#whoretan

It's Tuesday and you're watching Love Island because it was Myra’s day to pick, and Myra just had to pick Love Island. She's on her third Ben & Jerry's—no, not her third spoonful, her third fucking pint— and she has a lot of feelings about Olandria. Like, a concerning amount. You stopped asking follow-up questions twenty minutes ago.

You're on your phone. Scrolling without really looking at anything, your eyes burn, given that you edited for six hours. Right now, you deserve to sit on your ass and watch hot people pretend to like each other.  

You almost scroll past it. It's a video of Jeongguk of BTS on his motorcycle and you stop. You stop for longer than a second.

You read the caption, then read it again, and again. 

He's looking for an editor.

Huuuuuh. Four years of editing. Three music videos this year. A reel that has gotten you every job you've had since 2022. You look at his DMs. You look at the caption again. You look at his DMs. You type in Korean—not perfect Korean, good enough Korean (thank you K-Dramas, and Cha Eunwoo)— keep it short, link the reel, send it. 

“What are you doing over there?” Myra asks, words almost incoherent given that spoon is basically deep-throating her.

“Jeongguk of BTS is looking for an editor,” you say, rereading your message one more time. 

“Hm,” she mumbles, “Oh my good, look at Andrea! God, I fucking hate her!”

You put your phone down and watch thirty more minutes of Love Island. Myra has moved on from Olandria and is now invested in whether Nick is genuinely in love with her or not, which you have thoughts about but keep to yourself because you made the mistake of sharing thoughts about Nick last Tuesday and lost forty minutes of your life.

You check your DMs the next morning. Nothing. You check them Wednesday. Nothing. Thursday you edit an entire commercial, invoice a client, eat leftovers standing over the sink, and do not think about it once. The message hasn't been read, which is fine, he has twenty-something million followers and probably gets a thousand DMs a day and you sent yours in ninety seconds on a Tuesday night because Myra was yelling about Andrea. This is fine. This is a normal thing that happened and is now over.

Friday afternoon your phone lights up.

You read it once, put your phone down, pick it back up, read it again.

Okay. You type back yeah in about four seconds, he sends his number, and then you spend the next twenty minutes doing absolutely nothing productive while pretending you're doing something productive. At 2:38 your phone rings, and your chest tightens. 

This is fine, this is fine. It’s just Jeongguk. Just another celebrity. It’s all perfectly fucking fine.

The call connects and he's already talking, mid-sentence about something, to someone, relaxed, and you clock immediately that it is very much not the end of his day. It has to be something like three in the morning in Seoul and Jeon Jeongguk is on a video call with you in what appears to be a very nice, very dark room, looking like that.

You had the camera off. You turn it on, and he stops mid-sentence.

There's a pause, and then he laughs—a little loose around the edges in the way someone who has had a few too much drinks finds everything slightly funnier than it actually is. "Oh," he giggles and covers his mouth with three fingers. "I'm sorry, I just wasn't expecting—" he trails off, looks to someone off camera, says something you don't catch. 

"Nothing," he says, looking back into the camera. "You're just very attractive."

You blink. Ooooookay. "...Thank you?"

"Are you always this awkward or is it just me," he says, and he's still smiling, chin dropping into his hand.

"I'm not awkward, you just called me attractive in the first thirty seconds of a business call."

"Oh, sorry, is this a business call?"

"Well, I certainly thought it was."

He hums, considering the possibility and tilts his head slightly, and you notice his hair is falling into his face and how he’s not doing anything about it. "So, tell me how you work," he says. 

And you do.

You tell him you've watched enough of his content to know what he gravitates toward—the way he edits his own stuff is instinct-heavy, fast cuts when the energy's high, long holds when he wants you to sit in something. You can work clean and professional, proper music video layout, or you can go the other direction—looser, more reactive, the kind of edit that feels like it was made at 2am by someone having the time of their life. You’re good at both.

"It just depends on what you're actually trying to say," you tell him.

He's nodding. He's been nodding for a while, actually. His elbow is on his knee and his chin is back in his hand and his eyes are, hmmmm.

His eyes are not all the way on.

You stop talking.

"Are you drunk," you say. This is probably, no scratch that, this is, the most unprofessional fucking business call you’ve ever had. 

He doesn't answer immediately. The smile just gets a little wider, slow, and he nods. Once, very fucking deliberately.

You stare at him. "You called me for a business meeting, Jeongguk."

"I called you," he says, with great patience, "because I wanted to talk to you."

There's a beat of silence.

"Your Korean is pretty good," he adds, like that's a totally normal thing to say right now.

"Come to Korea," he says.

"What."

"For a week. Feel it out, see if we work well together." He says it like it's the most reasonable thing anyone has ever suggested. Like people get invited to Seoul on a drunk FaceTime at 4am all the time and it always works out fine.

"You're drunk," you remind him.

"I'm a little drunk," he corrects, which is not the rebuttal he thinks it is. "I'm still serious."

"Those two things can't both be true right now."

He shrugs. One shoulder, unbothered. "Come for a week. If it doesn't work you go home, no problem. If it does—" another shrug, "—then we make something good."

"Jeongguk."

"Hm?"

You look at him. He looks back at you, perfectly content, hair still in his face, smile doing something very annoying. You are trying to have a rational conversation with someone who called you for a business meeting at 4am while drunk and has just invited you to another country like that's a normal ask.

"I need the clips first," you say finally. "Send me the clips."

"Already planning to."

"And then we'll talk about Seoul."

"Sure," he says, and his smile only gets worse. "It's on you though." He tilts his head. "I'll send you the ticket details soon."

You open your mouth. Close it.

This is fine. Totally fine.

"Goodnight, Jeongguk."