask people where the nearest toilet is on Junhwe’s behalf.
“You don’t have to like… see me or anything,” Jinhwan adds in the middle of Junhwe’s silent deliberation. “I mean, you’re probably really busy-”
“I’m not!” Junhwe says, a bit too enthusiastically, but Jinhwan doesn’t seem to pick up on it. “Really, I’m not. I’ll even pick you up from the airport.”
“You can drive?” Jinhwan says, sounding amused.
“Yunhyeong will even pick you up,” Junhwe waves him off. “Semantics, whatever.”
Jinhwan nods and rests his elbows on his knees. “Yunhyeong can also take us to that famous kalbi restaurant that plays nothing but Seungyoon’s album all day.”
Junhwe groans. “Why do you hate me?”
“Isn’t that your ideal type of girl?” Jinhwan’s smile is teasing, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Junhwe swears it’s also a touch flirtatious.
Something grips him-not bravery, but a determination to not let the moment slip away. “You know…” Junhwe starts tentatively.“My ideal type is actually a girl who gets me. Or guy,” he tacks on at the end, suppressing his urge to cringe. Jinhwan hums to let him know he’s listening, but otherwise doesn’t react. “But uh… that’s what everyone says.”
Jinhwan leans an arm on the back of his chair, studying Junhwe. “Yeah, well,” he says. “When it comes down to it, everyone tends to want the same thing.”
“I…” Junhwe gulps. There’s a drop of water gliding down the column of Jinhwan’s neck, and Junhwe needs…
“I need to find Yunhyeong!” He announces, standing up from his chair so fast it almost topples backwards. Jinhwan blinks up at him, and Junhwe makes a noise of frustration low in his throat, walking away before Jinhwan can say anything.
Junhwe finds Yunhyeong in the depths of conversation with one of the publicists. Junhwe walks towards them and grabs Yunhyeong’s arm, not stopping to make small talk, and hauls him out of the room and down the dark empty hallway until Junhwe can finally hear beyond the sound of his own heart beating.
“What’s wrong?” Yunhyeong asks, voice clipped in the way it is when he’s worried about Junhwe, but also suspicious that it’s a self-inflicted cause. “What happened?”
Junhwe takes a deep breath. “So, about Jinhwa-”
“No,” Yunhyeong shoots down immediately. “Junhwe, it’s not a good idea. He works with you. You’re not even sure if he likes you.”
“I can always ask,” Junhwe says, trying to sound like the idea doesn’t make his palms sweat.
Yunhyeong reaches out to squeeze his arm. “I’m sure you mean a lot to Jinhwan, but Junhwe,” he says softly. “You need someone who understands you, not someone whose job it is to understand you.”
And Junhwe knows he’s right. Jinhwan’s easy to get along with, he’s so grounded that it’s hard to believe he’s brushed elbows with some of the A-list celebrities he had as clients, but that’s just what Junhwe is-a client.
Junhwe knows this, accepts this, but it doesn’t make him feel much better. “You’re right,” he agrees. The downturn of Yunhyeong’s mouth is apologetic, but he doesn’t say anything more to Junhwe as he grabs his hand and leads him back to the party.
“Come on,” he says. “You’ll get over it.”
They’re at baggage claim in Incheon when Yunhyeong gets the call from the company.
“Yeah, he’s here,” he answers, in the midst of a face-off with a halmeoni who’s insistent that Junhwe’s suitcase belongs to her. Junhwe observes the conflict absent-mindedly, munching on the complimentary nuts while Yunhyeong tries reasoning with the lady as she threatens to call security.
“Okay so… Wait… Hold on… What?” Yunhyeong exclaims into his phone, letting go off the suitcase abruptly. The halmeoni huffs, sending him a derivisive glare before hobbling away with Junhwe’s luggage.
Junhwe scowls and stalks over to Yunhyeong, who’s staring dumbfoundedly at the air in front of him. “Hey!” he calls, waving a hand in front of Yunhyeong’s face. “My hairdryer is in there, can you-”
A hand snaps up to seize Junhwe’s arm. He winces. Yunhyeong’s grip isn’t hard enough to hurt, but his fingers dig firmly into Junhwe’s flesh, and more than anything the uncharacteristically aggressive nature of it pushes a lead of fear and worry down Junhwe’s throat.
He swallows thickly. “What… what is it?”
Yunhyeong releases his arm and Junhwe cradles it closely against his chest. There’s a brief show of apology that flashes across Yunhyeong’s face, one that’s soon offset by the unmistakable frustration in the way he regards Junhwe. It’s an uncomfortable look on Yunhyeong, which is fitting, because it only ever draws itself up when Junhwe’s fucked something up beyond repair.
“Congratulations,” Yunhyeong says, voice devoid of emotion “You’ve just ruined your career.”
Junhwe isn’t stupid. His pride doesn’t extend beyond the point of common sense and he gets it, celebrities have an image they need to maintain. He makes a point to follow the standard routine: throws hearts at fansigns; contains his smoking within the boundaries of his own en suite and occasionally, during severely stressful periods of his life, the YG trainee bathrooms; and as an upstanding public figure, he only fucks in cars with tinted windows that are parked under closed roofs.
So Junhwe gets it. He does. But honesty isn’t something he’s willing to compromise. It’s an intrinsic part of his personality, it’s his brand name, it’s-
“Cost you this duet with Kang Seungyoon,” Yunhyeong whispers harshly into his ear. “So shut up and pay attention.”
Dara noona from the PR team slides a magazine across the table-the March Issue of Arena, which contains the very interview Junhwe had detonated his professional life with. “We got a call from Mystic Entertainment and they’re adamant about not having Kang Seungyoon on the song,” she says, bright red nails tapping against the sepia shot of T.O.P on the front cover.
“Can he do that?” Junhwe asks, pinching his forehead. “Can’t we sue him?”
Yunhyeong scoffs. “Can we sue him?” he mocks in a low voice. Then he blinks up at Dara inquisitively. “Wait, can we?”
Dara gives them both a flat look. “No,” she enunciates. “He didn’t sign a contract. Not to mention, suing him would just make you look petty.”
“Then why did you go around telling all those news portals about the song if it wasn’t even concrete!”
“We didn’t tell any news portals,” Dara says, voice pitched sweet and saccharine. “It was leaked.”
“Anyway,” Dara says dismissively, her heels clicking against the tiles as she paces around the room. “We can’t do anything about that now. The bigger problem is how you come across to the people, Junhwe.”
Junhwe rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t even that bad.”
Dara picks the magazine up from the desk, flicking easily through it until she lands on Junhwe’s interview. “If I’m being truthful,” Dara recites, “I think there’s a generic sort of sound that the public has been brainwashed into believing is ’Art’. Seungyoon-ssi is very good at harnessing that sound and making it seem like he’s actually something original. You can’t fault the public for liking what they like, but personally, I just don’t really consider his music to be anything noteworthy.”
Yunhyeong pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “They asked,” Junhwe defends weakly.
Dara spends a few more minutes detailing-with specific examples cherry picked from the highest ranking articles-exactly how far public sentiment towards Junhwe has fallen, before finally granting Junhwe permission to leave. Junhwe makes for the exit, until he realises that Yunhyeong isn't getting up with him.
“We have some other things we need to discuss, Junhwe,” Yunhyeong explains tiredly, running a hand through his hair.
Junhwe thins his lips. “Fine,” he says, snatching the magazine off the table and storming out the room. He slams the door unceremoniously behind him, and isn’t even two steps into the hallway when someone grabs his shoulder and pins him against the opposite wall.
“What the fuck-”
Bobby raises a finger against his lips. He’s so close that his stringy hair tickles Junhwe’s nose. Junhwe sniffs and narrows his eyes, but whatever expletives were on the tip of his tongue fizzle out when Bobby backs away and Junhwe can see the good natured determination that scrunches up his face.
“We,” Bobby says conspiratorially, “are going to get Kang Seungyoon back on the track.”
So even though it’s Junhwe’s career in hot water, Junhwe’s next comeback that’s indefinitely postponed, Junhwe who can’t so much as order a drink at a Cafe without a PR agent breathing down his neck, it is apparently Bobby who’s the real victim in this entire ordeal.
“Well, you can’t really call yourself a victim when your mouth was the gun,” Bobby had told him cheerily, and he’d been right. There’s no righteous stance Junhwe can have at this moment, because Bobby’s been wanting to do a song with Kang Seungyoon for months. They’d finally been introduced through a mutual friend, Song Mino, and Seungyoon had tentatively agreed to record a demo with Bobby, which is approximately when Yang-sajaengnim heard about the project and hijacked it as a vehicle to propel Junhwe’s career.
Netizens might not affect Junhwe’s self-esteem much, but the way Bobby casually recounted the entire story had done a good enough job compensating for that.
And yet, despite the low-lying guilt he feels, Junhwe still can’t regard the entire situation as more than a graze against his pride, easily amendable by slapping a band-aid on (his song had actually risen ten spots since the news blew up, so there wasn’t any monetary loss, not that Dara cared when he’d screenshotted the chart to her yesterday). This attitude is probably part of the reason why Yunhyeong used to call him a Dormant PR Volcano. It’s also probably part of the reason why Yunhyeong is currently emitting nothing but radio silence towards him. Because sticks and stones may break Junhwe’s bones, but not having his manager around is the only staggering difference he feels.
The backup manager Junhwe’s been lugging around the past week (“Stop calling me that,” the Yunhyeong replacement had sighed, “I’ve been your manager since you debuted.”) provides basic functionality-keeps a copy of Junhwe’s schedule, yells at him for cheating on his diet-but doesn’t have any of the special features that made Yunhyeong so… special. For example, backup manager refused to take Junhwe to the airport to pick Jinhwan up, and since Junhwe doesn’t have his driver's licence, he’s waiting at the domestic terminal of Gimpo with-
“It’s a simple plan,” Bobby says, jostling Junhwe’s shoulder. “We go to the party, we find Seungyoon, you apologise and kiss his feet, we’re back in the game.”
Junhwe adjusts his facemask, looking up at the board with arrival times as Bobby prattles away. “Keep your voice down,” he whispers, pulling his snapback forward so it shadows his face. “We can’t be recognised. Also, do you really think I should be clubbing when my image is tainted?” He drawls the last part sarcastically, but Bobby doesn’t catch on.
“Nah,” he says, slapping Junhwe’s back. “Have you seen those Pann posts? They’re going to think you’re a jerk either way.”
Junhwe glowers at him. “You’ve seen those Pann posts?”
“Of course I have! You’re wild, like the thing with K-Con-”
“That was a misunderstanding,” Junhwe hisses.
“And that gif of you from that fansign. You looked like the girl’s hand was diseased, the face you made-”
Junhwe pulls down his mask to give Bobby the full effect of his contempt. “That was four years ago. I was sixteen.”
Bobby points and cackles. “Yeah, you looked exactly like that.” Junhwe grimaces and pulls his mask back up again, looking around to make sure no one’s recognised them. Apart from a middle-aged man eyeing the two of them distastefully, nobody seems to pay them any mind.
“You know what your problem is?” Bobby starts up again, completely unconcerned. “The bad boy thing is cool, but you need to be more loveable. Like show a genuine soft side.” He clicks his fingers, eyebrow arching up. “You should be more like Hanbin!”
“Hanbin left the company.”
