Lacy Euphoria

His Favorite Girl/Part Three: Loving Him in Public

Originally published on AO3.

🔞 Adults 18+. MDNI. Fictional fanwork using names fictitiously for entertainment. Not real, endorsed, affiliated, or a claim of real events. All romantic and sexual content is between consenting adults. Please consume fiction with media literacy intact.

The question follows Mingi long after the room around him goes quiet. Most of the staff have already been dismissed from the small conference room beneath the venue, leaving him with three members of management, his jacket hanging over the chair beside him and his phone facedown near his hand. Nobody repeats what was asked because nobody needs to. How serious is this? was clear enough the first time, and Mingi knows whatever answer he gives will change the shape of the conversation. He leans back, rubs one hand slowly across his mouth, and looks toward the ceiling before lowering his eyes again. “Serious,” he says, and the single word causes one of the managers farther down the table to shift in their chair. What bothers him is that nobody looks surprised. Surprise would mean tonight changed something. Their faces tell him they have already been discussing you without him.

The senior manager folds their hands over the table and asks how long it has been serious, and Mingi drags his thumb along the edge of his phone while deciding how much explanation the question deserves. “A few months,” he says, then catches the look across from him and exhales through his nose. “I mean, it hasn’t been casual for a few months.” When the manager reminds him that this is not what they originally arranged, Mingi sits forward slightly and tells them they arranged discretion. The correction comes quickly that management arranged controlled contact, not a hidden relationship, and irritation moves through his face before he can smooth all of it away. “And what exactly did you think was supposed to happen after that?” he asks, keeping his voice low even as his fingers curl against the table. “I see her twice, decide that was enough, and forget she exists?” The manager tells him that is not what they said, but Mingi lets out a humorless breath because it is close enough to what they meant. Controlled contact made sense when you were still someone he was trying to know. It makes considerably less sense now that he knows what you sound like half asleep and which cabinet you open first when you are looking for coffee in his kitchen.

The manager across from him explains that there is a difference between protecting his privacy and managing a relationship nobody outside a small circle knows exists. Mingi looks down at his phone again, thinking about the message beneath the dark screen. You are home. The door is locked. You are safe. He already answered you, yet the urge to check again still presses at him. The manager notices where his attention has gone and asks whether you understand what this could become if somebody photographs the two of you together, whether you understand what happens if fans identify you, and whether you understand what happens if strangers start digging through your life. Mingi says yes each time, his hand closing more tightly around the phone until the manager finally asks whether, knowing all of that, you are still choosing to stay.

That reaches him differently. Mingi turns toward the blank television mounted to the wall and catches himself reflected faintly in the dark glass, tired eyes, damp hair near his temples, most of the stage makeup already gone. For a second he looks less like the person everyone in the building has spent the evening protecting and more like a man being asked why somebody stayed after he warned her that staying could hurt. “Yeah,” he says quietly, returning his attention to the table. “She is.”

Something shifts after that. Nobody suddenly approves, but the interrogation softens into something more practical. The senior manager reminds him that almost touching you in a public hallway is not a small mistake anymore, and Mingi nods because arguing would be ridiculous. When he says he knows, the manager holds his gaze and tells him that he knew the rules before tonight too, and knowing the rules is not the same thing as being able to follow them. Mingi has nothing useful to say to that because they are right. He knew where he was. He knew staff was nearby. He knew why his hands belonged in his pockets. None of that stopped his body from recognizing you before his brain remembered what everyone else was allowed to see.

The meeting ends without threats or demands that he stop seeing you, which somehow leaves him more unsettled than an ultimatum would have. Management asks for time to understand what has changed and how much risk they are actually dealing with now, and Mingi agrees because calling the relationship anything smaller would be a lie. By the time he steps into the hallway, most of the venue has gone quiet. He checks his phone before making it ten steps and finds a message from Wynter in the group chat the three of you share, telling him you are pacing and that he should call before you reorganize the entire kitchen out of anxiety. The laugh that leaves him catches him by surprise, and he shakes his head while dialing you.

