Archive of Our Own ^beta

[NOW STREAMING: CHAT WITH 츄] 

[LIVE CHAT] 

gymbro_69: are those… pokémon cards? 

mattsaurus_ rex : matt i can’t see giratina because your giant bicep is in the way 

mattraeplsk1ss: How is Taerae? 

hotgirls4matt: do not ask me what color a “giratina” is 😳😳

*

“How is Taerae?” Matthew finds himself reading the comment out loud before he can catch himself, his perfectly trained celebrity brain-to-mouth filter shutting down in front of 30 thousand people without a second thought. 

“Taerae?” He repeats in confusion. “Who is Taerae?” 

It’s not the first time he’s received a question about a mysterious "Taerae," but it’s the first time he has actually acknowledged it. People ask him about random things all the time on his livestreams, but the Taerae questions have only seemed to increase in number since he'd noticed the first one months ago. Curiosity had finally gotten the better of him.

The chat lights up, buzzing back to life at his words, moving into a warp speed that means that Matthew can’t actually catch the individual messages anymore. Shit, he doesn’t know if he should be offended by the fact that his viewers seemed to be more interested in the mention of a random name than his actual content. Yes, unboxing a special boxed set of Pokémon cards as part of his post work-out cool down counted as content, thank you very much. And sure, he was well aware that half his viewers had only stayed behind to admire his exposed arms and endorphin-induced glow, but they usually pretended to pay attention to what he was doing at the very least. 

His eyes scan across the screen uselessly. With the way the comments are flying by in a blur of words (primarily in Korean), Matthew begins to wonder if he’d gone and insulted the Nation’s Prodigal Son with the Giratina card still in hand. For once, Matthew wishes they would stop with the endless spam of emojis so he could try to figure out just how monumental of a fuck up he had made.

How long has it been since he read the inciting sentence? 5 seconds? 10 seconds? A whole minute of awkward silence? Just Matthew, the chat, and Giratina staring at each other like idiots while his brain spun in circles trying to damage control his way out of another potential capital “S” Situation that would require him to write another handwritten apology for saying something he shouldn’t have? 

No way, Matthew needs to calm down before the panic starts to show in his face. It’s probably already obvious from his deer-in-headlights stare, but he would live in his delusions a little longer. He could handle a few ill-timed screen caps being meme-ified across social media platforms—people would probably forget about the little slip-up by tomorrow at the latest. He’s just being dramatic again. 

Two years into running his YouTube channel, Matthew is no stranger to accidental livestream disasters. From accidentally flashing his (unapproved) tattoos to revealing collaborations a few days early, he has developed a decent enough philosophy when it comes to diffusing a potential nuclear scenario. Fight fire with fire. Give them something else to focus on until all memory of the mistake is washed away by a much more pleasant vision. 

Coughing, Matthew re-angles his body to expose even more of his unclothed shoulder and back muscles to the camera. Choosing a particularly reflective card from his binder, Matthew flashes it toward the camera with an equally shiny grin.  

”This one I got as a gift. It’s called Lugia. So cool, right?” 

*

[FOR YOU] 

@MattDailyUpdates: Matthew unboxing Pokémon cards on stream today! 

[video attached] 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@hotgirls4matt: pokémon collector bf + poca collector gf = match made in heaven. matt pls one chance 🙏🙏

@mattchufan: hopefully matt’s words will get y’all to shut up finally. mattrae will never be real!! 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤ @trotbro420 oh boo hoo he’s not going to date you even if he’s not dating taerae 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mattraeplsk1ss: CENSOR HIS NAME PLEASE 😡

@duckfox2820 250411 - Pocari Love 

[edit attached]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: @biaorchive wake up mattrae moved

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@ballerinacappucina: omg @biaorchive needs to see this!! 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@ducksinger88: This can only mean One Thing in Korea 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taeraeleftpinkytoe: who is @biaorchive and why are we all tagging him? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ 

* 

Just as he hoped it had for his real-time viewers, any thoughts of the unknown Taerae left Matthew’s mind as soon as the stream ended. There isn’t much he can do with a first name anyway. At least, that’s what he tells himself while simultaneously resolving not to check his social media for the next twenty-four hours in case of any residual aftershocks or the chance of seeing a meme screenshot that would become burned behind his eyelids forever. He isn’t really supposed to be on social media at all—that’s another cardinal rule of being an influencer, it's always better not to know what people are saying about you online. For someone who spent most of his time making content for the internet, it seems ironic that some of the most consistent advice he’d received was to stay off of it. Not that Matthew did—stay off of it, that is. He’s a grown man, twenty-three years young, and he can make choices for himself, thank you very much. 

So yes, he does have a little burner account disguised with a silly profile picture captured from one of his vlogs that he occasionally uses to check up on what fans are saying about him. Still, he is nowhere near as bad as Gyuvin, his video editor who has infiltrated so deeply into Matthew’s own fan base that he once had to make up an excuse to his mutuals about why he hadn’t applied for Matthew’s one million subscriber meet and greet lottery without giving away that his boss was the prize. Gyuvin justifies it all with the excuse that he needs to be well versed in the fandom’s inside jokes to produce better content. Matthew thinks he is just happy to bill Matthew for extra hours of “work” that he spends doom scrolling on Twitter watching the drama go down. 

“Great stream today.” Gyvuin doesn’t bother looking up from his phone when he addresses Matthew from his place slouched in the plush cushions of Matthew’s very expensive couch. Is it wise to have given his only employee a key card to get into his apartment? Not when Gyuvin is about as much of a risk as an overgrown puppy. He might knock things over from time to time, but he wasn’t going to steal any of Matthew’s limited edition figurines. Honestly, he could afford them himself with the salary Matthew paid him. And sure, Matthew had jumped a foot in the air nearly half a dozen times in shock to find an unexpected guest in his living room, but a small part of him thought it was nice to have the company. 

He wasn’t exactly lonely, but that was another consequence of being a celebrity that no one ever talked about—he had to get used to spending a lot of time alone. 

“Don’t even get me started,” Matthew groans, dropping his gym bag beside the door and following Gyuvin’s lead by taking up residence on the empty half of the couch. 

Gyuvin wrinkles his nose. “I hope you showered first.” 

“My house, my rules,” Matthew shrugs. He leans over to snoop on what Gyuvin is doing on his phone. Quickly, Gyuvin flips the device over, turning it off before Matthew can get more than a glimpse of the other’s “For You” page. 

“TikTok? Again?” Matthew fake rolls his eyes dramatically. “It’s killing the kids, you know

“Ironic coming from the man who just crossed a million followers on the same app,” Gyuvin points out sardonically, with enough sass in his voice that Matthew is about to give him a piece of his mind before he recognizes the weak attempt to distract him. 

“Come on, just show me. You’re going to charge me for ‘working’ these hours later anyway,” Matthew complains. “I know it can’t be that bad.” 

When Gyuvin doesn’t reply, Matthew blanches, mind immediately going to the worst. ”Oh God, is it really that bad?” 

“It’s not… bad.” Gyuvin finally settles on the word, but even he doesn’t sound convinced by it. When Matthew flashes his biggest puppy eyes, the really pathetic ones that even Gyuvin can’t resist, Gyuvin flips his phone back over. “I really don’t get paid enough for this shit,” He mutters, and like a benevolent boss, Matthew pretends not to hear it. 

A compilation of his latest posted photos next to some pictures of another guy (complete with sped-up Shawn Mendes acoustic love song and dizzyingly pink hearts bouncing around the screen) is the last thing he expects to see. The Shawn Mendes song is good taste though—Matthew is always happy to see a fellow Canadian brother thriving—but No. He needs to focus. He can add the song to his playlist later.

“Is that…” 

“Seok Matthew, meet Taerae. Kim Taerae, to be exact.” 

His face looks vaguely familiar. Was he an idol? Had their paths ever crossed, and Matthew just didn’t remember? He doubts it—it seems impossible to forget a face like that. 

“That’s the guy!” Matthew points to the screen, putting it together all at once, brain cell firing into action. “The one they keep asking me about! Do I know him?” 

Gyuvin, who seemed only mildly amused by Matthew’s reaction before, seems to find this the funniest reaction Matthew could have. “Of course not.” 

“Then why…?” 

“I don’t really know, I guess people just think you two would be a good couple for some reason,” Gyuvin points to the number of likes on the video, and Matthew feels his eyes nearly jump out of their sockets at the sight. “A workout influencer and a trot singer. It’s kind of like opposites attract.” 

“Sixty thousand likes? On this edit that I could have made using a CapCut free trial?”

"The ship is like a whole thing online,” Gyuvin admits. “People are always looking for evidence and posting about it. I think half the reason they get so into it is looking for proof. But I don’t think most of them actually think it’s real.”  

“Evidence?” Matthew is completely baffled. “We’ve never met.” 

“Some of them are really convincing.” Gyuvin opens the user’s account that had made the first edit. Matthew decides to politely ignore the fact that Gyuvin is already following them

“Is this a dedicated fan account to me and…” 

“Taerae? Come on, at least remember your boyfriend’s name,” Gyuvin teases. He scrolls through some more edits similar to the first, all which have an equally mind boggling number of likes. Then, he reaches one which is just a photo slideshow. It compares some recent photos posted on Matthew’s Instagram to others on (presumably) Taerae’s account. There’s not much to look at, a similar building in the background (Seoul wasn’t exactly known for its unique architecture), a view of the Han River (now come on), and photos from a pop-up event that Matthew had attended a few weeks ago. One that Taerae must have attended too, just on a different day because Matthew doesn’t remember him being there.

“Most of it is ridiculous, but some of it…” Gyuvin freezes on a photo of Taerae posing in front of the same photo wall that Matthew had shared on his story the day after he attended the event. 

“It was a pop-up for crying out loud, anyone could have gone!” 

Gyuvin flicks the phone off, having had enough of Matthew’s complaints. “Let them have their fun. It’s not like it’s hurting anyone.” 

Just Matthew’s pride, but he had sacrificed most of that for this career already. 

“Hey, how do you know about all this lovestagram stuff anyway?” 

If it was mainstream among his fanbase, surely it would have reached Matthew’s burner account by now. Gyuvin might occupy the recesses of the internet, but Matthew wouldn’t have expected him to be familiar with this side of it. 

To Matthew’s surprise, Gyuvin flushes, embarrassed all the sudden, like taking Matthew on a deep dive of his own tin-hat ship was somehow less humiliating than confessing to this. “My boyfriend is quite a big fan of Taerae.” Gyuvin scratches the back of his neck, awkwardness oozing off of him to the point where Matthew might physically cringe too. 

Matthew lights up with glee at the realization. “The online boyfriend you won’t tell me anything about? Oh, he’s a stan isn’t he? Kim Gyuvin, you’ve gotten yourself in too deep now!” 

“He’s not…” Gyuvin tries to disagree, but finds he can’t. Grumbling, he shrinks further into Matthew’s couch. “At least he has passions.” 

“Aww,” Matthew teases. “Are you jealous? How does it feel to know that your boyfriend will always choose another man over you?“ 

“That’s it!” Gyuvin tosses the phone to the side, leaping to tackle Matthew down before he can finish the sentence. “At least I have a boyfriend!” 

