There are many versions of you in the life that you live.

One for your parents, your friends, your co-workers, your lover, and maybe even micro-versions of yourself you didn’t know existed. You realized this when you began to work for people, styling them up so they would be fit for the stage. There were many versions of you that you had to keep up with—it was like an on and off switch, a way to navigate the world accordingly and it tired you out.

Because in this complex world, each and every version of you just wanted to belong. Maybe to a person, or to a place, even to just a simple role. Each and every version of you dreamed of stability, dreamed of how maybe one day you’d be able to fight for everything you’ve ever wanted.

That was your version of courage.

You weren’t a mess, but a black hole of thoughts. You weren’t a workaholic, but a girl just trying to make money. When Jung Jaehyun first met you, it wasn’t an instant attraction. He would have learned a lot about this creeping feeling from Johnny, how love had different ways of greeting you. Sometimes, knocking on your front door. In other times, it’d simply show up in your living room with a glass of wine, acting like it was always there. Like that space had always been filled.

When Jung Jaehyun first met you, it left him feeling the exact same way he felt when he had never met you. Like you didn’t make a difference in his life until you did—he met a lot of people on a daily basis. Beautiful women in stage costumes, stylists that doted over him and his handsome features. Jung Jaehyun was a dip who knew he was handsome.

It may also be because the first time he met you, he had no idea who you were. A passing breeze but the door had slammed shut and your paths had intersected, the snapping sound almost a starting point for everything that would happen.

You were in IKEA, your little black bag around your shoulders as you stalked down the aisles of furniture. Cabinet, cabinet, cabinet. In the background, your eyes fell onto the TVs that had a few advertisements, starring a few idols that you had worked with. People respected idols but very few respected the people behind the idol’s success.

“To the World! NCT!” the voices chorused from the thin LG screen and you found yourself mentally counting the men that were on the screen. One, two, three… You stopped somewhere along of six and decided that you wouldn’t waste your time.

You were not a stranger to NCT, in fact, you had a few slots with them in the weeks to come.

Working at a high-profiled celebrity salon had its perks. Despite having to wake up many hours earlier to prep for the idols; sanitizing to checking the makeup inventories and the costumes… you loved the way you were able to make them look on stage. You weren’t fond of doing interview makeup, your hands always itching to do more. More eyeliner, more blush, crazier , and mismatched foundation with colors to match the set.

The day you got to do Lee Taemin’s makeup for one of his shows was the day you almost cried because the man told you to go crazy. And crazy you did.

You hummed, glancing at your phone before pursing your lips at the message that popped up. You ran a tongue over your teeth, knowing what you had to buy but no idea where to find it. It was your fault. You didn’t do your homework.

So pressed down onto your phone and your best friend picked up. You could hear the puku puku pow pow of NCT’s Punch in the background, your best friend asking you if you needed something. Stella was a downright NCTzen; the biggest and the baddest, if you may add. Stocked up on all their albums, knew their schedules, and consumed their music daily.

While you were a stylist, she was a Youtube producer, working for a small Korean Company. She was struggling, but the bubbly female knew what she was doing. Writing scripts and content for the worldwide web.

“Stylist Kang,” she greeted and you pulled the phone away from your ears, tucking a strand of hair behind it for a moment. You could hear the music lower down a notch, Stella clearing . “I take it that you remember my birthday is tomorrow and you have no idea what to buy me.”

“Gotcha,” you answer, your eyes running over the aisles of cabinets. “Okay, look. I had a plan—”

“Don’t you always?” she asked teasingly because both of you knew that you almost never did have a plan. You were a follow your heart and all-is-going-to-be-good kind of girl.

“I know that you have almost every NCT album, and Jesus. These boys are everywhere,” you couldn’t help but grumble. Stand-alone cut-outs, advertisements… You even saw a banner congratulating one of the members on their birthday somewhere outside.

“They are popular, but thank you very much for that comment,” Stella mused and you could hear her shift on the bed. “I’m working, chop-chop.”

“I wanted to buy you what the tall dude bought in one of his JCC segments,” you began, thinking that it was best just to tell her. Stella was loud and she was theatrical. “Johnny. He bought a cabinet.”

“Oh, yes. Yes…. Yes,” Stella moaned and you blinked. “Okay, just kidding.”

She giggled, continuing. “I appreciate the thought but I highly that I’d know where in IKEA that cabinet is. I can send you a screenshot, though. But I’m in the middle of writing an interview script—gotta send it in… twenty minutes.”

You didn’t want to wait that long and you could hear the clackity clack of her fingers on the keyboard so you decided to just do it on your own. You thanked her, telling her that it was fine and that you’d figure it out.

