Chapter Text
If Kim Dokja was good at one thing, it was minding his business.
He only made it this far because of it: he didn’t ask questions, didn’t push any subject too far, and if he faded so far into the background that people shared secrets in front of him, he kept them to himself. He was as good as a literal fly on the wall. All he ever did as a kid was try to keep his head down, mostly, and even now that he was grown up and talkative and a little more confident, he kept his one rule: don’t fuck around, and don’t find out.
This was why when Han Sooyoung—someone who might as well always wear a sign around her neck that read WARNING! DRAMA! I’LL PULL YOU INTO SOME BULLSHIT!—approached him and said she needed a favor, Kim Dokja’s immediate answer was, “Absolutely not.”
“Please.”
“Absolutely not,” Kim Dokja said again, a little louder.
“It involves…” Han Sooyoung’s eyes darted around as if to make sure no one was listening. Kim Dokja considered reminding her that they were the only two people in his apartment. “Yoo Joonghyuk.”
At this, Kim Dokja paused. Han Sooyoung’s eyes flashed with victory. “What?” he said finally, his voice cracking on the vowel, and she grinned.
“You remember Yoo Sangah.”
Kim Dokja did remember Yoo Sangah: his old coworker and Han Sooyoung’s on-and-off girlfriend. He could never quite keep track of whether they were totally in love or at each other’s throats again, but judging from her expression, it was the former. “Yes,” he said. “She texted me book recommendations the other day. We still talk. You know that.”
Han Sooyoung perked up. “Which books? Has her taste gotten worse?” She shook her head. “Never mind, I should explain first. She does PR for Celestial now. Yoo Joonghyuk got put under her charge because,” here, Han Sooyoung rambled for around a minute and a half about what a bastard this guy was and how little everyone else wanted him, which Kim Dokja tuned out after the first three seconds, and then she said, “and—here’s the kicker—he wants to come out.”
“Come out,” repeated Kim Dokja, remembering Yoo Joonghyuk’s several public scandals with very beautiful women, not the least of which was an entire marriage to one. (Lee Seolhwa, lasted two years of endlessly gorgeous paparazzi candids, ended in a surprisingly amicable divorce. Kim Dokja liked to read tabloids on the train to pass the time. Tabloids really liked Yoo Joonghyuk’s love life.)
“Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of bisexuality.”
“Obviously I—you’re— I’m —” began Kim Dokja, but Han Sooyoung didn’t look like she was interested in this argument, so he sighed and gave up. “I don’t get what this has to do with the favor.”
“Can you let me set the goddamn scene?” she snapped. Kim Dokja rolled his eyes but fell silent, and she cleared her throat. “Anyway, the reason he wants to come out is because he has a big LGBT role in a certain someone’s upcoming television show," she pointed at herself, smirking, and Kim Dokja rolled his eyes again, "and it’ll do wonders for the press. And also some personal bullshit about it being the right time or whatever. Yoo Sangah figured the most natural way to make that happen was to give him a boyfriend. She asked me if I knew anyone, since she wants someone that’s basically the opposite of him—you know, boring, not famous, ugly, untalented—”
“You can stop now.”
“And I said, hey! I know a guy with all those qualities. Isn’t that crazy?”
At times like these, Kim Dokja often wondered how many mistakes he made in his long, arduous twenty-eight years to get in this position. Instead of saying this, though, he said, “There are lots of other people who aren’t famous.”
“None that are integrated with enough famous people to make this seem natural.” Kim Dokja had to concede this point: between Han Sooyoung, Yoo Sangah, Uriel, and the army of famous acquaintances they introduced to him, he definitely knew more celebrities than the average office worker.
“Okay,” he said, “but… why would I agree?”
“Yoo Joonghyuk,” replied Han Sooyoung emphatically. When Kim Dokja just stared at her, unimpressed, she sighed. “And we’ll pay you.”
“How much?”
“Ten million won.”
“Ten million won per week.”
“Per month.”