Low blow. But Matthew is already distracted trying to squirm out of Gyuvin’s surprisingly tight grip around his middle. As the topic of conversation changes, he finds the thought of his internet-sanctioned match migrating far to the back of his mind. Gyuvin is right, he’ll probably never meet the guy anyway, he might as well let the fans have their fun. 

*

"I’m just a little offended that they chose him of all people—“ Matthew pauses mid sentence, digging through his laundry basket for the correctly-branded jersey that the shooting company requested he wear to the filming that night. Neon blue isn’t his best color, but who is he to complain when he isn’t the one signing the checks? Unfortunately, it’s buried all the way at the bottom of the bag, so he nearly topples into the product of his laziness before his fingers grasp the thin fabric of the jersey. When was the last time he had done a load of laundry? He doesn’t remember the bag ever being big enough to swallow him whole before. 

Rising victoriously, he holds the shirt up to his nose, giving it a sniff test. Clean enough. Gyuvin sighs exasperatedly, audible even from where his phone is sitting across the room on his bed. “Did you find it?”

“Yup. Exactly where I thought it was,” Matthew lies through his teeth. “Hanging in my closet.” 

“There’s no reason to pretend in front of me.” Gyuvin calls him out. “I know you probably dug it out of the gap in the bed frame or something.” 

Mathew shoves the jersey unceremoniously into his duffel bag, which is already full of all the other ‘necessities’ Matthew thought he might need for a one night ‘camping trip’ where he will be filmed by more cameras than should ever be in the wild at one time. 

Think of it as a nature documentary, Jiwoong had explained to him. He was the brand representative of Pocari Sweat that coordinated all of Matthew’s sponsorship activities. Sometimes, Matthew thought of him as a friend too, when he would crack jokes about the ridiculousness of all the hoops the brand made him jump through for advertisements and the crazy requests from the other celebrities he worked with. 

The whole song and dance of the shoot was certainly a nature documentary in a way—if Matthew was the unsuspecting fox that the unsubtle cameraman tried to follow around all day, pretending like wandering the forest in full makeup with a stylist watching from just behind the camera was a normal occurrence. 

”And stop trying to change the subject,” Gyuvin complains through the phone. “Are you sure you aren’t a little excited to meet your internet boyfriend in person tonight?” 

“He’s not my boyfriend.” The words are out of Matthew’s mouth before he even has to think about them. It’s not the first time Gyuvin has tried to tease him about this, and he doubts it will be the last. Ever since Gyuvin had revealed his knowledge about the ‘Mattrae’ ship that occupied some strange corner of the internet that Matthew would not admit he was afraid of (but he was afraid, very afraid), it was like the floodgates were opened. The video editor insisted it was his boyfriend who was the obsessed one, but Matthew was starting to have doubts that it was just an excuse. Or maybe his employee-turned-friend was just happy to have something to hold over Matthew’s head for once. 

Something about the whole ship thing gets on his nerves, sets his teeth on edge, and furrows his brow in a way that doesn’t suit the unaffected Seok Matthew persona that he has spent so many years trying to build. It wasn’t the fact that Taerae was a guy—no, Matthew had figured that out a long time ago—it’s the way fans seemed to have created some kind of collective imagination that has no basis in reality, and they all just accept it. A part of him worries (irrationally)—what if when they meet, things don’t go the way fans imagined? Will they be disappointed, or will they tease Matthew for believing there was an ounce of truth in their fantasy in the first place? 

But instead of trying to unpack all that, Matthew puts his defensive shields up, the ones right over his heart, and snarks back, “And I’m not excited to see him, not when I still don’t understand why he’s been invited in the first place. What is a trot singer going to do on a camping trip?” 

“Maybe he’ll sing you a song around the campfire. It will be romantic”   

“As if!” 

*

Kim Taerae does in fact sing the whole crew a song around the campfire, his acoustic guitar glinting against the orange light of the fire. It is not romantic, not with the five cameras pointed in their direction capturing every change in micro expression to be overanalyzed in post production. Later, the editors will probably add some kind of witty caption like "and so the lion fell for the lamb" right over someone’s unsuspecting face, but in the moment Taerae’s voice is soothing, and the gentle strum of the guitar adds to the overall ambience the crew has tried to build in their sectioned off area of the campground. Matthew does his best not to look just beyond the tree line where fans with cameras have climbed the pines and peek through bushes to try to get a glimpse of their favorite idols. 

He sits on the opposite side of the half circle as the singer, refusing to make eye contact and sulking despite the cozy atmosphere. His eyes stay stuck on the way the flames lick at the large pieces of firewood that he and Taerae had gathered together a few hours ago, laughing instead of ignoring each other like they were now. How had things gone so wrong since then? 

Sitting in between them is the host of the show—a comedian in his late forties. He had made a fortune off of his impressions, but sometimes Matthew thought people only paid attention to him because he was the loudest person in the room (or the campsite tonight). Beside Taerae is a female idol who had introduced herself as Sulbi. Though Matthew hadn't been familiar with the name of her group when she'd given it, he noticed that she seemed close to Taerae. Or at least, Matthew had the feeling that they had met before since they had greeted each other familiarly. Together, they make an unlikely quad, and Matthew isn't really sure why Pocari had chosen the four of them to be brand ambassadors for their sports drink when Matthew was the only one whose brand came anywhere near being related to sports. But someone in upper management had decided it, and now they were left to suffer the consequences of the awkward conversation that followed.

When Taerae finishes his performance, Sulbi picks up a chilled bottle of Pocari Sweat from the cooler and uncaps it for the singer. “Here you go, Sunbae-nim~”

Taerae accepts the bottle with a grin, turning his head before he takes a sip so the camera can capture both the logo and the best angle of his side profile. Matthew looks away from the long line of his throat before he can be caught staring and stews silently. What happened wasn't even his fault—so why was Taerae so insistent on blaming him and pretending he didn't exist?

*

Things had been going fine when Matthew had first arrived at the campsite. He'd hefted his duffel bag over his shoulder and greeted Jiwoong, who seemed a bit more frazzled than usual. Welcoming Matthew with a side hug, he had muttered something about how apparently the shooting company had forgotten to pack every single case of Pocari Sweat-branded merch for the shoot. Somehow, it was all sitting in a warehouse somewhere in Incheon, at least an hour‘s drive away. The unfortunate oversight had left Matthew, the host, Sulbi, and the one and only Kim Taerae twiddling their thumbs while they waited for the staff to return. There was no use filming anything without the proper branding because it couldn’t be used in the final video anyway, or at least that's what Jiwoong told them while Matthew gave him a consolatory pat on the back. Though Matthew wouldn't go so far to call the two of them friends while they were on the job—especially because Matthew was considered the "talent" tonight despite his only talent being looking hot and drinking Pocari Sweat at the same time—Jiwoong was an ally among these strangers he'd never met before. 

It's not that he was afraid of the others per se, a social interaction was the last thing Seok Matthew would fear, but people didn't always treat Matthew's influencer fame the same way they treated other's ‘earned’ pathways. Which was entirely a scam, and Matthew would stand by that statement! He had to work so much harder to gain every one of those million followers, harder than anyone who started on a survival show with a built in fan base by the way. Not that he was targeting anyone in specific…

And he definitely wasn't avoiding one person in particular because some hind part of his brain kept constantly reminding him of the fact that half the internet thought the man in the chair across from him would make a great boyfriend (for themselves)—and the rest that Matthew would make a great boyfriend for him.

He didn’t really see why. Sure, Taerae was handsome and his speaking voice was warm in a way that made Matthew think that he might even be happy to listen to Taerae read entries to the dictionary, but they had nothing in common! 

Maybe he was going crazy sitting in his folding chair, everyone in awkward silence. He didn't do well with sitting for long periods of time, and the canvas camping chairs they had been given were uncomfortable to say the least. As soon as Jiwoong and his watchful eyes stepped out to take a call from the main road (because of course the filming site didn't have any cell coverage), Matthew sprang out of his seat. 

Three sets of eyes followed him curiously. 

"Well, no use sitting around." Matthew tried to act nonchalant about the fact that he was practically buzzing with boredom. "I think I'm going to go gather some firewood by the tree line." 

"What's the point?" Sulbi had asked, long nails tapping aginst her phone. "They can't use any of the footage anyway." 

"Does everything need to be for the camera?" Matthew didn’t know why his words came out so short. Maybe it was the humidity, or the fact that he had been on edge since he arrived. It was definitely not because Taerae had barely said two words to him in introduction, somehow letting Matthew down even though he didn't really know why he was disappointed in the first place. It definitely had nothing to do with Sulbi personally, and an apology or an excuse was on the tip of his tongue when the girl replied. 

"Suit yourself, I guess. You're probably used to doing the heavy lifting by yourself. Where's your manager, by the way?" There was a kind of innocence to her tone that screamed utter villainy. It should not have been possible for a girl that sweet and young to have struck such fear in his heart, but siren alarms were blaring in Matthew's head, warning him not to say anything he might regret. There was no occasion in which it was appropriate to insult a girl who looked like she was still in middle school, he reminded himself. Once again, he wondered why the production crew would decide to match up this random group of people with seemingly no chemistry. 

He tried to brush her words off as a joke, "Don't have one.” Unless his part-time editor/friend/halfway roommate that never paid rent or for the snacks he ate out of Matthew's kitchen was looking for an (unpaid) promotion. "But a little hard work is healthy too, we don't all have a makeup crew to touch up every blemish as soon as it appears." 

Sulbi's fingers froze on the keyboard, fingers flying to her cheeks like the doting stylist following her around loyally with a powder brush had missed a spot. Though he would never have dared be so bold in front of a camera, he was glad the crew was busy shooting b-roll of the forest in the other direction. 

Coughing to break the awkward tension, it was Taerae who stood up from his chair first. Matthew wondered if he was about to defend Sulbi's honor, telling Matthew to pick on someone his own size for once, though on build alone there was no doubt who would win in a physical fight between the two of them. 

"I'll help too. It's better to start before the sun sets. Who knows, they might forget about us and leave us to freeze out here with no fire if Jiwoong never comes back." 

Secretly, Matthew sincerely doubted that. The four of them combined had a net worth high enough to send the brand's reputation plummeting into smithereens if fans ever found out they left their favorite celebrities shivering in the cold all night. Still, he wouldn’t ask questions when Taerae was giving him the out he'd been looking for over the last few minutes on a silver platter. 

The pair walked in amiable silence away from the campsite, towards the tree line, in search of kindling to get the fire going. Matthew wished that he knew what to say to strike up a conversation, but every idea that flashed through his mind fell somewhere on either extreme of being too much or too boring to make Taerae think he was actually an interesting, well adjusted person. 

(Why he wanted Taerae to see him as interesting was neither here nor there nor would be discussed or unpacked for as long as humanly possible.) 

It was Taerae who eventually broke the awkward silence. "You’re Matthew, right? The TikTok workout guy?”

Matthew did his best not to cringe at the introduction. Yes, he was ‘the TikTok workout guy,’ but that didn’t make it any less embarrassing to hear it spelled out that way. 

