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There’s only three people who know Seungmin’s weekend routine of reading at his favorite, secluded cafe. One of them is his assistant, who knows because he’s too good at his job. One of them knows because he’s the person who introduced Seungmin to the place. And the last one knows because he’s a workaholic who has no concept of breaks.
Chris slams down the script onto the wooden table, far too loud in the quiet cafe. He’s got a crazed look in his eyes, and his hands are shaking a bit in the way they do when he’s screwed up his sleeping schedule and replaced half his blood with Red Bull.
“You’re gonna love this,” he says, sliding into the chair across from Seungmin.
He looks down at the script, then at Chris. “Nice to see you too,” he lies.
Seungmin owes Christopher Bahng his flourishing career as an actor. He owes other people too, but Chris, undeniably, started it all.
Seungmin thinks he likes Chris. He doesn’t not like him. They used to be friends, and now, they’re in that bubble between knowing each other too well but not friendly enough to hang out with little reason. He respects him, knows he is genuine, but it’s hard to like Chris after God’s Menu.
“I just finished filming a couple things,” he replies, glancing down at the script. It’s held together in a non-descript black binder, Seungmin’s initials written in sharpie on the side. “I’m in the middle of finishing a Fincher project right now, in fact.”
“Scorose too, I heard. Congrats, by the way.”
Seungmin swallows the urge to snap at him, and flips the page instead.
“And that’s not even talking about the promotion headaches that’s coming up in two weeks.”
“I talked with Minho. Production and filming shouldn’t clash with your schedule.”
Seungmin is one step closer to firing Minho everyday.
“You know, they say it’s not good practice to keep working with the same director. It’s Hollywood incest or something like that.”
“Since when have you cared about what others think?”
He flips the page, “I’m not working with you again. I thought I made that clear.”
“Felix is producing.”
“Haha, very funny. I’m the actor here.”
At Chris’s silence, Seungmin glances up.
“You weren’t kidding.”
“Be honest, Seungmin. Is there anyone better than him?”
“That wasn’t my point. Besides, you know there isn’t,” he replies. Felix is an angel sent from heaven to the crew of every project he’s involved in. There’s a reason why, at the age of twenty-nine, he’s already worked with some of the Greats of Hollywood—Scorose, Miller, and recently for the second time, Nolan. “I just talked to him the other week.”
“Oh, but there’s a difference between talking to him and seeing him work in person, isn’t there?”
Seungmin stares at him, “You’re really going to pimp Felix out like that? After everything?”
“Is it working?”
He scoffs, “No. Fuck off, Chris.”
He’s exhausted after the shoot, and in the middle of trying out a new dinner recipe when the doorbell rings.
In retrospect, he knew that Chris wouldn’t give up so easily. It’s one of the things he always admired about the director—how firmly he holds onto his creativity when the higher ups try to change it. It’s a pain, sometimes, but admirable nonetheless.
There’s only five people who know the address of his Beverly Hills apartment—it’s the same three people who know the cafe he frequents, plus his mother and Hyunjin, because Felix and Hyunjin are attached to the hip when they’re working on the same project, which they usually are.
Felix looks the same as he did a few months ago, which was the last time Seungmin saw him. They were at an award show, and Felix was on a different project. It was the SAG Awards, he’d won the Best Actor award, and Felix had been teary eyed when he hugged Seungmin.
Without the makeup on though, he’s got dark bags under his eyes, and his roots haven’t been re-bleached yet. It’s summer, so his freckles are more prominent, and he’s carrying his usual messenger bag.
“Seungmin Kim, as I live and breathe,” Felix smiles, and it’s brighter than the Californian summer sun. His voice and accent, as always, melts Seungmin’s ears and does horrible things to his stomach.
“Felix Yongbok Lee,” Seungmin replies back, stepping aside to let him in. “Did Chris put you up to this?”
“He came already?”
“Last week.”
Felix laughs, toeing off his shoes and sliding into slippers. “So that’s why he sounded like a kicked dog when I called.”
Felix’s warmth is infectious, and Seungmin is suddenly hit with the realization of just how much he missed Felix. The real Felix, not the one who texts him and calls out of politeness, but has always kept him at an arm’s length after God’s Menu.
“I was making dinner, do you want some?”
“Oh yes, I’m starving. I brought something too,” He reaches into his bag, and pulls out a bottle of wine. Seungmin’s favorite vintage from California—a Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon.
Felix sets the bottle on the table, and begins to raid Seungmin’s cabinets for the wine glasses and the opener. He waits for Seungmin to plate their food before he opens the bottle with a practiced ease, no doubt from his years of being a fine dining waiter before Miroh became a hit.
“That’s a lot of effort just for one project.” Seungmin is unimaginably richer than he was years ago. But Felix has never made as much as him, and the 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon is as much as a month’s salary for most people.
Felix smiles at him, mid-pour. “I was going to visit you regardless of what you told Chris, Seungminnie.” The nickname is sweet on his tongue, something he missed from all the past months.
Seungmin believes him. In an industry where masks and lies and PR fabricated identities are common, Felix is sincere. He’s a lover of luxury, expensive but subtle perfumes that linger in the air, and care routines that make his skin smooth and soft, but he isn’t someone who lets money hold him back. Expensive but thoughtful gifts have always been a part of who he is, once he could afford it.
Felix wipes the lid with a cloth, setting the bottle on the dining table. His hand, when he puts it over Seungmin, is cold for the summer weather. Seungmin accepts the affection, rubbing some warmth into his frigid fingers. He missed Felix’s easy affection more than he would like to admit.
“Where’s your other half?”
Felix smiles, and he looks a little less tired. “Hyunjin is still finishing a few things up for some commercial shoots.”
He forks a piece of meat and broccoli, putting it in his mouth. “Jesus Christ, Seungmin, When did you get so good at this?”
“I’ve always been a good cook.”
Felix raises his eyebrows, putting another forkful of food into his mouth.
“Okay. Baking is different. There’s no soul, everything is measurements and—”
“Are you calling my brownies and cakes soulless?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“No, you implied it.”
It’s easy to fall back into banter with Felix, their jabs harmless and playful. Seungmin likes that about him—it’s obvious Felix came with an agenda, since Chris got the first rejection, and he’s smart enough to let the wine warm their bodies before he brings it up.
Their plates are cleared and set aside when Felix finally asks, “So, how was the shoot today?”
“Horrible,” Seungmin replies. “Honestly, I don’t know how you put up with Fincher.”
He goes into a retelling about the screaming match between Fincher, the cinematographer, and the lightning techs because one of them fucked up in pre-production and none of them would admit it.
Then when shooting finally began, Fincher wanted a twenty-minute uncut dinner scene between Seungmin, Craig, Skaarsgard, and Jover. Except in the middle of the scene, right as the tension was supposed to be mounting, Fincher kept calling cut because he didn’t like the way the servants walked. After the fiftieth cut, Craig and Jover both storm out for cigarettes, and another screaming match erupts between the camera operator and Finchet.
Just when things started rolling again, one of the moving cameras breaks and Fincher is sent into another meltdown.
