Madness for Two 🎬 yungi [▶]

13

"I understand," she smiled and gently patted Yunho’s shoulder. "My partner and I have just opened a coffee shop on the corner near Cleopatra Needle."

Yunho thanked her for changing the topic. "That sounds like a great place to do business." Yunho welcomed the diversion and tried to forget what he had said earlier.

"So far? Yes. I hope I can focus on managing the place and leave my current job," she turned briefly to check her colleague still busy with camera equipment, "you know, isn’t it everyone’s dream to be a paparazzi chasing scandals?"

Yunho smiled sympathetically. "Well, so far, kids tend to aspire to be pilots or doctors."

"But that's life, right? I just wanted to write a novel, but finding a job in London is really hard if they think you're not talented enough."

Yunho let his hand pat the girl’s shoulder. She was quite sweet, also human and not so intimidating if she wasn’t interviewing him in front of a camera. "You know, you could send the address of your café to my Twitter, and I’ll make sure to tweet a few times to promote it."

"Seriously?"

"Yeah, my Twitter might not be as famous as Bella Hadid’s, but I have a blue checkmark too. So, I guess you’ll get a few extra customers." Yunho widened his sweet English-actor smile at her.

Then the door opened dramatically. "Mr. Jung, five minutes left!"

And the girl only had time to give a small smile before being ushered away—dismissed—by the show’s crew from the dressing room.

Yeosang would be mad at him, Yunho thought.

This wasn’t the first time Yunho had offered such small help. And Yeosang would always lecture him for hours about how being kind and too open was wrong in this business.

You’re in the harshest industry in human history, Yunho. Stop acting like a fairy godmother.

Sometimes Yeosang was right. Like when Yunho helped spread fan mail about a fan searching for their biological father, who had been separated from them since they were five. It turned out that the father was a high-ranking party official, and Yunho’s scandalous child status made headlines for a while.

Or when Yunho started the hashtag #dontblameHER to defend a makeup artist who was harassed by a renowned English music producer. The hashtag trended for several days, and no one really knew who started it, if the makeup artist hadn’t mentioned Yunho’s name at the press conference. Yeosang had to go back and forth to court to negotiate Yunho’s lawsuit from the producer for defamation.

Or other instances where Yunho should have thought twenty times before getting involved in other people’s matters.

"Mr. Jung, stand by!" Someone shouted loudly through their walkie-talkie, asking to speed up—ushering—Yunho towards the long red curtain. The crew was bustling around. Yunho thought he should have worn his glasses. Or at least not forgotten his eye drops this morning.

Remind me why Yunho agreed to LASIK surgery. Oh, right. Because the bookworm look with thick glasses didn’t fit the handsome actor image he was trying to project.

"Pull it on 3... 2... 1..."

Yunho flashed his professional smile as he heard his name being called and the spotlight focused on him. Doyle McDonald, the tall man with half white and half honey-colored hair, the host, greeted him with a warm handshake, and Yunho tried to carefully respond to every joke thrown at him.

"Welcome to Music Colosseum!"

Yunho let the man hug him once more and returned the firm handshake.

"So? Are you ready to be the music gladiator tonight, Hunter?"

"Oh, yeah," he said a little quieter than he intended. He tried to recall Yeosang’s calm face as he had dropped him off here two hours ago. Calm, and speak casually.

"Just oh yeah? Where’s your confidence, young man?! You’re going to be in the Colosseum! You need to be a tough gladiator with ironclad confidence!"

Yunho could understand why this man had so many TV shows to host. Somehow Yunho could see exclamation marks at the end of every sentence he said.

He could get others excited about something that didn’t need enthusiasm. Yunho never watched TV; he preferred reading, thanks for asking. But if he had to watch TV, he made sure it wasn’t this show.

But this was a famous show. Yunho had to say the magical line that every guest says about a famous show, "I really love this show. I’m so happy to finally be invited here." And believe me, he was genuinely happy to be invited to such a big show.

At least it showed that this big quiz show thought Yunho was worthy of attracting viewers' ratings.

"Really? A great honor. What’s your favorite episode of this old man’s show?"

Yunho knew this trick, a trick to embarrass guests who claim to like your show even though they’ve never actually watched it.

"You know, the Tom Holland and Kendall Jenner episode. I don’t know, I guess we never thought we needed to see Tom Holland in a Santa Claus costume doing the Jingle Bell Rock before, but after seeing it, I had to record it and replay it several times. That’s just epic!" Yunho used his acting skills to show how much he enjoyed it. Although it was the only episode he had actually watched with Yeosang yesterday. And besides, who wouldn’t want to see Tom Holland’s muscles in a Santa costume? Yunho was grateful he was gay and thus could admire a man’s body as much as he wanted without fear of being labeled gay. Yes, because he was gay. And admiring Tom Holland’s body was really something normal.

Not only is he a sexy Spiderman.

He is also a sexy Santa.

Yunho would stop being a naughty boy if Santa Claus came to his house looking like that.

Okay, focus, Yunho.

"Oh, you have good taste. But, I hope Magnus doesn’t mind if tonight we pair you with a man just as handsome as Tom Holland?"

Yunho shook his head and played with his facial expression to seem like he didn’t care but cared just enough? You know, like when you’ve just broken up and say you’re not trying to make your ex jealous when you actually are? Well, an expression like that.

"You can take your place, Hunter. And tonight accompanying Hunter Jung to conquer our five musical challenges is..."

Dramatic and slightly too upbeat music, according to Yunho, accompanied the curtain opening. Yunho didn’t understand why they were hiding who Yunho’s partner for the night was. Because what’s the point of a surprise if Yunho will eventually meet the mysterious guest in the end?

But Yunho acted professionally and tried to maintain his bored expression while preparing his best surprised look, timing it to be perfect when the curtain was fully drawn.

Yunho clapped. Cheered along with the audience’s excitement.

Until the curtain was completely open.

And there he was. The ghost from Yunho’s past.

NO WAY! Yunho screamed panicked in his mind. Could he pretend to faint now?

No, he couldn’t.

Could he hope that a bomb would explode suddenly?

No, he couldn’t.

What could he do? What could he do?

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