Title: Black and Gold (3/?)
Pairing/s: Luda/Dawon, OT13 and a lot of side pairings
A/N: i realized i've been writing wjsn fics since 2017 and, wow, that's still a long time even if i barely update. i'd like to say thank you to everyone who gave my fics a chance. you are the real mvps. i also have given up any semblance of self-control and time-managment. i'm currently having fun just expanding this cra!au with the rotating POVs so who knows when this will end lol jk but i'll probably insert some oneshots between the black and gold chapters if i get too impatient.     as we go on to 2020, I hope you take care of yourself first! 

KJY

Kim Jiyeon takes one deep breath and steps out. The barrage of flashes doesn’t send searing hot white pain behind her eyes, not anymore. She poses in front of the photo wall and confidently smiles for the cameras. The world is yours today. She hooks a finger around the gold chain strap of her Dior lambskin flap bag and turns a bit to the side to show her good angle. On cue, she turns to the left, poses, to the right, a finger heart, then back to the center, before being ushered to the side. 

Right after the Dior Pop-up Store opening in the morning, she hurries off to a thirty-minute travel to COEX Center where the young scions, socialites, and celebrities across Asia are gathered for the annual fundraising by Yoo Yeonjung’s family foundation.

Jiyeon greets actor Nam Joo Hyuk, one of Dawon’s distant relatives, when he approaches for a courtesy call. Xuan Yi swoops in and steers her away from Cha Eun Woo and Park Bogum with a hand under her elbow when they get too close, before waltzing away with young Chinese billionaires Dong Si Cheng and Zong Chen Le from Neo Culture Tech (Fu Jing from Banana Ent. is keeping an eye on her from the other end of the room). 

Not more than an hour and a half and a string of digits tied to her name later, Jiyeon excuses herself from the crowd and rushes to Four Seasons Hotel for a contract signing with a beauty product.

After the contract signing, and after confirming her script reading tomorrow, Jiyeon retreats to her executive suite. She splays her limbs over the teal blue long sofa, exhausted. Usually, she would have her endorsement schedules whenever she isn’t in the middle of filming, and her other miscellaneous activities and public appearances even pushed further out. Now with the influx of her projects, it’s normal to attend three-to-four events on the same day, wardrobe and styling be damned.

She checks her phone on the coffee table, relieved to see that Hyunjung finally replied to her text of over two hours ago.

5:04pm (sms) Sorry my plane just landed. Is it over?

She raises an eyebrow and quickly jabs at her screen. Before she could finish, another message pops up:

5:04pm (sms) Have you eaten yet? I’m at Incheon airport.

05:06pm (sms) yeah, i’m free. i already had lunch of course. but snacks no … 꼬르르르르륵
05:07pm (sms) i was planning to ask you out if you’re not busy but you weren’t answering ㅜㅜ 
05:07pm (sms) luda wasn’t answering too. hmmm. i hoped we could go again for hotpot

05:09pm (sms) But you just had hotpot with Luda yesterday.

There’s a knock on Jiyeon’s door. It’s Mr. Han, her manager. “Jiyeon-ah, the stylists asked me to join them downstairs and check the restaurants for dinner. Wanna come with us?” 

“No, thanks. I’m still full,” Jiyeon reminds him to sync her press photos so she could upload them later. After he leaves, she makes herself comfortable on the sofa and resumes typing on her phone.

05:14pm (sms) will you stop me if I want to have hotpot with luda again today, unnie?

05:20pm (sms) It’s not that I’m going to stop you. Dawon told me she’s going for Ssonhotels. 
Luda is with her. Must be why she didn’t answer you.

05:22pm (sms) omo. today’s the last day right? ssonhotels vs jp&t and schwans round 3 
05:22pm (sms) but where did you go? you didn’t tell me 
05:23pm (sms) business meeting?

05:25pm (sms) No, just lunch in Tokyo. I was craving Ichiran ramen. 

When Jiyeon connects the dots, she springs up from her seat as if electrocuted. She types harder, her brows knitted.

