Much Ado About Nothing
Title: Much Ado About Nothing (Part 1)
Pairing: Se7en, Danny
Rating: R for language and implied sex
Summary: Danny finds compromising pictures of himself and a high school boy splashed on every tabloid in South Korea. Janice Rhee, YG senior publicist, attempts to put together a contingency plan. Choi Dong Wook's life will be changed.
She and the public relations staff at YG Entertainment had been dealing with the burst of media frenzy for three days straight, but the list of phone calls and emails did not seem to have an end.
For the twelfth time today, Janice clicked the refresh button on her email account, only to find it flooded with the exact same subject line.
Running her fingers through a thick black mane of hair, Janice sighed and pushed back the urge to slam her head against her desk. Looking at the corner of her screen to check the time, she forced herself to open another email and begin typing the exact same response she’d been giving every other reporter that had asked the same fucking question.
She thanked God for the invention of the copy and paste system.
Out of all the other signed artists on the YG label, Janice had been assigned as Danny Im’s publicist. The pay had seemed great at first, but now she wondered if her shortening life span due to the accumulation of stress at work was a fair trade for the monthly salary she was receiving.
Janice was no longer so sure.
Her job had been relatively easy up to this point in her career. Danny had never managed to get himself into any serious scandals or conflicts over the years since his debut and the upkeep of Danny’s bad boy image and male sex icon status came naturally. Danny’s characteristic exterior air of nonchalance paired with his daily work out routine had kept the singer well in tune to his 1Tym rapper, vocalist image.
But who would have guessed some senior boy in high school by the name of Choi Dong Wook would have caused Janice such side pains. Every damn tabloid and newspaper in Korea had Danny and Dong Wook’s picture splashed on the front page with a banner headline that read along the lines of: “1Tym’s Danny Im: Dating a High School Boy.”
And that was one of the nicer ones too.
The public relations staff at YG Entertainment had failed in containing the issue from being wide spread by not acting quickly enough. The first few questions about the subject of Danny being gay and seeing some high school boy had been deemed too ridiculous to be bothered by a proper response from the PR team.
For years now, various PR groups for the famous have actively employed the best tool for suppressing unsupported rumors: a simple lack of acknowledgement, in essence, a policy of no response to down play dangerous and damaging scandals.
And since that was the golden rule of major PR departments, the lack of response had sounded like the most logical tool for Janice and the people at YG Entertainment to use. What Janice had not known was the fact that some bloody idiot paparazzi had snapped pictures of Danny and Dong Wook kissing on the patio of a secluded vacation home on Cheju Island.
Now, that picture was the number one searched for item on Korean search engine websites, and every magazine, tabloid, and newspaper furnished it as if it were some important Election Day victory snap shot of a presidential candidate.
Saving face and saving Danny from public fallout seemed to be a war the PR team at YG was quickly losing. Adamant about not giving up, Janice was ready to begin replying to her next email when her blackberry began to vibrate against her desktop.
“Janice Rhee, YG senior publicist,” the worn out woman chirped into the phone aggressively. She’d been waiting for this call since thirty minutes ago, and she was obviously not happy about it.
“Janice, the CEO is ready to see you and your staff at his conference room in ten minutes. Don’t be late,” stated the CEO’s junior secretary before promptly hanging up.
Rising from her seat in a single fluid motion, Janice opened the door to her private office and shouted out to the room full of messy cubicles and panic stricken employees that were putting together a contingency plan.
“Alright team, we’re due in ten minutes. Gather up your reports and begin heading up to the conference room.”
- - - - - - - - -
“C’mon, get up kid,” Danny nudged the sleeping form on the bed hoping this time to illicit some kind of response. The 1Tyme member was absolutely convinced that Dong Wook could sleep through a hurricane if he wanted to.
He’d woken up two hours ago to take his morning jog, pick up the daily paper, and to buy breakfast and coffee before heading back, thinking that Dong Wook would surely have gotten up by now.
It seemed he was wrong.
