Chapter Text
“I'm close—”
“Yeah?”
“S-so close—”
The back of Taeyong's head plasters into the pillow and he groans, baring his neck. Johnny feels something close to a growl roll out of his throat watching Taeyong's pleasure tear through him. His hips pick up speed, knowing exactly what he needs to tip over the edge.
Clawing down his back Taeyong trembles, letting out those small whines that come just before his orgasm hits him. It's a sound that dies in his mouth as he curves himself up into Johnny's body, letting him feel every tremor of his climax against his own skin.
Johnny only pulls off when he feels Taeyong stop shaking. He would kiss him but still doesn't really know how Taeyong will react.
So Johnny just looks at him for a moment — he'll never tire of looking at him, both through the lens of the camera and like this. As stunning as Taeyong is, he is at his most beautiful here — under Johnny, completely fucked out of his mind.
His hands lying next to his head, head rolling to the side as his eyes struggle to open. Sometimes Johnny thinks that he looks so fragile. Often the more beautiful something is, the easier it is to break.
“Did you wear a condom?” Taeyong is asking with a raspy voice. His eyes are still a little disoriented, his gorgeous light hair splayed around his hair like a halo.
Johnny can’t ignore the small hit of pride he gets, knowing that Taeyong had been that distracted.
He nods. “Yeah.”
He doesn't want to pull out but begrudgingly knows he has to. While he's watching his own cock leave Taeyong's body, condom filled to the brim with his cum, he sees Taeyong turn to check the clock.
When he turns back to Johnny, he's wearing a look that has become all too familiar. But for some reason this time, it manages to finally crack Johnny's heart.
“Uhm, sorry—”
“Your husband,” Johnny cuts him off, pulling apart his boxers and his pants from where they were discarded at the foot of the bed. “He’s on his way, I know.”
“Unfortunate timing,” Taeyong says, his knees gathered up under himself as he watches Johnny walk away.
“Yeah,” Johnny swallows the bitter taste in his mouth. “It is.”
“I can't believe tomorrow is finally the day.”
Yangyang is the one to break the silence, as he often is. This time, Johnny guesses that he feels Ten's tension a little too much in the quiet of the warehouse.
“Ten months of prep,” Ten takes the bait, finally letting go of the inside of his cheek that he has been gnawing at for the past few minutes. “This better go smoothly.”
“Like it ever does,” Johnny adds, unable to help himself. He has been in the business of filmmaking with Ten for too long now to assume a smooth sail.
They've been conjoined at the hip since graduating film school, the three of them making a small production team where the whole was stronger than the sum of its parts. Johnny mostly chalks it up to Ten's strong leadership, with maybe a little too much passion for his own good.
This project, Johnny knows without a doubt, will be the most ambitious of them all.
“We're ready,” Yangyang says, always the voice of reason between them. “Now it's all about getting the right footage.”
There's a tense second of silence that hangs suspended between the three of them, right above the steel table.
Truthfully, Johnny has watched how meticulously Ten has been preparing for tomorrow — officially, their first day of filming. Sharing both the role of producer and director, he has spent the better half of the past year planning every interview and scheduling every shot that will take place over the next month.
He also worked in some room for changes — he always had to. Because when it came to documenting real people — not actors, but people in their natural state — they had to account for unpredictability.
Besides, the real challenge will be up to Ten to work his perfect plan to get the truth out.
It has been a little over a year since Ten's family got burnt by the new mayor's practices. Ever since the young and bright-eyed mayor stepped into office, while most of his constituents were happy with his leadership, Ten was the first to see under its surface.
He had his suspicions early on — of the mayor's charismatic ways that disarmed everyone around him, of his quick rise to power despite his few connections. Then an anonymous source reached out to Ten with a confirmation — that the mayor had been bought out by foreign businesses that are now trying to push locals out of the city, just like the business that was owned by Ten's family for generations and forced to close.
