Chapter Text
It was a curious thing, Hyunjin had found, to be so popular that no one talked to you. There could be a hundred people in a room, all staring at pictures of his face with a smile on theirs, but rarely did anyone he didn’t already know actually try to get know him, to see him as anything more than a 2-D image selling perfume or clothes or jewelry or anything at all that a company with enough money wanted him to sell. It amused him, in a bitter sort of way, to be so super of a model that he had become super unapproachable, left to linger behind the velvet rope in the glittering light of whatever VIP section had been set aside for him to hold court all by his lonesome. Launch parties for the Hyunjin product or project of the week had long lost their luster, the glitz and the glamor now nothing more than a contractual obligation to be met until he could go home, alone, as he had done for the last three years. He had assistants and managers and the people who had paid for his face to be plastered all over, but gone were the days when anyone outside of the industry or the inner circle would just try to talk to him, let alone try to outright hit on him.
So it came as a surprise (welcome or unwelcome to be determined) when someone actually dared to come up to him with a smile on his face, a swagger in his step and his hand held out like he actually expected Hwang Hyunjin to take it.
“Hey,” the guy said, standing just outside the velvet rope with his arm outstretched.
Hyunjin looked at the guy (handsome enough) and looked at his arm (muscled more than enough) and at his waiting hand, deciding that he didn’t have much to lose by sliding his palm against the guy’s palm and giving him a questioning, “Hi?”
“You looked like you could use a friend,” the guy said, smile not slipping an inch, even as Hyunjin’s eyebrows crept up several.
“And you thought that should be you?”
“Why not me?” The guy shrugged, shoulders rippling beneath the tight shirt preferred by the muscle daddy type. His gaze flicked around the room and then back to Hyunjin. “I didn’t see anyone else lining up.”
A little stung, Hyunjin took his hand back from muscle daddy guy. “Most people don’t have the nerve to try.”
The guy folded his arms behind his head, no doubt to show the way his veins popped out and his shirt stretched almost to the point of breaking. “Well, most people aren’t very bright, if you ask me.”
“I’m not sure I did, but good to know,” Hyunjin said, not sure if he was annoyed or amused, but entirely certain anything was better than being bored and alone. He lifted the velvet rope. “What’s your name?”
Muscle Daddy Guy smiled like he had just won the lottery, sliding beneath the rope and sidling up close enough that Hyunjin could smell a cologne that wasn’t the one he was representing on the guy’s shirt. “Changbin,” he said, holding out his hand again. “Nice to meet you, Hwang Hyunjin.”
“We’ll see about that,” Hyunjin said, shifting away from Changbin’s hand and gesturing for him to sit on the opposite end of the couch. Changbin sat down with emphasis, as if trying to make up for his height with the enthusiasm of his gestures, as if he wanted to impress Hyunjin with the impression he could make on the couch cushions. “So, Changbin, what made you bright enough to come over here?”
Changbin leaned forward on his knees, impressive arms folding into one another to steeple his hands beneath his chin. “Let me tell you my philosophy, Hyunjin.” Hyunjin blinked at hearing his name fall so casually from someone’s lips without his last name attached. He was so used to being nothing more to anyone than Hwang Hyunjin the model, the brand, the face that powered an entire face economy that it was startling to be talked to like he was a person. “If you never pick up the weights,” Changbin said, expression deadly serious, “you’re never going to make any gains.”
Hyunjin knew his mouth was probably gaping open in a way that his stylist would say was very unattractive, but it couldn’t be helped. “Excuse me?”
Changbin laughed loudly and clapped his palms together. “What I’m saying is, if you never try, you’ll never have a chance.” His laughter gentled as he caught Hyunjin’s incredulous gaze. “Besides, I walked up to you fully prepared for you to say no, to tell me to get the hell out, so what did I have to lose by giving it a shot on the off chance that you might say hello, might shake my hand and tell me to sit down?”
“Pride?”
Changbin gave him a sly smile, shifting one leg until his foot brushed the tip of Hyunjin’s shoe. “Who’s to say I’m not proud just to be talking to you when no one else in the room has the balls?”
