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now, kiss

S.M. Entertainment confirms that NCT’s Jaehyun and Red Velvet’s Seulgi are in a relationship!

SEULGI to proceed ahead with “I’ll Try” comeback despite confirmed relationship

Seulgi was slumped over the kitchen counter, scrolling aimlessly through her phone. Morning sunlight streamed through her windows, mixing with the colors on her screen and reflecting blindness on her groggy eyes. Seulgi winced and turned up the brightness settings.

Jaehyun sauntered to her, sporting a spatula and an admonishing expression, like a cop catching a petty thief on his rounds. Seulgi caught his eyes, grumbled to herself, and switched off her phone. “It was less than a minute, I promise,” Seulgi defended, burrowing her head into her hands sleepily.

Jaehyun chuckled and ambled back to the stove. “Well, we agreed not to look, didn’t we?” he reminded. “Unless you’re reneging on our agreement?”

Seulgi shook her head, stifling a sigh. She knew he had her best interests at heart. Revealing their relationship to the public also meant opening the floodgates to a massive tsunami of opinions, and actually knowing those opinions wouldn’t do any good for either of them. “Ignorance is bliss,” some sage had said, though the looming curiosity was rendering her anything but blissful.

But fine, she had to admit that it was nice having Jaehyun back at her apartment. He had shown up a week before –unannounced, naturally– with half his closet and all his LPs, declaring that he would be bunking at her place until further notice, which essentially meant until Jungwoo dragged his back. But Seulgi wasn’t complaining. It had been a while since she had a housemate, especially one who could cook.

“Actually,” Jaehyun said, casually flipping a mung bean pancake on the pan, “I admit, I did take a look at them yesterday.” He tilted his head briefly, catching the horror and betrayal on Seulgi’s face. “Just Naver, though,” he added, as though it would mitigate his sin.

“What a hypocrite,” Seulgi groused cutely. She picked up a hairband and swept her hair into a ponytail, trying to brush away the sleep from her eyes. “And so? How is it?”

Jaehyun turned the knob on the stove. “Honestly, it wasn’t too bad,” he said. “Most people were actually receptive, thanks to that groundbreaking comeback stage you delivered.”

“You and your glib tongue,” Seulgi scoffed, though there was a slight curve at the edge of her lips. Jaehyun smiled heartily and set the pancakes on the counter, shuffling over to a stool beside her.

There was, at least, some truth to his words. They had braced themselves for the media circus, which exploded and quieted to a simmer more quickly than they had expected. They received their share of threatening letters and hate comments from the usual band of keyboard warriors out to crucify anyone with a semblance of a life, but for every angry, screaming weasel, there was a loyal fan who sang praises about Seulgi’s comeback stage, spazzed about how Jaehyun and Seulgi beautifully fit the friends-to-lovers trope, and wished them all the best because they deserved that much.

While it was true that the numbers for Seulgi’s music video views weren’t multiplying as rapidly as it would have in another era, they were still on the rise – a steady rise, too. Jaehyun wasn’t getting as many casting calls as he could have, but he still had one arthouse director offering him a small part in an indie movie. And some sort of miracle, neither of them had been dropped by their brand sponsors. They hadn’t been forced to exit the industry.

They were still there, fighting in the trenches, and they were somewhat surviving.

Seulgi tucked into the pancake, sighing contentedly between bites. It had been a while since she had eaten real food – food that wasn’t instant ramen or thawed backstage bento boxes or Joy’s deplorable attempts at making bibimbap.

“That good?” Jaehyun said smugly, pinching Seulgi’s cheeks, which were still bulging from all the food she had stuffed in.

“You have no idea,” Seulgi replied. “I don’t know how they haven’t given you your own eating show.”

“It would make me too popular,” he joked.

Seulgi swatted at him. “I don’t know how you have such confidence sometimes.”

“Well, it endeared you to me, didn’t it? Or, is it the other way round?” he winked slyly, earning himself a soft kick from a blushing Seulgi. Jaehyun bent over in peals of his low, dad-like laughter, nearly falling off his stool.

“Goodness, you,” Seulgi sighed, shaking her head. “You’re so ridiculous. I still haven’t given you a piece of my mind for trying to tell the media some fake story about how you came onto me. What on earth were you even thinking?”

“Hey, if I was already going to be thrown in the crapper, I might as well take your problems with me,” he shrugged nonchalantly.

Seulgi arched her brows. “What do you mean?”