All this time meticulously planning only stoked his fire, and Ten has become even more vindicated in his crusade against their city mayor. And along with keeping up the ruse of the film, they still needed much more evidence to complete the story, because they all knew that an anonymous source only goes so far.
Although it seems far-fetched, Johnny ultimately trusts Ten and his intuition. That with his leadership, they will be able to prove through their film that the mayor is really a fraud hidden under the charming persona of Sangjun Lee.
But unlike Ten, Johnny has mostly just gone along for the ride. He stands for justice and all, but he also just needs work. And infiltrating the new mayor's life by way of filming a documentary posing as an autobiography about him was, well, just another opportunity.
“It's going to be fine,” Johnny says, trying to reassure Ten all while trying to convince himself. “Just do what you're best at.”
“If anyone can make it happen, it's you,” Yangyang agrees, and to Johnny's surprise it brings a smile out of Ten.
“Not without you guys,” Ten says, surprisingly humble. They're all painfully aware that he is the heart and brain of the operation, and anyone else around him can trade out as the moving parts.
And Johnny doesn't mind being a moving part for now. He will make Ten's vision a reality the way he knows best — from behind the lens of a camera. And maybe, he will see them find justice in the process.
“He's not going to know what hit him,” Johnny says, confidently.
Johnny may be running a little late.
In all honestly, it wasn't entirely his fault. The person in his bed this morning had an impressively corpse-like way of sleeping, ignoring all of Johnny's attempts to wake him up and get him out before he had to leave for work. He would have left him in his bed and just gone to work, but the last time he did that with a one-night-stand he had more than a few things stolen. He decides not to make the same mistake.
So after shoving his non-date out of the door, Johnny has less than twenty minutes to rush past the morning traffic to get to the mayor's home.
Johnny may be running more than just a little late.
When he finally reaches the property, it takes him another few minutes to find where to park. The mayor lives a little too close to the heart of the city to not seem deliberate about it — most politicians would have chosen a cozy life for themselves and their families in the suburbs. But this new mayor decided to make himself one of the people and partake in the absolute nightmare that is parallel street parking.
By the time Johnny barges into the house, he can slip just between the rest of the crew for his tardiness to go relatively unnoticed. Although they were a small team of no more than ten people, the amount of work each of them took on already made for enough commotion in the house, the shuffling from room to room finishing the initial setup, which always took the longest.
The home itself is neat to the point of compulsiveness, but Johnny chalks it up to their readiness for the cameras. The living room ceiling spans both floors, stretched with windows viewing out to the front yard. The furniture is solid wood and luxurious without it being uncomfortably so, the walls adorned with paintings that seamlessly blend into each room's design.
Even if the attention to detail is freaky, Johnny can only be grateful for how easy it makes for him to set up a decent shot.
The first person that notices him is Yangyang, who beelines it for Johnny before Ten can be the one to catch him coming in late.
“Sound guy is ready, and the mayor is mic-ed up,” he says, sparing Johnny judgement even if he does glance very pointedly at Johnny's half-buttoned shirt.
“Great, where's Ten?” Johnny says, his fingers flying up to close the rest of the buttons.
“Sangjun's office.”
Johnny nods, mentally doing the gathering of himself that he should have done before he stepped foot into this overly polished house. “With him?”
“Yeah, he's there,” Yangyang says, pointing him to the staircase leading up to the second floor. “Make a good first impression.”
“Always do,” Johnny says, never lacking a drop of confidence himself, no matter the situation he finds himself it. Besides, all he has to do is play nice for a polite minute before he can comfortably slip back into the anonymity of the camera, letting Ten do the rest of the talking.
He skips steps when he goes up the staircase to the top floor, hurrying up to get it over with. He knows Ten won't be happy with him when he sees him.
Following the sound of the voices from down the hall Johnny finds the two of them as Yangyang said, in the mayor's office. Ten's back is turned to him and Johnny catches the mayor's attention first.
