Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Gosh, her schedule was insane. Just posing for cameras drained her free time. Though, she wanted that. She wanted this life. To be a model. To be swarmed by psycho fans any time she went outside. She kind of liked the attention. But right then, what she liked best was laying on her living room couch, scrolling through Instagram Reels while her friend cooked breakfast. 

Ryujin had to get ready soon, and she knew that. She just didn’t want to get up, despite how much she needed to. 

“Are you going to eat today?” Chaeryeong asked, pausing her humming session to ask the model a question -which had an obvious answer- and flipped an egg, almost throwing it out of the pan. She glanced over to the girl on the couch, hoodie engulfing half of her head. Chaeryeong had this deadpanned I’m-used-to-it look mixed with a low amount of worry. It was confusing, but Ryujin clocked it. 

“What do you think,” Ryujin said plainly, not looking away from her phone. She scrolled again, thumb gliding over the screen, as usual. “Damn, Wonyoung?” she whispered.

“Hm?” Chaeryeong hummed. She plated the food, snapping a photo. She had that much time to plate the food, take a photo, put the photo on -her insta story, on her snapchat story, on her tiktok story, on -whatever social media app she had before her friend responded-and of course it had to be some shitty response.

“What?” Ryujin mumbled.

“What did you say just now?” 

“I don’t know.”

Gosh…

“Oh wait I remember,” Ryujin stated. “You know Wonyoung, right?” she asked. The model sat up on the couch. Her phone was forgotten in her hand, still playing the same Reel, over and over and over. 

“Of course. You made me watch all of her shows. And movies,” her friend replied.

“I mean, she’s super hot. So it’s justified. You liked them, anyway. But, I saw a clip from this new show she’s in and there’s this other actor as the love interest that's way hotter.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Straight Ryujin? Since when?” Chaeryeong giggled from behind the counter. 

Ryujin’s mansion was hella big. The view was great, but it was 4:57 am and the sun was still coming up. Chaeryeong always loved the view. So did Ryujin, but she never had time to see it. She always left right when the sun was coming up.

“It was a girl.”

-

Getting ready was the same as always. Boring, but not too much work, to Ryujin’s relief. All she had to do was; brush teeth blah blah blah, shower, change, then get picked up by the company. It was mundane, but okay in some ways. Ryujin didn’t like things being complicated, anyway. She liked things straight-forward. She liked straightforward people, in fact. People who could be honest, perhaps. 

She said bye to Chaeryeong a few minutes ago. Ryujin stood in front of the gates to her house.

The model’s friend was still in the mansion, doing whatever she does when Ryujin leaves for work. 

She didn’t know why Chaeryeong always came so early in the morning. She didn’t have to. Ryujin wouldn’t have cared if she stopped coming, to be so honest. It was nice to have someone there in the morning, though. 

Ryujin had a lot of friends -to no surprise- and a lot of them were famous, just like her. She couldn’t find any friends that weren’t celebrities. Either fans, creeps and or weirdos, or someone too loud. She didn’t hate her fans, obviously, but why would she be friends with one? Someone as famous as her couldn’t be starting friendships with a fan. Her company would kill her. The internet would kill her. They would rip her to pieces if they even found out she was friends with Yeonjun, this solo artist who also modeled. They worked at the same company, though. They were bound to meet. And he was chill, so they exchanged phone numbers and stuff….It’s not like he wasn’t trust worthy. They both went through hell and back just to be a model. 

They couldn’t eat much, and that was one thing for Ryujin. Eating was her passion, but anything to get paid, right? Cutting off one thing she loved was okay, she figured. She didn't exactly like it, but if she could pursue her dream career, then she’d give it up, and she did.  

“When are they gonna get here?” she muttered. Her car wasn’t late. It wasn’t ever. But Ryujin always acted like she had a stick up her ass. Maybe she did, but if she did then would never let anyone know.

A sleek, black SUV rolled up in front of her. A blacked out Cadillac Escalade, perfect, huh? Ryujin always deemed it perfect. It was in some ways. Like how it was all black, great to blend into crowds-perfect in Ryujin’s mind. How cool it looked, also. Ryujin just liked luxury, obvious if you had seen her. So, she also loved when the agency sent the car to her, picking her up for the first time ever. They hadn’t mentioned it would be this exact car, so Ryujin was a bit excited. But that was a while ago, the excitement faded away over the years. She was still grateful, and all that, though. 

Her manager stepped out of the passenger seat in the front to open the door for Ryujin. She stepped inside, muttering a “thanks”. The door closed behind her, and she made her way to the very back. She liked the back, where it took a few more seconds to get to. Where they wouldn’t really expect her to be. It was fun. A little more secluded. Kinda nonchalant of her. 

The car started moving.  “Scheduele?” she asked lazily, pulling out her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, ready to scroll. 

The manager threw her thumb over her phone screen, scrolling through god knows what. Ryujin thought it was notes, or something. 

