The original statement wasn’t quite that trashy, but in Jion’s mind, Seonwoo Jin was already an image of an irredeemable shameless idol who violated commercial morality, so Jion’s summary of his statement was so distorted that even the speaker himself couldn’t deduce it.
“I said that?”
“Yeah, well, something similar……”
“I did? I did?”
Seonwoo Jin pointed at himself with a dumbfounded expression. And after thinking for a while, he remembered what he’d said and burst out laughing with an “Ah.”
“No, if you put it that way, I sound like total trash.”
Seonwoo Jin still didn’t know that Jion saw him as exactly that much of trash.
“That’s just literally…… I like that people like me? That’s what it means.”
When summarized like this again, it sounded like a statement very fitting for the idol profession. But Jion didn’t fall for it and pressed on.
“Not limited to the opposite sex?”
“Even better if it’s the opposite sex?”
“Even when you have a lover?”
“Of course? You don’t like it?”
Mm, as expected of an empty-headed guy with no principles, no purity, and no backbone. Jion nodded.
“Well, I…… if I have a lover, I think it’s right to be careful not to get involved with other members of the opposite sex…… to keep some distance, you know?”
“Is that so?”
It’s not “is that so,” it IS so. Does he think he’s a Hollywood star just because he can act a little?
Jion cursed at Seonwoo Jin’s shameless face inwardly. But the face of Seonwoo Jin being cursed at was just shining smoothly and looking more handsome than usual.
“I just like everyone who says they like me.”
And to the point where that handsome face seemed wasted, Seonwoo Jin dropped a bomb statement that made him seem to have no self-esteem or thoughts.
“Aren’t you like that? When someone says they like me, I just feel good, and I guess my heart leans toward them a bit too? Anyway, I start to like them. A person can like multiple people at once, you know.”
Ah, so this is why he had those cheating scandals even during his public relationship and got cursed at for branch-swinging romance.
It was a shocking confession of falling for anyone instantly. At the suddenly realized source of his frivolousness, Jion was hit with deep reality-checking while complex emotions surged in and his mind became clear yet dazed.
What do they call this? Sudden enlightenment followed by gradual cultivation?
Maybe because his body was younger, his brain worked faster too—things he’d learned in high school swirled through his mind and disappeared. And in the place where all that information passed through, a sense of crisis remained.
Even though he already has a lover, if someone says they like him, his heart immediately wavers—isn’t this a 24/7 scandal standby state?
It seemed impossible to prevent disaster unless they locked him in a temple or just fundamentally cut off all contact with the opposite sex. Who could not like a man who looks like this?
Looking at Seonwoo Jin, who seemed like he’d auto-fire “I like you” just from making eye contact, Jion’s heart felt suffocated.
“Huu……”
“Why are you suddenly sighing?”
Still, having at least minimal awareness, Seonwoo Jin’s expression soured as he realized Jion’s sigh was because of his answer. Jion quickly soothed Seonwoo Jin, worried their barely-grown closeness might grow distant.
“No, it’s because you’re too handsome……”
“……Huh?”
“You’re so handsome that every woman who sees you will say they like you, so what if you like all those people back?”
It could sound like flattery, but it could also become reality. Seonwoo Jin’s expression softened, taking Jion’s honest and realistic worry as a compliment.
“Ey……”
“Really. What if it becomes Seonwoo Jin and Three Thousand Court Ladies?”
“I’m not that much. How could I meet 3,000 people at once?”
So you’d meet about three or four to a dozen or so at a time?
When Jion, who still couldn’t see Seonwoo Jin favorably, looked at him with a still worried expression, Seonwoo Jin thumped his chest and answered in a confident voice.
“I’ll only meet one at a time, really. Promise.”
“No, Woojin……”
Jion sighed even more deeply.
“You shouldn’t meet any. We’re still failed idols.”
“Ah.”
“We promised Geon-hyung, didn’t we? That until we establish ourselves, we won’t cause problems with the opposite sex and stuff.”
“……Yeah. We did, right.”
“You didn’t forget, did you?”
At Seonwoo Jin’s ambiguous expression that looked like he’d forgotten no matter how you looked at it, Jion activated his special technique. Moistening his eyelashes a bit, mixing in a slight nasal tone, then looking up from below Seonwoo Jin’s chin while pleading.
“……You’re sooooo handsome, Woojin, I’m sooooo anxious and scared……”
“……What’s there to be anxious and scared about?”
“You’re not betraying me and secretly contacting and meeting girls behind my back, right?”
“What would I be betraying you for……”
Even while thinking his own speech pattern sounded like a squid-protecting-yandere-obsessive-suspicious-girlfriend, Jion couldn’t stop his threats disguised as compliments.