“Well, every sad story becomes easier to stomach if you have a villain to pin it on, right?”

Jaehyun rose to his feet, taking their empty plates to the sink. Seulgi stared at him blankly, rolling his words through her mind. Jaehyun probably had spoken absentmindedly, without any malicious intent, but his words threw a perspective on the intentions of a certain someone, a person who Seulgi knew had a lot of explaining to do.

“Youngran, not there, not– Suh Youngran!”

Seulgi doubled over in laughter, watching Youngran dab face-paint on a grimacing Jaehyun. She had already drawn a series of rainbow-colored hearts all over his arms, and had moved on to unapologetically assault his prize-winning face.

For his beloved daughter’s fifth birthday, Johnny had booked out a villa with a massive pool, invited every child with pink blood running through their veins, and came up with the most torturous activities for their parents. One of them was body painting – in other words, letting a bunch of toddlers unleash their inner Van Goghs on the statuesque, world-renowned celebrities of S.M. Entertainment.  

Next to Jaehyun, Sehun sat quietly in his seat, resigned to his fate. Sungwoo was crawling over his father, painting a blue mustache on top of his lips. Turning to Jaehyun, he said, “Give up, dude. Take it as parenting prep, for when you and Seulgi have little monsters of your own.”

Seulgi turned a bright shade of red. “Christ, Sehun, shut up,” Seulgi warned. Jaehyun reached out and tickled her palm suggestively, deepening the color on her cheeks.

A loud yelp echoed behind them. Zhou Mi and Victoria’s seven-year-old daughter, Huiling, had accidentally splashed her bucket of paint all over Doyoung’s trousers. He had a frozen smile across his face as Huiling continued to swish paint over his skin.

“Sooyoung, please,” Doyoung begged, noticing that Joy had extracted her phone, “please don’t make it worse.”

“Why?” Joy laughed. She squatted down, snapping away at his most unflattering angles. “You look so adorable, though!”

Doyoung tried his best to maintain his smile, though he clearly about to lose his . Joy pranced away, showing Doyoung’s shame to anyone who wanted to see it. The other boys, except a confused Jaehyun, broke out in peals of laughter.

“Meanwhile,” Johnny chortled, “we have lover-boy here who’s willing to be the party clown as long as Joy doesn’t dump his .”

“Oh, shut up,” Doyoung growled.  

Jaehyun knitted his brows. He had clearly been out of the loop. “Sorry, but what the ?” he balked. “Since when were you and Joy going out? What the did that happen?”

Johnny nudged him admonishingly, pointing at the kids. “Language,” he warned.

Jaehyun ignored him, whipping his gaze to Seulgi. “Seriously though, when on earth did they become a thing?”

“You didn’t know?” Seulgi chuckled. She tucked a stray hair behind his ear. Jaehyun was oddly oblivious to the most obvious things, at times. “Don’t you remember him interrupting us and then heading to Sooyoung’s room during that weekend at Gangneung?”

“Oh.” The memory registered in his mind. “Oh. You sneaky er.”

“Language!” Johnny repeated. It was hard being the only adult in a group of twenty-three idiots who acted like they were teenagers at the bloom of puberty.

Irene sighed, strolling towards her husband and son, trying to clean up the mess of paint on her two boys. “You NCT kids need to stop stealing my girls,” Irene lamented. “I get that you’ve been deprived of women your age, but there are other women out there, you know!”

Doyoung lifted his head. “Last I heard, Yerim’s going on a date with Jaemin next week.”

“Seriously?” Irene swiveled around.

Irene’s newfound shock was interrupted by Wendy calling at everyone to gather by the poolside sitting area. She had brought out a massive, tiered cake, bright pink and with icing dolls all over just the way Youngran liked it. The little girl stood by her birthday cake, bouncing in excitement.

Johnny got up and ambled over to help, shepherding the children and lining the cake with candles. There was an odd coldness kept between him and Wendy, like they were repelling magnets that needed a minimal distance between them.

Joy, who had returned to join her new boyfriend and the others, leaned to Seulgi’s ear. “Are they still fighting?” she whispered. “Hasn’t it been weeks?”

Seulgi nodded empathetically. “I’ve told Johnny to apologize, but he’s also as stubborn as a mule. He knows how sensitive that topic is to Wan.”

Jaehyun tapped Seulgi’s shoulder, giving her a look that told her he either had sonic hearing or telepathic powers