Chapter Text

Seungmin wakes up with a bad feeling.

Maybe it's the abnormally loud kitchen, empty bed, gloomy weather, or all three. Seungmin moves slowly around his apartment, mourning the comfortable bed. When he finishes using the bathroom, and opens his bedroom door and is greeted with an oddly full apartment.

Minho, Felix, and Chan are usual occupants, but Seungmin is surprised at the rest of the lineup. Just about every member of his staff is there; not just his manager Chan, but the entire staff essentially. Stylist, makeup artist, publicist, agent, everyone he works with consistently. He counts at least twenty people overcrowding his apartment. Seungmin blinks once. Twice. Thrice. They're still all there and it hurts when he pinches himself, so he's definitely not dreaming.

"...Good morning?"

From the exhausted looks on their faces when they swivel their heads and set their eyes on Seungmin, he supposes it isn't a good morning.

"Seungmin, you," Chan starts tiredly, sighing. "Never mind, just come over."

"Okay..?" Seungmin replies anxiously, waddling over to sit down beside Chan.

Chan shoves his laptop in Seungmin's face for the second time that week. This time, a singular image fills up the screen. At first, Seungmin is perplexed– what on the world is he looking at? His second thought it, who in the world am I walking down the street with, holding hands and being all intimate with? Then, his final thought is oh.

"Isn't this the scene I filmed with Mi-gyeong?" Seungmin asks, relieved there isn't more to be concerned about.

"Yeah, yeah it is. For the episode due to go on air three months later," Chan replies, emphasizing the time frame. "There's no way for people to know it's part of the drama. And we can't get in contact with the studio right now so we can't legally release a public statement yet."

Another image comes on the screen, and Chan asks Seungmin a question. "What do you make of this image?"

"Uh, is that Cha Eunwoo? Oh, it's from that drama right, True Beauty?"

"No. They're saying it's Kim Seungmin on a date with Moon Ga-young."

Seungmin groans. He should've stayed longer in bed.

It starts like this: Seungmin falls off of a tree entranced by a cat and it's owner. It's going like this: Seungmin is moping and mourns the presence of the cute cat owner.

No. Seungmin is moping. He wouldn't be moping over a stranger. He wouldn't. Seungmin would never ever, ever, ever mope over someone, especially someone he never even met until recently, someone who wouldn't even know his name or remember him at all. Seungmin is better, he's cool, calm, collected, admirable-

"Stop moping, Seungminnie."

Seungmin swivels around towards to source of the words, cheeks puffed, brows knitted together indignantly and ready to argue with the perpetrator. He glances up to the bleachers and sees Felix, all sunny and smiling down at him. "I'm not moping Felix. Like, I would never mope. Mope. That's a funny word, isn't it? Moping, nope, just not for me."

"Seungminnie you are totally moping right now. So, so mopey! It's okay, I accept you just as mopey as you are," Felix giggles. "You're, like, totally out of it today. I haven't seen you be so unfocused and zoned out ever. There's this huge dark cloud hanging over your head, as if you're a sad character in a cartoon."

"Okay, that's just a complete exaggeration. I am perfectly fine. I'm not mopey. At all."

"No, no, I'm not. You're being soooo mopey. Super extremely most exceptionally, exceedingly mopey. What's wrong? You've been acting strange all week, to be honest."

Seungmin pauses, pondering intensly. Has he really been that out of it this week? Sure, he's been a bit (just a little bit) absorbed in his own head (read: he can't get the cute cat owner out of his head), but he doesn't think he's been acting that strange. Not as much as Felix is making him out to be. At least that's what he thinks. So, he reaches a conclusion and decides to play it cool.

"Not sure what you're on about, 'Lix, I've been completely normal this week," Seungmin replies casually. "Completely normal. Total normal-ness. Just the usual. Norm. Nothing out of place."

"Uh huh. Go on."

"Perfectly ordinary. Extremely conventional. Common. Regular. Everyday routine. Routinely?"

Felix's laugh brings Seungmin rant, and he flushes. "Seungmin, did you study a thesaurus last night for all the synonyms of normal?"

"No. Absolutely not. Negative. Of course not. Never. No-"

"Okay, you know what? I'm not gonna press you for answers," Felix sighs. "You wanna ditch practice? I don't think you've been paying attention to baseball anyways. The art club's hosting a gallery walk of some kind and Hyunjin has his own corner section in that tiny club room. He told me to drag you along."

Seungmin smiles gently. "Okay, 'Lix. Let's go." The thank you for leaving it alone is unsaid, but they can both understand.

And if Chan notices Seungmin ditching with Felix he doesn't stop them or comment on it the next practice.

There was no other word to describe Seungmin's week so far except hectic and conplete chaos. It's going absolutely downhill in every way possible. It's also only Monday.

You know, he wakes up Sunday morning, apparently he's in love with Moon Ga-young. Last week it was Lee Mi-gyeong, but apparently he's a bit of a player now, too.

So all in all his great is going amazing. Swimmingly, you might say. Terrifically in the worst ways possible. He swears the universe is against him or something.

"It's like watching a train wreck happen in slow motion, except there's nothing you can do but observe," as Hyunjin had so kindly put it. (None of it was Hyunjin's fault, of course, but Seungmin was frustrated and ended up glaring at Hyunjin all day until he got told off by Minho of all people.)

Minho. Seungmin has been busy all week, and rarely spoke with his husband. He feels guilty now thinking about it- Minho's been very understanding and all, but it can't be fun having strangers in your apartment all day and also providing for them, He wasn't a maid or whatever, but he'd been taking days off from work to accommodate for the uninvited guests.

Seungmin realises he hasn't really discussed the dating scandals with him at all. Not one bit. What kind of husband was he? What if it affected Minho a lot? He was so thoughtless for that, he-

"Geez stop thinking so loud, Seungminnie. You're going to fill the entire house with all your overthinking."

Seungmin breaks off his internal monologue to see Hyunjin standing at the doorway looking at him, concern laced into his expression.

"I'm not overthinking."

"Yes, yes you absolutely are," Hyunjin argues, entering the living room and bounding across the room to drop down and sit beside Seungmin on the couch. "What's got you in a spiral? Don't lie. I'm not leaving this room until you tell me."

They enter a staring (glaring) contest until Seungmin gives up. He sighs, exhausted.

For a while, there's silent anticipation until Seungmin finally speaks up. "I'm worried about Minho," Seungmin admits quietly, looking towards the bedroom where Minho is currently.

"Like, what if he's affected by the dating scandals and stuff? Does this make me a bad husband for not realising this might affect him? Am I inconsiderate for not thinking about these things until right now?"

"Woah woah woah, let's calm down a bit," Hyunjin shoots back, eyes wide. "That's a lot to unpack. I'm not gonna pretend to be an expert and give you amazing counselling, but why aren't you, you know, speaking to Minho about it?"

"Oh."

Hyunjin snickers. "That's right, "oh". Bet you didn't think of proper communication when it comes to these situations. Then again, you guys have always been a bit telepathic to the points where you forget to actually communicate and realise you're not actually telepathic but rather good at observation but lacking in the proper, upfront, straight up communication department."

"Can you stop psychoanalyzing me and my husband?"

"Were you not asking me to?"

"You're so annoying."

"Not nearly as much as you."

"For the sake of my sanity," Chan sighs from the kitchen. "Please stop bickering and come and help me with the paperwork if you're just going to sit around all day and gossip."