Felix listens to all this with a grimace on his face, fingers twitching in annoyance where he’d holding the wine glass by the stem.
“Who was the producer?” Is his first question. Because Felix, with his fine-tuned efficiency, would’ve extinguished the clashing egos in a matter of minutes.
It’s an art form Seungmin witnessed a few times—the delicate balance of letting people blow off a bit of their steam before reigning back in control.
“Some newcomer,” he answers. “Either Fincher saw something I didn’t and wanted to give him a chance, or he’s one of the exec’s sons and ups the budget. I bet it’s the latter.”
Felix hums. “So, professionally speaking, you miss working with me?”
Seungmin goes to pour himself another glass, the steam finally gone. “Lix-ah.”
“I know,” he replies, rubbing his knuckles soothingly. “Me too.”
Then you should understand, Seungmin bites back. How demanding Chrisopher Bahng’s movies are.
“Is he going to put me through another two years of dance, singing, and guitar classes? Because I swear to—”
“You have a nice singing voice though,” Felix smiles, tapping on his phone. “I blast to As you are in my car very often.”
Stray Kids, Chris’s passion project and one of his more popular films, is about an underground band’s desperate claw for fame, and the struggle of choosing creativity over consumerism. It’s filled with his signature character-heavy plots and heart. Seungmin loved the film, but hated everything that came before the final cut.
The entire discography was made by Chris and his two close friends, Changbin and Jisung, who also starred in the film. Seungmin can’t count the amount of times he wanted to curse the three of them out in the studio, and he’s never lost his cool.
It took a few weeks for him to stop ignoring Chris’s messages after production ended.
Still, he can’t deny that Felix’s admission pulls something tight and warm in his chest.
“Don’t remind me,” he groans, wiping a hand over his face. “Oh my god, the promotions. Did you know how many times I had to sing and dance for promotion?”
“I was there, Seungmin. I know.”
“And here you are.”
Felix pulls out a binder, the same one Chris had brought, but without Seungmin’s name written on the side. Instead, there’s a doodle of a puppy.
“You two reconciled, then?”
Felix dodges the question. “I wouldn’t have brought this if I didn’t agree with Chris’s vision—”
“Chris’s vision gave the shitshow production that was God’s Menu.”
“—and because I know you will regret it if you haven’t at least considered it.”
Seungmin doesn’t answer.
“At least listen to my pitch.”
“So why’s the script here?”
“Half of my pitch was to ask you to read the first ten pages.”
He sighs, “Felix.”
Felix, the mastermind, reaches into his messenger bag and pulls out a tupperware container. Inside, eight pieces of brownies, all from the corners and sprinkled with flakes of sea salt.
“You devil.”
“You’re playing a supporting character. Chris is giving the main role to an unknown,” Felix pushes the binder to him, his brown eyes twinkling like stars. “Imagine Galatea and Pygmalion, but modernized and turned into existential horror.”
“So I’m there for the attention grab?”
“You’re there because Chris wrote the character for you,” Felix replies, leaning on his elbows now, wispy blond hair tucked behind his ears. “And attention grab is part of it, but not the whole deal.”
Seungmin breathes out, heavy and exaggerated. “Who else did he ask?”
“Taylor-Joy.” Felix adds. “She hasn’t replied yet though.”
“She’ll say yes, if you’re asking.”
“She’ll say yes because Chris wrote the character with her in mind, and because Chris is top tier when it comes to complex, ugly characters that brute force his storylines.”
Seungmin thinks back to God’s Menu, and shudders.
“I bet it’s also because you were in that Miller film, probably putting firefighters to shame with all the arguments you had to put out.”
Felix groans, “Don’t mention it. I’m not going to another desert for years. I got sunburned, Seungmin. And I’m from Australia.”
He laughs, “You live in California, Lix.”
Felix rolls his eyes, and pushes the binder at him. “Ten pages. Just ten. I promise, you won’t regret it.”
“I have a feeling I might.”
He hums, and opens the tupperware, putting two brownie pieces on Seungmin’s plate.
“Fincher is going to yell at me tomorrow if I come back and my face is puffy because of the sugar.”
“I’ll help you ice it before the shoot.”
Seungmin raises an eyebrow at him, and pretends that Felix’s implication doesn’t send his heart racing.
They haven’t had this kind of ease, this kind of banter since the shitshow that was God’s Menu and the promotions that came after it.
Seungmin knows part of it is to convince him into taking this role. Still, he can’t help but hope that it is also an olive branch. One he didn’t really deserve, after all that happened.
“Only because you’re the one asking, Felix,” he sighs, taking the binder. “If it was anyone else—”
“I know, I know,” he murmurs, fingers playing with the tablecloth. He does sound guilty, if only somewhat. “Ten pages. Just ten.”
Seungmin pours himself another glass, and flips to the first page.
He skims at first, then pauses, restarts the page, and begins to read.
He turns the page. Then another. And another.
By the time he’s on page twenty, he looks up at Felix, who is smiling that tentative but hopeful smile of his.
“You owe me another box of this,” he gestures to the brownies. “Coffee ones, next time.”
Felix giggles, bright like chiming bells. Seungmin aches at the sound—he’d forgotten how much he missed it. “I’ll make cookies too, Seungminnie.”
Seungmin had never planned to go into the movie business. Or any art business, really.
At first, it was baseball. But the more he grew up and realized how irrational it was to hope that a scout would see him, he started planning for something else and set baseball aside as a hobby.
He had the entirety of his undergrad planned out too: get good grades, join a frat or the baseball team, a few engineering clubs, make connections with some professors, and score an internship or two.
He did all that with a laser-sharp focus, until he was graduating a year early with summa cum laude and had one more year in his program to finish his master’s in mechanical engineering. His internship had liked him well enough to offer a part-time job, and Seungmin agreed.
Except it ate at him, quietly but surely. It was like a papercut, one of those wounds that just kept hurting, but he could do nothing to speed up the healing.
Halfway into his master’s program, he hit twenty-one, and suddenly, he was unofficially nominated as the alcohol supplier for his old frat. With nothing else better to do, and owing Jeongin for the countless times he’d signed Seungmin’s attendance in his GE’s, Seungmin agreed.
In one of those parties, he met Chris.
Chris was an alumni, only three years older than Seungmin, but seized charisma with an iron fist. He had a way of telling stories that would quiet the room, a gleam in his smile like he knew the future, and a wicked eye for talent.
It’s why he approached Seungmin after he cheated in beer pong, one of his frat brothers in tow.
“You’re Seungmin, right?” Chris asks, an arm swung around Josh. “Josh told me a lot about you.”
Seungmin looks at Josh, then back at Chris. “Bad things only, I hope.”
Chris laughs, loud and too sudden for Seungmin’s liking. “He told me you fooled everyone through your pledge.”
“Guilt-tripped.” Josh corrects, his words slurring a bit. “Bastard made us believe we actually broke his late mother’s necklace after we broke the egg he was supposed to be protecting. Combed the field the whole night while he looked like a kicked dog.”