“Hanbin withdrew gracefully,” Bobby corrects. “Like a butterfly leaving its cocoon, or the song of a whale, lingering in your ear as you walk away from the shore.”
Junhwe looks at him incredulously. “Are you high?”
“Koo Junhwe? Is that you!”
They both jump, turning around to see Jinhwan smiling up at them with a large trolley case in hand.
“Jinhwan!” Bobby yells, launching at him like an over-excited dog. He engulfs Jinhwan in a large hug, hefting him up slightly so that his toes skid the floor.
“Konichiwa,” Junhwe says when Jinhwan reaches up to give him a hug next. Jinhwan bursts out laughing against Junhwe’s neck, mouth open against his collarbone. There must be something in Jeju’s water, because when Jinhwan pulls back he looks brighter, like something’s changed about his face that Junhwe can’t exactly place.
“I can’t believe more than a year promoting in Japan and that’s all the Japanese you’ve managed to pick up,” Jinhwan sighs in fake disappointment, another point towards Jeju, because every other time Jinhwan had said that to Junhwe it’d been laden with real disappointment. “Bobby at least knew the lyrics to anime theme songs.”
“Kiss kiss fall in love,” Bobby sings, blowing Jinhwan a kiss.
Jinhwan makes eye contact with Junhwe and rolls his eyes. And for a second, everything feels so uncomplicated to Junhwe, like the answer to all his problems are as easy as taking a plane somewhere far-away. And then the corners of Jinhwan’s lip tug down, and he looks up at Junhwe concernedly.
“Now tell me,” he says. “What’s the deal with you?”
Jinhwan doesn’t look all that surprised when Junhwe regales him the drama of the last two weeks. Which means either he saw this coming from a mile away, or he’d heard it through the grapevine. Both are equally likely.
“So how bad is it, really?” Jinhwan asks patiently. They’d dropped his bags off at the hotel he’d be staying at, and now he’s standing by Junhwe’s sink, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, halfway into washing off the dirty bowls Junhwe had let pile up in Yunhyeong’s absence. It stirs up conflicted feelings in Junhwe, because on one hand, Jinhwan doing domestic things in Junhwe’s apartment is the stuff of his fantasies, but on the other, it reminds him that the one usually doing dull manual labour in Junhwe’s apartment is Yunhyeong.
“Not too bad,” Junhwe says, stepping up beside Jinhwan and drying off the dishes he passes him. “Honestly, apart from being off the song-oh, and Yunhyeong’s weird strike-nothing’s changed. I mean, is being off the song even really a bad thing? It’s not like I wanted to do it in the first place.”
Jinhwan stops scrubbing, the foam coating his hands turning transparent to show the pink skin underneath. Junhwe looks at him confused and catches Jinhwan on the tail-end of a silent sigh.
“What?” he says, a bite of annoyance coming through.
“It’s nothing,” Jinhwan answers. He hands Junhwe another plate, but when Junhwe makes no motion to take it from him, puts the plate back down in the sink and turns around.
“I worry about you a lot, you know,” Jinhwan says, taking a step forward. There’s a smear of soap-sud under Jinhwan’s right eye, and even though he sounds so purposeful, like he wants Junhwe to listen, that’s the only thing Junhwe can concentrate on.
It’s then Junhwe realises they’re close enough to make Chastity Belt Yunhyeong blush, almost chest-to-chest, and if he wanted to, he could reel Jinhwan in by the dish towel around his neck and kiss him. Punctuate his stream of bad decisions with another bad one. His gaze trails down to Jinhwan’s lips, pillowy but chapped, parted slightly to say words Junhwe most likely doesn’t want to hear.
When Junhwe refocuses, Jinhwan’s looking at him in surprise. “Do you-”
“Man, these posts are crazy!” Bobby caws from the living room.
They spring away from each other, the sponge in Jinhwan’s hand dropping to the kitchen tile with a squelch. “Sorry,” Jinhwan says, wincing. “I’ll clean that up.”
“Okay, so this one Pann,” Bobby says, gesturing towards the laptop perched precariously on his knees, “is accusing you of being a Japanese patriot.”
“A what?” Junhwe walks towards the living room and leaning over the back of the couch. “Are they kidding? I talk smack about Seungyoon and suddenly I’m an imperialist?”
“It’s a stretch but,” Bobby scrolls down the page, “they’re not wrong, you are a lot more gracious in your Japanese interviews.”
Junhwe knits his eyebrows together. “What are you talking about?” He presses himself further against the couch, squinting to read the text on the screen. In between the paragraphs of inane ranting about Junhwe’s audacity to breathe, there are screenshots comparing two interview answers side by side.
In Elle Girl Korea, when Koo Junhwe was asked about his ideal type he answered like a pervert: “I like girls who are sexy. Ones that are mean and couldn’t care less about me. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a sadist.”
When he was asked the same question for HaruHana Magazine, he said: “I’m not the best at talking about personal things, so my ideal type of girl is someone who can understand me easily. Someone who makes communication feel effortless.”
“I have never said that!” Junhwe knocks Bobby’s fingers off the trackpad and skims down the Pann post. “That’s disgusting, I’m a pervert in all my interviews.”
For Marie Claire Korea, he said this in response to a question asking him to describe his personality in three words: “Unapologetic. Confident. Sexy.”
They asked him to describe himself in four words for Nylon Japan and Koo Junhwe said this: “Confident. Headstrong. Hardworking. Timid.”
It goes on like that for another five hundred words. The person who compiled everything must’ve been a fan at some point, because even the most obscure interviews Junhwe’s done get referenced. And even though the entire thing is held up by blatant lies, the post does a convincing job of making Junhwe look like Jekyll in Japan and Hyde in Korea.
Junhwe rubs a hand down his face. “They’re mistranslations,” he says. “I never said that, they’re making shit up.”
“Really?” Bobby says skeptically. He points to a picture embedded onto the post, a blurry shot of some Japanese text that probably came from a shitty phone camera. “Because they posted pictures of the interview and the quality is way too poor to have been photoshopped.”
“I’m-” The cold splash of realisation hits Junhwe, and suddenly the sound of his kitchen tap running is the only thing he can hear.
Jinhwan has his back towards them, facing the sink as he mechanically washes the dishes, his shoulders hunched forward like he’s trying to make himself look smaller.
“Hyung?” Junhwe calls, voice flat and hollow.
For a while, Jinhwan seems set on ignoring him. But then the sound of running water stops, and when Jinhwan turns around his face is pale, lips thinned in a sharp and guilty line that confirms exactly what Junhwe had hoped wouldn’t be true.
“So that’s it then? You’re not even going to apologise?”
Bobby had been quick to make himself scarce after the full implication of the situation had settled in. “Well, this is awkward,” he’d said. “I better go so you two can work out your shit.” Five minutes later, and Junhwe can confidently say the shit has not been worked out. If anything, Junhwe is close to flinging it at the fan in sheer frustration.
“I did apologise,” Jinhwan answers calmly.
Junhwe gapes at him. “’I’m sorry Junhwe’,” he mocks, pinching his nose. “’But your answers just weren’t acceptable,’ is not an apology. That’s bullshit my PR team says to me.” It’s a pretty great imitation of Jinhwan, if Junhwe does say so himself, which is probably why it seems to perturb him so deeply.
“Am I wrong?” Jinhwan snaps. “Look at what’s happened here. You’re literally living the consequences and you still can’t see-”
“Yes!” Junhwe cuts him off forcefully. “Yes! I still can’t see why the hell you thought you could change my fucking answers.”
Jinhwan squares his shoulders. “I told you, I know I’m in the wrong.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “But if you knew how to keep yourself out of trouble, then I wouldn’t have had to do it.”
Junhwe’s head is burning. It’s suddenly so obvious to him how right Yunhyeong had been-Jinhwan works for him, of course he sees Junhwe as nothing more than a cautionary tale when it comes down to it.
“Why don’t you worry about yourself, huh? Did my company know about this?” Jinhwan stiffens, the facade of composure he’s held up cracking down the middle. “They didn’t, did they?”
Junhwe’s never used the fact he’s significantly taller than Jinhwan as a point of intimidation before-not that it would’ve worked, since what Jinhwan lacks in height he makes up for by not giving a shit about height-but he finds that it comes naturally to him now. God gave him a gift, so why not use it the way nature meant for it to be used? He crowds Jinhwan against the back of the sofa, staring down at him forbiddingly.
“You’re so worried about me getting into trouble,” Junhwe says deliberately, “When I could get you fired.”
Junhwe isn’t really sure if he can, but the way Jinhwan looks up at him, hurt and betrayed, is enough. A flare of satisfaction sparks in him, but is then promptly put out when Jinhwan’s entire face closes down and he elbows Junhwe in the ribs to push past him.
“I regret every single thing I’ve done,” Jinhwan mutters bitterly, shoving his feet halfway into his shoes, not sparing Junhwe a second glance.
“Guess what?” Junhwe hollers. “You’re not the only one!”
Jinhwan responds by slamming the front door shut as loud as he can.
Junhwe enjoys clubbing. In fact, he’d even say he’s at peak performance while clubbing. After all it’s at night, everyone’s mostly tipsy so he’s less worried about what to say, and if things get awkward, dancing is always easier than talking. So in theory, there’s really not a more perfect environment for Junhwe to somehow dazzle Kang Seungyoon into agreeing to feature on the track again.
In practice, Junhwe’s feeling pretty fucking low. He’s been trying in vain since yesterday to not think about his fight with Jinhwan-it’s not like people don’t butt heads with co-workers occasionally-but as he pushes his way through the throng of people on the dance floor, it feels like he’s swimming half-heartedly against a strong current, not really opposed to the idea of drowning.
Bobby’s waiting for him at the bar, holding out a shot of tequila that Junhwe downs in one go. “Atta boy,” Bobby says, massaging Junhwe’s shoulders. He passes Junhwe another shot and leans in close to shout into his ear. “Look, Seungyoon’s there!”
Bobby jerks his chin to the left to where Kang Seungyoon’s sitting. He’s with someone whose face Junhwe can’t make out, but from the middle-part he guesses it’s Nam Taehyun, ex-DJ who now spends his time composing pretentious ballads. In the purple blacklight of the room, the ‘KSY’ logo on the back of Seungyoon’s bomber jacket is a bright hot beacon, calling to Junhwe, telling him he needs another shot.
Junhwe rests his forehead against the cool bar table. The music pounding through the club reverberates through his bones, and it’s then he recognises the melody spun underneath the frantic beats. He groans. “They’re seriously playing a trap remix of Stealer? Is this a set-up?”
Bobby downs his drink and wipes a hand over his mouth. “Aw shit, I forgot Hanbin DJs here on Thursdays.”
“Of course he does.”
Bobby gazes distractedly at the DJ booth. “Hey, I’m going to go talk to Hanbin. You go up to Seungyoon and lay it on thick. If he doesn’t listen to you, then just remember one thing.” his voice is suddenly serious. Bobby looks as stern as Junhwe’s ever seen him, the usually present smile on his face completely ironed out. Junhwe grips the edge of the bar, looking up at him expectantly.
“Suck his dick.”
It feels like he’s back in high school when he approaches Seungyoon. He’s expecting an invisible wall, for Seungyoon and his posse to laugh at him and push him away through the force of their loathing. Telling him no, Junhwe can’t sit with them at lunch. Instead it’s Taehyun who notices him first. He nudges Seungyoon who looks up and grins at Junhwe, like he was rolling a birthday cake with a stripper inside towards him.