“That’s me,” he said, and because he couldn’t turn off the influencer personality once it had been acknowledged—like a split personality that had been activated inside him like some sort of undercover sleeper agent—he dropped into a lunge, holding the basket out for Taerae to deposit the kindling he had collected inside. “The TikTok guy. And you’re Taerae, Mr. Trot.” 

“Just Taerae is fine,” Taerae told him, a lot more nonchalant than Matthew had expected after Matthew’s best attempt to fail at making a good first impression. 

Well, he didn’t really know what he expected. 

Did he think Taerae was going to bring up the shipping thing in his first words to him? Taerae probably didn’t even know about the whole “Mattrae” thing in the first place, not when Matthew had just found out about it himself—and only because his editor had come out as a secret fan of it. If not for Gyuvin, he might have shown up to this shoot entirely none the wiser to the activities of his fans on the internet. Maybe it would have been better that way. 

“Then you can call me Matthew, or Matt, I guess. Whatever you want is fine.” 

Nailed it. 

(He needed to stop being such an utter Flop before the cameras started rolling or he was never going to get hired again.)

“So… Do you do this a lot?" Taerae tried to make small talk. 

"Brand sponsorships? A few." Not as many as you, I'm sure, Matthew wanted to add, because now that he knew who the other singer was, it felt impossible to travel anywhere in Seoul without seeing an ad with the trot singer's face emblazoned across an LED screen or on a standee outside a convenience store. 

"I meant camping," Taerae corrected, tossing a few more sticks into the basket.

"Oh." Matthew turned his head away to try and hide the blush rapidly spreading across his face. He didn't know what it was about the other man that made him feel like he was striking out every time. "Yeah. I like camping a lot, actually. Used to go with my parents as a kid." 

"I've never been before," Taerae admitted.

"Nature's not your thing?" Matthew guessed. "I guess this kind of thing isn’t really popular among your er—colleagues. And your fans are probably more comfortable at home voting from all their grandchildren’s phones instead of camping in the wilderness." 

Matthew had meant it as a joke. A stereotype, that was all. The ajummas that would go to war for their favorite trot singer. 

At his words, Taerae's expression seemed to harden, and the tower walls of awkwardness that Matthew thought had started to come down were rebuilt in an instant and reinforced. He didn’t even know why he'd said it. His brain had reminded him of the squeaky clean posts he'd seen of Taerae layered beside Matthew’s gym shots in such an elaborate display of contrast that Matthew struggled to believe they had anything in common at all. But maybe that was just the fan narrative. Maybe Taerae loved hiking, camping, and the gym, and Matthew had just ruined a real shot at friendship because he let one Shawn Mendes edit throw his whole planet out of orbit. 

"I didn't mean it like that," Matthew scrambled to apologize. "I just—well, there’s the stereotype that—"

"That young people can’t do trot?" There was a bite to Taerae's words that sent Matthew panicking even further. 

"I mean, I guess, but—“

The shoot hadn’t even begun yet and Matthew had already stuck his foot in his mouth so badly he wasn’t sure if his aura could ever recover.

He waited for Taerae to respond, to realize it was a joke and not a personal slight, but the other man just humphed and started to walk away. "If that's how you feel." 

*

Safe to say that by the time the shoot finally began, things had become incredibly awkward. Matthew had set up one of the tents with the help of the comedian host, who kept making obnoxious sound effects and comments instead of actually helping, while Taerae and Sulbi handled the second tent on the other side. When Matthew offered to help hold the poles of Taerae’s tent up that were threatening to blow over in the wind, Taerae shook his head and insisted that the two of them could manage it by themselves.

After that failure, Matthew hoped that dinner would involve some kind of drinking game, just to loosen the stake it felt that he had offered to Taerae to plunge right into his heart. Besides, what better way was there to promote Pocari Sweat than as an electrolyte booster after a long night of drinking? But apparently Sulbi was a minor (so she actually was still in high school), which meant no alcohol was allowed near the premises, and Matthew got stuck spouting off facts for healthy living that the crew flashes at him on cue cards. It felt more like a scripted show than a variety program, and secretly Matthew doubted that anyone would watch it aside from the most dedicated fans of Sulbi and Taerae. A few times, he tried to engage Taerae in the kind of banter they had in the forest before The Incident, but Taerae only gave short answers or changed the subject instead of continuing the joke. Matthew didn’t even think he can follow his usual ritual of live reacting to the shows he was in on a livestream later without revealing how the whole night he felt like crawling out of his skin just to escape the awkwardness.

Finally, Sulbi had given her ending ment about how spending this time with the three of them was so meaningful that she would never forget their camping experience together. The truth was that her filming curfew was ten pm, and unlike the rest of them that actually would have to sleep in the tents they had pitched very poorly before dinner, she got to go back home to her cushy dorm so that she could film Inkigayo the next morning. 

Now, three three were playing rock, paper, scissors to decide who will have to share one of the two tents and who will get to claim the other as their own. Matthew furrows his brows, putting on a fake competitive spirit and throwing his hands up dramatically for the camera when he is eliminated first.

"It's rigged! All rigged!" Matthew gripes, pointing at the comedian jokingly. "What's your secret? How did you know what I would pick every time!" 

"Young man," the host replies, patting Matthew on the shoulder, voice thick with fake emotion as he pretends to wipe a tear. "When you're as old as me, the skill will come to you too." 

"So like in fifty years or…?" 

All three of them burst into laughter, including Taerae who had refrained from ribbing the host until then, always the polite one. 

"You'll see, Strong Boy.” The comedian points to Taerae. "Let me show Mr. Trot how it's done." 

Matthew secretly wonders if the man had forgotten both of their names and was trying to use the stupid nicknames to hide it. 

But despite his big talk, the comedian loses two out of the three rounds to Taerae. Matthew is about to make a joke about how, since they will be roommates, he wants to know if the older man snores, when Taerae speaks first. "Shin-nim, to thank you for hosting today, I'll give the single tent to you." 

"You don't have to do that, you won fair and square." The host shakes his head in disagreement.

"I insist," Taerae replies firmly, and Matthew has only halfway processed what Taerae means until he hears the second part of the sentence. "It's better for Matthew and I to share the tent together anyways, since we're same-aged friends and all." 

Matthew's brain skids right past "same-aged" (but he will come back to that later, because… what? How did Taerae know that?) and spins out when it hits ‘friends’. Why would Taerae say that they are friends when he has spent the whole night ignoring Matthew’s existence? 

The camera pans to the two men, with Taerae turning to face Matthew. "That's okay with you, right, Matthew?"

He nods, still in a daze. Of course, Taerae is just playing nice for the three massive lenses pointed at him, selling himself as the Perfect Boyfriend of the Nation—selfless and kind and patient and—wait. Boyfriend? No one said anything about boyfriends. Matthew has to break whatever connection his brain keeps making between’ Taerae’ and ‘Boyfriend’ because those things are NOT related whatsoever. 

"That's settled then. Good night, Shin-nim," Taerae flashes his signature toothy smile, pulling Matthew by the elbow towards the tent when the influencer makes no move to start walking there himself. 

When they are zipped inside the navy blue canvas, the cameras finally turned off and put away, Matthew feels like a small weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He hopes that Taerae switching tents is an olive branch, or at the very least, a sign that Taerae doesn’t actually hate his guts for what he had said before. But the other man hasn’t said a word since they’d entered together. The sound of Matthew’s sleeping bag unzipping is the loudest noise in the small room, cutting through the thick layer of silence, aside from the chirping of nature just beyond the tent’s cloth walls. Laying on opposite sides of the (admittedly small, but not small enough to be actively touching) tent, Matthew wonders if somehow Taerae has already fallen asleep. 

"Hey," Matthew whispers, staring straight above at the metal poles twisting to form the domed ceiling. "Are you awake?" 

There’s a sound of rustling followed by an awkward too long pause like Taerae is debating pretending not to be. Finally, "Yeah." 

It’s sharp, nothing like the friendly way he'd spoken to Matthew before, even when they were strangers. They still are strangers. For some reason, Matthew feels the need to keep reminding himself of that. He had told himself not to let fans influence his interactions with Taerae, but somehow, their invisible expectations were harder to ignore than he had expected.

"I just wanted to apologize for making you switch tents before." It isn’t really what Matthew wants to say, but maybe Taerae can read between the lines. 

"You didn't make me do anything." 

For a while, Matthew doesn’t know how to reply. Then, he answers, "I'm also sorry if we got off on the wrong foot. I didn't—" 

There’s a bit more motion on Taerae's side of the tent. Somehow, Matthew is afraid to look away from the ceiling, like if he rolls over, Taerae's wide eyes will be staring right back at him. 

"You sure apologize about a lot of things, Seok Matthew," Taerae mumbles. Matthew doesn’t know what to say to that either, so he decides not to say anything at all. He rolls over in the other direction, facing the wall so there is no chance he’ll accidentally bump into Taerae in the night, and tries to fall asleep.

*

[FOR YOU] 

@MattDailyUpdates: Seok Matthew will be appearing as a guest on the show "Return to the Simple Life" as part of his brand sponsorship with Pocari Sweat. Tune in live on KBS at 8 PM KST.

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@musclemaster52: what is this random side quest?? 

@chuchuchu: why was that so fun though, i loved seeing matthew in his element (lifting heavy things and looking hot while doing it) 

@luckystrawberry_6: can someone check on @biaorchive i haven't heard anything from them in the last twenty minutes 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mango_san: ok attachment issues much?? where's this energy for your actual boyfriend…

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: mattrae actually met 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mango_san: oh shit

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: could you at least pretend to be excited for me?? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mango_san: oh shit!!!!

@biaorchive: [closed] 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ@luckystrawberry_6: stop being dramatic and text me back 

@pannchoa: Fans discuss influencer Seok Matthew and Mr. Trot winner Kim Taerae’s unexpected chemistry after their appearance on “Return to the Simple Life” 

[video attached] 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤ @jiminsearlobe: i don’t even go here but why are they kinda…

[reposted by @biaorchive, @luckystrawberry_6]

@mattraeplsk1ss: do NOT share the photos of Taerae and Matthew in the forest!! they are taken by sasaengs who followed Taerae to the filming site. 

ㅤㅤ

*

It is always a bad idea to look up what people are saying about you online. It’s especially poor timing to look up what people are saying about you right when new content has just aired and everyone and their mother is posting about it trying to get a hit tweet. It’s just a bit hard to avoid the cursed blue bird app when Kim Gyuvin has been sending him posts all morning from the site, even though the younger man knows that Matthew is on a (self imposed) Twitter ban. 

*

[DIRECT MESSAGES] 

from: Gyub Editor Extraordinaire 

[link attached]

[link attached] 

[link attached]

read at 22:32

you can’t just ignore me

i know you’re seeing these 

read at 22:41 

[link attached]

hahaha how did they even take this one 

did they climb the trees or something? 

read at 22:52

Himbo To The Stars

well, fuck

how is this my life

*

There were fansites in the trees. 

He forgot that there were fansites in the fucking trees. 

Matthew opens the link Gyuvin had sent despite all his better judgement begging him to turn his phone off for the night and pretend like he never saw the editor’s message at all. Curiosity killed the cat, they say, which is the only way he can describe the events that followed the veritable crash out that occurred once he started scrolling his timeline. 