You answer on the second ring by asking how bad the meeting was, and Mingi pushes through the exit into the cold night air, pulling his cap lower as he tells you it was not bad. Your silence lasts half a second before you tell him that answer is suspiciously vague. He reaches the waiting car and rests one hand against the roof instead of climbing inside. “They know it’s serious,” he says, watching the driver deliberately keep his attention forward. You ask whether he told them, and when Mingi answers that they asked, your voice sharpens just enough to make him smile. “That wasn’t what I asked,” you say, and the corner of his mouth moves because management used almost the same tone on him ten minutes ago. “Yeah,” he admits. “I told them.”

The quiet on your end changes after that, less fearful and more thoughtful, but Mingi knows you well enough now to recognize what is happening before you say another word. When you ask what management is going to do, he closes his eyes and leans his hip against the car. “Hey, don’t do that,” he says softly, and when you ask what he means even though both of you know, he tells you not to decide the ending before anything has happened. You stay silent long enough to prove him right, then mutter that you hate when he knows what you are doing. His smile becomes more real as he reminds you that you started this, which earns him the complaint that you said that before he became annoying. He says you liked him annoying, and when you claim you merely tolerate him, he looks down at the pavement and asks, “You still love me though.” Your answer takes one heartbeat too long before coming quietly through the phone. “Yeah.” He has heard you say it before, but the word still settles somewhere in him that has not learned how to behave normally around it.

The driver clears his throat lightly from inside the car, and Mingi remembers that standing outside having a private conversation is probably not the best response to a meeting about discretion. He tells you he has an industry dinner the following evening and promises to call afterward. You immediately remind him that he hates those dinners, and he tells you management just spent nearly an hour reminding him that he still has a career. Your laugh reaches him through the phone, followed by a teasing “Poor baby,” and the tension in his shoulders loosens for the first time since the meeting began. Before hanging up, he tells you to let Wynter know he saw her message. You tell him she already said he was supposed to, and Mingi laughs as he finally gets into the car. Your goodnight softens when you say it, and he settles back against the seat before answering, “Goodnight. Love you.” The words leave him without hesitation now.

The next evening, Mingi stands inside a private dining room above a hotel ballroom wondering why he listened to anyone who insisted his attendance mattered. The event is technically a networking dinner, which mostly means half the room is pretending not to watch the other half while managers make formal introductions between people who already know one another. Music plays quietly beneath overlapping conversation, servers move between small clusters carrying glasses, and the lighting is soft enough to make everyone appear slightly more rested than they actually are. Mingi recognizes most of the faces around him, some well and others through the strange familiarity of an industry that repeatedly puts the same people in backstage corridors without necessarily making them friends.

He notices Hyunjin near the bar first. The other man is listening to somebody speak while wearing the unmistakable expression of someone whose attention left the conversation several sentences ago. Felix stands beside him holding two drinks and watching his friend pretend to care, and the sight almost makes Mingi laugh. He has known both men for years in the irregular way performers often know one another, through award shows, rehearsals, festivals, recording studios, after-parties, and occasional conversations that lasted until two in the morning because none of them could sleep after working. They do not speak every week, but they know each other well enough that silence never requires explanation.

Felix notices him first and lifts one of the glasses in greeting. By the time Mingi reaches them, Felix is already smiling as he says, “Look who remembered we exist,” while passing the extra drink to Hyunjin. Mingi reminds him that they saw each other two months ago, which only earns him an exaggerated complaint about abandonment. Hyunjin takes one look at him and says he looks tired. “Nice to see you too,” Mingi answers, but Hyunjin does not back down, and Felix leans closer to inspect him before agreeing that he really does look exhausted. Mingi tells both of them they look irritating, and Felix accepts that as proof that he is happy to see them.