“Christ,” Chris laughs, shaking his head. “What made you realize?”
“His mother called,” Jeongin pipes in, putting an arm around Seungmin’s shoulder.
Seungmin shrugged, “I said you’d regret it.”
“The pledgemaster had to pledge him in after that,” Josh continues, patting Chris’s back roughly. “For the love of the game.”
“You're majoring in theater?”
Seungmin shakes his head, “No. And I didn’t think they’d believe me, to be honest.”
“You asshole. You cried.”
“I sprayed on hand sanitizer and rubbed my eyes.”
Chris makes a contemplative noise, then, to Seungmin’s horror, asks for his number.
“Um,” Seungmin had replied intelligently, willing every bit of his being to ignore Jeongin’s slack jaw and wide eyes. “Thank you, I think? Sorry but I’m not into… I don’t swing that way.”
Chris’s eyes then, also widened in horror. “Oh shit, that came out wrong, didn’t it?” He laughs again, loud and awkward. “Seungmin, right? Have you ever dreamt of making movies?”
If Seungmin was honest, he thought Chris was a middleman in one of those pyramid scams. He had listened to Chris talk about the short film for a week, his mind more and more intrigued with every text and call and document sent. If Chris was still a scammer after all that, then Seungmin would have to give him credit, because Chris was brilliant. Insane, but brilliant.
He’d stepped into the set in a bit of a daze, the whole short film taking place in a single house. It was an ugly production, the entire thing too artificial to the human eye, and Seungmin was sure the budget had to be shit. It’s probably why Chris hired him, instead of an actual actor, so he could underpay Seungmin without Seungmin knowing.
He watched as Chris shouted for people to get into place, things to be put in place, barely heard over the loud set.
There was a man around Seungmin’s age and height who was holding the fanciest-looking camera and arguing with two others about the lighting. Across from them, the boom operator and the sound mixer, who were engrossed in a shouting match.
“Seungmin!” Chris had beamed after spotting him, setting the megaphone down on the floor and walking towards him.
“Is it always this…” he looks around, searching for the right word that won’t insult Chris.
Chris looks sheepish, “No, not really. It’s usually more put together, but most of the crew here is either fresh out of college or seniors. They’re just eager to show their vision. And passionate too.”
“One way to put it,” he murmurs, and vows to never text Chris again after the whole thing is over.
Behind him, Chris sees someone else, and his face lights up. Seungmin turns in time to see another person, dark-haired and looking like he just got off shift from waiting at a restaurant.
“Felix!” Chris beams, and goes to take Felix’s bag.
“Sorry,” he replies, slightly out of breath. His voice is baritone, completely unlike his appearance, and smoother than velvet. “My shift ran late and I missed the bus.”
“No worries, Lixie.” Chris turns towards him. “This is Seungmin, the guy I told you about. Seungmin, this is Felix, our producer.”
Felix smiles at Seungmin, brighter than the sun and all the lightings in the room, “It’s nice to meet our star, Seungmin. I’m Felix.”
His hand, when they shake, is small. It does weird things to his stomach, and he doesn’t know what to think.
“Is it always this chaotic?” He gestures at the set.
Felix laughs, warm like summer, “Sorry. Let me quiet the set.”
He takes his waist apron off, and wordlessly, Chris takes that too, handing him a clipboard.
Then, he grabs the megaphone, grabs a nearby folding chair, and kicks it open.
“HEY!” Felix screams into the megaphone, stepping onto the chair. “We are behind schedule, so if I don’t have quiet on this set right now, I’ll nail gun your all mouths fucking shut.”
The room goes so quiet, and Seungmin can only hear the thumping of his own, racing heart.
Looking back, Seungmin hardly stood a chance.
Seungmin meets Hyunjin hours later, after filming ended for the day.
He’s the fancy camera operator, and looks like he should be modeling instead of working for a low-budget short film.
Fancy-Camera Operator waits for almost everyone to leave before he hurls himself onto Felix, arms wrapped around his shoulders, burying his face into Felix’s neck.
“Never, ever be late again, Felix,” he groans, and proceeds to make some dramatic, fake-sobbing noises.
Felix laughs, and pats Fancy-Camera Operator’s head, pressing a kiss to his cheek. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
“I had to argue with those lightning techs!” Fancy-Camera Operator continues as Felix runs his hand through his hair, looking nothing like the demon that had taken control of the set.
“I know, I know,” Felix says, voice softening. He closes his eyes and lets himself bathe in the embrace for a second, before pulling away.
He smiles at Seungmin, “Hyunjin, this is Seungmin. Seungmin, this is Hyunjin, our cinematographer. Don’t worry, he’s one of the best at what he does.”
“I know what you’re thinking: everything looks dull and boring right now, but it won’t be after I get my hands on it.”
Felix leans against him, head pillowed on his shoulder, eyes filled with an easy sort of love that Seungmin longs to hold and cup in his own hands. “He makes the magic happen.”
Hyunjin indeed, did make the magic happen.
The short film gets submitted to some competition, and it wins. It makes tiny ripples across the industry, until it ends up at Cannes, and then a nomination from the Academy.
Chris gets the funding for his first, full-length movie. By the time he ended up in front of Seungmin’s doorstep, Felix in tow and Hyunjin beside him, Seungmin already had his two weeks’ notice printed out.
A year later, Miroh was released, and made them famous.
Seungmin didn't tell his mother about his career change until it won at the Oscars.
It's a classic, rags to riches Hollywood story—scouted at a random party, no classical training, and a meteoric rise to fame in one and a half pictures.
Halfway through a press junket tour for the Scorose film across the States, Felix texts him.
Lix
Minho told me you’re also in NYC
I have some updates
Seungmin rereads the text messages again, then looks up at Minho who is in the middle of a quiet but stern conversation with the journalist.
I’ll be free after 10.
You should pick the place.
The place Felix picks is one of those hole-in-the-wall places he’s unusually fond of. It’s a late-night place, hidden in a backdoor alleyway, with a grimy sign and awful lighting. But it’s well known among the locals, and far from empty.
His roots are bleached, and he wears the tendrils of a long, tiring day. But when he spots Seungmin, his lips tug into that signature smile, and suddenly, the New York chill doesn’t seem so bad.
“I ordered soju and fried chicken,” he says as Seungmin sits down, opening the bottle from him.
“If Minho knew you’d pick a place like this, I don’t think he would’ve told you my schedule,” he murmurs, taking the wooden chopsticks and eating a piece of the chicken. It’s crisp and hot, perfect for his growling stomach.
“Chris will make it up to him.”
“Gross. I don’t want to hear about his romantic adventures.”
Felix smiles, and taps the side of Seungmin’s boots. Wordlessly, he taps back.
“So. Updates, you said?”
It’s an excuse, Seungmin knows that as well as Felix does. They both have phones, and nothing at this point is confidential enough to warrant an in-person meeting.
“Hyunjin is our cinematographer.”
“Ah.”
Seungmin thinks back to the last time he talked to Hyunjin, his hair the color of cherry wine and his eyes sharper than daggers.