There aren’t very many photos of him and Taerae collecting firewood at the tree line, but there are enough to tell a damning story—that never actually happened. The two of them standing there, smiling at the jokes that Matthew had made, earnest in their laughter instead of fake like it had been during the shooting. There’s a photo of Matthew stretching out into his stupid lunge pose with the basket in front of Taerae, pretending like the kindling was heavier than the weights he bench pressed daily in the gym. Bitterly, Matthew thinks they almost look like friends, not just strangers who had been lured together by the boredom of a delayed shooting. Miraculously, they had gotten far enough from the 6 inch telescopic lenses of the sasaengs that none of them had caught the argument that followed a few minutes later. Or at least, Matthew hadn’t found any photographic evidence of Taerae stalking away from him in contempt instead of watching him with a half-lidded goofy kind of grin like he actually found Matthew’s jokes entertaining instead of stupid. 

It paints a completely different picture of their interaction, one without any of the animosity in the filming that followed. Not that there really was any true animosity, they were both professionals after all, but all of their scripted conversations had an undercurrent of simmering dislike that was nowhere to be seen in these photos. Hell, if Matthew hadn’t lived it, he would almost wonder if there really was something going on between them—and not necessarily in a romantic way. Just that, it didn’t really look like a first meeting between strangers, they looked more like close friends. 

The quotes on the post seem to agree. Well, the ones that aren’t putting the fansite on blast for following Taerae to a private filming location that wasn’t listed on his public schedule. He scrolls further, past post after post of people convinced that these photos are Hardcore Proof of anything at all. Of course, it didn’t help that he had to search his and Taerae’s CP name to find the photos in the first place. Shippers found in their censored shipping tag. Forks found in the kitchen. 

Matthew didn’t exactly have his own fansites in the same way Taerae did (and he’d never been more grateful for that until today), and there were too many posts about Taerae per day to find what he was looking for by searching his name alone. But, under the “#Mattrae” tag there was a veritable treasure trove of content. Eventually, he runs out of pictures and stumbles upon the theories. Whole essays about how the shooting proves that the two of them had met before. There are some slightly more reasonable people acknowledging that this was likely their first meeting but also saying that their chemistry was better than they expected. 

Then, the algorithm brings him to the fanfiction. 

Abstractly, he knew that it might exist. Fans are (clearly) some of the most imaginative people on earth. They make edits, draw artwork—some of which he’d even received in the mail or at events—and it makes objective sense that there might be some written works out there about him as well. 

He just never expected that he would be confronted with it face to face. 

@biaorchive: i blinked and suddenly the next chapter of stop the world was typed into my docs. i blame kbs for the sudden bout of inspiration. enjoy the meal of 15k friends. 

[link - stop the world (just to stop this feeling) - ch. 10]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taeraepookie: THE KING IS BACK 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@beebopboop: BLAME?? i’m putting KBS in my will for this 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mrtrotwidehandsome: you can’t leave us on another cliffhanger biao how are you so cruel!! will t43rae really send m4tt to the war?? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: hehe, you’ll just have to wait and see i guess ;)

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@yaoi_is_my_water: how are you so quick with it?? i feel like the last chapter came out just yesterday…

At first, he thinks about just sending it to Gyuvin as a joke. Because really, he only started looking at these tweets in the first place as a joke. There was never anything else to it, no hidden motive or secret plan. He should just send the link to Gyuvin for a laugh and wipe the memory from his brain forever. 

Still, it couldn’t hurt just to try reading a little bit, right? Maybe he could screenshot the beginning lines too and send them to Gyuvin to prove once and for all that Matthew could be totally normal about the shipping thing if he wanted to be. 

The problem is, he reads the first few lines, and then he realizes that this is not just a story about him and Taerae, this is a whole novel. Clocking in at over 90,000 words and counting, the author has come up with an entire universe of warring nobility and arranged marriages where Matthew—the lowly knight—has swooped in to save Taerae from it all. It takes a few more lines to realize the whole first chapter is told from Taerae’s perspective. Logically he knows it’s not really Taerae’s perspective, it’s some fan’s interpretation of Taerae’s view of the whole situation, but somehow the idea of getting inside Taerae’s mind intrigues him more than he would like to admit. 

He reads another chapter and finds that the second one is told from his perspective. It’s weird to read about himself from the third person, but the plot is too well done to think about clicking away. Then, the author throws in a cliffhanger at the end of it. Matthew’s character isn’t a peasant knight at all—he’s an illegitimate son of the house that the Kim family is on the brink of war with, and it’s up to him to defend Taerae from his own family even as he receives letters from his mother begging him to betray the lord he has been serving for most of his life. 

Aside from the insanity of the plot (how did they even come up with this?? and for free??), Matthew keeps getting stuck on the little details—like how Matthew speaks and how Taerae speaks to him—which is ridiculous the more he thinks about it. But for the record, he’s trying very hard not to think about it—because when he thinks about it, imagines the pet names that Taerae might have called him once the cameras stopped rolling, the fondness underlying the fake annoyance in his voice, a part of Matthew almost feels like it could be real. Though he can’t really speak for Taerae, it feels like Biaorchive knows Matthew in ways that are strange to admit given how they’ve never met. 

He reopens Biaorchive’s profile. What he finds makes him do a double—triple—even quadruple take. Is staring at the bright white light of his phone screen in the pitch darkness of his room finally turning him blind after all these years? Because there’s no way that Matthew is reading that number right. He scrolls to the bottom of the screen just to be sure, counting as he goes. 

15 works published by Biaorchive, and they are all about him and Taerae. 

Fifteen. One Five. He can’t comprehend it. And some of them are long, Biaorchive must have nearly a million words of content written in just over a year. Matthew and Taerae had only met for the first time on the show a couple weeks ago, but Biaorchive has been at this for so much longer, single-handedly building something out of nothing, until a whole fandom had formed around their works. 

There’s no way he can read all of these. An office story. A pirate story. One where they’re idols debuted in the same group. The list goes on and on. 

Switching tabs back to Biaorchive’s Twitter account, he scrolls through Biaorchive’s thousands and thousands of tweets. He doesn’t read them, he’s not a psychopath, but he thinks maybe if he can just get to the bottom of how all this began, he might understand what made people think that he and Taerae would be a good couple in the first place. 

Dramatically, he thinks his thumb will cramp if he has to scroll any farther. How can one person have so much to say? And about a ship of two people who had never met 99% of the time the account existed for that matter? He finds himself irrationally jealous that the user seems to be a bigger fan of Taerae than him, at least based on the pouting image of the singer set to be Biaorchive’s pfp. Even more irrationally, he wonders what he would have to do to convince Biaorchive to change it to him instead. 

Eventually, he hits the bottom. The very first tweet. 

It’s a quote on a post about Matthew’s livestream all those months ago from one of his update accounts. In it, he’s showing his workout playlist to the camera, explaining why he’d picked each song for maximum energy while working out. One of which is apparently the song that Taerae had sung in the finale of Mr. Trot. When a viewer asks him why he would work out to a trot song, Matthew in the video just shrugs and says he heard it while he was watching the show with his grandma and thought it matched the same upbeat tempo as the rest of his playlist. 

Flashing his signature grin to the camera, livestream Matthew says, “I could be a great trot singer too, right? Watch out for me, Mr. Trot, as long as leg day tomorrow doesn’t kill me first!”

The video starts to loop back to the start, and Matthew finds himself staring in disbelief. 

That’s it? 

That was Biaorchive’s big moment? They wrote all those thousands of words off of one single crumb alone? 

Matthew goes back to the white and red fanfiction website and reopens the story about him as a knight.

It’s already past two am. One more chapter can’t hurt. 

(He regrets it when he misses his alarm due to staying up so late that he could hear the birds chirping in order to catch up to the most recent chapter of the story. User @mrtrotwidehandsome had been correct. How could Biaorchive be so cruel to leave them on a cliffhanger like that?) 

In a culmination of poor judgement, he signs up for an account on the site so he can subscribe to the writer in order to get updates. 

*

“No way. You’re kidding me right now,” Matthew says into the phone before he can stop himself. 

There are a few moments of silence before Jiwoong answers. ”Was that a rhetorical question? I’m speaking to Seok Matthew right now, correct?” 

“Yes, yes of course. Sorry, it’s just. I’m not sure I heard you correctly. Could you repeat that one more time?” 

Jiwoong relaunches into the same spiel he had given when Matthew first picked up the phone, this time with more detail. “Pocari is inviting you to do another shoot. The popularity of ‘Return to the Simple Life’ boosted sales by 10% last month. The board has decided that funding more celebrity shows is the best marketing strategy. They’re inviting you to be on the first episode in a new series where two celebrities swap lives with each other and try to do the job of the other one for one whole day. It’s part of a new campaign to show that Pocari Sweat is for everyone, not just athletes.”  

“I got that much,” Matthew interjects before Jiwoong can re-explain all the contractual details and hours he would need to film. “It’s just, this is the part I must have misunderstood. Who did you say they wanted me to do the show with?”

“Kim Taerae.”

“No way, you’re kidding me, right?”

“Am I stuck in a time loop or did we just have this conversation thirty seconds ago…”

“Sorry, Hyung.” Matthew huffs out an apology even though he’s still trying to wrap his mind around the information himself. 

Normally, this is the kind of concept he would be all over. Even as a viewer, it seems fun to think about celebrities with different jobs trying to fill each others’ shoes for a day. Maybe then they would realize just how different each others’ lives were, that everyone worked hard even if their fame didn’t come from a traditional route like being a singer or an actor. He thought it would be a blast trying to show someone the ropes of working at the gym, explain how there was a lot more management to it than most people expected from a guy who made most of his content on the spot in live-streamed workout classes or post-workout chats. 

But to do all that with Kim Taerae? That sounded more like Matthew’s worst nightmare come to life. 

“Why us two?”

“Come on, you can’t seriously be asking that!” Jiwoong takes Matthew’s question as a joke. “The whole internet loves you together. They loved your weird friendship banter thing on the last show. Of course Pocari wants to bring you back for the first episode of their new series.” 

Yeah. Their friendship was certainly the reason the internet loved them. 

Going on this show felt like an attempt to play into their delusions while in reality Matthew would have to convince fans that Taerae hadn’t spent most of their night in the tent together ignoring his entire presence. 

“He hates my guts,” Matthew confesses to Jiwoong, “There is no friendship going on.” 

“I’m sure that’s not true.” Now Matthew can hear the customer service in Jiwoong’s voice, the tone he surely uses whenever he’s dealing with a particularly stubborn client. As much as Matthew loves the brand ambassador for putting up with him, it’s moments like these that solidify to him that Jiwoong will always put his job first before their budding friendship. “And besides, if you did get off on the wrong foot, consider this your opportunity to apologize.” 

“Ok, but what if he says no. Then that will look so embarrassing for me.” 

“What if I told you his management already agreed?” 

Well then. If Taerae was Helen then Matthew would be the Trojan Horse—or however the story went—and he would win his man back. In a purely friendship way only, of course. 

“I’m in.” 