The conversation falls into its old rhythm easily after that. They complain about schedules, rehearsals that went too long, producers who send messages at impossible hours, mutual acquaintances, and the exhausting expectation that people in rooms like this remain charming when everyone would rather be home. Nobody asks Mingi anything personal because they have never had to. Their friendship has always operated around the understanding that if someone wants to say something, they will. Nobody digs, which is why Mingi should know better than to check his phone in front of two men who have spent years learning how to notice the smallest changes in each other.

He ignores the first vibration in his pocket, but when it happens again, he pulls the phone out while Felix is halfway through a story about a photographer who nearly walked backward into a decorative fountain. The second your name appears on the screen, the rest of the room fades enough that he misses part of the story. Your message says Wynter wants to know whether fancy industry food still tastes like conference catering. Before he can stop smiling, another message arrives asking why he has been gone twenty minutes without complaining yet because the silence is suspicious. He types that the food is terrible and the people are worse, then asks if you are satisfied. Your reply arrives almost immediately telling him, No, I’d rather you’d be here making love to me, and something warm settles beneath his ribs. He reads the message twice before locking the phone and looking up.

Hyunjin is watching him over the rim of his glass. Mingi asks what the problem is, but the other man only turns his drink slowly between his fingers and claims there is no problem. Mingi immediately tells him he has a face, which gets Felix interested enough to look between them and ask what face. Pointing toward Hyunjin, Mingi tells him, “That one,” and earns himself a slow, unimpressed sip in return. The silence stretches just long enough to make Mingi suspicious before Hyunjin finally asks how long this has been going on.

Mingi frowns and asks what he means, but the corner of Hyunjin’s mouth moves just enough that he knows something’s up. Beside them, Felix looks from one man to the other until realization arrives, and the soft “Oh” he lets out is enough to make Mingi close his eyes for a second. He tells them not to start, but Hyunjin only leans one shoulder against the bar and studies him for another moment before asking, “So, who is she?”

The question lands hard enough that Mingi forgets to hide his reaction. His eyes move from Hyunjin to Felix before returning to the man who asked. “I never said there was a she,” he says, lowering his voice even though nobody nearby appears interested in their conversation. Hyunjin simply nods and tells him that is exactly the point.

The room keeps moving around them while Mingi tries to understand how two men pulled an entire relationship from less than a minute with his phone. Someone laughs too loudly near the windows, glasses pass behind them, and a manager across the room is introducing two people who almost certainly already know each other, but none of it reaches him. He asks how they knew, and Felix laughs before asking whether he is serious. When Mingi insists that he is, Hyunjin explains that he checked his phone like somebody important was waiting on the other side of it. Mingi dismisses that immediately because checking a phone proves nothing, but Hyunjin reminds him that he smiled. “I smile,” Mingi says, and the way both men stare at him afterward makes him realize how weak the defense sounds. Felix raises his glass to hide part of his grin and says, “Not like that.”

The teasing should annoy him, but what catches Mingi instead is what sits underneath it. Neither man looks surprised or judgmental. They look familiar with something he has not explained yet. Hyunjin glances toward the crowd and shifts slightly closer so the conversation stays between the three of them before telling Mingi to relax because nobody else is paying attention. Mingi exhales through his nose and says, “Management is,” and the humor leaves both men almost immediately.

When Hyunjin asks what happened, Mingi looks down at the glass in his hand while deciding whether this is something he actually wants to say aloud. These men are not his members. They are not management, you, or Wynter. Still, they understand the machinery surrounding his life in a way most people cannot, and that feels important enough to risk honesty. “I almost touched her last night,” he says, watching Felix wait for the rest of the sentence. When nothing else comes, the other man asks whether that is all, and Mingi looks up before adding, “In public.” The amusement disappears from both faces as he explains that staff was nearby and his hand went toward your back before he thought about what he was doing. He stopped before making contact, but somebody saw the movement anyway. Hyunjin immediately asks whether management noticed, and when Mingi confirms they did, Felix sets his glass down and asks what they wanted to know. Mingi rubs his thumb against the side of his drink before answering, “How serious it is.”

