A gorgeous face like hers didn’t belong in a low budget documentary, Bae Joohyun reckoned as she looked at the woman sitting across from her. While her partner and cameraman fiddled with the woman’s microphone and the sound settings, Joohyun couldn’t help but to watch the way the woman smiled so sweetly to the (almost) stranger who cracked a joke about inviting her to dinner after the shooting given all the times he’s had to rise her shirt and fiddle with the lavalier mic. She watched, with a calm heart suddenly beating a little faster, how the lady giggled and joked about in return.

 

“Is the interviewer included in the dinner date?” She laughed, giving Joohyun a playful look.

 

And in that brief moment Joohyun got lost in that impish look from those sharp, intense eyes. Ah, she truly must have known this feeling was going to invade her as she sat down to interview her, for she was interviewing a worker, formerly a star that retired from the industry and occasionally does her own things while juggling a normal life in the present time. She was interviewing none other than Kang Seulgi herself, most colloquially known as Kat Lei from her previous body of work. Pun intended. To you and I, that name jumped above our understanding but for them that name was quite popular among the interwebs. Hilarious but uncommon for a actress to gain some sort of a cult following domestically, much less across the world. But such was the power of memes and funny clips taken out of context from and softcore movies for the entertainment of those who wished to laugh at the tacky. Yet, Kat Lei prevailed as a general sweetheart and a damn good actress (despite some misses in her career) that knew how to joke around with the internet as well. 

 

This was an opportunity of a lifetime as a young filmmaker and documentarian, indeed.

 

As it were, the sound guy (gay and cameraman, what a multi-tasking king), happened to bump into the former actress during his outing at a gay bar. Bizarre to find her there, but that was only until they got to talking. As it were, drag shows and other forms of entertainment were very popular and accepting of people like her, very protective of her, far more than in any normal bar. Everything came together in that brief puzzle and it was more than natural for her to be there.. Such was the pain of having a recognizable face, even for conservative puritans. And the conversation in itself invited a lot of curiosities that Julien, rather wisely, kept to himself and for the future occasion. All he did was use the right words to invite those questions to come out.

 

On camera.

 

“Would you be open for an interview? We’re planning to work on a documentary,” came those heavy weighted words, wafting among the loud atmosphere of the club.

 

Later in that night, the phone of one Bae Joohyun vibrated incessantly against the bedside table, buzzing annoyingly and demanding for attention. The hot and humid darkness of her room only made the sound echo all over, it felt like it almost shook the bed and stirred the sleeping woman awake. Hidden beneath a thin layer of blankets came a small, thin hand pale as the moonlight itself, outstretching and patting around blindly for the phone. 

 

Pat, pat, pat, thud. 

 

The heartstopping sound of a falling phone yanked Joohyun out of her blanket fort and up her  bed faster than the incoming call, hilariously. When she picked it up she was soundly awake by the sobering voice of an enthusiastic Julien.

 

Well, frankly, her ears were bombarded with rhythmic thumping and hollers quintessential of a club, but bravely Julien’s thunderous voice took center stage.

 

“WE HAVE OUR SUBJECT. GET UP AND START RESEARCHING,” was the first thing Julien Kang said, actively fighting against the stentorian music seeping into the walls and shaking them viciously. It was a miracle that he could be understood in the first place. And it was a surprising statement, since last Joohyun remembers is Julien saying he was going for a night out – no work, no thoughts of work, or even thoughts of the documentary that just somehow couldn’t work for them. It was a nice day of relaxation, both for Julien and Joohyun.

 

“Yah, Julien, it’s…” Joohyun paused, squinting her bleary gaze to the red lines indicating the time in her clock. “It’s nearly three am, the hour of the spirits, what do you mean?”

 

“I’LL TELL YOU ALL ABOUT IT LATER – EXCUSE ME, COMING THROUGH, BEEP BEEP, thank you  – YOU GET TO YOUR RESEARCH FIRST.”

 

“Julien, you can’t just tell me to research – at three in the morning, mind you – without telling me what the hell is going on,” Joohyun reasoned while rubbing her eyes, her voice croaking from that deep slumber as her feet lazily slid into the slippers. Ah, Joohyun could feel the warm cocoon of sleep and its claws slipping away from her and releasing her from its grasp the moment she got up. Whether it was her professionalism or her vague annoyance was irrelevant. “What should I be researching?”

 

“KAT LEI HERSELF, KANG SEULGI IS HER REAL NAME.”

 

Joohyun paused for a second, looking at her phone in confusion before she went back to respond. “The actress?”

 

“FORMER, SHE’S RETIRED. BUT GET ON THAT, AND I’LL HOOK YOU UP WITH HER TO ARRANGE AN INTERVIEW.”

 

Fascinating, fascinating indeed. However, important questions must be asked first. “Julien, what the hell did you do?” Joohyun paced about a little. “Weren’t you in a gay bar?”

 

“EXACTLY.”

 

“Wha–. You know what? I don’t want to know. Tomorrow morning you’ll have my orders and assessments.”

 

“SWEET!”

 

“And Julien?”

 

“Y-YEAH?”

