The Gossip of BL [E-book on MEB]

CHAPTER 15 : Dissatisfaction

The ghost ship storyline between Book and Kan was starting to be talked about more widely. The hashtag about them on the X app had over ten thousand mentions. It was strange because ever since the day some fans had asked to take pictures with Book and Kan while they were eating together at the mall, there seemed to be more and more people coincidentally running into Book and Kan together in various places. They secretly took pictures and posted them on X, so the fujoshi who saw them started sensing something suspicious about the two. This gave rise to shippers creating the BookKan ghost ship.

While Poom was getting his hair done, he scrolled through X and saw the BookKan hashtag trending. He clicked in out of curiosity but soon felt a twinge of irritation that their hashtag was trending instead of one for him and Sun, who were the main couple. Even though filming was still ongoing and it hadn't aired yet, shouldn't the main couple be getting more buzz than the supporting actors?

He was quite dissatisfied but couldn't express it too openly. He had to maintain his good guy leading man image. Otherwise, he could be criticized. This was a new opportunity for him to revive his career and make a huge splashy comeback after having left the industry for many years. Even though he had acted in many supporting roles before alongside big name stars, he was still not very well-known. Getting the lead role in this BL series after being away from acting for so long was the perfect chance to regain his stardom. He couldn't mess this up.

Seeing Book and Kan get mentioned so much more than him and Sun made him annoyed. He started thinking about ways to make his ship stand out more and overtake the BookKan ghost ship hype.

"Hello everyone, hi Poom." Book walked into the dressing room and waved at the staff before approaching Poom, who was sitting getting his hair done and patting his shoulder in greeting.

"Well, if it isn't Mr. Popular," Poom said with a slight smile.

"Huh? What do you mean? You're way more popular than me!" Book immediately responded, thinking Poom was just joking around.

"You and your trending hashtag are more popular than the main actor now," Poom teased in a joking tone, trying to conceal his irritation.

"You think too much. The fans are just joking around for fun. It's nothing serious; it'll die down soon," Book replied after realizing Poom was subtly poking fun at him. He didn't want to snap back, knowing that would just make him look bad.

"We'll see." Poom smiled insincerely at Book in the mirror, not feeling relieved at all. That frozen smile was full of dissatisfaction, but Book didn't pay it too much mind. There was no use in taking those feelings to heart; it would only stress him out unnecessarily.

Book discreetly shook his head after the conversation with Poom ended. He didn't like this kind of atmosphere—the petty bickering—because someone wanted more attention. It was wasting time that they should be using to work. And it threw off his concentration too. He tried to stop thinking about it and just let Poom sulk on his own.

Poom walked over in front of the set after getting dressed. He stood near the monitors behind the director, who was intently watching the footage on screen because they were filming a scene with Sun and his group of friends. Poom slyly took out his phone and recorded some clips of Sun off the monitor to save for later in case he wanted to post them online once the series aired.

"Cut!"

The director's voice rang out, and the actors broke character before heading off set, each one waving greeting to Poom as they walked past him back towards wardrobe. Everyone except Sun came over and tightly hugged Poom, prompting the staff to excitedly grab their phones to snap pictures and videos. The content team in particular scrambled to get their cameras out, zooming in to get clear footage of the intimate moment.