Sangjun Lee — the man of the hour, still at ease not knowing that Ten is prepared to absolutely rattle him over the next few weeks. He is wearing a homely printed tee, washed-out jeans, neither too casual nor too stiff. Johnny sniffs out a fresh haircut, the heavy wood of his office surrounding them not exactly screaming frugality.
The man is perfectly poised, hands tucked into his pockets before one of them comes out to reach out towards Johnny. He takes it and shakes it with a smile reflecting the mayor's — practiced.
“You must be Johnny Suh,” he says, his teeth showing in his grin. “Sangjun Lee.”
“Good to finally meet you,” Johnny says, shaking his hand and letting go.
“Likewise,” Sangjun says. “I trust you're the guy that makes sure we look good.”
Johnny pulls off another grin, the two of them flowing back and forth easily like reflecting in the mirror.
“Sure am, so stay on my good side,” Johnny says and breaks out into a chuckle.
By now Ten is taking loud steps in between them, politely grinning to the mayor as he corners Johnny away from him.
“Please excuse us for a moment,” he says, so perfectly friendly that even Johnny could believe he isn’t about to rip him a new one.
When they step out into the hallway, Johnny is on defense as soon as they cross the threshold.
“Ten, look—”
“Don't wanna hear it,” Ten immediately interjects. “We've brought your equipment up for you. We'll set up in there first.”
Johnny tries to hold back an overt sigh of relief.
“Got it,” Johnny says, leaving it at that and knowing to keep his words spare with Ten when he looks like he's ready to get to work.
Johnny finishes his setup in a record amount of time, listening to Ten's polite chatter with the mayor as he does so. He is so deliberately keeping all the juicy questions back, rather using the time to disarm him for what he will ask when the camera is rolling. If Ten wasn't his friend, then Johnny would probably be terrified of him.
The shot that he sets up is simple and Johnny tries to keep it straightforward rather than experiment with anything too artsy. It's a frame of the mayor sitting at his desk, slightly off to the side to catch his legs crossed and the expanse of the bookcase towering behind him. Sangjun puts off an image of both refreshing youth and unexpected wisdom. It's no surprise that he took the election by a landslide.
Johnny begins rolling the film, and Ten starts the shot with a cue for action.
“We'll go through some questions to set up your story first,” Ten starts, perched up on a stool just out of the camera's view. “Try to answer in as much detail as possible, even if it feels redundant. And if anything feels too invasive, please feel free to say so.”
“You got it, boss,” the mayor winks and readjusts his hands to lay in his lap. “I appreciate all the effort behind this, by the way.”
He feels Ten's Cheshire cat-like smile spread on his face where he sits at his side.
“We've been looking forward to it,” he says, clearing his throat as he switches the tone, quickly glancing down at his notes before looking back up towards the mayor.
Ten goes through the mayor's early life like a page off Wikipedia. If they were truly making a biography about the mayor's life, this footage would make for excellent material. But this film will become a little different than the standard biopic, given Ten time to work his magic.
The mayor talks openly about all the details of his life — his middle-class upbringing, his bumpy start in local politics. He's perfectly ordinary and that is what makes him extraordinary — he fits the mold of what everyone wants to be so well that people cannot help but gawk at his success.
And as Johnny listens to him speak, he cannot deny that the guy has an insane amount of charisma.
“I thought to myself — what kind of a guy would wear a suit to a baseball game?” Sangjun is laughing out loud to himself, his light wrinkles coming out clearly on camera and painting his face in sincerity as he recalls the memory. “Apparently all of them! I knew then I wasn't exactly ready to swim with the big fish, if you know what I mean.”
Ten pauses to allow the story to settle, to let Sangjun provide any more details if needed to fill the silence in the wait. When he doesn’t add anything else, Ten continues off his notes.