*

At first, Taerae’s team—because there is an entire team dedicated to the persona of Kim Taerae, who is clearly running a much more professional organization than Matthew and Gyuvin’s operation out of Matthew’s apartment—was going to send a manager to work out the schedule for the next month in preparation for the actual life swap day. When Matthew had to explain sheepishly that he didn’t have a manager, it ended up being Taerae himself sitting across from him at the top level of a cafe they had rented out for privacy. 

Matthew thought that Taerae’s managers had forced him to do it, assumed that he would rather do anything else in his busy schedule besides meet with Matthew, but if he can use this opportunity as a peace negotiation as much as a schedule planning, he’ll take every chance he can get. 

Though Matthew planned to arrive first, hopefully able to ply the singer into peace talks with sweet desserts, the barista simply directs him to the third floor as soon as he arrives. It’s not a competition, Matthew reminds himself, but if it was one, he doesn’t think he would be winning. 

In the elevator, he reminds himself of what is real and what he’d read on Biaorchive’s page. 

Real: Taerae is a singer. 

Fake: Taerae is not his enemy from an opposing house of noblemen that was placed in an arranged marriage to stop a war. 

Real: Taerae was born the same year as him. 

Fake: Taerae has not been dating him for at least a year in a secret relationship despite said betrothal. 

Real: Taerae doesn’t like to be called “Mr. Trot” in the same way Matthew doesn’t like to be called “TikTok” guy. 

Fake: Taerae has never sent Matthew off to fight in a war to avoid breaking his heart when he has to marry Matthew’s step brother who tried to murder him as a child. (But Matthew did wish that he had the horse his character always rode to meet Taerae because that would be Epic.)

Real: 

He can’t think of anything else to put in the real category (he can think of at least a dozen more for the fake one), so he gives up just in time for the elevator doors to open wide on the third floor of the cafe. 

Taerae is waiting for him at a table in the middle of the room. It’s almost ominous in a way, to see all the empty tables with one masked figure sitting in the center. Matthew takes a cautious step forward, like Taerae is about to read him a prophecy or grant him a quest or—NO. This is not fanfiction, this is reality, and he needs to screw his head back on correctly before Taerae realizes that Matthew is somehow even more messed up in the head now than he had been before. 

“So it’s true, you really don’t have a manager.” Taerae pulls his mask down before he speaks, which ruins the whole kind of modern day oracle-or-potential-dark-lord look he had going with his discrete outfit and silent stare as Matthew took the seat across from him. 

“I wouldn’t have lied about that,” Matthew answers. “I don’t have any reason to.” 

“I thought you were just trying to teach Sulbi-ssi a lesson.” Taerae shrugged. Matthew notices the way he doesn’t speak of the idol fondly. 

“You’re not close to her?” 

“Not really. We’ve seen each other at concerts, filmed a challenge for TikTok once, but I doubt we’ve ever had a full on conversation.” 

“You two acted like you knew each other though.” Matthew remembers the familiarity between them when she had uncapped the bottle for him.

“Because we’re idols. We know how to act when we have to.” 

That was another difference between the two of them. Matthew never learned how to act, when not to be his true self. Sure, he had a more vibrant personality in front of the camera than behind it, but he never faked any of his reactions or his opinions just because he thought it’s what fans would want. Maybe that was the reason Taerae seemed so calm and collected at all times—why he wasn’t up all night confusing the story version of Taerae with the person he’d actually met and wondering how it was possible for Biaorchive’s Taerae to be in love with him when the real man seemed entirely out of reach. 

“Fair enough,” Matthew replies in lieu of saying any of his real thoughts out loud. “So, we have one month to figure out how to get you up to speed with teaching one of my classes.” 

“And we have one month to prepare you to get on stage. Seems like one will be harder than the other, no?” Taerae sounds innocent when he says it, but Matthew hates the way that everyone always seems to underestimate him and his job. It sets off the competitiveness in him that comes with being an athlete and being challenged by a guy who he had only ever wanted to win over. 

Yes, he might have built a following of locals around his corny jokes and viral moments, but he had a core fanbase who actually trusted him for workout routines and lifestyle advice. The bulk of his income doesn’t even come from TikTok, though it would probably surprise most people to know, but from the classes he teaches at the gym—the class that he would be putting into Taerae’s inexperienced hands. 

“I’m a natural at singing,” Matthew jokes, playfully trying to turn the comment back on Taerae. He keeps his tone light, not wanting him to take it like an insult the way he had done last time. “My grandma always said I should have auditioned to be a trainee. But teaching a class isn’t as easy as you would think.” 

“Auditioning isn’t the same as actually doing it. If I watch a few videos of your classes, I’m sure it will be fine.” Taerae sounds so nonchalant about the whole thing that Matthew wants to wipe the charming grin right off his face. He tried to play nice, but if Taerae wanted to have a complex about it, Matthew could do it too. 

“It’s not just about being able to go through the motions. You have to be able to show others and correct them when they’re wrong.” 

For what seems like an hour, though it can’t be more than a couple seconds, they stare each other down, neither willing to break first. 

Finally, Taerae replies, “Then, I guess we both have a lot to learn.” 

At first, Taerae insists on Matthew coming to his company for their practice sessions. Sure, it might be more practical for Taerae’s security team (because it turns out the two men-in-black type figures drinking americanos in front of the elevator were not just businessmen but actual bodyguards), but Taerae’s small studio had none of the equipment necessary for Taerae to learn how to properly give a training session. 

In the end, the private room at the back of Matthew’s gym is chosen for their meeting place for Taerae’s sessions, and Taerae’s studio for Matthew’s rehearsals. 

They settle on a practice time twice per week when Taerae’s schedule is empty. Despite the bravado he had tried to show earlier, Matthew secretly hopes that it will be enough time not to make an utter fool of himself at whichever event Taerae has convinced to let Matthew perform at. 

By the end of the meeting, Taerae’s stoic demeanor has softened into something a little closer to how he was back at the campground. He downright cackles when Matthew tells him the story about one of the regulars in his classes—an ajumma who really only comes to flirt with Matthew while her friends tease that he is young enough to be her grandson—which Matthew counts as a small win.

When he laughs, Matthew can almost see in between the lines where the version of Taerae in the stories shines through. 

No, not shines through. Taerae is just as vibrant as Biaorchive portrayed him to be, but he is so much more real too. He snorts a bit when he laughs, which Matthew finds cuter than he thinks anyone else would, especially when it’s at his expense. He likes that Taerae is a little mean to him, something that the fanfiction portrayals always seem to gloss over. 

The thought comes to him unbidden, then. 

What would it take for Matthew to become the version of himself in the story that Taerae was in love with too?

*

It’s only a few hours later, staring at the tile wall of his shower for so long the bathroom starts to flood as water sloshes over the sides of the barrier, that he realizes just how wild of a thought that was. 

Matthew—become the one Taerae was in love with? 

Taerae was only just starting to maybe get along with Matthew. He had been given an inch, and now his brain wanted a mile, wanting to skip all the way to the end when he was still at the beginning. 

Part of him worried that he had already conflated reality too much with fiction, that his brain was trying to fit Taerae into a shape he understood, even if the mold was made by someone who didn’t really know his true personality at all. Did he even like Taerae in that way, or was this just what he thought he wanted because that’s how Biaorchive had written it to be? 

But it’s not like Biaorchive ever intended Matthew to read their works either. 

Still, it was safe to say that Matthew shouldn’t read any more of their stories if just one had messed him up this badly. 

[NOTIFICATIONS]

[AO3] biaorchive has posted (camp)fire burning in my veins

(camp)fire burning in my veins (7389 words)

by: biaorchive

Fandom: Korean Celebrity RPF

Rating: Teen and Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Kim Taerae/Seok Matthew

Characters: Kim Taerae, Seok Matthew, Kim Sulbi ((U)N-IFY), Shin Woobyun (comedian) 

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Secret Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Banter, Pining, Excessive Use of Petnames, Campfires as a metaphor for love, Kim Taerae’s love for the guitar, Inspired by KBS My Simple Life, I wrote this instead of sleeping

Summary: Matthew is excited to finally have a schedule with his boyfriend. Taerae is worried Matthew won’t be able to keep their relationship a secret in front of all the cameras.

*

The bathroom floor is still wet, and the mirror is entirely fogged over in a reminder of his past bad decisions. It should be a sign, some small part of his brain whispers, as he stares at the notification. 

Matthew was never the kind of superstitious that his Grandma was, seeing omens in everything and always reading between the lines. He was the kind of person who saw what was there, who could fall for a red flag if it was dressed up in green. But it was just so tempting. 

As soon as he towels himself off, t-shirt sticking a bit to his still wet skin as he sits on the couch, he opens the story. 

Biaorchive has spun a compelling tale that has Matthew squinting at the tiny white screen of his phone late into the night. They weave a story of Matthew and Taerae (as always), but this time as their real selves, no “alternate universe” to be found. Only, in Biaorchive’s mind, they have apparently been in a secret relationship for a year before they go on “Return to the Simple Life” together. Somehow, Biaorchive manages to incorporate the actual things they’d said on the show in between Taerae’s internal monologue, filling in the blanks of what had been said and what hadn’t been said at all. For the most part, it feels like it could be accurate—until he stumbles upon the slight incongruities with reality, like a mention of things the pair had supposedly done together earlier in the day (when in reality they’d only just met for the first time at the campground) or the way Biaorchive describes Taerae’s interpretation of Matthew’s overtures as teasing in a ‘trying-to-get- attention-from-his-boyfriend’ romantic way instead of in a ‘Matthew-desperately-trying-to-get-Taerae’s-attention-to-apologize’ to no avail. 

Soon, he reaches the final line, which suggests that things happened in the tent after the rock-paper-scissors reconciliation that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. 

Something about the implication makes his head feel fuzzy, like he’d done something bad by invading Taerae’s mind by reading the story without his consent. This feels different than the story about knights and kingdoms. It feels so much more real because it’s actually them, those are the things they said and did, just completely twisted in a way so far from reality that Matthew can hardly believe it. He turns his phone off, flipping it over on his pillow like it could burn him if he allows it to come any closer to him. 

Ha… Maybe he really is going crazy. 

Invading his mind without his consent? The story is fictional. None of it is actually real. He and Taerae aren’t really in a secret relationship. Taerae didn’t  tease him because he loved him, but because Matthew had insulted him and Taerae had rightfully denied all his terrible attempts at apology. Biaorchive had seen what happened, but they hadn’t understood it, that much was clear. For as much as they had gotten right, they had gotten so much so wrong.

He’s halfway through typing an actual comment to Biaorchive explaining just that when he realizes that it’s probably a bad idea to write things that only the Real Seok Matthew would know on this website that anyone can access. At best, Biaorchive would think he was crazy—but at worst, the fan might actually realize that Matthew was reading fanfiction about himself and Taerae online and spill the secret to the entire internet. Deleting half his comment, he tries to rephrase it to be less revealing. 

*

(camp)fire burning in my veins comments 

matthew173627181 great work as always but are you sure that matthew would really call taerae his “honey sugar plum prince love” — it seems a bit excessive, no? 

 ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤biaorchive oh really? my boyfriend calls me that all the time i thought it was normal. 

my lover is a fox (not clickbait) comments

matthew173627181 hahahaha i laughed out loud so hard reading this. is it strange to say that i think this is exactly how matthew would react if he suddenly turned into a fox? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤biaorchive skksksks it would be almost a dream come true for him i think. thank you for reading my fic!!

if you were mine (i’d be yours) comments 

matthew173627181 why did you actually make me tear up a little. i didn’t see the major character death tag until it was too late. i hope they could reunite in another life :( 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤biaorchive op did you go on a spree of all my fics?? this was one of the very first ones thank you :’) sorry for making you cry. 

*

It’s a bit odd to have so many cameras in the gym at one time. Matthew does his live-streamed classes with a phone balanced on a tripod—or sometimes whatever he can find if he forgets it—but for the show Pocari sends three cameramen and two stylists to ensure that not a drop of sweat crosses their perfect faces. 

Normally, Matthew would give his lessons in front of the mirror so his students can see themselves. Unfortunately, after about ten minutes of trying to arrange themselves, there was no way to have the class in his usual place without one of the cameras seeing each other or themselves in the mirror. 

Not ideal, but Matthew was starting to get the idea that the show was less about the actual swapping of their careers and more about capturing as much content as possible for the greedy fans. 

“Just act natural,” Jiwoong directs them, having swapped his usual blazer for a neon blue Pocari Sweat sports jacket. Well, at least someone was taking this seriously. 

Matthew looks Taerae up and down. For teaching purposes, thank you very much. 

“Is there something wrong with my outfit?” Taerae raises an eyebrow. He’s wearing a big t-shirt and baggy sweatpants, probably what he usually wears to learn choreography for his performances. But dance isn’t the same as a strength-training routine. 

“It won’t be easy to check your form in clothes like this,” Matthew tsks. 

He can feel the singer’s eyes get stuck on Matthew’s own tiny shorts that he always wore when he taught classes. 

“I don’t own anything like that.” 

Matthew is about to suggest that Taerae can borrow a pair from him when his brain fills in the mental image of Taerae wearing a pair of Matthew’s gym shorts. 

“On second thought,” Matthew ducks his head away from the camera to try to hide the pink flushing at the back of his neck. “This is fine.” 

He leads Taerae to the center of the room, very aware of how the cameras are following their every move. It’s hard to get comfortable because of it, and not just because being around Taerae makes him a bit stressed in a way that he can’t quite name. Matthew feels a bit like he’s walking on the edge of something and will tip right over if he isn’t careful. 

“We’ll start with a stretch routine.” 

Matthew leans over to one side, expecting Taerae to follow him. 

“Wait—“ Taerae interrupts. Still half folded over, Matthew looks up from the ground. “You don’t put on music or anything while you do this? It’s kinda awkward to do it in silence, no?” 

“Oh.” Matthew unfolds himself from the stretch. In all his stress he’d completely forgotten. “Of course. Let me just—do you want to choose?” He offers politely. 

“No, no.” Taerae seems endeared by Matthew’s fumbling, or at least Matthew will pretend he is. “Just play what you usually do. The idea is I’m supposed to be Seok Matthew for a day, right?” 

“Right…” Matthew nearly drops his phone trying to hook it up to the speaker. He’s usually never like this, the gym is his territory, the place he spends the most time outside of his own home. “Alright, let’s go.” 

The speaker starts playing the pop song at the start of his playlist, and the mood in the room seems to instantly relax a bit. Matthew tries to act like this is just another class, a private lesson in a way that's no different than any of the other half a dozen classes he does over the week. 

With that attitude, the rest of the warm up goes off without a hitch. Except for the lunge stretch, in which Matthew feels obligated to step out of his own pose to correct Taerae’s posture. Before he can think better of it, he reaches out to steady Taerae’s hips, the same way he would any other student. 

But Taerae isn’t any student, and usually his classes don’t have three cameras pointing at him capturing his every move in 4K. 

He hopes the way he pulls his hands away like they’ve been burned doesn’t make it into the final cut. 

Instead, he gives verbal directions. “You need to keep your torso straight, don’t twist your hips.” 

Taerae, who seems more focused than Matthew expected, stares directly at the wall in front of him to keep his balance. If he notices Matthew’s mistake, he doesn’t say anything. 

“Thanks, Seonsaeng-nim,” Taerae grins, and Matthew finds himself under the full blast of his smile. 

The moment reminds him of one of the scenes in the story he had read, where the knight version of Matthew had been training the nobleman version of Taerae to defend himself. Matthew’s character had promised that Taerae would never have to fight as long as Matthew was around, but Taerae had stubbornly insisted on learning anyway. 

Something in his stomach flutters. 

Matthew snaps himself out of it and buries those thoughts way down. He needs to focus on what’s in front of him now, not the fantasy that his brain wants to invent with no grounding in reality. 

“Ok, that’s good for now,” Matthew straightens up. 

“We’re done already?” 

“Done? No. That was just the warm up.” 

Taerae seems to deflate. “Oh.” 

Matthew changes the song to something more upbeat. “Now the real fun begins.” 

He starts to lead him through a simplified version of the routine he usually does for his class of older students. It’s not quite as bouncy as his advanced routine, but Matthew has a surprise in the playlist for Taerae. 

If the singer could make it that long. 

“Do you want a break?” Matthew goes to pause the music. 

Taerae shakes his head. “Don’t go easy on me

“I’m not—“ Matthew starts to say, but Taerae just shoots him a glare. 

“Now I know why you wear those tiny shorts.” Taerae fans himself by fluttering the bottom of his shirt. Matthew doesn’t say anything about the sweat sticking it to his back. 

“It’s not just for looks,” Matthew replies smugly. 

“Sure,” Taerae says disbelievingly, reaching for the phone to put the music back on. It skips to the next song and a familiar intro starts to filter through the speakers. 

“Is this…?” 

Matthew gives himself two preparation beats before he launches back into the routine. 

“Turns out you’re really a hit among the ajummas in my class,” Matthew grins. “Looks like we have that in common. Your song is pretty good, I admit. I might have to join your fan club too. Do you think there’s room for one more?” 

Taerae looks like a deer in headlights at the revelation for a few moments. Matthew has done this part of the workout enough times that he can even sing the intro lines.

“I told you I could be an idol. Now come on, we’re almost done.” 

Taerae gets in line beside Matthew. “This doesn’t mean I forgive you,” He whispers behind Matthew’s ear so the camera can’t catch it. “But maybe you’re not so bad for a TikTok guy, Seok Matthew.” 

*

Taerae returns the favor of torture in Matthew’s first rehearsal the next week. 

“What is this?” Matthew holds the bright red pin-striped blazer away from him like the sequins on the inside of the collar might actually swallow him whole. 

“Your stage outfit,” Taerae hands him a, thankfully, unsequined pair of pants, though they are no less red and striped. 

“I don’t—“ 

“Come on, it’s lucky. I wore this on my opening stage of Mr. Trot. It was a bit big for me then, so I think it will fit you now.” 

“Why can’t I just wear my normal clothes?” 

“You want to wear gym shorts to a charity gala?” 

“I own a suit.” Matthew declares indignantly. 

“You said you could be an idol. Part of it is wearing outfits you really don’t want to in front of hundreds of people.” 

“So you admit it’s a bad outfit.” 

“I never said that,” Taerae reaches out to straighten the collar over Matthew’s t-shirt. It looks incredibly goofy, Matthew doesn’t even need to look into the mirror to prove it. 

Taerae is still smiling though, as he looks Matthew up and down in his gym shorts, t-shirt, and the terrible red blazer over the top of it. “We’ll make a singer out of you yet.” 

“Many have tried, and all have failed,” Matthew says, meaning it as a joke, but Taerae seems to see right through to the nugget of truth in the statement. 

“What do you mean?” 

Something about the singer is so sincere that Matthew wants to tell him even with the camera pointed at them. It’s not something he’s ever talked to fans about before. 

“I told you that my Grandma wanted me to audition to be a trainee, but I actually did it,” Matthew admits. “I trained for about two years.” 

“But you didn’t…?”

“It didn’t work out in the end. I was good at dancing, they taught me how to sing well enough, but I guess even after all that I still wasn’t what they were looking for.” 

Matthew keeps his eyes locked on Taerae’s, not daring to look at the camera, doesn’t think he would be able to be so candid if he did. 

“I don’t regret it though. I’m happier like this. I found a new dream, and this is it.” 

“Me too.” 

Matthew’s head tilts in confusion. 

“I left the trainee program too.” 

“But you’re an idol now?” Matthew feels dumb, like he’d missed a step or three somewhere along the line. 

“Only because I somehow caught a break on the show. Mr. Trot was my last chance, my only chance.” 

“I guess we both know something about fighting for our dreams then,” Matthew replies consideringly. It’s not an unexpected realization, he had always known that Taerae worked hard to get to where he was now. But he never imagined there might be some similarities in the way they had both pulled themselves from almost failing to the success they had now. 

The moment breaks when Taerae shoves the pants unceremoniously in Matthew’s hands. “Just try them on. It will make my whole week if I can see you rehearse just once wearing it.” 

Matthew pretends to grumble as he disappears behind the curtain to change. He was never going to to say no to Taerae anyway. 

*

stop the world (just to stop this feeling) (ch. 12) comments 

matthew173627181 wow!! i can’t wait for the next update. im so invested in the plot and i could read a hundred chapters of this if you wrote it. especially how you wrote the dynamic between matthew and taerae, because they didn’t get along right away, they had to learn to overcome their differences first. feels like that’s how it would go in real life too, i hope. this was my favorite part of the chapter

Matthew could be soaked in water, mud, even blood as long as it wasn’t his own and Taerae would still open the door for him. He couldn’t believe that the annoying squire who used to chase his friends through the manor with his lance, tracking dirt all over the freshly polished floors, had bloomed into this. Handsome, yes, having grown into the features that Taerae had teased him for as a child. But brave beyond a fault too, never wavering even as Taerae couldn’t decide what he wanted. All those years Taerae had wasted not getting to know him, and now as soon as Taerae had opened his walls Matthew had to go. 

There was no doubt about it in his mind. 

Seok Matthew had to go, not so that Taerae could protect his heart, but so Taerae could save his life. 

i have a lot of questions about how you came up with matthew’s backstory. why doesn’t he wear the flag of the kim house if he has lived there since he was a child? i don’t feel like there’s any chance he will betray taerae, but the flag thing throws me off every time taerae mentions it and matthew brushes him off. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤biaorchive hey this might be a little odd, but you’ve read a lot of my fics, and we are a small fandom, so feel free to dm me your questions on twitter and we can chat about it! my user is the same there as here :)

*

The day of the concert, Matthew finds that he isn’t nervous at all. 

As funny as it had been to wear Taerae’s colorful red suit in rehearsals, it hadn’t fit well enough for Pocari to approve it for the performance. Still, the sentimental value of Taerae wanting to share his first suit with Matthew wasn’t lost on him. 

Pocari had instead commissioned a dark blue velvet suit for him to wear, which is somehow itchier around the collar than Taerae’s sequins had been. 

Taerae notices him fidgeting with it. Though he wasn’t performing, he was still wearing a crisp white suit that contrasted nicely against Matthew’s. Like water and ice—more similar to each other than they had first thought, but still different in their own ways. 

“You’re going to do great out there.” 