Felix had been crying in that silent way that people do when they’re trying to stop and pretend the tears never came. Hyunjin was holding him by his shaking shoulders, the two of them hidden behind the curtains of the TCL Chinese Theater. It was after the press interviews, and the first viewing of God’s Menu had received a fifteen minute standing applause.
“How is he? I heard he was doing a few commercial shoots for high-end fashion brands.”
Felix’s shoulders relax a bit, and he sips on the soju. “Dior, Louis Vuitton, and Swarovski. Can you believe it? Those were the brands we used to only dream of working with. And now, he’s their director of photography for their latest ads and shoots.”
“Don’t discredit yourself.”
Felix giggles, cheeks slightly pink. Either from the cold or the alcohol, Seungmin doesn’t quite know. “Who said I was producing?”
“You’re modeling too, then,” Seungmin smiles, something pushing at the edges of his ribcage. A warmth, genuine happiness for Felix, who never planned to go into movie-making either.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Hyunjin would’ve found a way, if they wanted him for DP.”
The public always talked about Christopher Bahng and Felix Yongbok Lee being a directing-producing pair, but that’s only for show. Chris works with Jisung and Changbin the most, hires them to make the discographies for every single one of his movies, while Felix had started taking on different projects after God’s Menu.
If anything, it’s Felix and Hyunjin who are a pair. If Felix had enough of a say, which he usually did, Hyunjin was the cinematographer. He’s versatile, artistic, and has a way of bundling those hard-to-speak emotions within well angled shots.
Chris would not have won as many Academy nominations and awards without Hyunjin and Felix.
“Louis Vuitton and Swarovski.” He clears his throat. “But that’s beside the point.”
“It’ll be fine,” Seungmin says, taking swigs from his own bottle. He glances down at the plate of food, then at the scratched coat of the table. “We’re both adults, and it was years ago. Plus, I deserved that punch.”
“Don’t say that.”
Felix is frowning now, and his fingers twitch. Seungmin wants to hold his hand in his own, rubbing them until they’re warm. But they are out in public, and he knows far too well just how vicious the internet and the public can be.
Instead, he bumps their knees together, and stays close enough to touch.
“I mean it, Lix. It’ll be okay.” He pauses, contemplating, and adds, “I get why you accepted the script. I would’ve too.”
Felix hums, and bumps their knees again. By the look in his eyes, Seungmin knows Felix understands, and probably agreed to take the script for the same reason: solace.
The next morning, Minho sends him a TMZ article.
It’s a testament to how well Minho knows Seungmin that he didn’t just send the link. He had taken a screenshot of the whole thing.
Seungmin Kim Spotted at Late-Night Place with Felix Yongbok Lee. Business, or Pleasure?
A-List actor Seungmin Kim was spotted last night at a late-night place in Midtown Manhattan. TMZ reports that he was meeting up with producer Felix Yongbok Lee. Is there another Christopher Bahng movie to be shot? After the palpable tension in the first screenings of Bahng’s magnum opus, God’s Menu, the pair were seen to be actively avoiding each other in the promotions that came after. They were filmed in an embrace at last year’s SAG Awards, but TMZ has heard nothing else since. Is their friendship reconciled?
Seungmin doesn’t really remember the night when Miroh was nominated for Best Picture, and won for Best Director. Not in detail, at least.
He remembers sitting next to Felix, his hands sweaty as Felix held onto his and Hyunjin’s. He remembers the hope and anticipation, high in his throat, and the nausea that roiled like a storm.
He remembers seeing Boon Joon-ho open the envelope, and smile quietly to himself as the entire room stopped breathing. He remembers the way the director had looked up, eyes gleaming with pride beneath his sunglasses, and called out in Korean, "Congratulations, Bang Chan.”
And for the few, confused seconds after, they were the only ones who understood. Chris, for his first full-length directorial debut, had won.
Then, Boon Joon-ho repeated it again in English, and the entire room erupted.
It was a mess of crying and hugs, and Chris’s hands were shaking as he took the award and said his speech. Felix was crying beside him, tucked into Hyunjin’s arms, hiccupping with emotion.
Seungmin didn’t realize he was crying too until after, when Felix with his shaking hands, wiped his tears away and pressed a wet kiss to his cheek.
The afterparty was a blur too. It was loud, filled with alcohol and substances that were enough to ruin reputations. Hyunjin was off on the dancefloor, dancing his heart out alongside some other drunk actors that were failing to keep up.
Felix finds him in the backyard, nursing a flute of champagne, his hands still shaking and his mind still reeling from the win.
His cheeks are flushed pink, and he’s impossibly beautiful. His freckles splatter his cheeks like flecks of paint, and with his newly bleached hair, he looks like an angel from heaven.
Like Seungmin’s blessing in life, he thinks.
If it wasn’t for Felix’s terrifying efficiency, Seungmin would’ve blocked Chris’s number after the first film.
“How are you doing?” He asks, their elbows close enough to touch.
Subconsciously, his hand comes up to hold Felix by the shoulder, physical touch now a common and comforting between the two of them.
“Can you pinch me? I still think I’m dreaming.”
Felix does just that, and pulls Seungmin back when he jumps and winces.
“Still think it’s a dream?”
“Nope. Perfectly awake.”
A beat passes, silent.
“Are you going to tell your mom now?”
“Tomorrow, I’ll call her.”
“Good.”
He hums, and leans backwards against Seungmin’s shoulder. This close, Seungmin can smell the perfume he always wears, a mixture of something jasmine and tea-like. He can count Felix’s eyelashes too, perfectly framed against his pretty, doe brown eyes. His lips gleam with lip gloss, or maybe it’s the alcohol, Seungmin doesn’t really know.
The clearest memory, the one Seungmin will always remember the best from that night, is what happened next.
He remembers staring at Felix’s lips, and then seeing Felix stare at his. In those moments, the loud music fades away, until it’s only them in their small bubble, frail and precious.
He remembers feeling the weight of Felix’s hand on his head, and then, he’s leaning down and Felix is tilting his head up and their mouths are slotted together. The angle is awkward, because Felix is tilting back against his shoulder and Seungmin has to twist his neck, but he can’t find it in himself to do anything except hold Felix’s face and lose himself in the slow, languid movements of their lips.
It hits him like cold air after they part.
The countless times Felix had kissed Hyunjin on set. The way they’ve always gravitated towards each other, like binary stars. The one time he had a hotel room next to the two of them and couldn’t get a wink of sleep. The matching tomioka rings Hyunjin had bought after Miroh shattered box office expectations.
“Wait. But Hyunjin—” he sputters.
Felix looks confused, “What about Hyune?”
“Aren’t you two—like—together?”
Felix blinks, then laughs, bright and beautiful. He holds his stomach and wipes fake tears away, still leaning against Seungmin, his own hands uselessly at Felix’s waist to keep him steady.
“We’re best friends, Seungmin-ah,” Felix replies, eyes twinkling like the cityscape in front of them.
“Jeongin and I are also best friends.”