Setting the bagels and coffee on the kitchen counter, Danny sat on the edge of the bed, taking in the view of the boy sprawled at an awkward angle across the giant California king. The stark black sheets were a drastic contrast to the bare skin of his lover who had some how managed to tangle his limbs and body thoroughly with the bedding.
The messy shag on the boy’s head resembled a partially formed bird’s nest, and Danny couldn’t help but to cringe at how long it would take for the boy to get ready. He knew it would take a long shower and an equally long session with wax and hairspray to get it back to the way Dong Wook liked it. The boy’s slight narcissistic streak was something to be feared.
“Mhmn, what time is it?” a tenor voice asked as the sleeping boy lifted his head and squinted his eyes. It took Dong Wook a minute to adjust to the light and the tangled mess of blankets before he spotted Danny’s annoyed expression.
“It’s eleven o’clock. Get up before your coffee and bagel gets cold,” Danny murmured, stretching his hand out to scratch at an itch on his shoulder. Satisfied that he’d finally gotten Dong Wook up, Danny got off the bed towards the kitchen counter to fetch the morning breakfast.
“Just give me five more minutes,” Dong Wook said, groaning as he put his head back down onto the comfortable pillow. He could foretell that Danny wasn’t going to leave him alone, but at least he was fighting for a few more seconds of getting to lie on a bed and do nothing productive.
“You fell asleep a little past one yesterday. You’ve had ten hours of sleep,” Danny stated as he opened a small packet of cream cheese. The best way to get Dong Wook out of bed was to bribe him with the alluring aspect of food.
“Yeah, but you’re not the one sore from last night,” Dong Wook countered as he winced while pulling himself into a sitting position. Danny hadn’t particularly been gentle in yesterday’s rendezvous on top of the sheets and Dong Wook was indeed feeling sore from the encounter. The dawning of last night’s memory brought a content grin to the boy’s face as he examined Danny by the kitchen.
“C’mere, wanna give me a bite?” Dong Wook asked as he opened his mouth and pointed to it, as if Danny needed physical direction on where to put the food that he wanted.
“Make it yourself,” Danny shot back, teasing.
“Psh, you can’t cook anyways. I best better do it myself,” Dong Wook stated as he swung his feet to the side of the bed and stood up, taking a second to search for where his boxers had been flung the night before.”
“Since when did putting cream cheese on a bagel count as cooking?” Danny quirked his brow as he watched Dong Wook stumble around the room searching for his clothes. From his vantage point, he could appreciate the finer points of the svelte body moving about the room, even if the action proved to be a bit comical.
“I don’t know, but you’d find a way to mess it up,” Dong Wook spoke as he slipped into his boxers and then his jeans. Once the boy had finished fastening his belt, he crossed the distance between the bed and the kitchen counter to place a chaste kiss on his lover’s cheek.
To that remark, Danny chuckled softly, returning the kiss and wrapping his arms around the boy’s waist. There was a small degree of truth to the statement anyways. Cooking or anything similar to the art was definitely not the 1Tym member’s personal forte.
“Did we manage to headline the papers again?” Dong Wook asked softly, the obvious underlying tone of guilt heavily prominent in his voice. It ate away at Dong Wook to realize what this relationship was doing to Danny’s career and fame.
“You don’t have to worry about it. My people have it under control. C’mon go wash up and get ready. Or else we’ll be late,” Danny added playfully, sounding a touch too cheerful and artificial for his comment to be a truthful one. Ruffling with Dong Wook’s hair that created a look of utter despair from the boy, Danny ushered the boy towards the bathroom.
“Late for what?” Dong Wook asked, a bit confused of the prospect of getting to leave the house. If they were publicly spotted together again, the paparazzi would have a field day.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” Danny said as he shrugged.
After a few more minutes of Dong Wook attempting to interrogate information out of Danny, he finally agreed to leave the subject be and go wash. With his inquisitive lover occupied in the shower stall, Danny headed over to the coffee table where he’d left his phone.
Three missed calls, all from Janice Rhee. With a heavy sigh, he hit the call back function.