“I’m not nervous,” Matthew reminds him, teasingly. “I told you that already. 

“Can’t I be nervous for you?”

“You don’t think you trained me well enough?” After weeks of working together, Taerae has gotten a lot better at telling when Matthew is joking.

Taerae huffs. “Of course I trained you well. I just don’t want to you to make a fool out of me.” 

“It’s your song,” Matthew points out. “They’ll probably be singing loud enough that I’ll be drowned out entirely.” 

Shaking his head, Taerae eventually confesses, “I know that you’re happy with the gym and everything now, but a part of me sees this as your debut. Even after all this time. I hope they can hear you.” 

Matthew admittedly has had the thought too. All those years he trained with nothing to show for it, and now he was finally getting to perform on stage. 

“They’ll put me in the record book for longest time trained and oldest trainee to debut,” Matthew doesn’t know how to handle the seriousness of the idea so he does what he always does and turns it into a joke. 

Taerae rolls his eyes. “Alright, fine. Be like that. But anyway, congratulations on your debut, Seok Matthew.” 

It has a nice ring to it. In another life, maybe. 

But in this one, Matthew finds himself glad that he’s debuting with Taerae as the one to support him from the wings. 

A stagehand hands Matthew a microphone. 

“It’s live. Don’t say anything back here you might regret,” He winks. 

Matthew sputters and Taerae laughs. 

“Go on. Get out there,” Taerae pushes him onto the stage. 

*

The Seoul National Police Force Charity Gala is a polite audience. Not as raucous as Matthew expected, but they do sing along to Taerae’s song as he dances around the stage, doing a combination of the original choreography and his own improvisation that made Taerae laugh every time in rehearsal. 

After he takes his final bow, he runs excitedly back into the wings, ready to embrace Taerae and thank him for everything, sweat, velvet, and sequins be damned. But Taerae is holding his own microphone, and holds his fingers to his lips to silence Matthew’s thunderous steps. 

“And now,” Matthew can hear the MC announce through the ringing in his ears. “A special performance by the one and only Kim Taerae.” 

Matthew watches Taerae from just behind the curtain line. The officers in the first row can definitely see him with the way the blue of his suit contrasts the red of the curtains. He finds he doesn’t care about professionalism at all, not when he’s so entranced by the lyrics of Taerae’s new song. 

It has to be new, because Matthew has never heard it, and he thinks he’s become quite familiar with the singer’s discography these past few weeks. Also, he’s not using any MR at all, only his acoustic guitar, which hangs from a colorful strap against the back of his white blazer—the only part of him that Matthew can see. 

I’ll become a sanctuary for you

I won’t let go of your hand that I’m holding

Even if our hands are far away in the future 

I’ll remember your smile. 

When the thought comes to him this time, not unbidden at all, that maybe he really is falling for Kim Taerae—the real one, not the one from the story—it doesn’t scare him at all. 

The only thing that terrifies him is how he will find the courage to tell him before the whole thing is over and Matthew never has any excuse to see Taerae again. 

*

The same stagehand replaces both Matthew and Taerae’s microphones with a glass of champagne. “Great show.” He smiles knowingly. Matthew isn’t exactly sure what he knows—but he knows something. Matthew wishes he would tell him what it was. 

Did he feel it too? 

The lyrics of Taerae’s song were… something to say the least. 

Was it greedy to say that Matthew wished they were about him? 

His head is still spinning when they reach the main floor of the gala. Most of the officers are socializing with each other, all interest in the two celebrities lost now that there is alcohol and conversation to be had. One man comes up to the pair though, evidently bashful like it had taken him a lot of courage to approach. 

“Hi.” He smiles nervously. It’s a pretty smile, Matthew notes, the kind that easily wins people over. It’s not as bright as Taerae’s though, whose smile hasn’t faded since he stepped off the stage. Taerae, who despite not usually being one for skinship, puts an arm protectively around Matthew’s waist. 

“I’m Detective Sung Hanbin. I’m—well, my boyfriend is a big fan of you two.” 

Matthew nods encouragingly. He expected as much. Well, he’d thought that Hanbin was the fan, but it wasn’t out of place for friends, partners, or relatives of fans to approach him, almost as though they expected him to be impressed that they knew who he was. 

Taerae probably has dealt with it more often than him, which is why he seemed to turn a bit cold when Hanbin had started talking to them. Not in a noticeable way, Taerae is even better at fanservice than Matthew, but after having gotten to know the other man for the past few weeks, Matthew can tell that Taerae is on edge. 

“He’s not here tonight, he had a work thing. I filmed the whole thing for him but, gosh, he’ll be so disappointed, probably make me sleep on the couch for not being able to predict that you both would be here,” Hanbin continues to explain. Then realizing how he must sound adds, “in a loving way, really.” 

Matthew nods because who is he to judge someone’s relationship as long as it works for them? 

“Anyways, I know it’s a stretch, but I was wondering if I could potentially get an autograph from you both for him? It would probably make his year.” 

Matthew is about to agree, to look for a pen to make this man’s boyfriend happy and save the detective from having to sleep on the couch when Taerae steps in. 

“Sorry, I’m not allowed to sign anything because of my company. I hope you can apologize to him for me,” Taerae rejects apologetically. 

Hanbin wilts a bit, but he doesn’t push. 

“That’s alright. I knew it was a long shot.” Somehow, he still keeps his smile. “I hope you two stay happy together—Er. I hope you stay happy. And also together, or not. Whatever you want.” 

Matthew feels his eye twitch at Hanbin’s words. Did he mean it in that way or is he just reading too much into things again? He never used to do that, used to always see things for how they were, and nothing else, but now he can’t help but see subtext in everything. Taerae doesn’t seem fazed by the words though. “Thank you for your service to Seoul, Detective. It was nice to meet you.” 

Later, after they’ve had enough champagne for the capital “T” Thoughts to really start swirling in his mind, Matthew wonders what the odds were to meet someone that was both a fan of him and Taerae given their widely different audiences. 

*

[NOTIFICATIONS]

[AO3] biaorchive has posted i’ll remember your smile 

i’ll remember your smile (2350 words)

by: biaorchive

Fandom: Korean Celebrity RPF

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Relationships: Kim Taerae/Seok Matthew

Characters: Kim Taerae, Seok Matthew

Additional Tags: Canon Compliant, Established Relationship, Secret Relationship, Domestic Fluff, Writing songs is Taerae’s love language, One-shot

Summary: Taerae performs a new song. Even with thousands of people in the audience, Matthew is the only one he sees watching him in the wings. 

*

[FOR YOU]

@biaorchive: just dropped a new fic! get yourself a boyfriend like taerae who will write songs about your smile. 

[link attached — i’ll remember your smile]

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@ilovekimtaerae OMG BIAO you did it again!! how do you come up with this stuff?? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mattraeplsk1ss: another banger wow 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@gymbro69: what would this fandom be if not for biaorchive??? 

[DIRECT MESSAGES] 

to: biaorchive 

matthew173627181

HEY SO WHAT THE FUCK

[Are you sure you want to delete this message?]

[yes] [no]

WHO ARE YOU???

[Are you sure you want to delete this message?]

[yes] [no]

HOW DID YOU KNOW?

IS THE SONG REALLY ABOUT ME?

TAERAE IS THIS YOU??

[Are you sure you want to delete this conversation?]

[yes] [no]

[Are you sure you want to delete your account?]

matthew173627181

[yes] [no]

[Your account has been deleted. It cannot be reactivated.]

*

Matthew floods the bathroom again trying to figure it all out. How Biaorchive could have possibly known about Taerae performing a special song on stage. How he had even known that Matthew had been watching from the wings. It’s too accurate to be a coincidence. Biaorchive has to have been there too. The author was hiding right under his nose and it was driving him crazy not being able to find out who they were. 

Standing in the puddle that had formed in front of his mirror, he knew there were only two feasible options. 

One, Biaorchive was secretly a member of the Seoul Police Force. 

This seemed incredibly unlikely given how they constantly tweeted about slacking on their job in order to write fanfiction. 

Two, Biaorchive was Taerae himself.

*

[FOR YOU]

@biaorchive: hey has anyone heard from oomf recently? i think they might have deleted their account, but they messaged me some pretty concerning things before they did. their user was @matthew173627181

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: oh no what happened?? i didn’t know them…

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: they were kind of shy. we used to talk about my fics all the time. but they really freaked out about my last fic and kinda crashed out. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: oof? the songwriting one-shot? it was so cute tho

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: yeah i thought so too, but they just seemed to take it really personally for some reason. i’ll dm. 

*

Now that Matthew’s concert is over, he only gets to see Taerae once per week for their practice session in the gym. Taerae doesn’t really need it anymore, he’d picked it up like a natural after the first couple weeks, so now it’s more of an excuse than anything that Matthew makes him come to the practice room since they spend most of the time chatting instead of actually working. The cameras aren’t too interested in their chatter, which makes Matthew grateful whenever the two can snag a few moments just for themselves. 

It’s still a disappointment when an unexpected magazine shoot forces Taerae to cancel their very last practice session before he has to teach his class on Sunday. Matthew hadn’t been counting the days, but he could feel them weigh him like dumbbells with each slash that the gym assistant made on the lobby calendar. 

It also doesn’t help that Matthew has been acting weird since he read Biaorchive’s most recent fanfiction and he knows it, avoiding all of Taerae’s messages except for the ones about work. 

He doesn’t know how to confront Taerae without giving himself away if he ends up being entirely wrong.

For as many hints that seemed to point in Taerae’s direction, there were inconsistencies too. Like the fact that Biaorchive had enough free time to write thousands of words a week when Taerae sometimes barely has enough time to eat lunch between schedules. A fact that Matthew lamented and made sure to counter by ordering lunch every time Taerae came to the gym using the excuse that it was part of his career to have healthy eating habits, even when it was really just for his own peace of mind to know that Taerae had at least one good meal that day. Then there was the fact that Biaorchive mentioned having a boyfriend once. As far as Matthew knew, Taerae didn’t have a boyfriend (it would be quite awkward if he did). But maybe Biaorchive had meant an ex boyfriend (which doesn’t make Matthew oddly jealous at all), or he had been lying to throw Matthew off his scent?

Instead of overthinking it (though it was probably too late for that), he was watching old videos back of his past classes on the floor of the mirror room. Someone knocks quietly on the door. Checking his phone, he confirmed that he doesn’t have a class scheduled now or a meeting he was late for. 

“Come in!” He yells, expecting it to be the gym assistant bringing some kind of gossip or update about the building. 

To his surprise, Taerae comes slinking in, still dressed in what looks to be his outfit from the magazine shoot. He doesn’t have his gym bag or any of the things he usually brings to their sessions. Matthew scrambles to his feet. 

“I thought you couldn’t come today?” 

“Shoot finished early,” Taerae replies simply, nonchalant even though Matthew can sense an undercurrent of something else in his voice. Is he nervous? They’d been in this room what felt like a hundred times together at least.  

“Should I call the production company or..?” 

They hadn’t scheduled any cameramen to come today since Taerae wasn’t supposed to be available to film. 

“No, no,” Taerae disagrees, like the words were already at the tip of his tongue. “Let’s just. Can we practice?” 