“Koo Junhwe,” he says, lifting up his glass. “Take a seat. What brings you here?”
Junhwe takes the only free seat between Nam Taehyun and a girl with a short bob cut who curls her upper lip at Junhwe when he squeezes in beside her. He wipes his hands down his jeans, wishing he’d had a speech prepared beforehand. PR agents, useless when you actually need them.
“So… Sunbae-nim,” Junhwe tries.
“Hyung will do.”
“Right, hyung.” Junhwe clears his throat. “I’m sure you’ve read the unfortunate interview I gave a few months ago.”
Seungyoon smirks. “Was the interview actually unfortunate, or was it only unfortunate because I read it?”
“Well, I mean, it’d definitely be less unfortunate if you hadn’t read it.” Junhwe can feel Nam Taehyun shaking from next to him.
Seungyoon slides a loud, pink cocktail towards Junhwe. “Here, have a drink,” he says. Junhwe weighs up the possibility of the drink being poisoned, but ultimately decides that if it is, then Seungyoon’s really doing him a favour. He takes a sip through the straw. There’s too much citrus, but it somehow does the job of smoothing over Junhwe’s nerves.
“Look,” Junhwe exhales loudly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things to the magazine. I let my mouth run away with me, and I’ve always told myself honesty is the best policy, but recent events have made me reconsider.”
“You shouldn’t have said those things to the magazine,” Seungyoon repeats, loosening the scarf around his neck, “does that mean you meant them?”
“Does it matter?” Junhwe twirls the straw around his drink. “You have the biggest hit of the year, you have a great voice, literally everyone thinks you’re a musical genius. Does it matter that one person, who literally no one else agrees with, thinks you’re overrated?”
“Would it matter to you?”
The answer is no. It wouldn’t matter to Junhwe. He goes back to two months ago, Jinhwan’s sleepy drunk voice, “He reminded me a little bit of you”, and somehow he knows it doesn’t matter to Seungyoon either.
“You’re doing so well,” Junhwe says, shrugging. “What’s the big deal?”
“See, that’s what confused me,” Seungyoon says, reclining back in his loveseat. “You’re doing well too, so why are you so petty?”
“I’m not really doing well,” Junhwe says wryly, “I’m just-”
“Expected to do well,” Seungyoon finishes for him. “What?” he says at Junhwe’s look of astonishment. “I was a trainee at YG before you even went through puberty, I know how it goes on down there.”
He smiles at Junhwe, the flash of his teeth alarmingly vivid. Hesitantly, but sincerely, Junhwe smiles back.
“So does that mean you’ll sing on the track with me?” Junhwe asks, hopeful.
“No,” Seungyoon says, still smiling. Junhwe’s face falls. “But.” He pushes his own margarita towards Junhwe. “I do want to have another drink with you.”
Junhwe rests his head against the mirrored wall of the bathroom, staring listlessly at the blend of concealer under his eyes. He doesn’t know much he’s drunk, but he’s far passed his usual threshold, that’s for sure. He hasn’t gotten this wasted in a long time. At normal levels of being sloshed he’s a loud drunk, but he can’t remember what he becomes thereafter. Happy? He doesn’t feel happy. Just sleepy. His eyelids are heavy, and the strain of keeping them open makes his head throb.
Maybe he’s a brash drunk? Because he can hear a dial tone against his ear, which means he must be calling someone. But he’s brash while sober too, and Brash Sober Junhwe hasn’t been making many good decisions.
“Hello?” a sleepy voice croaks into his ear. Junhwe jerks with a start, until he remembers that right, he’s on the phone.
“Helloooooo,” Junhwe slurs. There’s rustling on the other end, and then a toneless: “Are you drunk?”
Junhwe glares at the air in front of him. “Hyung,” he chirps, over-the-top friendly while trying to feign politeness.
There’s a crackle through the receiver, a disjointed sound of a sigh. “I’m going to hang up,” Jinhwan says, irritated.
Junhwe growls. “You’re mean!” He wails. “I may not be a happy drunk, but at least I’m not mean. Or, well, not mean when I’m drunk.”
“Well, after you get me fired you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Jinhwan says brusquely.
“Why would I get you fired?” Junhwe asks, perplexed. He strips his jacket off and places it on the floor. He can hear Jinhwan’s breathing through the receiver, and when Junhwe lies down, it’s like Jinhwan’s lying right next to him. “I like you soooooo much Jinhwan hyung-” he hiccups “-but you don’t like me at all. You lied to me, you treat me the same way those PR assholes do, like I’m a hazard. But you know what!” He yells into the phone. “I still like you. And now I’m angry. Not angry drunk, though, just-” he hiccups again “-Just angry.”
“You like me so much you threatened to fire me?” Jinhwan asks doubtfully.
“I was angry!” Junhwe whines, pouting. “If I fired you then you wouldn’t have to work for me anymore. But also, if you didn’t work for me, you wouldn’t care about me. I don’t know what to dooooo.”
There’s silence on Jinhwan’s end of the line. Is he running away? What a coward. Junhwe hates cowards-maybe now he’ll finally hate Jinhwan. Alas, Jinhwan speaks again, this time his voice barely louder than a whisper. “Where are you, Junhwe?”
Junhwe licks his lips. “The ‘A’. In the bathroom.”
“Is anyone there with you?”
“Bobby, but I don’t where he is,” Junhwe answers. “Oh! And Kang Seungyoon! I think he’s drunk too. You know, you were right, we are similar. You’re always right. Hey, do your clients drunk call you often?”
Jinhwan laughs. “Most of my clients don’t have this number. Stay where you are, okay? Don’t move.”
“Alriiiiiight,” Junhwe drones. “Are you gonna come get me?”
“Maybe,” Jinhwan says. “I have to make another call now, promise you won’t move?”
Junhwe closes his eyes. “I promise.” He waits for Jinhwan to speak again, but when there’s not even the sound of static, he realises Jinhwan must’ve hung up. It hurts for some reason, like someone’s scooped out his gut and dumped ice in it’s place.
It’s in the silence of the empty bathroom, the zipper of his jacket digging into his back, that Junhwe remembers-that’s right, he’s a sad drunk.
Junhwe wakes up feeling like someone took a sledgehammer to the back of his head overnight. He hears a belly-deep sigh from somewhere in the conscious world, and peels open his eyes expecting to see back-up manager glaring daggers at him. Instead, standing at the foot of Junhwe’s bed, outlined by the morning light like an angel, is Yunhyeong. He doesn’t look angry, just resigned with the familiar bone-deep weariness Junhwe's trademarked him with after all these years.
Junhwe isn’t going to cry, but it’s more than just the vomit threatening to come up that makes it hard for him to speak. “It was for a good cause,” he rasps, throat feeling like sandpaper. “But I’m still mostly ashamed.”
Yunhyeong attempts to look aggrieved, but he fails. “So am I, Junhwe,” he says, but the smile on his face is fond, “So am I.”
Yunhyeong gives Junhwe a glass of water and aspirin, but that’s as far as his goodwill extends. Junhwe attempts to guilt-trip Yunhyeong into letting him stay in bed by fairly pointing out that Yunhyeong was the reason he’d gotten fucked up last night in the first place. That maybe if he’d had an attentive manager around, the whole thing could’ve been prevented. “You basically abandoned me,” Junhwe surmises.
“It wasn’t me, it was the company,” Yunhyeong says, ushering Junhwe into the shower. The first thing Junhwe had done upon getting his bearings was-in a never before seen move-try and embrace Yunhyeong. Yunhyeong had responded by pinching his nose and telling Junhwe his entire body smelled like morning breath. “They thought I wasn’t doing a good job keeping you in line. So, in true YG fashion, they put me on hiatus. They thought you’d behave better with someone else watching over you.”
Which is preposterous, and Junhwe’s going to have a word with the company on a day he isn’t hungover and reliant on their forgiveness. For now, he sits at his kitchen counter while Yunhyeong pushes a steaming bowl of hang-over stew under his nose.
“By the way,” Junhwe says, letting the steam warm his face. “Did you hear about Jinhwan mistranslating almost all of my interview answers?”
“I did,” Yunhyeong answers carefully. “When Jinhwan called me and asked me to pick you up.”
Junhwe drops his head into his hands. “Fuck. Did I say anything humiliating?”
“Probably.”
“Whatever,” Junhwe swirls his soup around, the aroma remedying the churning in his gut. “The real question is why you never noticed.”
“You’re deflecting,” Yunhyeong sing-songs.
Junhwe ignores him. “Isn’t that your job? I’ve seen your resume, aren’t you supposed to be professionally proficient in Japanese, Song Yunhyeong? If that is your real name.”
Yunhyeong places both hands flat on the counter. “Look, I don’t pay that much attention to detail. And what reason would I have to think Jinhwan would change your answers?”
“And you never bothered to read any of my interviews after they were published?” Junhwe challenges.
“I read all of them,” Yunhyeong states matter-of-factly. When Junhwe starts making angry motions with his arms, Yunhyeong bats his hands down. “I read all of them and I just… Didn’t think anything was off? I don’t know… the answers really sounded like you.”
“Are you kidding, they were-”
“They sound like you when you’re not trying hard to be you,” Yunhyeong amends. “Listen, I am one hundred percent on your side with this and I think what Jinhwan did was completely unethical. But they weren’t just generic public-friendly answers, they were public-friendly answers that sounded like you. He knows you well, and I believe him when he said he only did it because he cared about you.”
He looks at Junhwe meaningfully, and Junhwe almost spits broth all over Yunhyeong’s face. Instead it goes dribbling down his chin. “You were the one who told me not to go for it!”
“I said that because I didn’t want it to get in the way of work.” Yunhyeong hands Junhwe a napkin. “But it already has, so why not just go all the way? Plus, I didn’t think Jinhwan actually liked you back.”
Junhwe wipes down his mouth, anticipation building inside of him. “And, um. Now?”
“You know, I was pretty mad at him last night,” Yunhyeong reminisces. “I didn’t mean it, but I said that if you wanted to sue him, I’d back you up.”
“And?” Junhwe urges.
“And he told me to shut up and that he’d call his lawyer after he knew you were safe.” Yunhyeong winks, clearly pleased with the knowledge he’s just bestowed. “Take that as you will.”
Junhwe attempts to process this information, but it’s too much for his mush of a brain to think about without decomposing. He grabs the bowl in front of him and swallows down a mouthful of stew. It scalds his tongue just enough to distract from his headache. “Ugh,” he says. “I can’t believe Kang Seungyoon got me drunk on a Thursday night and I couldn’t even get him back on the song.”
“About that,” Yunhyeong says, picking up his phone. “I was going through my Instagram this morning and well, I’m sure the company would’ve preferred a press release, but this works as well.” He turns his phone around to show Junhwe the screen, and it takes Junhwe a minute to register what he’s seeing as an actual photo, and not one of his own projections from last night.
The filter Seungyoon chose makes Junhwe look gaunt and washed out, and Junhwe would be more annoyed about it if it weren’t for the caption. Beneath the picture of Seungyoon with his an arm around Junhwe-who’s smiling unattractively with his entire mouth open-are the words: So excited to to work with my bro Koo Junhwe on this hot new track!! #Art #DavidBowieAndQueen #LoveInThisClub
“You called?” Jinhwan asks, voice wary.