Pairing: Se7en, Danny
Rating: R for language and implied sex
Summary: Danny finds compromising pictures of himself and a high school boy splashed on every tabloid in South Korea. Janice Rhee, YG senior publicist, attempts to put together a contingency plan. Choi Dong Wook's life will be changed.
She and the public relations staff at YG Entertainment had been dealing with the burst of media frenzy for three days straight, but the list of phone calls and emails did not seem to have an end.
For the twelfth time today, Janice clicked the refresh button on her email account, only to find it flooded with the exact same subject line.
Running her fingers through a thick black mane of hair, Janice sighed and pushed back the urge to slam her head against her desk. Looking at the corner of her screen to check the time, she forced herself to open another email and begin typing the exact same response she’d been giving every other reporter that had asked the same fucking question.
She thanked God for the invention of the copy and paste system.
Out of all the other signed artists on the YG label, Janice had been assigned as Danny Im’s publicist. The pay had seemed great at first, but now she wondered if her shortening life span due to the accumulation of stress at work was a fair trade for the monthly salary she was receiving.
Janice was no longer so sure.
Her job had been relatively easy up to this point in her career. Danny had never managed to get himself into any serious scandals or conflicts over the years since his debut and the upkeep of Danny’s bad boy image and male sex icon status came naturally. Danny’s characteristic exterior air of nonchalance paired with his daily work out routine had kept the singer well in tune to his 1Tym rapper, vocalist image.
But who would have guessed some senior boy in high school by the name of Choi Dong Wook would have caused Janice such side pains. Every damn tabloid and newspaper in Korea had Danny and Dong Wook’s picture splashed on the front page with a banner headline that read along the lines of: “1Tym’s Danny Im: Dating a High School Boy.”
And that was one of the nicer ones too.
The public relations staff at YG Entertainment had failed in containing the issue from being wide spread by not acting quickly enough. The first few questions about the subject of Danny being gay and seeing some high school boy had been deemed too ridiculous to be bothered by a proper response from the PR team.
For years now, various PR groups for the famous have actively employed the best tool for suppressing unsupported rumors: a simple lack of acknowledgement, in essence, a policy of no response to down play dangerous and damaging scandals.
And since that was the golden rule of major PR departments, the lack of response had sounded like the most logical tool for Janice and the people at YG Entertainment to use. What Janice had not known was the fact that some bloody idiot paparazzi had snapped pictures of Danny and Dong Wook kissing on the patio of a secluded vacation home on Cheju Island.
Now, that picture was the number one searched for item on Korean search engine websites, and every magazine, tabloid, and newspaper furnished it as if it were some important Election Day victory snap shot of a presidential candidate.
Saving face and saving Danny from public fallout seemed to be a war the PR team at YG was quickly losing. Adamant about not giving up, Janice was ready to begin replying to her next email when her blackberry began to vibrate against her desktop.
“Janice Rhee, YG senior publicist,” the worn out woman chirped into the phone aggressively. She’d been waiting for this call since thirty minutes ago, and she was obviously not happy about it.
“Janice, the CEO is ready to see you and your staff at his conference room in ten minutes. Don’t be late,” stated the CEO’s junior secretary before promptly hanging up.
Rising from her seat in a single fluid motion, Janice opened the door to her private office and shouted out to the room full of messy cubicles and panic stricken employees that were putting together a contingency plan.
“Alright team, we’re due in ten minutes. Gather up your reports and begin heading up to the conference room.”
- - - - - - - - -
“C’mon, get up kid,” Danny nudged the sleeping form on the bed hoping this time to illicit some kind of response. The 1Tyme member was absolutely convinced that Dong Wook could sleep through a hurricane if he wanted to.
He’d woken up two hours ago to take his morning jog, pick up the daily paper, and to buy breakfast and coffee before heading back, thinking that Dong Wook would surely have gotten up by now.
It seemed he was wrong.