 

“Don’t pull this stunt again,” Joohyun said, meaning to be stern in her voice, but a yawn interrupted her in that last bit and made her sound all adorable and less serious.

 

Julien laughed. “Sorry, sleepyhead, but we got something good. Don’t it up.”

 

And so he hung up. The sound of silence – or rather, the sound of hot silence all around her room was so inviting and such a sharp contrast to whatever was going on in that bar where Julien was. Ah, she wished to remain in her room, go back to sleep curled up in a ball, but duty called. Even if duty had to be met with a sleepy-faced Joohyun who could barely open up her eyelids and look alive for a second.

 

Smash cut to a wide-eyed Joohyun feeling the sounds of incessant moans blaring through her small earbuds, later to be met with a rather obscene and equally loud sound of skin slapping rhythmically in the beat of… well, love. Ah, Joohyun should’ve known that the moment she said “ actress” was going to be the moment where her research and investigation would take a turn for the risque – and not because it was required to, but because it came with the territory as to why she was so loved. There was a charm in there people loved and couldn’t get enough of and Joohyun had to get to the bottom of it and verbalize it somehow, get the public’s opinion and compare notes. Joohyun was not demure, let alone oblivious to the jobs of other people in the entertainment industry, but while she was the one prone to capturing and editing the footage these people made, she has never in her life actually FELT something while watching it.

 

Believe it or not, avid lover of audio visual things Bae Joohyun has actually never sat down to actually watch without a critical lens tainting her viewing experience. In our minds it was stimuli, fantasies carried out in flesh, but for Joohyun it was what camera angle would work more effectively, how the was cut and edited and could be better, how the sound design could be so abysmal that it was laughable. In other words, didn’t really tickle her, having too much knowledge of the world it comes from to buy into the fantasy of make-believe . This, perhaps, was the only time that Joohyun blushed while watching someone. A very gorgeous woman at that.

 

Kang Seulgi, whose eyes were sharp and sultry, whose lips looked so inviting to the touch, whose voice was a mixture of adorableness and y, whose body of work (again, pun intended) was quite popular from a set period of time and still remains – to a lot of people – the top movies of all time for the industry. Why? Because besides the charming look, the woman was a performer through and through, but there was a true and deep passion for what she was doing. In the way she looked at the camera, she invited you to indulge; in the way she smiled at her partner and the people behind the camera she stripped away the facade of authenticity rather elegantly and welcomed a sense of truthness to it all. Acknowledging the people around her made their efforts noticeable, in a way, made her very present and in turn made her partners very present with her. In the way she spoke to her partners she added a flavor of ing and communication often absent in other videos, and her personality shining through with every word, every touch, helped a great deal to form her fanbase.

 

From her to the very few interviews around her on the web, Joohyun was far more absorbed than normal in her research to the point where the little annoyance at Julien’s rude wake up call was, ultimately, meaningless. Ah, she could already see it, ‘a real look at the industry and workers’ or ‘a sympathetic, honest look to the life of those who lived the life.’

 

Or whatever.

 

Hilariously, it wasn’t only because of the tantalizing and provocative premise of the documentary. No, you see, Joohyun was subconsciously intrigued to meet this woman in person. To know a lot about her before even exchanging words was fun, but… to be able to be face to face with such a charming woman? Joohyun spent the entire morning writing down her questions, ideas of where to take this documentary, crossing out intrusive and unnecessary questions, all the way hearing the woman’s sweet voice echo in her ears.

 

Innocently or otherwise.

 

It gripped her with a tight fist, enough to stop moving Joohyun’s slender fingers at one point, making them cling to the plume and stop cold in its inked path. That woman was so magnetic, it baffled Joohyun.

 

“Everything ready then?” Seulgi asked rather innocently after Julien retreated back behind one of the two cameras. 

 

Joohyun couldn’t stop looking at her. She was prettier in person that one could fathom by looking at her through her videos, not even her interviews did her justice. It was almost surprising, kind of nerve wrecking. Her eyes were filled with so much confidence, so much wonder, yet had an intrigue to them that Joohyun could feel tickling within her, poking at her brain for her to try and figure out. Those looks were no joke either, finely sculpted and lightly caked in makeup – but frankly, even bare faced the woman must look phenomenal. To think a face like that looked so innocent at this precise moment, but so flirtatious in specific moments…

 

It was in times like this where the usually pragmatic and direct Joohyun found herself unable to put aside her own attraction for the sake of professionalism. And she hoped it wouldn’t show.

 

“Nervous?” 

 

Huh? Joohyun woke up, realizing she was looking directly at Seulgi without having said a word. Nervousness written all over her slightly furrowed brows and pensive look even if she hadn’t noticed at the moment. “Me?”

 

“Yeah,” Seulgi laughed a little, watching Julien fiddle with the other camera and going back to her. “Never interviewed a actress before?”

 

“Ah,” Joohyun chuckled, feeling some of that unconscious stiffness of her body come out somewhat in that quick exhale. “Yes, I never had the chance to interview one.”

 

“Really?” Seulgi smiled, crossing her legs and arms.  

 

Julien, who had already settled behind the camera and started recording the moment he saw Joohyun’s lost gaze, popped from behind and decided to chime in, knowing his words would be vaguely clear from Joohy