If Drunk Junhwe thought dumping Jinhwan with incoherent ramblings would change anything, then he’d be sorely disappointed right about now. Junhwe steps to the side to let Jinhwan into his apartment, but Jinhwan just walks far enough for Junhwe to be able to close the door, and then stays rooted to his spot. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his coat, like he’s ready to leave once Junhwe gives the vaguest indication that he’s allowed.
Junhwe is tired. He’d just spent five hours filming for Immortal Song 2, he still feels hungover from today morning, and he just wants this one thing in his life to go easily.
He’s loose limbed and loose mouthed, but before he can talk and let everything flow, Jinhwan speaks first.
“Can we settle this outside of court?” he asks.
Junhwe blinks, then cleans his left ear with a pinky. “Sorry, what?”
“I don’t want it to get messy.” Jinhwan’s expression is firm and guarded. “I’ll talk to my company, they’ll probably fire me but-”
“Jesus,” Junhwe breathes out. “I don’t want to sue you, are you crazy?” Drunk Junhwe and Yunhyeong were some amazing fucking tag team, setting up this maze for Junhwe to navigate. “Did I tell you I was gonna sue you when I drunk dialled you last night? Because I’m an obnoxious drunk, like intolerable.”
Jinhwan shifts uncomfortably. “No… You didn’t.”
Junhwe’s next thought immediately horrifies him. “I didn’t ask you to lick my nipples did I? Because that’s happened before.” He never can quite look Hanbin in the eye anymore.
“Um.” Jinhwan scratches the back of his neck. “Something like that.”
They lapse into an awkward silence. Junhwe’s momentum is gone. The room suddenly feels too big, like there’s too much space between him and Jinhwan. Yunhyeong’s little speech this morning had given Junhwe an unrealistic expectation of how this scene would unfold, that he and Jinhwan would somehow magically be on the same page and just needed to read between the lines.
Jinhwan’s the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was wrong, and if you do want to take legal action I won’t hold it against you.” He takes his hands out of his pockets and lets them hang loosely at his sides. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I wasn’t trying to handle you, I know how much you hate that. I just wanted to protect you-not protect your company, or your brand-just you.” He says it candidly, without embellishment, and he looks at Junhwe the exact same way-sincere and forthright, like that’s all there is to it.
And maybe he’s right. When Junhwe had texted Jinhwan to come over, he did it because he thought he had a lot to say. A grand overestimation on his part, because now he realises he’d only ever had one thing to say, and it’d been repeating over and over again in his head, until it felt like a million words instead of just five.
“Truthfully, you’re my ideal type,” Junhwe says, trying to ignore how his ears are burning. “You get me. It hurt when I thought you didn’t.”
Junhwe can’t encapsulate how embarrassed he feels at that moment. He could’ve said so many different things-less cheesy, more likely to get him laid. He’s staring determinedly at the floor, wondering if it’s too late to backtrack, when Jinhwan strides towards him.
He cups Junhwe’s cheek with a small hand, tilts Junhwe’s head up so he can see the warm smile spreading across Jinhwan’s face. “I wouldn’t say that during an interview,” Jinhwan says, thumb coming down to brush against Junhwe’s lips. “But that’s a good answer.”
junhwe/jinhwan
pg-13, 9,780 words
Contrary to what the press says, Junhwe does not have an attitude problem. AU (AO3 mirror)
written for nokchaa for the 2016 round of exchangekon!
There are three things in this world that Junhwe’s hard-earned money and YG brand name can’t protect him from. The first is a leaked video of a flat-faced, dowdy fifteen year old version of him auditioning for YG Entertainment with a off-tune rendition of Im Jaebum’s “Confession”. The second is the four episodes of K-pop Star Season 1 where a guileless fourteen year old version of him appears as a member of slap-happy prepubescent boy band “High Praise” (even as a kid, the irony of the name wasn’t lost on him). The third thing, and the bane of Junhwe’s life presently, is Kang Seungyoon’s springtime hit “Stealer”. Today marks its third consecutive week topping Melon, a fact that wouldn’t surprise Junhwe even if he wasn’t obsessively checking the digital charts every day, because he hears “Stealer” everywhere. Constantly. At the salon. At his own company’s building. Every elevator he enters-
“Are you humming it?” Junhwe hisses. He can see the top of Yunhyeong’s hair jolt from the front seat.
“You keep ranting about it and now it’s in my head!” Yunhyeong insists, as the traffic light in front of them turns amber. They’re close enough to make it, but Yunhyeong slows down to a complete stop at the intersection. The car behind them honks, and rightfully so, because Junhwe’s saddled with the only person in all of Seoul who actually pays heed to road rules.
“We’re going to miss the flight,” Junhwe huffs, crossing his arms against his chest. He looks out the window; it’s barely past four in the afternoon but the tint casts the streets in a dusky light. It relaxes him a little, but not enough. “Also, I don’t rant about it. Just because I’m a celebrity I can’t express honest opinions anymore?”
“I mean,” Yunhyeong starts, “you don’t have to express them all the time.”
Junhwe ignores him, slouching against the leather padded seats of the van and fiddling with his phone. “The public has such poor, derivative taste,” he says. “Add some cherry blossoms to your music video and wala-instant number one.”
Yunhyeong laughs just as the signal flashes green. “Interesting point,” he says, doing a quick scan of the crossroad before slowly accelerating. The car behind them honks again. “I just wish you thought of a better way to word that before you told Arena magazine.”
“Don’t they test your driving skills when you become a manager?” Junhwe muses out loud, not looking away from his phone.
“Stop looking at the charts, Junhwe, it makes you mean.” Yunhyeong squints at him through the rearview mirror. Junhwe glares back. “Well, meaner than usual.”
Junhwe’s upcoming Japanese debut is running on a rigid schedule-which is fucking incredible, considering Junhwe’s last Korean comeback suffered so many delays that it eventually ended up coinciding with the return of the Nation’s Fedora, Kang Seungyoon-but YGEX doesn’t play around. Junhwe’s been flying in and out of Japan so often the past few weeks that sleeping in his own bed comes with an odd feeling of displacement; too accustomed to plush hotel pillows and freshly laundered quilts and covers.
“You’re quite the jetsetter,” Jinhwan comments. “It must get lonely.”
Junhwe entertains the thought for a second. “Not really,” he says.
Jinhwan raises an eyebrow, offering Junhwe nothing but a peculiar twist of his mouth before turning back to the interviewer and repeating the words in Japanese. The interviewer nods, pressing the recorder against her chin. She’s pretty, in that pristine and clean-cut way Yunhyeong is so fond of. Junhwe’s gaze wanders to the back of the photo studio where Yunhyeong’s sitting, playing an impromptu game of dibidibidip with the rest of his staff using a rolled up magazine. Maybe Junhwe can get her number for him later. It might work out-Yunhyeong’s Japanese is better than Junhwe’s, at any rate.
“Junhwe,” Jinhwan’s voice cuts through his thoughts and Junhwe’s eyes snap back to the front. The interviewer laughs, fingers with perfectly filed nails coming up to cover her mouth. Definitely Yunhyeong’s type. Jinhwan’s smiling too, but Junhwe doesn’t miss the stiffness of his jaw.
“Sorry, what was that?” Junhwe asks, smiling politely.
“What kind of girl catches your attention?”
He’s been asked this question so often that if he had to write a Japanese phrasebook it’d be on the first page, with other commonly used expressions such as ”Good afternoon” and “I’m South Korea’s rough and manly vocal Koo Junhwe”. In fact, he’s been asked the question so often that Jinhwan could just answer it for him; Junhwe doesn’t even need to open his mouth.
As it is though, Junhwe loves opening his mouth. He grins, lounging back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. ”I like sexy girls,” he says in Japanese. “Really really sexy girls.” Then he adds in Korean, “I’m into girls who look like they despise me.”
Jinhwan grabs a water bottle from the floor and pushes it into Junhwe’s hands. Junhwe furrows his eyebrows, is about to tell Jinhwan that he isn’t thirsty, until Jinhwan turns and gives him that look, the one that begs no argument-the one that always, without fail, makes Junhwe want to argue. Fortunately, despite what recurrent lectures from Yunhyeong might imply, Junhwe does know how to act professional. He takes a gulp of water while Jinhwan translates for the interviewer, whose eyes widen imperceptibly as she nods.
“It’s not an answer she hears very often,” Jinhwan explains to Junhwe.
Junhwe tries not to look too self-satisfied. A futile attempt, he can tell from the way Jinhwan rolls his eyes. Junhwe shrugs. “I try.”
Jinhwan buys them dinner that night, just like he always does when Junhwe is in Japan. It’s less a tradition and more a consequence of Yunhyeong being a self-proclaimed “foodie” and Jinhwan-the hyung and immersed expatriate-feeling a certain level of investment in the quality of yun_yumyum95’s instagram posts. Junhwe just likes eating.
Jinhwan takes them to an izakaya located in the middle of an alley, a short walk from their hotel. It’s signboard outside is dim, almost inconspicuous even in the night, and the interior is so narrow that Junhwe’s suddenly self-conscious about how much space he takes up and has to walk sideways past the bar so he doesn’t knock into any patrons. Jinhwan swears by the place, the food, and the fact it’s out of the way enough that no overly curious fans should find them. Junhwe is dubious, up until Jinhwan pours him a second cup of sake and begins waxing nostalgic about the time he ate here with Mizuhara Kiko.
“Did you talk about me?” Junhwe asks. On his other side, Yunhyeong chokes on his edamame beans.
“Did I talk about you with Mizuhara Kiko?” Jinhwan asks, laughing. “No, there wasn’t really an opening. She was doing a shoot with Ceci in Japan, we talked about clothes a lot.” He pauses, perking up suddenly, reminding Junhwe a little of a cat. “I like this song,” he says.
Junhwe strains his ears to listen, catches the vaguely familiar, muffled sound of a guitar above the bustling conversation around them. It becomes obvious to Junhwe when it hits the chorus, and he scowls at the bar table, skewering a piece of chicken with one chopstick. The only thing worse than hearing “Stealer” in general, is hearing “Stealer” sung in Kang Seungyoon’s vacant Japanese.
Yunhyeong pats Junhwe’s back like he’s consoling a child. “He’s a little insecure,” he explains.
Junhwe schools his expression into a neutral one. “Your music taste sucks,” he tells Jinhwan plainly.
“I really like the bridge,” Yunhyeong says.
“It’s nice isn’t, it?” Jinhwan agrees.
“No.”
“You know, Seungyoon came to Tokyo last week, I was interpreting for him.” Jinhwan looks at Junhwe softly, considering. “He reminded me a little bit of you.”
Junhwe’s mouth falls open in shock. “I am nothing like him.”
“I said a little bit! You’re similar during interviews. Really honest, bordering on indelicate-”
“Indelicate?”
“Well, he’s indelicate, you’re just stupid,” Jinhwan corrects, grinning at Junhwe’s visible indignance. He nods to himself, slumping in his stool and taking a sip of sake. “Yeah, reminded me of you, a little.” He’s slightly flushed, Junhwe notices. Under the tawny light of the restaurant, his skin is a darker shade along the apples of his cheeks and down to his neck.