Felix hums, closing his eyes and swaying to the music, voice dripping with a precious adoration that he’s now extended to Seungmin, “Hyunjin and I have a long history.”
Sometimes, Seungmin thinks back to that night, and lays awake going through all the what if's if he'd just kept his mouth shut.
In an interview he did for his main role in a Yorgos Lantimos film, after Stray Kids but before God’s Menu, someone had asked him about his “Hollywood story.”
Instead of telling them his own story, he told the interviewer his favorite Hollywood story: the pair who works magic behind the scenes—Felix and Hyunjin, who were always overlooked when it came to the films they worked on.
“They are the real Hollywood stars,” he’d said, trying his best to look composed. “Along with the rest of the people who are behind the scenes. No movie magic can be done without any of them.”
“So, do they have a Hollywood story?”
Seungmin smiled, “That’s a question for them.”
Later that awards season, the Lantimos film gets a Best Cinematography nomination—Hyunjin’s first.
He doesn’t win, but Seungmin’s interview gets brought up in one of Felix’s interviews.
“Hyunjin and I were models,” Felix had told them, a wide grin on his face, his hair styled perfectly. “He did photography, and I was the only other subject. Chris was on a graduation trip in Paris when he stumbled upon one of our portfolio shoots. The rest is from there.”
Later, when the same interviewer asked Hyunjin, he snickered and said, “That’s a massive understatement.”
“What do you mean?”
“I meant how easy he made it sound,” Hyunjin answered, glancing at the producer who was off-screen. “It isn’t easy to make it in the modeling world, Hollywood, or anywhere. We were massively underpaid and lived in a single room with six other people. It was so cramped, Lixie and I had to share a bed. And that’s if we got the same hours off, which we didn’t, because we were underpaid and had to take other jobs.”
“We were waiters at this fine-dining restaurant, and Lixie knew I liked photography, so he saved up all the earnings and tips he could to buy me my first camera,” Hyunjin took out his phone then, and showed the camera a series of photos.
Most of it was Felix, back when his hair was still dark and he looked too-young for his age. Pictures of him in front of the Eiffel, beneath a streetlight, holding stale bread.
“And this was the photo I took when Chris saw us,” Hyunjin swipes to a different picture, one where Felix is standing atop of a windy bridge, his hair and scarf and clothes a mess. But he’s leaning on his knees, and he’s smiling at the camera in a way that is pure, unbridled joy.
From the dampness of the atmosphere and the grey tones in the sky, it was a snapshot straight from some tragic, Parisian love film. And it was perfect for Chris’s short film.
“I wouldn’t be here without Felix,” Hyunjin concludes, putting his phone away, fondly looking behind him.
The interview went viral afterwards, both because of how unexpectedly charismatic Hyunjin is, and because the internet always devours a romance, even if it isn’t one.
Seungmin is only in the first half of Levanter, where he plays Jude, an artist whose art is the only bearable way he can live. He’s supposed to be a foil to the main character, who uses art as an escapist fantasy to live.
Halfway through the script, Jude dies. But his beliefs are supposed to carry throughout the film, and he is the underlying, ticking time bomb between Chris’s Pygmalion and Galatea.
The chemistry had gone well, all things considered.
Seungmin takes the remaining week refining his character, giving Jude a story, a reason, and a lack thereof.
Everything is glaringly wrong, and Seungmin has deleted ten drafts before he realizes: he isn’t supposed to have a reason. A motivation.
The entire point of Jude is that he’s searching for a reason. A motivation. The tragedy of his character is that he finds none, and his acceptance of that is what sparks Galatea to find her own reason for why she’s there. His life is her first dip into human kindness, separate from the environment that Pygmalion made her in. His death is her first experience into darkness, and the discovery of what humanity means.
Jude settles into Seungmin’s mind like a second soul, weighing on his bones and every fiber of his being.
His first shoot happens at the start of the sixth day, because Chris has scheduled the shoot to go chronologically. It’s uncommon, but the location of Levanter doesn’t change much.
The first few days of shooting went fine. It’s mostly him and Taylor-Joy’s unnamed character, talking and bonding. He’s unjudgemental, kind even with the Galatea's eccentricities.
It’s the start of the studio-walk scene, where he looks at all the paintings he’s done, when everything starts to go wrong.
It’s the twentieth take, filming ended two hours ago, the whole crew is exhausted, Hyunjin looks like he wants to eviscerate Seungmin, and Chris had cut him off mid-scene over ten times already.
“For fuck’s sake, Seungmin. Can’t you put some fucking emotion in?” Chris snaps, when the crew is halfway gone, his hair a mess from how much he’s ran his hand through it. “How hard is it to not look like a fucking robot?”
“Maybe if you had stopped interrupting me, I'd stop acting like one,” he shoots back. Faintly, from the corner, he sees Minho walk in with Felix.
It’s not that Seungmin dislikes Chris. He likes him as a friend. Tentatively, now, since their last film together. But he’s never gotten along well with Director Bahng.
“I wouldn’t have to interrupt you if you just tried. Jesus Christ you’re making this difficult for no—”
Seungmin laughs, stalking towards Chris, who’s now getting up from his chair. “—You want to talk about being difficult, Chris? You, of all people?”
“Oh don’t play the saint, Seungmin, it doesn’t suit you.”
“It doesn’t suit you either, so step off your high horse—”
“Oh we’re talking about high horses now? Should I also bring up the countless times you thought you were too good for the script—”
“Maybe you should’ve thought about that before you chased me down after everything I told you why I didn’t want to work on your film. Except you blatantly ignore all of that and you still—”
“Because I thought that you could be a fucking professional and not act like some child who—”
“Oh fuck you, Chris. You don’t get to say all that after being a fucking asshole and using your stupid script and vision as an excuse instead of—”
“After what? After fame got to your head and suddenly, you’re too good for basic acting classes? Who knew that after just a few—”
“Maybe if you weren’t such a goddamn asshole and desperate to prove that the Academy awards and nominations weren’t a fluke—”
“Enough, for fuck’s sake,” Felix finally interrupts, and he’s inbetween them, his back towards Seungmin, hand on Chris’s shoulder.
“You aren’t a fucking child anymore, Christopher,” Felix seethes, his voice harsh and low. “So stop acting like one.”
Chris throws his hands up, “You’re calling me a child when Seungmin here can’t even—”
“So you deal with it like any other director and you stop acting like a goddamn cunt about it!” he continues, voice leaving no room for argument. “You wanted him in the film, so you stop fucking antagonizing him—”
“Well that was before I realized just how much he had a stick up his ass—”
“This isn’t God’s Menu, Christopher,” Felix snaps. “Did you forget the deal we had?”
“Of course you take his side—”
“I’m not on anyone’s side except the side of getting this movie made and released without anything blowing up in our fucking faces,” Felix fires back, voice seething with a controlled sharpness. “You don’t get to do that again. And you fucking know it.”
When Chris goes silent, Felix turns to him, but the rage in his eyes hasn’t faded at all.
“And you,” he continues, his voice still low but not as harsh. “I thought you were better than this.”