“Deal,” said Kim Dokja. He paused. “Hey, what if he doesn’t agree? You said he’s kind of a bastard, right?”
Han Sooyoung snorted. “ Kind of is underselling it. But if he wants the role, which he does, he’ll go for it. I’ll set up a meeting tomorrow. Don’t be late.”
“You’re the one who’s gonna drive me,” Kim Dokja called, “so you don’t be late.”
Han Sooyoung just flipped him off as she left.
✯✯✯✯✯
As much as Han Sooyoung made fun of him for it, Kim Dokja really didn’t have feelings for Yoo Joonghyuk.
Or, more accurately: to call them feelings would be an exaggeration. He wasn’t above admiring a man’s appearance, and Yoo Joonghyuk was possibly the most beautiful person to exist in the last few centuries. Of course, it helped that Yoo Joonghyuk had his breakout role as the teenage heartthrob star of a long-running action drama Kim Dokja had watched from when he was fifteen to when he graduated from university. It was the first thing he’d gotten invested in after…
Anyway, he was in a vulnerable place, and he saw Yoo Joonghyuk’s beautiful face on a show he loved every week for years on end, and he got a little invested in the man’s life. Not to a frightening extent—he’d never stalked the guy, or even asked any of his friends to introduce him—but just through the little things. He kept up with his obviously publicist-run social media pages. He looked at the interviews he did. He watched all the projects he was in and read the reviews.
All this meant in practicality was that Kim Dokja was intensely well-acquainted with just how much of an asshole Yoo Joonghyuk could apparently be, and he was feeling a little complicated about it. He could see their meeting in his mind’s eye: Yoo Joonghyuk would sling an insult at him, or maybe throw him into a wall. Kim Dokja would leave, fake-boyfriendless and humiliated, and then he’d be out of a show to rewatch whenever he needed a little comfort. The more he thought about it, the more he realized this might not be worth even ten million won a month. He could always make do with shitty convenience store meals. He wasn’t sure if he could make do without Scenario One .
“Is it too late to pull out?”
“Yes,” said Han Sooyoung, dragging him bodily out of the car. “You should’ve asked ten minutes ago.”
Kim Dokja made a noise between a groan and a whine just as Han Sooyoung opened the door to Yoo Sangah’s office, where both she and Yoo Joonghyuk were sitting and staring, looking mildly nonplussed.
Well, Yoo Sangah looked mildly nonplussed. Yoo Joonghyuk looked annoyed and exhausted.
“Uh, hi,” said Kim Dokja, lifting his hand into a small wave. Yoo Joonghyuk’s eyes tracked the motion, but nothing else in his face moved even a little. Kim Dokja was reminded of an article he once read that said a key part of Yoo Joonghyuk’s acting technique was his total expression control. “I’m,” he said, soldiering onward, “Kim Dokja. I think I’m going to be your boyfriend?”
Yoo Joonghyuk looked him up and down. Kim Dokja felt himself turning pink from his ears to his throat. “No,” he said, which was frankly a ruder rejection than any of the various insults Kim Dokja had imagined.
“We’re not picking a new guy,” said Han Sooyoung, rolling her eyes. “We went through five rounds of auditions to get this one.” After Yoo Sangah shot her a pointed look, she held her hands up and clarified, “I’m joking. Still.”
“I don’t want any guy.”
“You wanna come out, don’t you?” she asked. Yoo Joonghyuk made a face but didn't answer. “He’s your ticket.”
“Joonghyuk-ssi,” began Yoo Sangah, motioning for both Kim Dokja and Han Sooyoung to take a seat. (Kim Dokja did. Han Sooyoung didn’t.) “It’ll be a good shift for your reputation, too. I know you’re not… fond of the playboy image, so—”
“Then I could date no one.”
“They’ll keep making a new story every time they see you within ten feet of a woman, then,” said Yoo Sangah, and then she cleared her throat. “This is a clean solution for everyone involved. And Dokja-ssi’s a nice guy.”
“I’m a nice guy,” Kim Dokja repeated. Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him like he was a particularly annoying mosquito, and he fell quiet again.