Junhwe shakes his head. “My answers aren’t stupid,” he says curtly. Jinhwan chuckles and wags a finger.
“That’s because you’re not the one who has to think about what you’re saying, word for word, and then repeat those words to another person in a different language.”
“When you put it that way,” Yunhyeong interrupts, “you deserve a raise.”
“I do, don’t I?” Jinhwan lifts his cup, but Junhwe catches his wrist before it touches his lip.
“Stop drinking,” Junhwe mumbles, prying the cup out of his hands. And Junhwe should stop drinking too, because it’s like his visions been filtered through a vignette, everything faded and out of focus except for the way Jinhwan tilts his head at him questioningly. “You have a low alcohol tolerance,” Junhwe explains.
Jinhwan accepts this easily, shrugging and pouring himself a glass of water. Junhwe watches him for a few seconds, then comes to his senses and quickly looks away.
Junhwe’s feelings towards Jinhwan aren’t the most professional. To put it in franker terms, Junhwe has a crush. A bad one, at that. He can’t pinpoint exactly when it started, but it’s managed to gather a hell of a lot of momentum along the way. In the beginning it’d been innocuous, the fluttering in his stomach a small thrill and easy pick me up to get him through an exhausting day of promotions. Fast forward a year later and now there’s a lot less butterflies involved and a lot more introspective sulking.
Because if Junhwe’s being honest with himself, having a crush on someone who’s paid to be around him just feels like pandering to his own character flaws. The way these things go, he might as well just be one lonely night and a bottle of soju away from sleeping with Yunhyeong.
As if reading his mind, Junhwe feels a kick against his right foot. He looks up to see Yunhyeong’s eyes flicker towards Jinhwan before settling themselves back on Junhwe knowingly.
Junhwe feels the back of his neck heat up. “What do you want me to do?” he murmurs, it comes out louder than he’d meant it to and Jinhwan turns towards them.
“Do what?” he asks, leaning forward.
Yunhyeong stares at Junhwe intently, and it’s the exact same fucking look he gives Junhwe when he catches him smoking. A moment passes in silence, and then Yunhyeong goes back to toying with the food on his plate.
“Nothing,” he says.
The harsh truth is: Junhwe’s Korean comeback hasn’t been the raging success that the money invested in it was relying on it to be. He doesn’t understand the financial aspect very well, but Yunhyeong had assured him that there’d been no losses. Just a loss in face value, apparently. It doesn’t look good after all, losing out on awards and hype to an artist from Mystic Entertainment. An artist who used to be an ex-YG trainee, no less.
Fortunately, rather than being shelved for the next few years until the obligatory last comeback before military service, the strategy YG has implemented to salvage his reputation actually involves releasing music. Junhwe was meant to promote a follow-up single, one he liked better than his lead single “Apology”, but that plan had been scrapped and instead the company was going to release a digital single in collaboration with Bobby.
Junhwe and Bobby have a complicated history that they’re both aware isn’t really as complicated as they think. They’d been trainees in the same group until Bobby had debuted as soloist, and were awkward in a non-malicious, flat soda kind of way-it just was what it was. After Junhwe had debuted, Bobby had told him to stop calling him sunbae because Junhwe looked like he was strangling a kitten while saying it, and they’d finally started to get along. A fly on the wall of the studio this afternoon, however, might find that difficult to believe.
“Stop!” Bobby calls, making a large ‘X’ with his arms.
“What did I do wrong this time?” Junhwe asks. He can see his own surly reflecting staring back at him from the recording booth window.
“You need…” Bobby looks around the room, like the word he’s looking for might be written on one of the decorative gold records hung up on the walls. “You need to sound a bit more… loving? In a cute way. Don’t make my panties wet, make me want you as my boyfriend.”
Junhwe’s mouth curls up involuntarily. For several reasons. He only voices one of them. “Hyung, I’m sorry, but I don’t think that suits the song.”
Bobby leans forward in his chair, looking amused. “Really?”
“Yeah,” Junhwe shakes the lyrics in his hands, “It doesn’t suit cute, it needs something more rough.”
“I know what you mean, I do,” Bobby agrees, resting a chin on his palm. Smugness wells up within Junhwe for all of two seconds before Bobby continues with, “But still, I talked about it with Seungyoon and we both agreed it’d compliment his vocals more if you sounded just a little cuter. Or else it’s just-”
“What?” Junhwe rips his headphones off. Through the window Bobby starts gesticulating wildly, his mouth running with things Junhwe can’t hear. Junhwe stalks out of the recording booth and approaches the mixing table to confront him.
“What did you say?”
“I said Seungyoon thinks-”
“Kang Seungyoon?” Junhwe says coldly. “No one told me he was going to be on the song.”
“Yeah, because we knew you’d throw a fit.”
“I can’t be on a song with Kang Seungyoon, and-” Junhwe’s face hardens, “I can’t do cute.”
“How do you know you can’t do cute if you haven’t tried it?” Bobby slides his headphones back over his ears and starts fiddling with the mixing board. “No point fighting it, you’re either on this track or you’re on hiatus again for another year.”
A side-effect of promoting concurrently in two countries is that occasionally, Junhwe forgets there’s an endgame to his absurd international schedule apart from the frequent-flyer points he’s been racking up. This is why, when he walks into YGEX’s recreation room to find the space decorated with streamers and large white cake placed on a table in the middle, the first thing out of his mouth is: “Am I off the track with Seungyoon?”
Yunhyeong wraps an arm around Junhwe’s shoulder from behind. “No,” he says. “It’s an album release party.”
“But the album’s not being released for another week?”
“Yeah, but you won’t be in Japan then,” Yunhyeong says. “We just wanted to celebrate it early.”
All in all, it’s a dressed down affair; Junhwe can tell it was hastily planned because he recognises the cake from a bakery near yesterday’s fansign. Despite that, and despite the fact Yunhyeong had assured him that there was no way he could wriggle out of doing the track with Seungyoon, Junhwe lets himself have a good time. He eats the cheap cake, chats with a few staff members until his social energy is mostly depleted, then finds a seat near the back of the room and takes some time to collect himself.
There’s a reason Junhwe doesn’t feel lonely having to constantly travel to Japan, and that’s because he’d rather sleep in strange hotels than the bed he’s made for himself back in South Korea. Japanese promotions ending mean he has more of himself to wear out back home, and suddenly the party seems a lot less celebratory and more like a goodbye.
He’s contemplating whether he can convince sajangnim to let him debut in China when there’s a scrape of a chair being pulled up next to him. Jinhwan takes a seat besides Junhwe, his hair wet, his movements a little frantic like he’s running on too much energy.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jinhwan apologises, breathing heavily. “I had a job this morning, and the meeting I was in ran overtime, and the traffic was terrible and then it started raining.” He shakes his hair, spraying bits of water over Junhwe’s face.
“It’s fine,” Junhwe says, scooting his chair a little away when the arm of Jinhwan’s sodden coat slaps against his cheek. Jinhwan notices and gives Junhwe an unimpressed look. “What!” Junhwe protests. “You’re so… wet.” It’s sentence he’s imagined saying to Jinhwan many times, but in a lot more exciting contexts. Junhwe takes a long drink from his solo cup to purify his thoughts.
“I came for you!” Jinhwan exclaims. Junhwe almost chokes on his soda. “I was going to bring you a gift when I go to Korea, but I might have to reconsider.”
“You’re going to Korea?” Junhwe asks, sitting up in interest.
Jinhwan nods, holding up two fingers in a ‘V’. “In two weeks!”
Junhwe almost lets himself get excited, until he remembers. “Oh wait, Jeju right?”
“I’m going back to Korea for the first time in eighteen months and you think I’ll just be in Jeju?” Jinhwan snorts. “I’m visiting my family there first, but then it’s Seoul.”
Junhwe nods slowly, rolling the information around in his head. Jinhwan on his turf. Jinhwan in a situation where he doesn’t have to do things like ask people where the nearest toilet is on Junhwe’s behalf.
“You don’t have to like… see me or anything,” Jinhwan adds in the middle of Junhwe’s silent deliberation. “I mean, you’re probably really busy-”
“I’m not!” Junhwe says, a bit too enthusiastically, but Jinhwan doesn’t seem to pick up on it. “Really, I’m not. I’ll even pick you up from the airport.”
“You can drive?” Jinhwan says, sounding amused.
“Yunhyeong will even pick you up,” Junhwe waves him off. “Semantics, whatever.”
Jinhwan nods and rests his elbows on his knees. “Yunhyeong can also take us to that famous kalbi restaurant that plays nothing but Seungyoon’s album all day.”
Junhwe groans. “Why do you hate me?”
“Isn’t that your ideal type of girl?” Jinhwan’s smile is teasing, and maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Junhwe swears it’s also a touch flirtatious.
Something grips him-not bravery, but a determination to not let the moment slip away. “You know…” Junhwe starts tentatively.“My ideal type is actually a girl who gets me. Or guy,” he tacks on at the end, suppressing his urge to cringe. Jinhwan hums to let him know he’s listening, but otherwise doesn’t react. “But uh… that’s what everyone says.”
Jinhwan leans an arm on the back of his chair, studying Junhwe. “Yeah, well,” he says. “When it comes down to it, everyone tends to want the same thing.”
“I…” Junhwe gulps. There’s a drop of water gliding down the column of Jinhwan’s neck, and Junhwe needs…
“I need to find Yunhyeong!” He announces, standing up from his chair so fast it almost topples backwards. Jinhwan blinks up at him, and Junhwe makes a noise of frustration low in his throat, walking away before Jinhwan can say anything.
Junhwe finds Yunhyeong in the depths of conversation with one of the publicists. Junhwe walks towards them and grabs Yunhyeong’s arm, not stopping to make small talk, and hauls him out of the room and down the dark empty hallway until Junhwe can finally hear beyond the sound of his own heart beating.
“What’s wrong?” Yunhyeong asks, voice clipped in the way it is when he’s worried about Junhwe, but also suspicious that it’s a self-inflicted cause. “What happened?”
Junhwe takes a deep breath. “So, about Jinhwa-”
“No,” Yunhyeong shoots down immediately. “Junhwe, it’s not a good idea. He works with you. You’re not even sure if he likes you.”
“I can always ask,” Junhwe says, trying to sound like the idea doesn’t make his palms sweat.
Yunhyeong reaches out to squeeze his arm. “I’m sure you mean a lot to Jinhwan, but Junhwe,” he says softly. “You need someone who understands you, not someone whose job it is to understand you.”
And Junhwe knows he’s right. Jinhwan’s easy to get along with, he’s so grounded that it’s hard to believe he’s brushed elbows with some of the A-list celebrities he had as clients, but that’s just what Junhwe is-a client.
Junhwe knows this, accepts this, but it doesn’t make him feel much better. “You’re right,” he agrees. The downturn of Yunhyeong’s mouth is apologetic, but he doesn’t say anything more to Junhwe as he grabs his hand and leads him back to the party.
“Come on,” he says. “You’ll get over it.”
They’re at baggage claim in Incheon when Yunhyeong gets the call from the company.
“Yeah, he’s here,” he answers, in the midst of a face-off with a halmeoni who’s insistent that Junhwe’s suitcase belongs to her. Junhwe observes the conflict absent-mindedly, munching on the complimentary nuts while Yunhyeong tries reasoning with the lady as she threatens to call security.