“Wow.” Hyunjin choked out, reaching for his drink to wet a throat that had turned impossibly dry, his lungs out of breath from trying to keep up with his new friend. “You’re so…upfront.”
Changbin inched closer on the sofa, reaching for one of the unopened bottles of beer and cracking it open with his palm. He smiled at Hyunin over the rim, lips pursing as he took a long, deep sip. “Not used to this kind of approach?”
“No, most people tend to be slightly more indirect.” Hyunjin laughed, disbelief and three years of fame induced isolation bubbling up out of his chest, like a Changbin had inadvertently put his thumb on some kind of release valve for tension he hadn’t even known he’d been holding. “It’s kind of refreshing, actually,” Hyunjin said, turning his drink around on the table, watching the club lights glint off of his rings. “Unless someone wants to fuck me or hire me for some job, I tend not to get approached at all any more.”
“That’s not really my style.” Changbin winked at him and clinked their drinks together. “To be clear, I wouldn’t turn down a fuck, if you’re open to it —” Hyunjin pulled his drink away and gave Changbin the best ice prince glare he could summon. Changbin shook his head and held up his free hand in surrender. “But really, I’d just like the chance to get to know you.”
Hyunjin felt something inside him quiver. “Why?” He asked, no longer sure how to believe in anyone’s good intentions.
Changbin ran his surrender hand through short hair and swallowed, and for the first time since he had sauntered over, Hyunjin thought that maybe his new friend looked a little bit nervous, a little bit uncertain. “This is going to sound creepy, probably,” Changbin said, biting his lip in a way that made him seem more endearing than terrifying, “but like, I just like you.”
Hyunjin’s heart fluttered, even though he knew that was nothing to go on, the romantic in him never entirely beaten down and shoved away, despite how many times Hyunjin had told himself that nothing good had ever come out of wanting to view the world through rose colored glasses. “What does that mean?” Hyunjin murmured, taking a sip of his cocktail to hide the way his voice caught. He pointed at his face on the wall. “That you just like me?”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Changbin said, gaze never once leaving Hyunjin’s, “of course I think you’re beautiful. You look so pretty when you talk I think I could die from watching your lips move.” Hyunjin’s hand flew in front of his mouth, a little sound escaping from his throat. It was mild compared to the kind of stuff that got tweeted about his mouth online, but there was something startlingly intimate about Changbin’s flirtation, in the idea of someone pining for the way his lips shaped words. Changbin reached out, touching him for the first time with one finger against Hyunjin’s wrist. “But I also like your art, even if I know shit about art. And I liked the poem that you said inspired your drawings of magnolias, even if I know shit about magnolias or poetry or any of that.” Hyunjin let his hand fall away to land in the circle of Changbin’s finger and thumb. “So, yeah, I like you even if I don’t really know you and I think I’d do just about anything you wanted to know you for real.”
Hyunjin felt something he hadn’t felt since he was twenty-two and still too young and sweet to know better. His heart tripped and his palms went a little sweaty, even though he told himself that Changbin was probably still just a muscle daddy with an agenda and that half of what came out of him was cringe, but it had been so long since someone had tried to charm him, had tried to actually make him feel really really seen. He let himself drift closer, close enough that he no longer needed to shout over the music, his knee two inches from Changbin’s thick thigh.
Hyunjin looked at him through his eyelashes and thought about the way his mouth looked as he asked, “And if what I wanted was for you to fly me to Paris tonight?”
Changbin whooped more loudly than the EDM beat dropping, shattering what was left of Hyunjin’s hearing in his left ear. “I’ll make the call right now!” He got out his phone, so ridiculously enthusiastic that it made Hyunjin smile. “Where do you wanna stay? The Four Seasons? The Ritz?” Changbin scowled and shook his head, stroking his chin like he had never pondered a question so important. “Nah, nah, these are all too prosaic for someone like you. It needs to be special.” He turned to Hyunjin, expression once again deadly serious, like he meant every word he was saying. “You want a houseboat on the Seine? Or maybe I can find an apartment in Montmartre where some famous artist or poet used to live.”