Neither man laughs, and that silence tells him more than reassurance would. Felix asks what answer he gave, and Mingi tells him the truth. Hyunjin watches him carefully for another moment before saying, “You love her,” without making it sound like a question. Mingi meets his eyes and realizes there is not much point trying to hide from someone who apparently recognized him before he recognized himself. “Yeah,” he says, allowing the answer to settle between them without explanation.

Hyunjin turns his glass slowly between his fingers before glancing toward Felix. The look is brief but deliberate, a quiet check Mingi recognizes immediately even though he does not know what is being asked. Felix answers with the smallest nod. Mingi narrows his eyes because whatever passed between them had nothing to do with teasing him, and Hyunjin notices. Instead of making him ask, he leans closer and says, “You want to know how we knew?” Mingi tells him he already knows they saw him smiling at his phone, but Felix shakes his head and rests his forearms against the bar. “That was part of it,” he says. “We knew because we do the same shit.”

Mingi looks from one man to the other before asking what that is supposed to mean. Another glance passes between them, but this time Hyunjin answers before Mingi can accuse them of having an entire conversation without him. “There’s someone,” he says quietly, keeping one eye on the room around them. The words are simple enough that Mingi waits for the rest, and when neither man immediately gives it, he asks which one of them the woman is involved with. Felix lets out a quiet laugh with very little humor in it and answers, “Both.”

Mingi stills with his glass halfway toward his mouth. Hyunjin shifts his attention toward the crowd rather than keeping it on him, as if making the confession while looking directly at someone would give it more weight than he wants. He explains that she is involved with both of them privately and that they intend to keep it private for as long as they reasonably can. When Mingi asks whether anybody knows, Felix corrects him gently and says nobody knows for sure. There are rumors, enough that people sometimes think they know what they are looking at, but nothing has ever been confirmed.

That catches Mingi’s attention completely. Hyunjin explains that somebody sees her leaving somewhere, somebody notices she has been around more than once, and suddenly three blurry pictures and overlapping schedules become evidence. Sometimes people decide she is with one of them, sometimes the other, while other theories turn her into an employee, a friend, or an invented character in somebody else’s fantasy. Felix picks up his glass and tells Mingi that nobody has the whole picture, which is precisely why the rumors remain rumors.

“So people know something,” Mingi says, turning his own glass slowly against his palm.

“They suspect something,” Felix corrects, watching him carefully. “That’s different.”

The distinction lands immediately because Mingi can already imagine the line he is approaching. A glance becomes a theory. A repeated appearance becomes evidence. Something ordinary becomes suspicious simply because enough people have seen pieces of it to start arranging them. He asks how much management knows, and the two men pause before Felix answers that the people who need to know are aware enough to help protect them. Mingi gives a quiet, humorless laugh and says the answer sounds familiar, and Hyunjin nods because he figured it would.

When Mingi asks how long they have been living this way, Hyunjin thinks before answering that it has been long enough for hiding her to become harder rather than easier. He rests one shoulder against the bar and explains that at the beginning every movement is conscious. They know who leaves first, which entrance is safer, where cameras might be, how long they can stand near each other, and what distance looks ordinary. The problem comes later, after the relationship stops feeling exceptional inside their private lives. “She becomes part of your day,” Hyunjin says, glancing briefly toward Felix, “and eventually you stop thinking before you reach for her.”

Felix gives a small nod and adds that sometimes all it takes is hearing her laugh across a room. He says there have been moments when he turned toward the sound before remembering he was not supposed to know exactly where she was, and something in Mingi’s expression changes before he can hide it. The memory of his own hand lifting toward your back comes immediately. Hyunjin sees recognition settle over him and does not need to ask whether the comparison landed.

“That’s why you knew,” Mingi says after a moment.

Hyunjin gives him a small nod. “Yeah.”