“Okay so… Wait… Hold on… What?” Yunhyeong exclaims into his phone, letting go off the suitcase abruptly. The halmeoni huffs, sending him a derivisive glare before hobbling away with Junhwe’s luggage.
Junhwe scowls and stalks over to Yunhyeong, who’s staring dumbfoundedly at the air in front of him. “Hey!” he calls, waving a hand in front of Yunhyeong’s face. “My hairdryer is in there, can you-”
A hand snaps up to seize Junhwe’s arm. He winces. Yunhyeong’s grip isn’t hard enough to hurt, but his fingers dig firmly into Junhwe’s flesh, and more than anything the uncharacteristically aggressive nature of it pushes a lead of fear and worry down Junhwe’s throat.
He swallows thickly. “What… what is it?”
Yunhyeong releases his arm and Junhwe cradles it closely against his chest. There’s a brief show of apology that flashes across Yunhyeong’s face, one that’s soon offset by the unmistakable frustration in the way he regards Junhwe. It’s an uncomfortable look on Yunhyeong, which is fitting, because it only ever draws itself up when Junhwe’s fucked something up beyond repair.
“Congratulations,” Yunhyeong says, voice devoid of emotion “You’ve just ruined your career.”
Junhwe isn’t stupid. His pride doesn’t extend beyond the point of common sense and he gets it, celebrities have an image they need to maintain. He makes a point to follow the standard routine: throws hearts at fansigns; contains his smoking within the boundaries of his own en suite and occasionally, during severely stressful periods of his life, the YG trainee bathrooms; and as an upstanding public figure, he only fucks in cars with tinted windows that are parked under closed roofs.
So Junhwe gets it. He does. But honesty isn’t something he’s willing to compromise. It’s an intrinsic part of his personality, it’s his brand name, it’s-
“Cost you this duet with Kang Seungyoon,” Yunhyeong whispers harshly into his ear. “So shut up and pay attention.”
Dara noona from the PR team slides a magazine across the table-the March Issue of Arena, which contains the very interview Junhwe had detonated his professional life with. “We got a call from Mystic Entertainment and they’re adamant about not having Kang Seungyoon on the song,” she says, bright red nails tapping against the sepia shot of T.O.P on the front cover.
“Can he do that?” Junhwe asks, pinching his forehead. “Can’t we sue him?”
Yunhyeong scoffs. “Can we sue him?” he mocks in a low voice. Then he blinks up at Dara inquisitively. “Wait, can we?”
Dara gives them both a flat look. “No,” she enunciates. “He didn’t sign a contract. Not to mention, suing him would just make you look petty.”
“Then why did you go around telling all those news portals about the song if it wasn’t even concrete!”
“We didn’t tell any news portals,” Dara says, voice pitched sweet and saccharine. “It was leaked.”
“Anyway,” Dara says dismissively, her heels clicking against the tiles as she paces around the room. “We can’t do anything about that now. The bigger problem is how you come across to the people, Junhwe.”
Junhwe rolls his eyes. “It wasn’t even that bad.”
Dara picks the magazine up from the desk, flicking easily through it until she lands on Junhwe’s interview. “If I’m being truthful,” Dara recites, “I think there’s a generic sort of sound that the public has been brainwashed into believing is ’Art’. Seungyoon-ssi is very good at harnessing that sound and making it seem like he’s actually something original. You can’t fault the public for liking what they like, but personally, I just don’t really consider his music to be anything noteworthy.”
Yunhyeong pinches the bridge of his nose with two fingers. “They asked,” Junhwe defends weakly.
Dara spends a few more minutes detailing-with specific examples cherry picked from the highest ranking articles-exactly how far public sentiment towards Junhwe has fallen, before finally granting Junhwe permission to leave. Junhwe makes for the exit, until he realises that Yunhyeong isn't getting up with him.
“We have some other things we need to discuss, Junhwe,” Yunhyeong explains tiredly, running a hand through his hair.
Junhwe thins his lips. “Fine,” he says, snatching the magazine off the table and storming out the room. He slams the door unceremoniously behind him, and isn’t even two steps into the hallway when someone grabs his shoulder and pins him against the opposite wall.
“What the fuck-”
Bobby raises a finger against his lips. He’s so close that his stringy hair tickles Junhwe’s nose. Junhwe sniffs and narrows his eyes, but whatever expletives were on the tip of his tongue fizzle out when Bobby backs away and Junhwe can see the good natured determination that scrunches up his face.
“We,” Bobby says conspiratorially, “are going to get Kang Seungyoon back on the track.”
So even though it’s Junhwe’s career in hot water, Junhwe’s next comeback that’s indefinitely postponed, Junhwe who can’t so much as order a drink at a Cafe without a PR agent breathing down his neck, it is apparently Bobby who’s the real victim in this entire ordeal.
“Well, you can’t really call yourself a victim when your mouth was the gun,” Bobby had told him cheerily, and he’d been right. There’s no righteous stance Junhwe can have at this moment, because Bobby’s been wanting to do a song with Kang Seungyoon for months. They’d finally been introduced through a mutual friend, Song Mino, and Seungyoon had tentatively agreed to record a demo with Bobby, which is approximately when Yang-sajaengnim heard about the project and hijacked it as a vehicle to propel Junhwe’s career.
Netizens might not affect Junhwe’s self-esteem much, but the way Bobby casually recounted the entire story had done a good enough job compensating for that.
And yet, despite the low-lying guilt he feels, Junhwe still can’t regard the entire situation as more than a graze against his pride, easily amendable by slapping a band-aid on (his song had actually risen ten spots since the news blew up, so there wasn’t any monetary loss, not that Dara cared when he’d screenshotted the chart to her yesterday). This attitude is probably part of the reason why Yunhyeong used to call him a Dormant PR Volcano. It’s also probably part of the reason why Yunhyeong is currently emitting nothing but radio silence towards him. Because sticks and stones may break Junhwe’s bones, but not having his manager around is the only staggering difference he feels.
The backup manager Junhwe’s been lugging around the past week (“Stop calling me that,” the Yunhyeong replacement had sighed, “I’ve been your manager since you debuted.”) provides basic functionality-keeps a copy of Junhwe’s schedule, yells at him for cheating on his diet-but doesn’t have any of the special features that made Yunhyeong so… special. For example, backup manager refused to take Junhwe to the airport to pick Jinhwan up, and since Junhwe doesn’t have his driver's licence, he’s waiting at the domestic terminal of Gimpo with-
“It’s a simple plan,” Bobby says, jostling Junhwe’s shoulder. “We go to the party, we find Seungyoon, you apologise and kiss his feet, we’re back in the game.”
Junhwe adjusts his facemask, looking up at the board with arrival times as Bobby prattles away. “Keep your voice down,” he whispers, pulling his snapback forward so it shadows his face. “We can’t be recognised. Also, do you really think I should be clubbing when my image is tainted?” He drawls the last part sarcastically, but Bobby doesn’t catch on.
“Nah,” he says, slapping Junhwe’s back. “Have you seen those Pann posts? They’re going to think you’re a jerk either way.”
Junhwe glowers at him. “You’ve seen those Pann posts?”
“Of course I have! You’re wild, like the thing with K-Con-”
“That was a misunderstanding,” Junhwe hisses.
“And that gif of you from that fansign. You looked like the girl’s hand was diseased, the face you made-”
Junhwe pulls down his mask to give Bobby the full effect of his contempt. “That was four years ago. I was sixteen.”
Bobby points and cackles. “Yeah, you looked exactly like that.” Junhwe grimaces and pulls his mask back up again, looking around to make sure no one’s recognised them. Apart from a middle-aged man eyeing the two of them distastefully, nobody seems to pay them any mind.
“You know what your problem is?” Bobby starts up again, completely unconcerned. “The bad boy thing is cool, but you need to be more loveable. Like show a genuine soft side.” He clicks his fingers, eyebrow arching up. “You should be more like Hanbin!”
“Hanbin left the company.”
“Hanbin withdrew gracefully,” Bobby corrects. “Like a butterfly leaving its cocoon, or the song of a whale, lingering in your ear as you walk away from the shore.”
Junhwe looks at him incredulously. “Are you high?”
“Koo Junhwe? Is that you!”
They both jump, turning around to see Jinhwan smiling up at them with a large trolley case in hand.
“Jinhwan!” Bobby yells, launching at him like an over-excited dog. He engulfs Jinhwan in a large hug, hefting him up slightly so that his toes skid the floor.
“Konichiwa,” Junhwe says when Jinhwan reaches up to give him a hug next. Jinhwan bursts out laughing against Junhwe’s neck, mouth open against his collarbone. There must be something in Jeju’s water, because when Jinhwan pulls back he looks brighter, like something’s changed about his face that Junhwe can’t exactly place.
“I can’t believe more than a year promoting in Japan and that’s all the Japanese you’ve managed to pick up,” Jinhwan sighs in fake disappointment, another point towards Jeju, because every other time Jinhwan had said that to Junhwe it’d been laden with real disappointment. “Bobby at least knew the lyrics to anime theme songs.”
“Kiss kiss fall in love,” Bobby sings, blowing Jinhwan a kiss.
Jinhwan makes eye contact with Junhwe and rolls his eyes. And for a second, everything feels so uncomplicated to Junhwe, like the answer to all his problems are as easy as taking a plane somewhere far-away. And then the corners of Jinhwan’s lip tug down, and he looks up at Junhwe concernedly.
“Now tell me,” he says. “What’s the deal with you?”
Jinhwan doesn’t look all that surprised when Junhwe regales him the drama of the last two weeks. Which means either he saw this coming from a mile away, or he’d heard it through the grapevine. Both are equally likely.
“So how bad is it, really?” Jinhwan asks patiently. They’d dropped his bags off at the hotel he’d be staying at, and now he’s standing by Junhwe’s sink, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, halfway into washing off the dirty bowls Junhwe had let pile up in Yunhyeong’s absence. It stirs up conflicted feelings in Junhwe, because on one hand, Jinhwan doing domestic things in Junhwe’s apartment is the stuff of his fantasies, but on the other, it reminds him that the one usually doing dull manual labour in Junhwe’s apartment is Yunhyeong.
“Not too bad,” Junhwe says, stepping up beside Jinhwan and drying off the dishes he passes him. “Honestly, apart from being off the song-oh, and Yunhyeong’s weird strike-nothing’s changed. I mean, is being off the song even really a bad thing? It’s not like I wanted to do it in the first place.”
Jinhwan stops scrubbing, the foam coating his hands turning transparent to show the pink skin underneath. Junhwe looks at him confused and catches Jinhwan on the tail-end of a silent sigh.
“What?” he says, a bite of annoyance coming through.
“It’s nothing,” Jinhwan answers. He hands Junhwe another plate, but when Junhwe makes no motion to take it from him, puts the plate back down in the sink and turns around.
“I worry about you a lot, you know,” Jinhwan says, taking a step forward. There’s a smear of soap-sud under Jinhwan’s right eye, and even though he sounds so purposeful, like he wants Junhwe to listen, that’s the only thing Junhwe can concentrate on.
It’s then Junhwe realises they’re close enough to make Chastity Belt Yunhyeong blush, almost chest-to-chest, and if he wanted to, he could reel Jinhwan in by the dish towel around his neck and kiss him. Punctuate his stream of bad decisions with another bad one. His gaze trails down to Jinhwan’s lips, pillowy but chapped, parted slightly to say words Junhwe most likely doesn’t want to hear.