“Jesus Christ Felix—”
“Don’t ‘Jesus Christ’ me. Thanks to you, we’re behind schedule and we have to shoot the whole thing again the next day.”
A beat of silence, then Felix exhales, “We’re wrapping up for today. Neither of you have an excuse to go overtime tomorrow. And we finish this in less than five takes tomorrow or I’m going to call the execs myself and have you explain why the fuck we went over the budget.”
It’s final, and both of them know it. Chris respects Felix too much to put up a big fight, and Seungmin’s never been that kind of person either way.
Still, he turns and storms away, slamming the door close on the way. Minho chases after him.
“If I wasn’t your assistant, I’d have waited for a fist-fight,” Minho mutters, smiling.
“Fuck off.”
“I’ll put that in your schedule for tomorrow, Seungminnie.”
Ten minutes later, there’s a knock on the trailer door.
“I said fuck off, Minho,” he yells.
Felix yells back, “Thank goodness I’m not Minho, then.”
Seungmin sighs, then yanks the door open. Felix stands outside with his signature coat and a scarf around his neck, his hair tied up messily.
“Did you have to humiliate both of us in front of the crew?”
“Did you have to start a temper tantrum?” He asks back, stepping inside.
“For fuck’s sake—”
“If I didn’t, both of you would’ve assumed favoritism,” Felix says, leaning against the door. “And if I don’t let you two yell at each other for a while, you probably would’ve punched him the next time he cut you off.”
“So why are you here? You got your point across—we’re both immature children and we can’t be professional and we are late on schedule.”
“I talked to Chris. He took it out on me. So now, I’m here if you want to dish anything out.”
“You’re not a goddamn punching bag, Felix.”
“The set isn’t your rage room either,” he shoots back. “Come on, don’t hold back. I’ve been through worse. And I’d rather not have another incident like this again.”
Seungmin breathes out, fingers digging into the fiber of his jeans. The anger is mostly gone, he’s never been someone to hold much of a grudge. “You know I won’t do that.”
Felix is silent, then he’s guiding Seungmin to sit down on his bed. “What’s wrong? Can you tell me that, at least?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I’m just tired and put up with his bullshit.”
“Haha, very funny. You’re not that good of an actor.”
He smiles, but it’s a weak thing. “SAG said otherwise.”
Felix hums, “I’ll concede when it’s the Academy.”
The laugh that erupts from Seungmin is harsher than he expected, hollowing and empty. “I don’t even want that fucking award anymore.”
A beat. And, “What’s wrong, Seungmin?”
“I just—” he takes a shuddering breath, and cracks under Felix’s gaze. “I don’t like the person I am when I’m working with him.”
“Oh, Seungmin,” Felix tugs on Seungmin’s shoulders lightly, and it’s so easy to melt into his embrace, to let himself wrap his arms around Felix and bury himself under the comfort of his beating heart.
“Do you think if I hadn’t done God’s Menu, we would be different?”
“There is no we, Seungmin,” Felix replies, barely above a whisper.
Seungmin had forgotten that with Felix as a producer, came an unmeasurable heartache. Holding Felix like this hurts him deeper than any superficial, skin-deep wound. It’s prickly and thorny from the inside out, carves out spaces of him like Jude, and just horribly sad, because how does someone miss something they’ve never even had?
The worst months of Seungmin’s life, ironically, include the two months after Miroh won the award at the Oscars.
That’s the funny thing about venomous words. It’s just as addicting and deadly as ecstasy and heroin and all the drugs they warn kids not to shoot up their arm.
Fraud. Liar. Privileged. Rigged. The internet said.
They dug up his school records, harassed and sent him death threats until Seungmin threw his phone into a nearby lake.
Stray Kids came out, filled with two years of classes that he began even before Miroh began shooting, and Seungmin is dragged through the metaphorical mud again.
The fuck is this? Some kid’s musical?
He dances like a chicken.
That’s the issue with Hollywood directors who think they’ve hit it big. They think anything they make will be worth watching, when it isn’t.
He said he started taking acting classes, right? Is he lying?
Then, the Lanthimos film.
Seungmin’s best performance to date. He fits these gritty, dark roles. It’s a far cry from his Miroh and Stray Kids performance, and a much better one.
I didn’t know he had range. He’s awkward, yeah, but better. Pales in comparison, though.
One hit wonder. I’m calling it. Miroh was a fluke.
The stupid thing is, and always will be, the countless other people who never said anything similar. Seungmin knew, in the back of his mind, he was cherry-picking all the horribleness. But back then, it hadn’t felt like that. A drop of poison is still, after all, poison.
Not even when Felix stormed into his apartment and yelled at him, hours and hours until his voice strained, for him to see any semblance of reason.
But it’s impossible to tell a blind man to see.
God’s Menu came, and Chris approached him. He too, was hungry for another Academy award, nomination, anything to prove that Miroh wasn’t a fraud and he wasn’t a fraud and Seungmin wasn’t a fraud.
So Seungmin agreed, without even reading the script.
God’s Menu is a mirror of Seungmin and Chris’s hunger back then. A story about a chef so intent on making the perfect dish, he ruins himself and others to transcend simple pleasure and ecstasy.
It was a psychological horror and thriller from beginning to finish, in ways more than one.
The production itself was a nightmare. Part of it came from Chris’s insistence that God’s Menu would be his best work yet, and the other part from the mounting pressure from the public.
It was a three month shoot that stretched to nine—the ice had melted for one of the essential opening scenes, and they had to relocate two times. Crew members got sick while traveling, equipment was damaged because of improper handling from replacement members.
The whole time, Chris was asking for dozens and dozens of takes for the same scenes, so Seungmin did his parts again and again until his fingertips pruned from the fake blood and his hands blistered from holding the knives. Until his meltdown scenes no longer required tear sticks because they were real, and Seungmin was actively having an hours-long meltdown as he filmed take after take, day after day.
And that’s not accounting for the fact that half the crew wanted to quit, the executives breathing down their necks, the paparazzi leaking the footage, and the fucking drug problem from the other producer that made it into the news and turned the whole thing into an utter nightmare.
The only reason why God’s Menu even managed to finish production and release, was Felix.
Felix who kept the crew from quitting, who dealt with all of Chris’s stupid perfectionism and Seungmin’s meltdowns and the executives holding a knife to their necks. Someone had to appease the studio, to keep their head afloat when everyone else was drowning and everything else was burning.
Seungmin knew Felix to be someone who wasn’t used to problems he couldn’t solve, not if he just needed to break his back over it.
He took control with an iron fist, he got people into place, he slept on set every other day. He gave up bleaching his hair, and cut it haphazardly until it was short enough once it got too long.
It came to a head when Seungmin, in one of his ending scenes, stabbed an ice pick into his own hand.
He hadn’t felt the pain, and the table was already filled with so much fake blood, no one noticed. His mind was elsewhere, deep and buried in a coffin, bolted under dozens of vaults.
They only stopped because one of the camera guys had caught it, and then, the ambulance got called.
No damages to nerves or muscles. Seungmin had been lucky.