“Stop, stop!” Hyunjin laughed from behind his hands, his blush hot against his palms. “I get it,” he said, dropping his hands just enough to peek from his fingertips, wondering how long it had been since someone had seen this side of him, the side that was shy and fluttery, warming to affection like a moth to a flame. “But thank you, it’s nice to know that someone would do something like that for me.”
“Who wouldn’t?” Changbin asked, his face made more handsome by his incredulity on Hyunjin’s behalf.
Hyunjin let his hands drop to his lap, old disappointments aching in his bones. “You would be surprised.”
Changbin nodded sympathetically, his thumb brushing the very corner of Hyunjin’s knee. “Bad exes?”
“Something like that.” Memories of all the ones who had come and then inevitably gone before Hyunjin had learned not to let anyone in at all filled his thoughts, dampening some of the warmth he felt at the slow, gentle press of Changbin’s fingertips against his leg.
Changbin grabbed his hand and stood up, pulling Hyunjin out of his memories and halfway out of his seat. “Come on, let’s go to the airport. You can tell me all about your shitty exes and their shitty choices on the way to Paris so I can make sure to never make the same mistakes with you.”
“My god.” Hyunjin let himself be pulled all the way up, unable to keep from laughing and giving into the eagerness with which Changbin seemed to do anything and everything. “You’re so persistent.”
“Well, you keep smiling at me, so it makes me wanna keep trying.” Changbin tugged him in closer, stronger even if he was shorter, his confidence making Hyunjin feel like he was towering above. “Is it working?” Changbin asked, looking for just a moment at Hyunjin’s lips, the lips he had said made him want to die when Hyunjin did something as simple and basic as talk.
“You’re funny and kind of cute,” Hyunjin said, wanting to shield his eyes from the brightness of Changbin’s grin. “And I respect your game.” Hyunjin dropped Changbin's hand but not the smile that Changbin kept wringing out of him, trying to be as gentle as possible when he said, “But I’m not going to Paris.”
Changbin’s expression crumbled like a sandcastle beneath the splash of Hyunjin’s rejection. “Ah.”
Hyunjin took a deep breath and looked at the ceiling, wondering if he was crazy or bored or if maybe Changbin had been working on him, had made him want to be reckless enough to try and see where something this crazy could go. He put his hand on Changbin’s chest and pushed him back a step before he fell back into the sofa and said, “But I will give you my number.”
“HOT DAMN!” Changbin yelled loudly enough to have Hyunjin’s manager and two security guards turning and running over from the booth next door before Hyunjin waved them away and dragged Changbin down next to him, clapping a hand over his still hooting mouth.
“Give me your phone,” Hyunjin said, wincing as a handful of people suddenly started paying a lot more attention to what was happening in his little private corner of the world.
“No,” Changbin said into his hand, the denial nothing more than a puff of air against Hyunjin’s palm.
“What?” Hyunjin took his hand away and wiped it on the sofa, angling his body so that there was nothing interesting to see, knowing that people would eventually drift away when they could no longer get a glimpse of his face. “Why not?”
Changbin looked at Hyunjin like the answer was obvious. “You and me? For the future story of how we met? The one that we’re gonna tell all of our friends and eventual grandchildren? We need something better than a phone, something way more romantic and awesome than asking Bixby to create a new contact.” Whiplashed for the tenth time that night, Hyunjin could only watch as Changbin’s eyes darted around the dark, cramped little VIP booth until his gaze landed on the pen that Hyunjin’s manager always left behind, just in case Hyunjin needed to sign autographs. “Take this,” Changbin said, grabbing the pen and shoving into Hyunjin’s confused hand. “And write it here.”
Hyunjin stared at the pen and then at Changbin, waiting for him to hand over a piece of paper. “Where, exactly?”
Changbin thrust out his leg, pointing at his thigh. “Right here. On my leg.”
Hyunjin blinked twice and swallowed once, wondering if maybe he had picked someone just a little bit crazy. “These are $5,000 jeans. I know because I modeled them.” He gave Changbin a suspicious look, “This is just an excuse to make me feel your muscles, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.” Changbin said, as shameless and unembarrassed as he had been since the moment he walked into Hyunjin’s world. “But maybe I also like the idea of you leaving a mark on me, not just a digital trace. Hell, I’d have you tattoo it right on my naked body if we had the time.”