Setting the bagels and coffee on the kitchen counter, Danny sat on the edge of the bed, taking in the view of the boy sprawled at an awkward angle across the giant California king. The stark black sheets were a drastic contrast to the bare skin of his lover who had some how managed to tangle his limbs and body thoroughly with the bedding.
The messy shag on the boy’s head resembled a partially formed bird’s nest, and Danny couldn’t help but to cringe at how long it would take for the boy to get ready. He knew it would take a long shower and an equally long session with wax and hairspray to get it back to the way Dong Wook liked it. The boy’s slight narcissistic streak was something to be feared.
“Mhmn, what time is it?” a tenor voice asked as the sleeping boy lifted his head and squinted his eyes. It took Dong Wook a minute to adjust to the light and the tangled mess of blankets before he spotted Danny’s annoyed expression.
“It’s eleven o’clock. Get up before your coffee and bagel gets cold,” Danny murmured, stretching his hand out to scratch at an itch on his shoulder. Satisfied that he’d finally gotten Dong Wook up, Danny got off the bed towards the kitchen counter to fetch the morning breakfast.
“Just give me five more minutes,” Dong Wook said, groaning as he put his head back down onto the comfortable pillow. He could foretell that Danny wasn’t going to leave him alone, but at least he was fighting for a few more seconds of getting to lie on a bed and do nothing productive.
“You fell asleep a little past one yesterday. You’ve had ten hours of sleep,” Danny stated as he opened a small packet of cream cheese. The best way to get Dong Wook out of bed was to bribe him with the alluring aspect of food.
“Yeah, but you’re not the one sore from last night,” Dong Wook countered as he winced while pulling himself into a sitting position. Danny hadn’t particularly been gentle in yesterday’s rendezvous on top of the sheets and Dong Wook was indeed feeling sore from the encounter. The dawning of last night’s memory brought a content grin to the boy’s face as he examined Danny by the kitchen.
“C’mere, wanna give me a bite?” Dong Wook asked as he opened his mouth and pointed to it, as if Danny needed physical direction on where to put the food that he wanted.
“Make it yourself,” Danny shot back, teasing.
“Psh, you can’t cook anyways. I best better do it myself,” Dong Wook stated as he swung his feet to the side of the bed and stood up, taking a second to search for where his boxers had been flung the night before.”
“Since when did putting cream cheese on a bagel count as cooking?” Danny quirked his brow as he watched Dong Wook stumble around the room searching for his clothes. From his vantage point, he could appreciate the finer points of the svelte body moving about the room, even if the action proved to be a bit comical.
“I don’t know, but you’d find a way to mess it up,” Dong Wook spoke as he slipped into his boxers and then his jeans. Once the boy had finished fastening his belt, he crossed the distance between the bed and the kitchen counter to place a chaste kiss on his lover’s cheek.
To that remark, Danny chuckled softly, returning the kiss and wrapping his arms around the boy’s waist. There was a small degree of truth to the statement anyways. Cooking or anything similar to the art was definitely not the 1Tym member’s personal forte.
“Did we manage to headline the papers again?” Dong Wook asked softly, the obvious underlying tone of guilt heavily prominent in his voice. It ate away at Dong Wook to realize what this relationship was doing to Danny’s career and fame.
“You don’t have to worry about it. My people have it under control. C’mon go wash up and get ready. Or else we’ll be late,” Danny added playfully, sounding a touch too cheerful and artificial for his comment to be a truthful one. Ruffling with Dong Wook’s hair that created a look of utter despair from the boy, Danny ushered the boy towards the bathroom.
“Late for what?” Dong Wook asked, a bit confused of the prospect of getting to leave the house. If they were publicly spotted together again, the paparazzi would have a field day.
“You’ll have to wait and see,” Danny said as he shrugged.
After a few more minutes of Dong Wook attempting to interrogate information out of Danny, he finally agreed to leave the subject be and go wash. With his inquisitive lover occupied in the shower stall, Danny headed over to the coffee table where he’d left his phone.
Three missed calls, all from Janice Rhee. With a heavy sigh, he hit the call back function.