Next thing he knew, he was sent back from the hospital and in his own trailer with Felix cradling his bandaged hand, looking ten years older and fifteen pounds lighter.
Felix’s hair was dark. He’d been so tired, stressed, pulled thin at every corner, that he’d forgotten to keep re-bleaching his hair. It washes his complexion out, makes him look sickly and too-pale.
“You can’t do this to yourself,” he had begged, cheeks wet from the silent tears. It was the first time he saw Felix cry in the four, almost five years he’s known him. “Seungmin, please. You and Chris—you’re all ruining yourselves and I can’t lose you, please. Just quit—you’ll be fine. You’ve got the other projects lined up. I’ll make an excuse, I’ll take the blame. Just please, leave this forsaken project.”
He thinks he kissed him then, and Felix had surged, accepting the desperate reach for affection and something close to comfort, a promise that it'll eventually all be okay.
It’s the first, on-the-mouth kiss they’ve had since Miroh won.
Before, Felix always just kissed his cheek or his neck, quick pecks of affection, the same he did for Hyunjin.
Seungmin doesn’t remember most of how filming for God’s Menu went. But he did remember that night, kissing the salty trails on Felix’s cheeks away, watching as he stretched himself, and then fucking into him.
The animalness of it all pulled him back, if only briefly—Felix’s blunt nails dragging themselves down his back, his arched back and locked ankles, the wetness in his eyes that fell down and mixed with their saliva. It was an emotional and physical release, a pleasurable kind of pain that brought burning tears and gasping breaths.
Seungmin took that pain, the self-flagellation, the twisting want, and—in a stupid attempt to keep it with him forever—placed it into his character.
Fucked up as it was, it’s simultaneously the best and worst thing that ever happened on the God’s Menu set. It’s the thing that completed his character, just that little sliver of humanity in his descent to madness.
Seungmin’s crooked heart is what drives the famous third act of the film, his unspoken words turned into a performance that would be immortalized in Hollywood history.
He can’t remember most of what happened in the God’s Menu set. In practice, he knows. But it’s like seeing movies—he sees what happened, he knows the story, but it’s like he never lived it.
He’s tried, he’s gone to neurologists and psychologists and therapists, but nothing. All of them said the same thing—chronic stress. It made him an amnesiac spectator, because it was easier that way than to remember everything that happened.
Most of what he knows is from articles written about the movie, anecdotes from crew members who were bribed by TMZ reporters, and Hyunjin.
Hyunjin was the cinematographer, held Felix throughout the first screening of the film at the TCL, then dragged Chris and Seungmin backstage afterwards. He dislocated Seungmin’s nose, and broke Chris’s.
“You selfish pieces of shits,” he had yelled, voice strained with unbridled rage, knuckles red from the blood. “Burn in hell for all I fucking care.”
And with that, he left, leaving the two of them behind stage, unmistakable bruises on their mouths with a month of interviews to go.
On the last day of his shooting schedule, Hyunjin comes up to him, hands in his pockets and looking like he wants to be anywhere else but next to Seungmin.
“Are you going to break my nose again?”
He snickers, “I didn’t break it the first time. Should I finish the job?”
“You got close enough,” he replies. Next to him, Hyunjin sighs, and lights a cigarette.
“I didn’t know you smoked.”
“You don’t know a lot of things,” he snaps.
“You’re right.” He digs his hand into his own pocket, and pulls out a half-filled pack. Before he could take one out, Hyunjin yanks it away and, with an alarming precision, throws it into the garbage can ten feet away.
“Why the fuck would you smoke!?”
Seungmin blinks at him, “But you’re—”
“Did you see me actually smoke it? Felix and I have been trying to quit, something about both of us and lung cancer—”
“Felix smoked? Wait, so why are you—”
Hyunjin glares at him, “I’m supposed to be apologizing to you. Because he wants me to. So I’m doing you a favor.”
It’s hard to wrap his head around Hyunjin’s brilliance in photography sometimes. It’s also just as hard to understand his reasoning.
“Um. Apology accepted?”
“Who said I was apologizing? You and Chris, egotistical bastards think you deserve it after all the shit you put Lix through? Don’t make me laugh, Seungmin.”
He closes his mouth.
“Stop smoking. Felix doesn’t like it.” With that, he walks away.
“Happy that you're done?” Felix peeks in, holding a tupperware of brownies. All from the edge of the tray, sprinkled with sea salt, and smelling like Seungmin’s favorite brand of coffee.
“I don’t deserve you,” he murmurs, and Felix laughs, cheeks rosy.
He’s freshly showered, judging by the sweater he’s wearing, and his damp hair. He walks towards Seungmin, who moves over on his bed to make room. He sets the tupperware on the cabinet, and climbs in.
“Hyunjin talked to me today.”
Felix pauses, “What?”
“He told me to quit smoking and walked away.”
It takes a moment, but Felix huffs out a breath, amused. “You know how he is.”
Dramatic, but caring. Seungmin knows.
“I thought he was going to finish my nose job.”
Felix winces, leaning against Seungmin, hands playing with the threadbare covers of the blankets. “He was just worried about me.”
“Don’t, Chris and I deserved it. And worse.”
“You weren't yourself.”
“Doesn’t mean I wasn’t horrible.”
Felix sighs, “Seungmin.”
“If Hyunjin lost it, I had to have been horrible.” He exhales, shaky. “I think about it every night, you know? I even watch the movie sometimes just to try and remember, but every single time, I can’t and all I have are these stupid TMZ articles and I’m sure that I was the worst person ever if you got hospitalized for weeks after filming ending and I didn’t even fucking visit you because I was too in my own—”
He stops, digging his fingers into his own palms.
“I really don't deserve you.” Then, with his voice cracking. “I miss you. So fucking much.”
“Not if you can’t forgive yourself,” Felix murmurs, and then he’s threading their fingers together. “Remember what you asked me, that day you and Chris fought?”
Seungmin thinks for a bit, “If I hadn’t done God’s Menu, what we could’ve been?”
Felix nods, “I thought about it, and I don’t think we could’ve been anything.”
Something breaks in his heart, quiet but sure.
“Oh.”
“Because the Seungmin I knew would never have turned down a role like that,” Felix continues, rubbing his knuckles with his thumb. “Like it or not, he would’ve accepted it and been horrible.”
“I wish I didn’t.”
“I know,” Felix replies, meeting his eyes. “But then, you wouldn’t be you. You wouldn’t have drive, grit, and everything else that I admired in you.”
“Angel, please,” he thinks he’s on the verge of tears, and he hasn’t cried in so long. Not since seeing Felix again at the SAG awards.
“You wouldn’t have learned, and you wouldn’t have changed,” Felix’s own voice is thick with emotion, his eyes shiny and his freckles like the city nightscape. “And I wouldn’t have forgiven or loved you for it.”
After all these years and hundreds of Hollywood stars, he is still the most beautiful person Seungmin knows.
“I’m sorry,” he manages out, and then, Felix’s hands are wiping his tears away, just like how he did back when Miroh won its first Oscar, back when they first kissed but weren’t brave enough to go further. “Felix, I’m so, so fucking sorry.”