“You’re something else,” Hyunjin murmured, his traitorous lizard brain already drifting towards the idea of his ink on Changbin’s bare skin. “Alright,” he said, charmed into the stupidity of ruining $5,000 jeans by the way Changbin wanted him without reservation but with enough thought to know that Hyunjin would like something like this, something romantic and ridiculous and that went against his better judgment. He splayed his long fingers on Changbin’s thigh and liked the way that Changbin watched him carefully write his phone number just above the inseam of his pants. “There,” Hyunjin said, looking up at him from almost between his legs and handing back the pen. “Call me.”
Changbin took the pen back without a word, staring at Hyunjin’s writing on his thigh like it held the answer to all the mysteries of the universe, like he was surprised that he had come to God and had his prayers answered. Hyunjin felt his heart skip, fluttering with each quiet second that passed. Before he could talk himself out of it, Hyunjin gave into his own impulse to do something stupid and romantic, fishing through his too tight pockets for the single bill that he kept on himself in case he ever needed it.
“Here,” Hyunjin said, slipping into Changbin’s fingers.
Changbin looked at it the same way Hyunjin had looked at Changbin’s jeans moments before. “I don’t typically sell myself for this cheap, but for you….”
“Oh my god, no.” Hyunjin slapped Changbin’s arm, a little surprised when his hand came away aching. “Write down your number. That way if you call, I’ll know it’s you and I won’t just block block block like I do every other rando or unknown.”
“If I call?” Changbin asked, snatching the bill and the pen with a speed that made Hyunjin giggle. “If I call!?” He folded up the money and stuck it beneath Hyunjin’s half empty drink before standing up on legs that looked a little bit shaky, his gaze still starstruck and somehow impossibly sweet. “I will call. I will absolutely call you.”
“Alright,” Hyunjin said, rubbing a finger over his bottom lip as he watched Changbin try to pull himself together, Hyunjin’s number hiding in the space between his thighs. “Call me sometime.”
Changbin walked out of the VIP backwards, seemingly unwilling to break eye contact even if it meant risking breaking his back or at least his behind, smiling at Hyunjin like they shared some kind of great cosmic secret. Hyunjin sighed and shook his head, wondering what he had gotten himself into as he reached over and unfolded his desecrated dollar bill, laughing when he saw the little hearts doodled beneath Changbin’s phone number. However things turned out, Hyunjin thought to himself, he would always have this – a meet cute, meet crazy for the books, a priceless memory on a single bill.
He took out his phone and started counting beneath his breath, wanting to test the insanely romantic notion he had that Changbin would call before he even got to 10. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7–
His phone rang, the screen lighting up with a number to go with the one decorated with hearts. Hyunjin answered with a heart nearly as bright as he said, “Hello?”
Changbin’s voice was rich and warm and enthusiastic in his ear, “Hyunjin! There’s a flight to Paris in three hours! We could be there in time for breakfast! Are you sure you don’t want to change your mind and come with me?”
Hyunjin looked at the dollar bill on the table, the little hearts full of hope that he hadn’t dared to feel for himself for years, thought about the way that Changbin had looked at him and really tried to see him, had liked him enough to risk ridicule and rejection, had wanted to try and make Hyunjin happy when Hyunjin didn’t even know Changbin’s last name or what he did work or if they had anything in common at all. He thought about all of the reasons why he shouldn’t, why he couldn’t and tossed it all aside, wanting to be romantic and reckless, wanting to be the Hyunjin he had always been beneath it all, wanting to try to live his life according to Changbin’s ridiculous philosophy.
“Alright, let’s go,” Hyunjin said, laughing when he heard Changbin drop his phone. “Let’s have breakfast together in Paris.”
“Hell yes,” Chanbin said. “What made you change your mind?”
Hyunjin stood up and shoved the velvet rope aside, ready to make it to the door, to escape from it all and get outside, to go to places unknown. “Well, as a wise man once told me,” Hyunjin said, pushing through the throngs to find Changbin waiting right outside of the club, smiling like a kid in candy store as Hyunjin came to his side and took his hand, “if I never pick up a weight, I'm never going to make any gains.”