“I just love it when you try so hard for my birthday,” she cooed and you rolled your eyes but with an endearing smile on your features.

“Well, I hope you try just as hard on mine.”

“Noted,” she sang, hanging up the phone. You stood there, trying to gather your thoughts on what was the most logical way to go forth with it. Now you had to buy the cabinet… You already mentioned it. Stella would be looking forward to a cabinet.

Cabinet, cabinet, cabinet.

You took a few minutes to find the certain JCC video of Johnny going to IKEA, chewing on your bottom lip as you fast-forwarded it.

“Jason!” Johnny’s voice came from the speakers. You couldn’t even hear it clearly and you were lazy to take out your earphones and go through all that hassle. You watched as Jaehyun held the snake in his hands and you found yourself chuckling.

You wondered what he did to maintain his skin, the male flushing pink and you were sure that his pores were nonexistent. Even in his hoodie, he looked like God had graced him with his presence and you felt a pang of envy.

“Maybe I should just get him Jason,” you murmur, looking around to see if there was any snake-like stuffed toy. “Wait, no. Cabinet. I said cabinet.”

You squinted at the screen, your thoughts doing their own thing and scattering around but you tried your hardest when you began to look at the details. Okay, different aisle. As you made your way towards the aisle, you looked up, blank.

Oh, you hated how your mind ran in different directions. You hated how the only thing that could make you concentrate was make-up or colors or art and you frantically tried to remember how it looked like in your head while you rewinded the video in your hands.

It led to you calling Stella again and she chuckled almost knowingly.

“You gave up, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t, got distracted.”

“You just can never multitask,” Stella said disapprovingly. “Just get me any cabinet, girl. I’ll be putting my NCT stickers on them, anyway.”

“But I promised you that I’d get you Johnny’s one.” You sighed, rubbing your forehead. “I have JCC open and I’m pretty sure it was this aisle but I can’t seem to find it.”

“Ahuh. And I’m guessing you refuse to ask any of the workers?” Stella asked, knowing full well you didn’t like talking to strangers.

Johnny Suh had heard you, the male far enough to have heard your sentence of having JCC open. Jaehyun was on his phone, the male looking at the screen with a playlist of new songs he would listen to in the car. Jaehyun almost slammed against Johnny’s back when Johnny halted into a stop and looked over at you.

“Look, Johnny is tall and he asked someone for help and he went…. Here,” you began. Johnny found himself snickering. He was flattered, to say the least, that people were out and about trying to buy the same things he did. He smiled when he heard you say his name as if he was a simple man in your friend group. “I’ll get Jason. That snake has got to be the second-best thing.”

At the mention of Jason the snake, Johnny was sure you were talking about him. You had already hung up the phone, Jaehyun paying nobody no mind when Johnny made his way towards you, trying to recall which one he had bought.

You were fiddling with your phone and he saw that you were trying again, rewinding the video and staring at it with your tongue sticking out the side of your lip when Johnny looked up. Yeah, you were a little bit too short to see where it was at. Johnny decided to be a good boy, a good citizen, and a good idol—he knew he might end up telling this story in one of his V-LIVES, or if you were a Twitter fanatic, this would be plastered all over Twitter.

Aye, good press.

You felt someone move beside you, a man reaching up the shelf from behind you and you side-stepped, giving him some way when he spoke.

“It’s this one. I bought this one,” he said and you slowly looked up, Johnny looking down at you with a box and a twinkle in his eye. He didn’t say anything and you blinked, clearing your throat when it had registered to you that he might have heard the whole conversation of you complaining.

“O-Oh…”

You worked with idols, but there was something different in working with idols and seeing them outside. You blinked, Jaehyun behind Johnny. Jaehyun finally put his attention to you and his eyes scanned your face, thinking to yourself that you looked like a deer caught in headlights. Scared, flustered, and very very very embarrassed.

“I—” you began, shaking your hands in front of you to try to explain that it wasn’t for you. “It’s—”

“It was high up, no wonder you couldn’t see it.”

“It’s… Yeah,” your voice cracked as you blubbered. “I guess that’s why.”

You didn’t have to explain yourself, you reminded yourself. Jaehyun was watching you intently from behind Johnny, almost forgetting that he too, was an idol. He stretched his lips out into a smile; a polite one. A smile that he was so used to flashing when he was in an uncomfortable situation. Johnny was different and before you knew it, you blurted out a request.

“C-Can I…” you stuttered, freezing for a moment. What if it wasn’t allowed? “Can I take a picture?”