When Junhwe refocuses, Jinhwan’s looking at him in surprise. “Do you-”
“Man, these posts are crazy!” Bobby caws from the living room.
They spring away from each other, the sponge in Jinhwan’s hand dropping to the kitchen tile with a squelch. “Sorry,” Jinhwan says, wincing. “I’ll clean that up.”
“Okay, so this one Pann,” Bobby says, gesturing towards the laptop perched precariously on his knees, “is accusing you of being a Japanese patriot.”
“A what?” Junhwe walks towards the living room and leaning over the back of the couch. “Are they kidding? I talk smack about Seungyoon and suddenly I’m an imperialist?”
“It’s a stretch but,” Bobby scrolls down the page, “they’re not wrong, you are a lot more gracious in your Japanese interviews.”
Junhwe knits his eyebrows together. “What are you talking about?” He presses himself further against the couch, squinting to read the text on the screen. In between the paragraphs of inane ranting about Junhwe’s audacity to breathe, there are screenshots comparing two interview answers side by side.
In Elle Girl Korea, when Koo Junhwe was asked about his ideal type he answered like a pervert: “I like girls who are sexy. Ones that are mean and couldn’t care less about me. I guess you could say I’m a bit of a sadist.”
When he was asked the same question for HaruHana Magazine, he said: “I’m not the best at talking about personal things, so my ideal type of girl is someone who can understand me easily. Someone who makes communication feel effortless.”
“I have never said that!” Junhwe knocks Bobby’s fingers off the trackpad and skims down the Pann post. “That’s disgusting, I’m a pervert in all my interviews.”
For Marie Claire Korea, he said this in response to a question asking him to describe his personality in three words: “Unapologetic. Confident. Sexy.”
They asked him to describe himself in four words for Nylon Japan and Koo Junhwe said this: “Confident. Headstrong. Hardworking. Timid.”
It goes on like that for another five hundred words. The person who compiled everything must’ve been a fan at some point, because even the most obscure interviews Junhwe’s done get referenced. And even though the entire thing is held up by blatant lies, the post does a convincing job of making Junhwe look like Jekyll in Japan and Hyde in Korea.
Junhwe rubs a hand down his face. “They’re mistranslations,” he says. “I never said that, they’re making shit up.”
“Really?” Bobby says skeptically. He points to a picture embedded onto the post, a blurry shot of some Japanese text that probably came from a shitty phone camera. “Because they posted pictures of the interview and the quality is way too poor to have been photoshopped.”
“I’m-” The cold splash of realisation hits Junhwe, and suddenly the sound of his kitchen tap running is the only thing he can hear.
Jinhwan has his back towards them, facing the sink as he mechanically washes the dishes, his shoulders hunched forward like he’s trying to make himself look smaller.
“Hyung?” Junhwe calls, voice flat and hollow.
For a while, Jinhwan seems set on ignoring him. But then the sound of running water stops, and when Jinhwan turns around his face is pale, lips thinned in a sharp and guilty line that confirms exactly what Junhwe had hoped wouldn’t be true.
“So that’s it then? You’re not even going to apologise?”
Bobby had been quick to make himself scarce after the full implication of the situation had settled in. “Well, this is awkward,” he’d said. “I better go so you two can work out your shit.” Five minutes later, and Junhwe can confidently say the shit has not been worked out. If anything, Junhwe is close to flinging it at the fan in sheer frustration.
“I did apologise,” Jinhwan answers calmly.
Junhwe gapes at him. “’I’m sorry Junhwe’,” he mocks, pinching his nose. “’But your answers just weren’t acceptable,’ is not an apology. That’s bullshit my PR team says to me.” It’s a pretty great imitation of Jinhwan, if Junhwe does say so himself, which is probably why it seems to perturb him so deeply.
“Am I wrong?” Jinhwan snaps. “Look at what’s happened here. You’re literally living the consequences and you still can’t see-”
“Yes!” Junhwe cuts him off forcefully. “Yes! I still can’t see why the hell you thought you could change my fucking answers.”
Jinhwan squares his shoulders. “I told you, I know I’m in the wrong.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “But if you knew how to keep yourself out of trouble, then I wouldn’t have had to do it.”
Junhwe’s head is burning. It’s suddenly so obvious to him how right Yunhyeong had been-Jinhwan works for him, of course he sees Junhwe as nothing more than a cautionary tale when it comes down to it.
“Why don’t you worry about yourself, huh? Did my company know about this?” Jinhwan stiffens, the facade of composure he’s held up cracking down the middle. “They didn’t, did they?”
Junhwe’s never used the fact he’s significantly taller than Jinhwan as a point of intimidation before-not that it would’ve worked, since what Jinhwan lacks in height he makes up for by not giving a shit about height-but he finds that it comes naturally to him now. God gave him a gift, so why not use it the way nature meant for it to be used? He crowds Jinhwan against the back of the sofa, staring down at him forbiddingly.
“You’re so worried about me getting into trouble,” Junhwe says deliberately, “When I could get you fired.”
Junhwe isn’t really sure if he can, but the way Jinhwan looks up at him, hurt and betrayed, is enough. A flare of satisfaction sparks in him, but is then promptly put out when Jinhwan’s entire face closes down and he elbows Junhwe in the ribs to push past him.
“I regret every single thing I’ve done,” Jinhwan mutters bitterly, shoving his feet halfway into his shoes, not sparing Junhwe a second glance.
“Guess what?” Junhwe hollers. “You’re not the only one!”
Jinhwan responds by slamming the front door shut as loud as he can.
Junhwe enjoys clubbing. In fact, he’d even say he’s at peak performance while clubbing. After all it’s at night, everyone’s mostly tipsy so he’s less worried about what to say, and if things get awkward, dancing is always easier than talking. So in theory, there’s really not a more perfect environment for Junhwe to somehow dazzle Kang Seungyoon into agreeing to feature on the track again.
In practice, Junhwe’s feeling pretty fucking low. He’s been trying in vain since yesterday to not think about his fight with Jinhwan-it’s not like people don’t butt heads with co-workers occasionally-but as he pushes his way through the throng of people on the dance floor, it feels like he’s swimming half-heartedly against a strong current, not really opposed to the idea of drowning.
Bobby’s waiting for him at the bar, holding out a shot of tequila that Junhwe downs in one go. “Atta boy,” Bobby says, massaging Junhwe’s shoulders. He passes Junhwe another shot and leans in close to shout into his ear. “Look, Seungyoon’s there!”
Bobby jerks his chin to the left to where Kang Seungyoon’s sitting. He’s with someone whose face Junhwe can’t make out, but from the middle-part he guesses it’s Nam Taehyun, ex-DJ who now spends his time composing pretentious ballads. In the purple blacklight of the room, the ‘KSY’ logo on the back of Seungyoon’s bomber jacket is a bright hot beacon, calling to Junhwe, telling him he needs another shot.
Junhwe rests his forehead against the cool bar table. The music pounding through the club reverberates through his bones, and it’s then he recognises the melody spun underneath the frantic beats. He groans. “They’re seriously playing a trap remix of Stealer? Is this a set-up?”
Bobby downs his drink and wipes a hand over his mouth. “Aw shit, I forgot Hanbin DJs here on Thursdays.”
“Of course he does.”
Bobby gazes distractedly at the DJ booth. “Hey, I’m going to go talk to Hanbin. You go up to Seungyoon and lay it on thick. If he doesn’t listen to you, then just remember one thing.” his voice is suddenly serious. Bobby looks as stern as Junhwe’s ever seen him, the usually present smile on his face completely ironed out. Junhwe grips the edge of the bar, looking up at him expectantly.
“Suck his dick.”
It feels like he’s back in high school when he approaches Seungyoon. He’s expecting an invisible wall, for Seungyoon and his posse to laugh at him and push him away through the force of their loathing. Telling him no, Junhwe can’t sit with them at lunch. Instead it’s Taehyun who notices him first. He nudges Seungyoon who looks up and grins at Junhwe, like he was rolling a birthday cake with a stripper inside towards him.
“Koo Junhwe,” he says, lifting up his glass. “Take a seat. What brings you here?”
Junhwe takes the only free seat between Nam Taehyun and a girl with a short bob cut who curls her upper lip at Junhwe when he squeezes in beside her. He wipes his hands down his jeans, wishing he’d had a speech prepared beforehand. PR agents, useless when you actually need them.
“So… Sunbae-nim,” Junhwe tries.
“Hyung will do.”
“Right, hyung.” Junhwe clears his throat. “I’m sure you’ve read the unfortunate interview I gave a few months ago.”
Seungyoon smirks. “Was the interview actually unfortunate, or was it only unfortunate because I read it?”
“Well, I mean, it’d definitely be less unfortunate if you hadn’t read it.” Junhwe can feel Nam Taehyun shaking from next to him.
Seungyoon slides a loud, pink cocktail towards Junhwe. “Here, have a drink,” he says. Junhwe weighs up the possibility of the drink being poisoned, but ultimately decides that if it is, then Seungyoon’s really doing him a favour. He takes a sip through the straw. There’s too much citrus, but it somehow does the job of smoothing over Junhwe’s nerves.
“Look,” Junhwe exhales loudly. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said those things to the magazine. I let my mouth run away with me, and I’ve always told myself honesty is the best policy, but recent events have made me reconsider.”
“You shouldn’t have said those things to the magazine,” Seungyoon repeats, loosening the scarf around his neck, “does that mean you meant them?”
“Does it matter?” Junhwe twirls the straw around his drink. “You have the biggest hit of the year, you have a great voice, literally everyone thinks you’re a musical genius. Does it matter that one person, who literally no one else agrees with, thinks you’re overrated?”
“Would it matter to you?”
The answer is no. It wouldn’t matter to Junhwe. He goes back to two months ago, Jinhwan’s sleepy drunk voice, “He reminded me a little bit of you”, and somehow he knows it doesn’t matter to Seungyoon either.
“You’re doing so well,” Junhwe says, shrugging. “What’s the big deal?”
“See, that’s what confused me,” Seungyoon says, reclining back in his loveseat. “You’re doing well too, so why are you so petty?”
“I’m not really doing well,” Junhwe says wryly, “I’m just-”
“Expected to do well,” Seungyoon finishes for him. “What?” he says at Junhwe’s look of astonishment. “I was a trainee at YG before you even went through puberty, I know how it goes on down there.”
He smiles at Junhwe, the flash of his teeth alarmingly vivid. Hesitantly, but sincerely, Junhwe smiles back.
“So does that mean you’ll sing on the track with me?” Junhwe asks, hopeful.
“No,” Seungyoon says, still smiling. Junhwe’s face falls. “But.” He pushes his own margarita towards Junhwe. “I do want to have another drink with you.”
Junhwe rests his head against the mirrored wall of the bathroom, staring listlessly at the blend of concealer under his eyes. He doesn’t know much he’s drunk, but he’s far passed his usual threshold, that’s for sure. He hasn’t gotten this wasted in a long time. At normal levels of being sloshed he’s a loud drunk, but he can’t remember what he becomes thereafter. Happy? He doesn’t feel happy. Just sleepy. His eyelids are heavy, and the strain of keeping them open makes his head throb.