“Do you think people around you would describe you as ambitious?” he asks. Johnny knows he's leading, but all he can think about is how ironic it is, how much of that trait they share when they're sitting on the opposite ends of its manifestation.
“I'd say so,” the mayor furrows his brows pensively. “I try to have a hand in everything, but I can't say I always succeed.”
Ten nods, flipping over the page of his notes.
“You're halfway into your term and already found some success with the businesses you've opened since you started,” Ten continues. “Could you elaborate on those?”
“Sure — we've opened two pet stores, and we also run an animal shelter that is a bit less on the, uh- profit side,” Sangjun grins proudly. “The shelter takes up the most time and resources, but my husband is the one who mostly takes care of most of it.”
“Your husband — Taeyong Lee,” Ten routinely clarifies.
This is the first time he's mentioned by Sangjun, and that strikes Johnny as somewhat odd.
The mayor nods to Ten. “All those are Taeyong's projects, and he's really made something out of them. I just try to keep my head in politics.”
The Lees seem to share something like a small empire, and for their businesses still being relatively new, they're not entirely unheard of. If Ten is truly right about the mayor, then Johnny thinks it would be very bold of him to run any fraudulent schemes when his businesses are so known by the public.
“The shelter is non-profit, then?” Ten clarifies.
“That's right,” Sangjun says. “We try to do what we can to give back. We ourselves also foster from time to time, but Taeyong's got them out now to make way for the film crew.”
How considerate of them, Johnny thinks, wondering if Ten is thinking the same thing. He really does say all the perfectly right things.
“Sounds like Taeyong is very involved,” Ten says, his tone carefully light.
“Oh, yes, I'd say he's the one that runs everything,” Sangjun is nodding. “It lets me dedicate the time to my community and my work in politics, so I couldn't do any of it without him.”
“So, you would say you have a strong partnership?” Ten asks, and Johnny doesn't exactly know how he feels about implicating someone who isn't in the room to defend themselves.
“You'd have to ask him,” Sangjun says, laughing at his own quip. “But I would say we do.”
Ten turns to Johnny, a subtle signal that they will be wrapping up this scene soon.
“I think it would be a good idea to talk to him next,” Ten says. “Where would we be able to find him?”
“Most days, at the shelter,” the mayor says, uncrossing his legs and adjusting in his seat to reach for his phone. “I can give him a heads up that you're coming.”
The crew van rolls up to the second location — a lively shelter with colorful mural signage out front: The Halo Home.
This time Johnny is forced to lug his equipment around himself, all his cameras and stands packed into the cases he hauls on each arm. The rest of the crew follows them in tow, letting Ten be the one to make the first entrance into the shelter. Yangyang holds the door open for Ten to walk in, then lingers there to let the rest of them inside, most of them holding some sort of equipment or having otherwise busy hands.
When Johnny walks in, by habit he takes in the surrounding space first — how much light flows through the windows, how the wallpaper on the wall frames the reception desk, how many other rooms there were still to see. He listens to the commotion of everyone introducing themselves to each other in his periphery, making a note for himself where he could set up if they ended up filming in here.
When he turns back to the crowd he sees three unfamiliar faces — the workers of the shelter all sporting matching scrubs and bright smiles. The blonde man in the middle in particular stands out — he has prominently sharp features, deep and kind eyes. He laughs and it's sort of a startling sound, harsh in the contrast against his angelic expression, but he pulls it off with an innocent look.
Not to mention, he is probably the most gorgeous man that Johnny has ever laid eyes on, to the point that Johnny wonders how a face like that could be possible. A face like that working at an animal shelter.
When he looks down at the man's hands, he sees him holding a puppy like he would be holding a baby. And the pup seems perfectly content, napping in the cradle of arms.
By now Johnny figures he should make himself known too, so he approaches them. But before he can get the first word in, Ten is already introducing them.
“Johnny's our camera guy,” Ten points to him with a less than polite wave of his hand.