“Six months of dating,” Yoo Sangah continued. “A clean, amicable breakup. New Perspective will be a little past the premiere by then, so the audience will hopefully stay. You’ll be out. It’s a win for everyone.”
Six months of dating was sixty million won. Kim Dokja was a little dizzy at the thought.
“What’s he getting out of it?” Yoo Joonghyuk asked, not even deigning to look at him.
“Your company,” said Kim Dokja. The sarcasm came out sharper than he meant it, but this at least earned him a glare. “And a lot of money.” He turned to Yoo Sangah, remembering once again his one rule and how many times he was about to break it. “Will I be getting a lot of—press attention?”
“We’ll do our best to keep it to premieres and staged pap shoots,” said Yoo Sangah, gently, “but I can’t promise they won’t try to catch you otherwise. He’s a big star. If you want out, I understand.”
He expected Han Sooyoung to chime in with something about how she didn’t understand and he made a deal, but when he looked, she just gave him the same look she did back in college when he’d told her he was switching tracks from literature to business: a little concerned and inexplicably a little sad. “It’s your choice,” she agreed. “We can find someone new.”
Kim Dokja looked at Yoo Joonghyuk, who still seemed entirely impassive, and then at his hands, which were white-knuckled against the fabric of his pants. He thought about how he’d have to deal with this constant, arrogant impassiveness for the next six months—how he’d be hounded by press, forced to go to stupid premieres and pretend that he, Kim Dokja, most average man in the world, could ever belong at Yoo Joonghyuk’s side.
Then he thought about sixty million won.
“I’m in.”
Yoo Sangah smiled brilliantly at him. “I was hoping you’d say that. I’ll email Gabriel and have her draw up your contracts. In the meantime, why don’t you two get to know each other while Sooyoung-ssi and I grab a coffee from downstairs?” She shot a look at Yoo Joonghyuk that Kim Dokja was pretty sure read please play nice, you giant idiot before taking Han Sooyoung’s arm and leaving the two of them staring at each other in her office.
“So,” said Kim Dokja. “How do you do ads if you act like this all the time?”
“What,” said Yoo Joonghyuk flatly.
“I just mean—” began Kim Dokja, about to backtrack, but then he remembered the way Yoo Joonghyuk looked at him—the way he’d been looking at him for the last hour. Like he was a speck of dirt on his shoe and not someone doing him a huge favor. “No, that’s exactly what I mean. How do you do interviews? Don’t you need to be a people person to get big in the industry or whatever?”
“Han Sooyoung isn’t a…” Yoo Joonghyuk’s mouth twisted into an even deeper grimace. “People person, and she’s doing fine. She’s an unprofessional—”
Han Sooyoung was possibly as far from a people person as anyone other than Yoo Joonghyuk could get. Kim Dokja, however, wasn’t about to agree to that—not about his best friend, not to a man she hated—so he interrupted with, “Don’t talk about her like that.”
“Don’t tell the truth?”
“Don’t be an asshole about my friend,” said Kim Dokja, pasting on a smile. “At least not right to my face like I’d ever agree with you. Hasn’t anyone taught you manners?”
Yoo Joonghyuk scoffed. “You called me a bad person—”
“Unsociable, maybe,” Kim Dokja said, “but not bad. I’m sure you of all people would be able to tell the difference. And maybe if you didn’t look at me like I wasn’t even a person to you—”
“You can’t be angry at me for something you made up—”
“Don’t act like you were even trying to be nice to me when I’m the one helping you out—”
“For money —”
“Hello,” said Yoo Sangah cheerily, opening the door. “I’m sure you guys are getting along just fine,” she said, giving Yoo Joonghyuk another hard look as he clamped his mouth shut, still glaring, “but we have a booked day, so I’ll have to ask you to leave. I’ll text you to figure out dates and times for your first real date! Thanks again!”
Sixty million won, thought Kim Dokja as he walked out. It would all be worth it for sixty million won.