Maybe he’s a brash drunk? Because he can hear a dial tone against his ear, which means he must be calling someone. But he’s brash while sober too, and Brash Sober Junhwe hasn’t been making many good decisions.
“Hello?” a sleepy voice croaks into his ear. Junhwe jerks with a start, until he remembers that right, he’s on the phone.
“Helloooooo,” Junhwe slurs. There’s rustling on the other end, and then a toneless: “Are you drunk?”
Junhwe glares at the air in front of him. “Hyung,” he chirps, over-the-top friendly while trying to feign politeness.
There’s a crackle through the receiver, a disjointed sound of a sigh. “I’m going to hang up,” Jinhwan says, irritated.
Junhwe growls. “You’re mean!” He wails. “I may not be a happy drunk, but at least I’m not mean. Or, well, not mean when I’m drunk.”
“Well, after you get me fired you won’t have to worry about that anymore,” Jinhwan says brusquely.
“Why would I get you fired?” Junhwe asks, perplexed. He strips his jacket off and places it on the floor. He can hear Jinhwan’s breathing through the receiver, and when Junhwe lies down, it’s like Jinhwan’s lying right next to him. “I like you soooooo much Jinhwan hyung-” he hiccups “-but you don’t like me at all. You lied to me, you treat me the same way those PR assholes do, like I’m a hazard. But you know what!” He yells into the phone. “I still like you. And now I’m angry. Not angry drunk, though, just-” he hiccups again “-Just angry.”
“You like me so much you threatened to fire me?” Jinhwan asks doubtfully.
“I was angry!” Junhwe whines, pouting. “If I fired you then you wouldn’t have to work for me anymore. But also, if you didn’t work for me, you wouldn’t care about me. I don’t know what to dooooo.”
There’s silence on Jinhwan’s end of the line. Is he running away? What a coward. Junhwe hates cowards-maybe now he’ll finally hate Jinhwan. Alas, Jinhwan speaks again, this time his voice barely louder than a whisper. “Where are you, Junhwe?”
Junhwe licks his lips. “The ‘A’. In the bathroom.”
“Is anyone there with you?”
“Bobby, but I don’t where he is,” Junhwe answers. “Oh! And Kang Seungyoon! I think he’s drunk too. You know, you were right, we are similar. You’re always right. Hey, do your clients drunk call you often?”
Jinhwan laughs. “Most of my clients don’t have this number. Stay where you are, okay? Don’t move.”
“Alriiiiiight,” Junhwe drones. “Are you gonna come get me?”
“Maybe,” Jinhwan says. “I have to make another call now, promise you won’t move?”
Junhwe closes his eyes. “I promise.” He waits for Jinhwan to speak again, but when there’s not even the sound of static, he realises Jinhwan must’ve hung up. It hurts for some reason, like someone’s scooped out his gut and dumped ice in it’s place.
It’s in the silence of the empty bathroom, the zipper of his jacket digging into his back, that Junhwe remembers-that’s right, he’s a sad drunk.
Junhwe wakes up feeling like someone took a sledgehammer to the back of his head overnight. He hears a belly-deep sigh from somewhere in the conscious world, and peels open his eyes expecting to see back-up manager glaring daggers at him. Instead, standing at the foot of Junhwe’s bed, outlined by the morning light like an angel, is Yunhyeong. He doesn’t look angry, just resigned with the familiar bone-deep weariness Junhwe's trademarked him with after all these years.
Junhwe isn’t going to cry, but it’s more than just the vomit threatening to come up that makes it hard for him to speak. “It was for a good cause,” he rasps, throat feeling like sandpaper. “But I’m still mostly ashamed.”
Yunhyeong attempts to look aggrieved, but he fails. “So am I, Junhwe,” he says, but the smile on his face is fond, “So am I.”
Yunhyeong gives Junhwe a glass of water and aspirin, but that’s as far as his goodwill extends. Junhwe attempts to guilt-trip Yunhyeong into letting him stay in bed by fairly pointing out that Yunhyeong was the reason he’d gotten fucked up last night in the first place. That maybe if he’d had an attentive manager around, the whole thing could’ve been prevented. “You basically abandoned me,” Junhwe surmises.
“It wasn’t me, it was the company,” Yunhyeong says, ushering Junhwe into the shower. The first thing Junhwe had done upon getting his bearings was-in a never before seen move-try and embrace Yunhyeong. Yunhyeong had responded by pinching his nose and telling Junhwe his entire body smelled like morning breath. “They thought I wasn’t doing a good job keeping you in line. So, in true YG fashion, they put me on hiatus. They thought you’d behave better with someone else watching over you.”
Which is preposterous, and Junhwe’s going to have a word with the company on a day he isn’t hungover and reliant on their forgiveness. For now, he sits at his kitchen counter while Yunhyeong pushes a steaming bowl of hang-over stew under his nose.
“By the way,” Junhwe says, letting the steam warm his face. “Did you hear about Jinhwan mistranslating almost all of my interview answers?”
“I did,” Yunhyeong answers carefully. “When Jinhwan called me and asked me to pick you up.”
Junhwe drops his head into his hands. “Fuck. Did I say anything humiliating?”
“Probably.”
“Whatever,” Junhwe swirls his soup around, the aroma remedying the churning in his gut. “The real question is why you never noticed.”
“You’re deflecting,” Yunhyeong sing-songs.
Junhwe ignores him. “Isn’t that your job? I’ve seen your resume, aren’t you supposed to be professionally proficient in Japanese, Song Yunhyeong? If that is your real name.”
Yunhyeong places both hands flat on the counter. “Look, I don’t pay that much attention to detail. And what reason would I have to think Jinhwan would change your answers?”
“And you never bothered to read any of my interviews after they were published?” Junhwe challenges.
“I read all of them,” Yunhyeong states matter-of-factly. When Junhwe starts making angry motions with his arms, Yunhyeong bats his hands down. “I read all of them and I just… Didn’t think anything was off? I don’t know… the answers really sounded like you.”
“Are you kidding, they were-”
“They sound like you when you’re not trying hard to be you,” Yunhyeong amends. “Listen, I am one hundred percent on your side with this and I think what Jinhwan did was completely unethical. But they weren’t just generic public-friendly answers, they were public-friendly answers that sounded like you. He knows you well, and I believe him when he said he only did it because he cared about you.”
He looks at Junhwe meaningfully, and Junhwe almost spits broth all over Yunhyeong’s face. Instead it goes dribbling down his chin. “You were the one who told me not to go for it!”
“I said that because I didn’t want it to get in the way of work.” Yunhyeong hands Junhwe a napkin. “But it already has, so why not just go all the way? Plus, I didn’t think Jinhwan actually liked you back.”
Junhwe wipes down his mouth, anticipation building inside of him. “And, um. Now?”
“You know, I was pretty mad at him last night,” Yunhyeong reminisces. “I didn’t mean it, but I said that if you wanted to sue him, I’d back you up.”
“And?” Junhwe urges.
“And he told me to shut up and that he’d call his lawyer after he knew you were safe.” Yunhyeong winks, clearly pleased with the knowledge he’s just bestowed. “Take that as you will.”
Junhwe attempts to process this information, but it’s too much for his mush of a brain to think about without decomposing. He grabs the bowl in front of him and swallows down a mouthful of stew. It scalds his tongue just enough to distract from his headache. “Ugh,” he says. “I can’t believe Kang Seungyoon got me drunk on a Thursday night and I couldn’t even get him back on the song.”
“About that,” Yunhyeong says, picking up his phone. “I was going through my Instagram this morning and well, I’m sure the company would’ve preferred a press release, but this works as well.” He turns his phone around to show Junhwe the screen, and it takes Junhwe a minute to register what he’s seeing as an actual photo, and not one of his own projections from last night.
The filter Seungyoon chose makes Junhwe look gaunt and washed out, and Junhwe would be more annoyed about it if it weren’t for the caption. Beneath the picture of Seungyoon with his an arm around Junhwe-who’s smiling unattractively with his entire mouth open-are the words: So excited to to work with my bro Koo Junhwe on this hot new track!! #Art #DavidBowieAndQueen #LoveInThisClub
“You called?” Jinhwan asks, voice wary.
If Drunk Junhwe thought dumping Jinhwan with incoherent ramblings would change anything, then he’d be sorely disappointed right about now. Junhwe steps to the side to let Jinhwan into his apartment, but Jinhwan just walks far enough for Junhwe to be able to close the door, and then stays rooted to his spot. His hands are stuffed into the pockets of his coat, like he’s ready to leave once Junhwe gives the vaguest indication that he’s allowed.
Junhwe is tired. He’d just spent five hours filming for Immortal Song 2, he still feels hungover from today morning, and he just wants this one thing in his life to go easily.
He’s loose limbed and loose mouthed, but before he can talk and let everything flow, Jinhwan speaks first.
“Can we settle this outside of court?” he asks.
Junhwe blinks, then cleans his left ear with a pinky. “Sorry, what?”
“I don’t want it to get messy.” Jinhwan’s expression is firm and guarded. “I’ll talk to my company, they’ll probably fire me but-”
“Jesus,” Junhwe breathes out. “I don’t want to sue you, are you crazy?” Drunk Junhwe and Yunhyeong were some amazing fucking tag team, setting up this maze for Junhwe to navigate. “Did I tell you I was gonna sue you when I drunk dialled you last night? Because I’m an obnoxious drunk, like intolerable.”
Jinhwan shifts uncomfortably. “No… You didn’t.”
Junhwe’s next thought immediately horrifies him. “I didn’t ask you to lick my nipples did I? Because that’s happened before.” He never can quite look Hanbin in the eye anymore.
“Um.” Jinhwan scratches the back of his neck. “Something like that.”
They lapse into an awkward silence. Junhwe’s momentum is gone. The room suddenly feels too big, like there’s too much space between him and Jinhwan. Yunhyeong’s little speech this morning had given Junhwe an unrealistic expectation of how this scene would unfold, that he and Jinhwan would somehow magically be on the same page and just needed to read between the lines.
Jinhwan’s the one to break the silence. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I was wrong, and if you do want to take legal action I won’t hold it against you.” He takes his hands out of his pockets and lets them hang loosely at his sides. “But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea. I wasn’t trying to handle you, I know how much you hate that. I just wanted to protect you-not protect your company, or your brand-just you.” He says it candidly, without embellishment, and he looks at Junhwe the exact same way-sincere and forthright, like that’s all there is to it.
And maybe he’s right. When Junhwe had texted Jinhwan to come over, he did it because he thought he had a lot to say. A grand overestimation on his part, because now he realises he’d only ever had one thing to say, and it’d been repeating over and over again in his head, until it felt like a million words instead of just five.
“Truthfully, you’re my ideal type,” Junhwe says, trying to ignore how his ears are burning. “You get me. It hurt when I thought you didn’t.”
Junhwe can’t encapsulate how embarrassed he feels at that moment. He could’ve said so many different things-less cheesy, more likely to get him laid. He’s staring determinedly at the floor, wondering if it’s too late to backtrack, when Jinhwan strides towards him.
He cups Junhwe’s cheek with a small hand, tilts Junhwe’s head up so he can see the warm smile spreading across Jinhwan’s face. “I wouldn’t say that during an interview,” Jinhwan says, thumb coming down to brush against Junhwe’s lips. “But that’s a good answer.”