“Are you nervous for this weekend? There’s no reason to be,” Matthew reassures him. He still doesn’t really understand why Taerae is here. 

“I want to do it right,” Taerae insists, oddly strong in his conviction. It throws Matthew off-kilter, even more than Taerae’s sudden presence had been. “I want you to correct me every time I do something even a little wrong.” 

Even though Matthew wants to argue more, wants to understand, he fulfills Taerae’s wish and puts on the music. 

As promised, he nitpicks every little detail. The timing of Taerae’s plank, the depth of his lunge, the bent knee in his toe touches. Still, unlike the weeks before, when he’d gotten used to coming close to Taerae to correct his mistakes physically, Matthew stays a safe distance away, only giving verbal corrections. 

Eventually, when his face is a bit sticky from sweat and his button up shirt can no longer be comfortable from the exertion, Taerae finally stops, sitting small on the floor. 

“Are you okay?” Matthew rushes over, but still keeping a bit of distance between them. “Was I being too much? I swear you were totally fine. My advanced students don’t even do all this right—“ 

Taerae huffs out a small scream of frustration. “Why are you still standing so far away?” He says it so quietly Matthew wonders if he heard it correctly, if he was meant to hear it all. 

“You know what. This was a stupid idea,” Taerae picks himself up off the floor, rejecting Matthew’s hand up. “I’m just going to go now.” 

He flees towards the door, more like a scared mouse than the brave man Matthew had gotten to know. 

“Wait!” Matthew chases after him, but Taerae stalks down the hallway like a man on a mission. Outside the lobby windows, Matthew can see a small crowd has begun to gather on the street. 

“How did you get here, Taerae?” Matthew has a sinking feeling he knows exactly who they are. 

“Taxi,” Taerae admits. 

“Does anyone know you’re here? A manager, your driver?” 

Taerae shakes his head. “They must have followed me from the shoot. I lied and told my manager I was going home.” He seems to panic the more he realizes how bad the situation is. There’s at least four sasaengs outside, each with their telescopic lenses poised for action. If Taerae calls another cab and does somehow manage to get through them, they’ll just follow him straight to his house. 

“I can drive you home,” Matthew offers, before he can think better of it, before his brain comprehends what it might mean to be trapped in such a small space with Taerae for however long it takes to navigate Seoul traffic to whichever posh neighborhood Taerae’s apartment is in. “My windows are tinted.” 

They ended up sitting in Matthew’s car in the underground parking garage, the silence settling between them. Matthew justifies it by telling himself it’s because Taerae hasn’t told him his address yet. Really, he knows the silence between them is for another reason entirely. 

“You’ve been avoiding me since the concert,” Taerae accuses, turning to face Matthew. 

Matthew keeps his eyes pointed straight at the wheel, not ready to look over at the other man just yet. “I haven’t. We practiced normally last week.” 

“You barely look at me, you won’t touch me,” Taerae whispers the second part, but Matthew still hears it. “It’s like you put up a barrier between us, and I don’t know why. Was it because of the song?” 

“No, it’s not. It’s not because of you.” Matthew tries to explain without really explaining at all. Feelings are hard, especially when he’s only ever had to keep them bottled up so tight. It’s been a lot, trying to cope with the fact that it’s all ending, and that’s not even considering the fact that if Taerae is somehow Biaorchive, he’s never brought up the shipping thing between them once. 

Even if he wasn’t secretly moonlighting as a fanfiction author, Taerae would have to be blind not to know by now. It seems to be a running joke on the show at this point that they had ‘couple vibes.’ Even Jiwoong had teased Matthew the other day, joking about whether Matthew still thought Taerae hated his guts, or if he wanted his guts in another way. 

“I just—“ 

It’s so hard to be vulnerable when Taerae has never shown any sign of being as affected by any of this as Matthew. 

“I don’t think I’m ready for this to be over,” he admits. But instead of feeling like saying the words is freeing, they only seem to weigh him down more. It’s not the full truth. He doesn’t know if he will be able to say the full truth, ever. 

“Because you want to sing more..?” Taerae sounds confused. “The concert reawakened your dream to be an idol?”

“No!” Matthew shakes his head so quickly he actually makes eye contact with Taerae, nearly laughing at the absurdity of the suggestion. “No. It’s not that at all! I don’t know how you got that idea.” 

“Well, help me understand then.” Taerae doesn’t seem as amused as Matthew. 

“I’m not ready to say goodbye to you,” Matthew finally says, and this time he feels a little lighter, a little closer to the truth. If he tried to put some distance between them, maybe it would hurt less when it was time to go. It hadn’t worked. 

For a few moments, Taerae doesn’t say anything at all. The crushing fear that he had just made a terrible mistake comes crashing down all at once. 

Then, Taerae reaches over to smack him harshly on the shoulder. When Matthew winces, Taerae humphs, but rubs over the place he had hit him. “Yah! Seok Matthew, you think you’re getting rid of me so easily?” 

Now it’s Matthew’s turn to be angry, but also relieved, or somewhere in between, so he doesn’t know if he should scream or cry or maybe both. “Well, sue me for being worried! You’re like a blank wall, I could never figure out if you actually liked me at all, or if you even forgave me from the camping day!” 

“I wrote you a song!” Taerae sounds incredulous. “I show up to your sweaty gym every week just to stare at your tiny shorts and pretend like I need help remembering a routine when learning choreo is literally my job!” 

Oh. 

“Oh shit.” Matthew slaps a hand over his mouth in embarrassment. “You really did write a song about me.” 

“That’s what you’re choosing to take away from all of this?” 

“Biaorchive was right,” Matthew whispers. 

“Huh?” Taerae’s brows come together so cutely when he’s angry that Matthew can’t help but lean right over the center console to kiss the pout right off of his lips. 

For one, terrifying second, Taerae doesn’t move at all. 

Shit! Did Matthew read this whole thing wrong again? Damn, this has to be a new record for him. 

Then, Taerae is kissing him back, both hands rising to squish Matthew’s cheeks so tightly that it’s almost uncomfortable, but brings them closer in a way that Matthew would never complain about. Not when this is all he had wanted since Taerae had put that stupid red blazer on him and smiled at him like Matthew was the sun and Taerae was his moon. 

But even that doesn’t feel quite right, not when it seems like they’ve both been orbiting each other. Maybe for even longer than they’d realized. 

“You’re so stupid.” Taerae pulls away first, his lips swollen and pink, which just makes Matthew want to kiss him again and again and again. “Who is Biaorchive?” 

To avoid the question, Matthew gives into the urge to lean in to kiss Taerae again, hoping to distract him. Instead, Matthew’s lips meet the palm of Taerae’s hand and his eyes meet a suspicious stare. 

“Tell me,” he demands. 

“It’s not that important,” Matthew tries to convince him. “Not worth our time, really.” 

“But you said he predicted this.” Taerae’s eyes narrowed. “That he knew about the song.” 

“Ok, fine,” Matthew gives in, if only it means that Taerae will kiss him again. “He’s some guy on the internet.” 

“You talk to people on the internet about me?” 

“No! Well. Kinda? It’s complicated.” Matthew winces. He should have just kept it to himself, but it’s halfway in the open now. In for a penny, in for a pound. Seok Matthew was never the kind of person who took the easy way out. 

“He writes stories, about us.” 

“And you paid him to make a prophecy or something?” 

“No! He like, does it for free.” 

Taerae’s eyes suddenly widened in recognition. For some reason, this makes Matthew feel terrified. 

“You read fanfiction about us?” 

Matthew flushes even darker. “It’s not that bad… Some of it is kinda good.” 

“I’ll bet it is,” Taerae replies, but Matthew knows he’s teasing, that he’ll never let Matthew live this down. 

“Come on, don’t tell me you didn’t know!” Matthew protests. 

“About the fanfiction?”

“No, about the shipping! It’s been going on for months. You’ve never heard of Mattrae?” 

Taerae shakes his head. “I’m not allowed to have my own social media account.” 

“I’m not either,” Matthew grumbles. “I can’t believe you never knew.” 

“Well, I had suspicions.” 

In between their conversation, Taerae’s hand had snaked out onto the center console, just in reach. Matthew interlaces their fingers together wordlesslessly. 

Looking down at their joined hands, Matthew expects Taerae to say something sickeningly romantic that will make him want to kiss the singer again. Not that it would take much, or anything at all, really, for Matthew to want to do it. He just needs the excuse. 

“So…” Taerae says, looking up at him, a mischievous glint in his eye. “Is this your way of telling me that you’re into roleplay?” 

“Yah!” Matthew whips around, jostling their hands but not letting go. “I went to war for you, you know!” 

“Oh, you went to war, did you?” 

“And I betrayed my whole family for you too!” 

“This sounds intense,” Taerae laughs. “Now I have to read it too. Or maybe I should contact the author, thank them for their troubles.” 

“I don’t think that’s necessary… I think he’s probably traumatized from my messages now.” 

“You‘ve talked to him?” Taerae seems to find this the funniest thing that Matthew has ever said, but Matthew finds he doesn’t care as long as Taerae keeps laughing and smiling like that because of him. “Seok Matthew, what am I going to do with you?”

“Keep me, I hope.”

And finally, finally, Taerae leans back in. 

Matthew could be the romantic one as long as it meant he got to keep this too. 

*

[FOR YOU] 

@MattDailyUpdates: Matthew featured in KBS’s new show “Walk a Day in Their Shoes” where he swapped careers for one day with singer Kim Taerae. See his full performance at the Seoul National Police Force Gala here 

[link attached]

@foxymatthew11: he can sing, dance, what can’t he do? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@yaoi_is_my_life: not stare at kim taerae in those tiny workout shorts while he teaches zumba to a group of ajummas, that’s for sure 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@gymbro69: the real question is how did the ajummas survive seeing both their biggest idols in person in the same room

@mattraeplsk1ss: i feel so greedy asking for More after that full meal KBS just gave us but Mattrae pls kiss one time 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taerae26473892: they definitely did after the episode was finished 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@mattraeplsk1ss: skksskdjje what is your username dude?? anyways, i know. i would just like to see it for myself 

@biaorchive: no fic update today but got something in the mail. i’m excited to open it!! i thought all my copies of taerae’s new albums had arrived already but i guess i must have missed a version

@biaorchive: NO WAY. THIS CANNOT BE REAL 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: did you finally pull a silver taerae poca?

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: [photo attached showing a copy of taerae’s latest album signed on the cover. next to his usual signature is a little doodle of a fox in someone else’s handwriting] 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@luckystrawberry_6: HOLY SHIT IS THAT?? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: I KNOW… DO YOU THINK IT’S REALLY HIM??

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@hotgirls4matt: nice edit OP

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: not an edit…

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@hotgirls4matt: stay delusional then :) 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taerae26473892: what a cute drawing of a fox. you really are so lucky. i like your stories btw :3 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: thanks taerae26473892. hey, you wouldn’t happen to know a guy called matthew with a username similar to yours by any chance? 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taerae26473892: nope never heard of that guy in my life, sorry. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: ah, was worth a shot i guess. i hope he’s doing ok. 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taerae26473892: he is :) 

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@biaorchive: sjhdjsosowksnsosl

ㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤㅤ╰┈─➤@taerae26473892: oops