05:27pm (sms) 헐!!!!!!! don’t tell me…. you…
05:27pm (sms) unnie did you fly to japan for lunch?
05:28pm (sms) just?
05:28pm (sms) for??
05:28pm (sms) lunch???
05:29pm (sms) and you just got back now????

Her soles are aching from a day of wearing heels, and her facial muscles are strained from the smiles she endured for the press photos while Hyunjung just came back after having lunch in another country? 

“Lunch?” Jiyeon exclaims in disbelief.  Mega rich people have their days sometimes. And to top it all…

05:30pm (sms) without me????

A video call pops up on her screen immediately. Jiyeon answers, and the first thing she sees is a close-up of a finger-heart before it pans up to Hyunjung’s smiling, apologetic, face. Hyunjung’s wearing her favorite three-year-old white Balenciaga cap and overused white and orange Adidas windbreaker over a black shirt. When she leans closer, Jiyeon sees the half heart of their Tiffany’s couple necklace dangling around her neck.

“Sorry. Xuan Yi and Mei Qi used to go to Seoul just to dye their hair but you never nag at them,” Hyunjung says in defense. 

“Unnie, they have several stops before going to the salon, you know that. Going to another country just for lunch is a bit…” Jiyeon checks her angles and combs her hair with her fingers. Thank goodness her eye bags aren’t as heavy as they were yesterday.

“Excessive?” Hyunjung adds.

Jiyeon hums and pokes the inside of her cheek with her tongue. “Did you get me something?” 

Hyunjung breaks into a laugh. Instead of answering, she adjusts her phone away from the heavily tinted windows to what Jiyeon assumes is her ever-faithful sedan: a bullet resistant (down to the tires) white Hyundai Grandeur. “You’re in Four Seasons, right?”

Jiyeon nods.

Hyunjung looks away from her phone. “Who’s the chef of Four Seasons, again? Is it Chef Lee?”

“Chef Lee Jaeyoung is the executive chef,” Someone replies nearby. Jiyeon recognizes that voice anywhere: Mr. Choi’s, Hyunjung’s trusted chauffeur. 

Hyunjung looks back down again at the camera, “If you really want hotpot that bad, I can arrange an in-room service, but I’m thinking just hotpot might not be enough. You eat a lot these days,” she teases.

“I don’t want hotpot now but how about a coffee date downstairs, unnie?” Jiyeon teases back. The idea of having the hotel’s executive chef serve your favorites sounds great, but nothing beats a chance to show Hyunjung off in public.

Hyunjung’s face darkens, “You know I can’t do that. With you there, that place must be swarming with paparazzi.”

“You sound like you’re going to commit a crime,” Jiyeon walks over the wall of windows and lets Hyunjung see the rush hour traffic ten floors below. “It’s not my fault you never show yourself to anyone.”

“It’s not my fault you show yourself to everyone,” Hyunjung retorts. “If you don’t have anything planned, we can go somewhere. I’ll pick you up.” 

Jiyeon notices a look cross her face. When Hyunjung says somewhere, it doesn’t usually mean a place in the country. Jiyeon quickly runs the dates in her head: shootings for her plethora of endorsements (LENS TOWN, Skin 79, K2, FENDI, Cartier, Vita 500, TMON, CARIN, Chum Churum, Lancôme, there’s too many to mention), variety shows (she got a call from Knowing Brothers last week, one for Happy Together 3 a couple of days ago), exclusive beauty and fashion house launches, a series of meetings for her refreshing image to the public, scheduled charity works, family dinners with—

“I guess you’re too busy then,” Hyunjung interrupts her with a mumble.

Jiyeon frowns. It’s getting harder to keep up with each other these days. “I’m free for dinner tonight, but I have a script reading tomorrow afternoon.”

“Your schedule has gotten very hectic this month. You deserve a vacation.”

“It’s okay. I guess I can disappear for a few hours,” Jiyeon suggests. “We’ll talk when you get here.”

Hyunjung’s expression is unreadable on the screen of her phone. She stares at her for a couple of seconds before her gaze flies in the direction of the window. “Fine.”

