You don't know about Us - A MewGulf AU

Chapter 9: Cheap wine

"There will always be people who are okay with it and people who aren't, the most important thing is that you are okay with it yourself."

Mew's words seemed to echo inside Gulf's head during the drive home. After their scene together, they had spent the rest of the workshop figuring out their respective characters and getting used to doing skin-ship. Right before the end, Mew had pulled them apart. He had explained that he hadn't intended the words to be hurtful and was sorry if they had. He had only thought about telling the objective truth at the time.

And when he had seen Gulf's pout, he had told them those last words.

"...okay with it yourself."

The phi was obviously right. Instead of focusing on his own performance, he had focused on others' comments about him. But what did those people know about Gulf? About his acting, life, or his portrayal of Type?.

Most importantly, Gulf definitely was okay with it himself. In some way, he had already seen himself act and had already been able to evaluate his performance. He knew that with some time and effort, he could bring out the best performance ever. He would be more than simply okay with it. And he had the time on the workshop to achieve that.

Maybe... it would even be better than the performance of the other Gulf.

It was a dirty thought that came and went quickly, and he braced himself for the inevitable words of the voice inside in his head, but none came. It was oddly calm for once, and somehow, it made Gulf smile.

Yes, he's okay with it himself. He'll show them all how 'okay' he was.

She placed the glass of wine – a cheap bottle Gulf had gotten on the way there – on the table in front of him, sitting on her opposite. Gulf glanced around the apartment, eyes taking it all in. The nong had only recently moved away from P'Beer, deciding that living together wasn't a great idea for exes, so the whole apartment had a distinct feeling of 'new', a little bare but definitely waiting to be filled with memories.

Gulf picked up his glass, idly sipping the alcoholic liquid before pulling a face. Maybe he should've settled for a more expensive bottle after all.

"Guess you can't really go around bar hopping anymore," N'Art mused while sipping her own drink. Gulf shrugged. It wasn't that he was that famous, so he was sure people would leave him alone if he did, but he figured that he preferred the peace of only being two right now anyway. The day already had been busy enough.

He said so when he spoke up. "It's been a busy day and I didn't feel like spending my evening in a busy bar as well." It was also P'Beer who preferred the atmosphere of the bar anyway. Gulf and Art were both more on the introvert spectrum, preferring to drink with just the three – two – of them.

Art hummed a little. "How's it going, being a professional actor?" there was a teasing tone behind it.

"I like the workshops and exercises we do," Gulf mumbled, deciding that the wine was actually getting better the more he drank, "the people are... nice, as well. I have a manager now." Though it wasn't the one he actually wanted.

This made Art raise her brow. "Just nice?"

Gulf shot her a look, making her laugh. "I'm honestly not sure," Gulf admitted when she calmed down. "One moment everyone is quiet to me, looking at me in weird ways, while other times everyone seems to want to talk to me." He sighed. "It's complicated."

"Mew is complicated?"

Gulf nodded, then abruptly looked up to the nong. He realized blatantly what she had actually thought, and instead of trying to save himself, he decided it wasn't worth the trouble. "He's actually being very sweet to me, making me feel comfortable when we act together, but other times he looks at me like I'm wrong and says things that hurt me..." he trailed off. The biggest reason Mew was complicated to Gulf, was due to the fact that he had met an entirely different Mew in another words, but there was no way he could tell Art that. He laughed bitterly at the memory that surfaced at that thought.