“It’ll be okay,” Felix murmurs back, and his arms are wrapped around Seungmin like it’s the only thing that’ll keep him from shattering into a thousand pieces. “We’ll be okay.”
God’s Menu, despite everything that happened, swept the nominations at the Oscars—Best Picture, Actor, Cinematography, Production Design, Supporting Actor, Sound, Score, Director.
In a twist of irony, it won Best Picture. And only Best Picture.
Felix wasn’t at the Oscars. Instead, Hyunjin had accepted the award for him, commended Felix’s efforts for the difficult film, thanked the crew and everyone he was contracted to thank, and stepped off stage.
Seungmin took half a year from acting after filming for God’s Menu ended, and Minho forced him into therapy.
It’s not until Scorsese sent him a script that Seungmin finally agreed, and stepped into another set.
Winning Best Actor at the SAG Awards felt almost as surreal as the first time Miroh won.
One moment, Seungmin was looking at his own face on screen along with the other nominees. The next, his name was called out, and suddenly, Minho was forcing him to stand up while yelling in his ear.
Seungmin remembers stepping on stage, feeling awfully alone and unprepared, hands shaking. He hoped he said something important, that his voice didn’t shake, he’s always been good at improv. But he didn’t know, not in the moment, at least.
It was a weird feeling.
One of the most prestigious awards he could ever get, and at his age—it was something Seungmin used to only dream of, and it destroyed him. It ruined one of the best things in his life, and here he is, holding the award without the person that made him stay in the industry.
Then, they’re cuing him to wrap up his speech, and he does. He thinks it was okay-enough, everyone stood and clapped, after all.
It’s only as he’s walking back that he spots Felix. He’s sitting with the cast of one of the nominated films, a Nolan one, if Seungmin remembers correctly. Hyunjin is by his side, hands on his lap, but Felix is clapping, and he’s making eye contact with Seungmin.
The world tilts, and his body becomes a puppet at the whims of his own desperation.
Then, he’s standing and opening his arms, and Seungmin feels his crushing embrace before he realizes he’s holding onto Felix with a death grip, disbelieving and half-convinced he’s dreaming.
In the next few minutes, once the livestream on Youtube catches up and the pictures are released and there’s people who’ll examine what little the camera showed of their past interactions, it’ll be another Hollywood story. People will speculate, they’ll dredge up the smallest comments and every look Seungmin and Felix have given each other, all in a mad frenzy to find a story.
That’s the thing about Hollywood—everyone wants a Hollywood story. But no one wants to talk about how Hollywood is a place where they’ll give millions for a well-shot kiss and fifty cents for a soul.
If there’s anything Seungmin forgot in his years of acting, it’s just how intense real intimacy can be.
He’s never been in a romance film, but he’s had countless roles that required kissing, sex, and were in a relationship.
The takes are tiring, awkward sometimes, and cold because of the air conditioning on his bare skin. The modesty wear covers what they’re supposed to, and little else. Everything is practiced motion, even with the people he has good chemistry with, because it’s easier that way.
Time never passes fast enough on those shoots.
But with Felix, his entire understanding of time is warped and twisted, the seconds ticking by like honey. In theory, he should have enough experience. He’s kissed many people, countless times on set.
And yet, Seungmin finds himself shaking with anticipation, his heart racing. It always shocks him, the sudden awareness of how many nerve endings are on his hands whenever they’re on Felix’s skin.
It makes sense, in a way. He’s never had any finesse when it came to Felix.
“You’re staring,” Felix murmurs, batting his eyelashes.
“Says the one who’s holding my hand under his shirt,” Seungmin swallows, his mouth parched.
It’s irrational. They had sex just the night before, where Seungmin spent his time mapping the topography of Felix’s body with his mouth and tongue for the millionth time, sucking marks in the soft skin of his inner thighs and kissing the freckles there. He had pushed into Felix’s tight heat, pushed him to the edge and held him there until Felix was sobbing, a litany of pleasepleaseplease escaping his kiss-swollen lips.
It’s always like that, whether or not they end up losing their clothes. Everything Felix touches leaves trails of fire on Seungmin’s skin, eating at him from the inside out. The wildfire began sometime after Levanter, and it hasn’t stopped since.
Every time he presses into Felix, with his fingers, his tongue, or his cock, it’s not enough. They are simultaneously in the most intimate of embraces, and yet too far. Seungmin tries to close the gap with each kiss and prayer of Felix’s name whispered onto his skin, but it’s not enough. It will never be enough.
“You’re not pulling away.”
“I’m not,” Seungmin agrees. Seungmin is selfish, and he always will be, with Felix.
“We have time, baby.”
And he is infinitely lucky that Felix wants him too.
“Darling, you’re already dressed up.”
Felix is wearing an off-the-shoulder silken white blouse with loose sleeves that end at the elbow. The fabric is cinched at his waist, his back encased by a golden spinal cage. There’s a half-skirt laid over his pants, with gold accenting the white, silky fabric, and he’s wearing a pair of pumps with golden circlets around his ankles.
His makeup is done too, black eyeliner and shimmering gold dust around the corners of his eyes, small silver stars drawn on his cheekbones. His hair is tied up in a bun, with small braids and long bangs that frame his face, and his nails are painted white.
He looks like he belongs on the cover of Vogue, not the red carpet of an award show as Seungmin’s plus one.
“Are you saying I don’t look good enough?”
“I’m saying we’ll be late to the red carpet, and I’d love to skip it entirely but—”
“What if I say I prepped myself in the shower?”
Seungmin closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, thumb rubbing at the jut of Felix’s hip bone.
“Lix, please,” he pleads, then sighs, and pulls Felix in by the waist.
“You usually have less self-control,” Felix murmurs, and leans up.
Seungmin doesn’t pull away from the kiss, licking into his mouth and suckling Felix’s tongue until he’s making soft noises.
“After,” he pulls away with difficulty, pressing another kiss to Felix’s cheek. “I promise.”
Felix hums, “That’s fine. You always fuck me better when you’re pent up anyways.”
“Oh my god did I walk into you two foreplaying?” Hyunjin shrieks.
“Is that why you’re so early?” Felix fires back without missing a beat. “You voyeurist freak.”
“I’m the freak? Felix Yongbok Lee, you’re in my house—“
“Don’t wait for us at the afterparty,” Seungmin replies, ignoring the way Hyunjin blanches, and instead admiring the way Felix is smiling at him, teeth worrying his lower lip.
Seungmin feels himself smile before he realizes it. It happens a lot with Felix—he’ll randomly realize that his cheeks ache, and it’s because Felix makes him smile and laugh as easily as breathing..
He’s dizzy with the brand of Felix’s radiance, drunken on his love, and so unbearably happy.
“Carry me back to home too,” Felix adds, tapping his heels. “Because my feet are going to hurt.”
“I can bring flats.”
“That defeats the whole purpose of carrying me back to the car and then to our bed.”
Seungmin hums, “No flats then.”