At this point, Johnny was convinced that you were an NCTzen, part of his ever-growing fandom. Sadly, photos with idols were not allowed and you seemed to realize what he was thinking. He didn’t want to put you down but he had to—

“I mean, not with me. Just… the two of you,” you ended up trying to clarify yourself. You just wanted to send it to Stella, tell her that you met a couple of idols that she was so obsessed about. “I know… I know the rules.”

Johnny let out a sigh of relief, the male nodding as Jaehyun’s eyes darted back and forth. He’d let the older man take the lead and before he knew it, Johnny had wrapped an arm around Jaehyun’s shoulders. With the idol-virus, Jaehyun had lifted up a tilted peace sign, this time his smile fully blown out.

You fiddled with your phone nervously, lifting the device up and snapping a picture and then another. Johnny seemed relaxed, you thought to yourself. Jaehyun seemed like he just wanted to go home. Full-blown smile but tight around the corners, the dimples not as deep as you thought they would be.

“Thank you,” you said to them, holding the box. “I’ll pay for this.”

A quick bow and you scurried away, trying to balance the box in your arms, leaving Johnny and Jaehyun with their arms still around each other. Johnny stepped back, chuckling.

“We keep meeting fans,” Johnny said, Jaehyun nodding. Jaehyun put up his hoodie, tightening it. “You think we should tell Manager Min what happened?”

Jaehyun shrugged. He couldn’t care less. He came to buy another mug for himself and to window shop with the older male, their female manager opting to stay in the car since she had a few documents to go over.

“It’ll probably be all over Twitter by the time we get back,” Jaehyun said, knowing the nature of the career. “Allkpop, Soompi, and even Dispatch might come up with some weird article about us being nice to fans.”

“What’s so weird about that?” Johnny asked, dragging Jaehyun down to where he needed him most. “Good press, Jung Jaehyun.”

Good press, Jaehyun thought. He knew very well about good press and he was tired of it.

__________________________________________________________________________________________

That twitter rage that Johnny and Jaehyun were waiting for never came. He was doing what he was used to doing; cameras, lights, fame. Manager Min and Johnny were spending a great deal of time together, he began to notice, but didn’t Johnny still have a girlfriend? That night, he saw Johnny scrolling absentmindedly through his fake Twitter account and Jaehyun chuckled.

“No good press?” he asked and Johnny nodded. “Maybe she forgot about it.”

“What are the odds of finding an NCTzen who gets to take a picture of us and doesn’t post it online?” Johnny asked, Jaehyun shrugging.

“Maybe she doesn’t like the attention,” he answered. There were few who didn’t seek bragging rights when meeting idols and but he knew different kinds of people existed. “I’m surprised too, I thought I’d be tagged in an Instagram picture by now.”

“I guess All-kpop, Soompi, and Dispatch will have to wait for another article,” Johnny mused when his phone rang, Jaehyun glancing at it. “Yeah, babe.”

And with that, Johnny stood up and went to his room to talk to Elaine, Jaehyun bringing his attention back to the TV. His own phone dinged and he saw a list of schedules Manager Min curated for him and he applauded how fast this girl worked, the male scrolling to see what was best when his mind went back to your face.

He frowned, remembering how you looked, standing there with a box and a shaky voice to voice out your thoughts. He found himself shaking his head, thinking about the time he used to be that way. So scared and so shy, now he was numb to it.

Numb to the attention.

And you… You were sitting beside a very excited Stella who kept zooming in and out of the photo on your screen. You had fallen back onto the bed, your best friend screaming at how handsome they looked.

“ing Jung Jaehyun looks like a God. Why don’t you post this—”

“No!” You shook your head. You knew the circumstances that would come with it—people on your Instagram. The comments would roll in. You’d have to explain what happened. You wanted the photo just to show Stella and she pouted at you. “Aren’t you happy?”

“Happy? I’m utterly ecstatic!” She beamed and you smiled, kissing her cheek. “Your hands, don’t wash them!”

“Don’t be weird,” you scolded. “He was handsome, though.”

“Tell me about it,” she sighed. “But he’s an idol. Don’t we all fall for idols?”

“It’d be hard not to,” you answer, clicking your tongue. “With the looks and all.”

But deep down, you knew that a heart was the most important thing. To feel loved and comfortable in the arms of another. Johnny and Jaehyun were good-looking, but who knew how they truly were?

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

You woke up on this particular day to head to the salon. You had a client who would come today, a special one. As you entered the salon, you began to wash the brushes, taking into account that his skin was especially sensitive. It was 6 am in the morning and it was too early but it was the kind of early that you liked.

When the sun wasn’t fully up yet and the colors were in different shades of oranges. You slipped on a mask, covering your nose for extra protection under company rules when the entrance dinged and you heard a couple of people come in. You paid them no mind when a hand tapped on your shoulder.