In the next forty minutes, Jiyeon took a shower and got dressed in a comfortable Givenchy bomber jacket over a turtleneck and jeans. By the time Mr. Choi knocks on her door, her bag is already at the doorway and she’s already informed her manager of her planned disappearance. Jiyeon opens the door, Mr. Choi bows and politely offers the coat in his arm. 

“Thanks, but not now,” Jiyeon declines and wraps her jacket tighter around her body.

Mr. Choi looks down at her and blinks, or so Jiyeon assumes when the corners of his eyes crinkled behind his sunglasses. Instead of the usual parking lot pick-ups, he takes her to the rooftop. Jiyeon steps out to the open deck with a shudder, the cold wind numbing her bones. The first thing she sees is the unmistakable midnight black Eurocopter in the middle of the helipad. Two figures stand around, their hair tossed and tumbled by the wind. One bows low with Mr. Choi, while the other rushes up to Jiyeon and snatches the coat in Mr. Choi’s hands.

Kim Hyunjung wraps the coat around Jiyeon’s shoulders, “You refused it again. I told Mr. Choi to—”

“Don’t blame him, unnie. He tried,” Jiyeon beams. She lets Hyunjung wrap her in a coat two sizes big and watches the worried expression paint itself on her otherwise cool facade. Then, Jiyeon puts her hands inside the pockets of Hyunjung’s coat, “I wanted you to put it on me.”

Hyunjung puts her hands in her pockets, twines her warm fingers with Jiyeon’s, “Sorry for making you wait. Can I borrow you for a few hours?”

“Only if you promise to return me before noon. I don’t want Mr. Han to worry like last time,” Jiyeon pouts (the last time she and Hyunjung holed up a few weeks somewhere in Venice, everything was fun until Soobin reached out to them through a private number and had Jiyeon talk to Mr. Han because he thought she was kidnapped).

That evening, Hyunjung sneaks her off to Jeju, on the opposite side of the island and far away from the marine sanctuary and Dayoung’s vacation villa. After a ten-minute ride from a remote landing strip is a simple bungalow fronting the shore.

There’s no extravagant dinner date setting, no twelve-course meal from the world’s top chefs, no European orchestra serenading her on the shoreline. There’s just red and pink rose petals mixed with the white sand, a picnic basket on a wide blanket, two camping chairs, and Mr. Choi rushing away after lighting the campfire. 

It was as simple and as private as Kim Hyunjung could get.

To Jiyeon, it doesn’t matter where they are as long as they’re together. 

Where Hyunjung is there is peace. There is the quiet, the calm, the carefree without a worry, the pause on Jiyeon’s fast-paced life.

Hyunjung was the kind of person who would rather spend her day tending to her farm in Busan, than stand in for executive meetings for her older sister. Hyunjung, who always helps those in need in the shadow of anonymity. Hyunjung, who won the lottery of life with her family’s good looks and immense wealth.

To others, the rarest, most envied kind of rich. 

To Jiyeon, Hyunjung was one of the few people who can see past the blinding lights of her fame and accept her for she is. 

(Almost a decade ago, Jiyeon was running late to Seokcho for her first script reading for House of Gold (2011). While the driver zigzagged around the suburbs for a shortcut, Jiyeon’s mother was getting anxious beside her. Someone from the Korean Film Council was said to attend the event today and young Jiyeon had to be brilliant.

All was well until their driver, Mr. Ho, hit the brakes so hard Jiyeon almost flew to the front seat. 

After checking on them, Mr. Ho got out of the car. Jiyeon’s mother followed soon, but not before telling her to stay inside. Jiyeon rolled the windows down, craning to get a good look at what it was they didn’t run over. 

It was a young girl, maybe as young as she was, with an exceptionally pale complexion and wide black eyes. There’s a wet, shivering kitten in her tiny hands. Out of nowhere, a crowd of men and women rushed to her aid. The grown-ups outside started bickering. Mr. Ho insisted that there was no damage since the girl was unscathed, but the girl’s security threw big words like lawsuit, trauma, and negligence. 

All Jiyeon understood was that the girl risked her life to save a kitten.

A few days later, Ji