“Even another guy looking at you finds you this handsome and heart-fluttering, so of course girls will like you. They’ll all confess to you.”
“……You too, even for a guy, you’re pretty. There must be lots of people who like you?”
“No, now that you’re even doing vocal practice and singing decently, your screen time will increase and you’ll get a lot of attention, so what do I do?”
“What do you mean, what do you do……”
At Jion’s baseless sycophantic worries and crisis-inducing brainwashing, a smile gradually began to appear on Seonwoo Jin’s lips. At the sight of Jion clinging to him almost as if embracing him while worrying, Seonwoo Jin believed he was sincerely complimenting him and felt a sense of duty to relieve his anxiety.
“Jion-ah, don’t you trust me?”
No, I don’t trust you.
“We don’t even have any schedules booked yet or any activities.”
“Still……”
“I’ll promise you.”
Seonwoo Jin grinned and held out his pinky finger.
“Even if our activities increase from now on and we get fans and things go well, I’ll behave myself so you won’t be anxious.”
“Really?”
“Of course. Just trust me.”
Somehow ‘me’ sounded like ‘oppa,’ but well, if he’s promising this much…… Jion was pleased with the successful initial brainwashing and hammered in the final nail.
“I really only trust you…… You’re the most handsome in our group and you draw people’s attention…… Your voice is good too…… You know you’re really cool when you rap, right? You have the best physique and the longest legs……”
“Ey, stop it. That’s embarrassing.”
Even though his ears turned red from happiness, Seonwoo Jin waved his hand pretending otherwise. A good-looking attention-seeker in his early twenties starved for affection was this easy to handle. Jion let out a light sigh while holding Seonwoo Jin’s hand.
“I’m really relying only on you for our activities, you know?”
“……Yeah, yeah…… Of course. I know.”
It sounded like gaslighting, but it was actually true. To make it as nobodies who’d just started getting attention, with no push, no capital, and no popularity, they needed overwhelming visuals and buzz. Having gained some buzz from the Six-Clove Garlic Festival, they needed to ride this momentum with these peak-condition looks.
“……Then shall we go to the salon tomorrow?”
“Huh?”
Jion smiled and naturally reached out to sweep back Seonwoo Jin’s hair. Fortunately, although Seonwoo Jin hesitated briefly, he didn’t avoid Jion’s touch.
Success in building familiarity?
A man in his twenties who stakes his life on his hair allowing someone to touch his hair is basically allowing everything. Jion inwardly cheered at successfully opening the door to his heart through embarrassingly sweet praise bombardment and acting weak, pretty, and delicate.
“The way I see it, if you really show your forehead this time and just add a slight perm to your roots, I think you’ll become five times more handsome than now.”
And the hairstyle he whispered about was the very style Seonwoo Jin changed to after his acting debut—the styling that made his beauty’s potential explode. A sophisticated hair that made even Jion’s heart skip a beat despite the accumulated bad feelings right after their disbandment, the hair that allowed him to ascend to the position of the nation’s younger boyfriend in one go.
“Is that so? I think short hair suits me better……”
“No, Woojin.”
Jion unconsciously put strength in his voice.
“I’m only looking at you.”
How you look best when styled which way, which color suits you best, which clothes look terrible on you, and which concept gets the worst response—the person who knows that is only me in this world right now.
It was a conviction only Jion, who knew the future, could have.
“I know you the best.”
Jion’s declaration grazed a slightly wrong place in Seonwoo Jin. However, neither of them knew that right now, and outside, rain poured down steadily.
“……I also feel like you understand and trust me the best. Let’s…… really live like brothers……”
“Of course. We’re one family. Since we debuted on the same day, we’ll live together and die together, got it?”
“Yeah, let’s be together forever.”
Seonwoo Jin, his face reddened by Jion’s powerful presence, shyly extended his hand. In the moisture-filled underground practice room, the two—same age in appearance, senior-junior in mental age—made a peach garden oath there. As expected of a man whose fortune was full of romantic stars.
And when they avoided the disaster of the studio flooding, the future changed a little. The president’s heart, who in the past had lost affection for BNCZ saying they only ate up money after barely debuting them, changed.
“Do you know the saying ‘an awl in a pocket’?”
The president, who was behind on trends, seemed to have only now received a report about the Six-Clove Garlic Festival viral, as he called the members to the company and began giving compliments mixed with unsolicited advice.
“When you individuals work hard like this, the public recognizes it all. Don’t just wait for the company to do something for you, okay?”
As if you ever did anything for us. But since they were the ones in need, there was no choice. Jion nodded with a bright smile.
“Yes…… So, we also have a proposal we’d like to make……”
“Yeah, sure, what is it?”
“How about we create and operate something like an official YouTube channel?”
