My Client's Former Best Friend | MEANIE/MINWON

Chapter Four.

Mingyu had been prowling the halls for some time. There were a ridiculous number of floors in the hotel, and after draining the flask in his jacket pocket, he was too drunk to read the numbers. He traced a brass shape that he'd been certain was a four but was actually a six, his mind wallowing in his failure and the pointlessness of life.

After Junhui had taken up dating Minghao, Mingyu had seen less and less of his supposed best friend. They'd severed all ties once the couple had moved to their villa in the Hills. Mingyu was left to drink his way from one side of the city to the other, alone. When he was a little drunk, he regaled unsuspecting bar patrons with tales of the former best friend who'd thrown him over for a lover. When he was very drunk, close to blacking out, he told the unwilling listeners about his screenplays; the mediocre, spectacularly unsuccessful first, The Night Before the Apocalypse, and the half-finished, untitled, stymied sequel. Only he'd start at the beginning, the very beginning, of his life. There were his stories of growing up in Chicago, the forgotten middle child in a house of high-functioning alcoholic artists. His siblings had thrived in the chaos and welcomed the revolving door of guests his parents entertained. Mingyu, a quiet child interested only in his science experiments and comic books, didn't fit. After thoroughly disappointing his family by getting a PhD in chemistry, he'd moved to LA, determined to write a blockbuster. But he was no writer and it took all his familial influence to get Xu Enterprises to make his smashing failure of a film. To make matters worse, he couldn't write a second script to save his life. Mingyu would then dissolve into tears and hiccups, too overcome with his own failure to go into the subsequent blowout that had resulted in him losing his contract with Xu Yiming, getting dropped by his agent, and being disowned by his family. Alone and rejected at thirty-two.

At this point someone, in a desperate attempt to shut him up, would call him a cab and send him home. He often woke on the front steps of his apartment building with a throbbing head and a fuzzy memory. Sometimes he'd find himself in bed with a strange, much-younger man who inevitably proclaimed himself to be a huge fan of his work. A little fame went a long way with the twenty-somethings, and that was exactly what Mingyu had. A little fame.

Lately, between the drinking and the persistent failures, he'd felt himself slipping. He wanted to talk to Junhui, rather than face his condescending family or try to resolve the issues with his therapist. Now even Junhui had abandoned him. He was stuck alone in a hotel, at a party for an actor turned writer/director who'd had the audacity to make a fucking period piece.

Finally, he reached the right floor and stumbled his way to what he hoped was suite 4002. He pounded on the door, yelling, "Jun! I know it's you. That's a shitty way...supposed best friend. Invite them to a party...leave them...at fucking movie party...for a period piece, no less!"

At the last part of his speech, the door opened, and Junhui yanked Mingyu into the room and slammed it shut behind him.

"Mingyu," Junhui demanded, "what the hell are you doing here?"

Mingyu wanted to give Junhui a piece of his mind-he'd been rehearsing the speech the whole night, and it was a showstopper. Before he could launch into his oration, he caught sight of long legs covered in tight pants, dark hair, and broad shoulders. A man who definitely wasn't Minghao eyed him from the bar with icy curiosity that sent shivers all over his body.

"You invited me," Mingyu said, his intoxicated brain struggling to process the scene before him. The combination of alcohol and his strong Midwestern accent made his words come out in a slurred stream of syllables. All that planning and pontificating, and this is what his bristled retort had become-you invited me.

"You never responded, so I assumed you weren't coming."

Mingyu fought his bow tie, which was strangling him. He couldn't stop looking at the man, couldn't break his gaze away from his...everything. "There was something I wanted to talk to you about, as it turns out. But you're busy, so I'll just go."