As you turned, your eyes became smaller from the smile that reached your eyes.

“Eunwoo,” you greeted, the male pulling you into a casual hug. It was friendly, it did not linger and you pulled away almost automatically. Eunwoo went to take a seat, watching you wash the brushes.

“All that for me?”

“That’s right,” you replied, pretending to wipe the sweat off your forehead. On some days, you found yourself on movie sets. On some days, waiting rooms. Eunwoo and you had met a few years back when he was still a rising star. You did his makeup and were still in intern—now, he booked you over and over again because he was sure you knew his skin best. That was wrong, you just took extra care in cleaning the brushes, unlike the others who didn’t like to wash their brushes between people.

It was time-consuming.

“You have a modelling shoot today, don’t you?” you ask, going to him and removing his cap. You ran a hand through his already washed hair, Eunwoo humming with his fingers tapping on the edge of the chair. “Your hair feels better. Been using the treatment I gave you?”

There are different versions of you and your version with Eunwoo was demanding. You weren’t shy with him but then your relationship took some time to develop and your friendship ran deep. From having to fix his makeup in between stages with s, to helping him change out of his stage costumes, to buying him sandwiches in between schedules because you knew he had to replenish himself.

Eunwoo liked how genuine you were, awkward in your way with others, shy with some, and dorky a hundred percent of the time. You moved your hand down to his face to smooth a hand over his skin before feeling it, nodding with satisfaction at how smooth it was.

“Dermatologist did me good,” he told you and you chuckled. Eunwoo looked down at his phone, a hand going to his text messages before he began to do his own thing. You began to comb through his hair and Eunwoo pressed his lips together. “The modelling shoot today is going to be a very fast schedule. I think they just need a couple of photos for some banner.”

“Mhm, an advertisement or?” you ask, genuinely curious as you began to dab his skin with moisturizer. “Don’t those take long?”

“One shot, one kill, they call me,” Eunwoo said sweetly but with a tinge of cockiness. You chuckled, patting his face down as he leaned back and opened his eyes. “And I have a house party. Would love it if you could come. My members are not going to be there; god knows, I spend too much time with them. It’s just a bunch of my friends in the industry and a few close stylists I know.”

You look at him, massaging his skin and trying not to get it in his hair.

“And you’re the closest stylist I know, everyone knows that,” he pointed out and you shook your head. “I’ll book you for the next shoot.”

“Is this a negotiation?” you asked, Eunwoo laughing before closing his mouth when the gel trickled in. He made a face and you grabbed a tissue, Eunwoo sticking his tongue out and you narrowed your eyes at him, wiping his tongue gently. “You’d book me, anyway. You don’t need me there.”

“No, I want you there,” he said, his hands intertwined on his stomach. “It’s just a small celebratory drink between friends for our entertainment success. Kyunghee Noona is coming, a photographer that I’m close with.”

“And where is this?”

“My apartment.”

“Don’t you live in a dorm?”

“Only on days when the schedule is packed with group events,” he shrugged, cracking his neck and you reach down to massage his shoulder for him, deep in thought. “Just come. Zero-point two of this success is due to you, remember when you let us borrow your make-up when our own stylist miraculously forgot her make-up bag? We weren’t famous before, you know.”

“I remember that,” you murmured, patting his arm. The first time you met Eunwoo was when you were interning and his group was hardly rising—those were the times when they were struggling. ASTRO wasn’t a group name you were familiar with, unlike EXO or many other groups that came from the big three. You had helped them with a mishap and fate was that your paths crossed once more, growing from a professional relationship to a friendship.

“Then come.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s the same thing as saying no.” Eunwoo pouted and you chuckled, patting his cheeks before proceeding to the makeup. “It’s not even a big deal, all you have to do is show up and eat.”

“I don’t like people.”

“But you like me,” he pointed out, and you sigh, finally whacking his forehead gently with the edge of the brush.

“We’ll see. If I have something to do, I won’t. If I don’t, I’ll head over.” You finally begin to put on makeup, your eyes focusing on his skin as you brushed your fingers over them. He kept his eyes shut and you found yourself smiling.

This is what you liked.

Makeup.

Jung Jaehyun was in his dorm when he received a text from Eunwoo, the male chuckling softly. It was a simple text, something that he had often gotten once Eunwoo got his own apartment to have a bit of “privacy”. He remembered being envious of Eunwoo’s life; being an actor, he had a little bit more freedom. Jung Jaehyun glanced at the text.

Cha Eunwoo: Party in my apartment tonight.
Cha Eunwoo: Know you’re always busy but
Cha Eunwoo: Come if you have time

Jaehyun blinked, chewing on his bottom lip. He had already read it and Jaehyun really did miss having friends… be