For a while the three men stay beside the bar without speaking, surrounded by a room full of people who believe they are having an ordinary industry conversation. Mingi takes a slow sip from his drink while thinking about how strange it is that nobody nearby knows they are actually comparing the logistics of loving women they cannot publicly claim. When he finally asks how the other two deal with it, Felix looks down into his glass before admitting that some days are better than others. The look Hyunjin gives him suggests the statement leaves several stories conveniently untold, but he does not contradict him. Instead he tells Mingi that they make rules, break some by accident, learn which places are safe, figure out who can be trusted, and become very good at leaving separately.

The humor fades from Hyunjin’s expression before he continues. He tells Mingi that the hardest lesson was realizing there is a difference between protecting the woman they love and making her feel like something that has to be erased. The words catch Mingi immediately. He thinks about you standing in the hallway after the event, about your message telling him that he had not forgotten where he was but had forgotten he was not supposed to act like your boyfriend, and about Wynter, the first dinner at his table, the group chat, and all the work it took before nobody inside his private life had to wonder whether they mattered.

Felix watches something move across his face and tells him that this is the part that gets complicated fast. Mingi nods slowly, admitting that he is beginning to notice. Hyunjin tells him that eventually he has to ask whether a particular rule is actually protecting somebody or merely helping him feel in control of the risk. Mingi looks at him and says that sounds suspiciously like advice, which earns an immediate denial. Felix smiles into his glass and explains that Hyunjin hates when people call anything he says advice because then people start expecting him to know what he is doing. The joke gets a real laugh out of Mingi, but the distinction stays with him. Protection and control sound different when spoken aloud. He is less certain they always feel different while living them.

His phone vibrates again, and this time both men look toward his pocket before making any attempt to pretend otherwise. Mingi stares at them until Felix raises both hands and tells him to check it. Calling both of them ridiculous, Mingi pulls out the phone and finds a picture waiting in the group chat. You and Wynter are sitting together on the couch, Wynter making an exaggerated expression of misery while you grin beside her with a bowl of popcorn between the two of you. The caption informs him that his absence has officially been declared survivable, barely.

The laugh that leaves Mingi is quiet and automatic. When he looks up, Hyunjin is smiling too and asks whether the woman smiling in the picture is the one they have been discussing. Mingi looks down at your face again before nodding. “Yeah,” he says, and the softness that slips into the answer is enough to make Felix glance at Hyunjin with amusement.

Then Felix tilts his head toward the phone and asks about the other woman.

The question makes Mingi pause, not because he is ashamed of the answer but because he has learned exactly how easily truth becomes something edited for convenience. A dozen simpler answers present themselves. Your friend. Your roommate. Somebody close to you. Every one of them is technically true in pieces and wrong in the way that matters most. He locks the screen, slips the phone back into his pocket, and says, “Her partner.”

Both men go quiet for a moment, not shocked so much as adjusting the shape of what they thought they understood. Hyunjin gives a small nod and says, “Okay,” with enough ease that Mingi realizes only afterward that some part of him had been bracing for a different reaction. Felix notices the tension leave his shoulders and asks whether the arrangement is complicated, and Mingi almost smiles.

He thinks about Wynter calling him whenever you leave your phone in another room, the group chat, arguments over furniture, the first dinner at his table, and the strange domestic ease that grew once nobody inside the relationship had to wonder where they stood. “Not anymore,” he says, and the answer feels more true than he expected.

Hyunjin studies him for another second before looking around the crowded room. “Public is the complicated part,” he says quietly, and Mingi follows his gaze toward managers, performers, staff, phones resting on tabletops, and people who make careers out of noticing without appearing to notice.

“Yeah,” Mingi says.

His phone stays warm against his leg inside his pocket, carrying a picture of the two women waiting beyond this room and a conversation with two men who understand exactly why something ordinary can become dangerous. For the first time since management asked how serious the relationship had become, the answer itself does not feel like the dangerous part.

The dangerous part is how difficult it is becoming to hide that he means it.