“Sorry, I just have to check my notes,” the manager stated, eyes locked on the screen. “Make sure everything’s set,” she added.

“Mhm,” Ryujin hummed, not really paying attention. She was kinda an asshole, ya know?

“We have an outfit fitting check at 7:30am for the show coming in TWO WEEKS. Keep that in your mind, Ryujin.”

“Mhm, got it,” Ryujin deadpanned. 

“Ryujin,” she warned.

“What, Wendy,” the model groaned in response.

“We have a show in two weeks, okay? You’ve been doing this a while, but you still need to remember. You’re senior, kinda, so don’t mess this up, kay? You need to attend.”

“Wendy. Seriously, I don’t fuck things up.”

“Okay, well. You know what’s all over X?” Wendy asked.

“Just call it Twitter, like everyone else,” Ryujin demanded, a little embarrassed her manager called the app X, like the other boomers. 

Wendy tapped a little at her phone, probably finding  something on twitter, as she had mentioned something was going ‘round twitter. 

Wendy, who was in the seat in front of Ryujin, the second row. She had switched to the seat behind instead of the passenger seat, knowing that Ryujin would be in the back. She turned around in her seat, showing Ryujin her phone.

“It’s just a photo from my Insta..?” She raised her eyebrows, confused. 

“Did you even look at the caption?- look what’s in your hand, Ryujin.”

…

…

…

…

“Oh,” she said plainly. What else was there to say? 

“We can’t have a scandal two weeks before the shoot. Come on, Ryu.” Wendy rubbed her temples, turning back. 

“Sorry,” was all that Ryujin said. 

“Whatever,” Wendy muttered.

-

RYUJIN’S PHONE

The car rolled up to the front of the building to let Ryuijin and her manager out. Ryujin opened her own door because she wasn’t bitchy like that, at least not to Wendy. She didn't have to be petty just because she was famous. BUT she was bitchy to Chaery, and her sister. Yuna deserved to be bitched to. Trust Ryujin, she grew up with her. 

Yuna was always pretty growing up, giving her privileges the other kids at school didn’t get. Ryujin wasn’t not pretty, she was just a kid. A normal kid. Then she grew up, had a glow up, and got scouted at a school talent show. What did she do at the talent show, you may ask? Well, nothing, except sitting in the back row, by where the people would walk into the auditorium. 

She had always secretly wanted to be a model. She dreamed of the day that she would be catwalking on a slim path, people watching her from their seats. She’d be dressed in awesome gorgeous clothing, designed by the world’s finest. All the models were so pretty, or handsome. She wanted to be like them, with fan pages dedicated to her. When the scouter asked her the question she was dreaming about every night, her eyes didn’t widen like they’d usually do when she heard something fun or exciting. If she was a famous model running runways, she’d have to be nonchalant. Model face on, not some weird smile. The industry wouldn’t like that. She had to mog the shit out the other models behind her. Because-of course, she’d be in the front.

Inside the building, her manager followed her to the fifth floor to get ready for the work day. She rested her hands in the pockets of her jacket. It was cozy and warm there. She didn’t like having cold hands. 

While the makeup artist patted foundation onto Ryujin’s perfectly soft skin, her manager explained how the day would go, as the car ride didn’t really include all of what would go on, more of what would go on for a week.

Scandals don’t exactly last forever. But they don’t just go away either. Ryujin knew it’d be off the headlines in a week, or two is she was that fucked. Even with how famous she was, it was the same routine for everyone. Incident, blows up on the internet, talks about it for a week, fades away into their reputation. 

It wasn’t anything she couldn’t handle. She had been trained for that.

“Okay, fitting first, and that will take about two hours. Shorter this time because it’s getting closer to the day!!” Wendy shouted from across the room, shoving water bottles into a cooler with ice filled to the brim. 

“Got it,” Ryujin mumbled. She didn’t get much sleep the night before, so she was a bit more tired than usual. The model scrolled on her phone, like always. Tapping on Chaeryeong’s snapchat stories filled with nonsense. She was roaming around Ryujin’s house, laying in her bed. 

Wendy finished explaining the schedule for the day, and Ryujin barely listened. She was being bombarded with texts by Lia and Chaeryeong.

The makeup artist finished and her manager directed her to the clothing station where she would pick out the clothes for the day. “Pick something comfy,” Wendy recommended. And Ryujin did so. The model did have to go try on clothes for an hour -or whatever her manager said earlier- anyway.

ᓚᘏᗢ

Ryujin was busy watching reels-reels of the new actors in the drama she saw. Ryujin didn’t watch GL's often, but she should have been! They’re fucking hot-especially the love interest in the drama Ryujin saw that morning. Yeji, her name was. She was fucking hot. Like, her eyes were just so pretty. Like a siren. 

The model placed her phone under her thigh. Her eyes were hurting from being on her phone so much…

Ryujin sat in the car still, on her way to whatever building she needed to be at, when her phone buzzed under her thigh. Probably Chaeryeong.