Then, Ten is pointing to the gorgeous man, who steps forward and makes direct eye contact with Johnny.
Johnny panics then — surely the mayor's husband isn't the most breathtaking person in the room.
“This is Taeyong Lee,” Ten says, motioning between the two of them.
Johnny swears that Taeyong's gaze at him flutters, looking up at him from under dark eyelashes, standing a just noticeable few inches shorter than him.
Taeyong’s mouth then spreads into a smile, and it's a direct hit to Johnny's heart.
“Nice to meet you, Johnny,” Taeyong says, his voice deeper than Johnny expected it to be. “I'd shake your hand, but, you know…”
Taeyong glances down at the pup in his arms and sheepishly smiles back at him again.
Johnny doesn't know what's wrong with him, why he is suddenly so fixed on each one of Taeyong's motions, every single one of his words. Johnny has had his fair share of beautiful partners, but something about Taeyong just completely knocks him off his feet, so much that he can barely stand direct eye contact with him.
Sangjun Lee is one lucky man.
“All good, your hands are a bit tied,” Johnny says, barely recognizing his own words as his mouth moves without him thinking. His heart is racing and he can't understand why.
But Taeyong doesn't seem to be noticing his dilemma. He twists his body, puppy in arms and all, to look at the woman at his side.
“Please meet Yizhuo,” Taeyong smiles at her. “She runs pretty much everything around here.”
That's not the first time Johnny has heard that. Still, he reaches out politely and shakes her hand. He is then introduced to the woman on his other side, the main veterinarian who quickly makes a point to reiterate that she will stay off camera.
Eventually he hears Ten clear his throat behind him as the crew idly waits for their directions.
“Could we get set up in one of the animal rooms?” Ten asks Taeyong, who finally releases Johnny when he turns away from him.
“It might be a little noisy with the dogs,” Taeyong says with a smile, small and permanent on his lips. “But we do have a reptile room.”
Ten grimaces and Johnny has to hold back his laughter, expecting nothing less than disgust from him.
“Well, if we must`,” Ten says, always a better sport about keeping the needs of the project above his own.
But Taeyong laughs again, light and airy. “That's alright, we can just close doors early today and set up in here, if that works.”
With Ten's approval everyone gets to work quick, unpacking equipment and clearing out the space to make way for the scene. Taeyong approaches Johnny and this time Johnny has the time to take a breather and calm the hammering of his pulse before they’re face to face.
“Just tell me how you want me,” Taeyong says, the corners of his eyes wrinkling prettily as he throws Johnny another smile. Something about it begs him to reflect it back.
“You've got a nice spot here,” Johnny reassures. “It'll be hard to make you look bad.”
He circles around the foyer, past the reception desk and around towards the waiting area looking for the best light from the front windows. There were distant barks and whines in the distance, and Johnny knows that if they get any closer to the back rooms the mics would pick up all that noise.
As this is their second location setup for the day, they don't have much daylight left to shoot so he has to work fast.
“Could we just get a seat in this waiting area?” Johnny calls out to Yangyang, who is absolutely everywhere at once making sure everything goes smoothly on Ten's behalf. “Under the bulletin board would be good.”
He props his case up onto the desk to unpack his camera, then unfolds his tripod and assembles the rest of the equipment into place with a few practiced clicks. He opens the cover of the lens, holding onto it as he takes his first look through, to get the first adjustments out of the way before shooting the scene.
With only one thing in its view the camera focuses on Taeyong, and Johnny's breath catches.
He feels his heart pick up again, seeing just how much the daylight seems to love his face, painting each shadow with precision across his features. Taeyong pushes his hair out of his face, back and over the top of his head, but it just falls back to where it started, feathering over his eyebrows.
For the first time Johnny also notices that Taeyong is fairly skinny, his eyes hollowed out and tired, the line of his jaw cut sharp as glass. Johnny adjusts the focus of the lens again, gripping the legs of the tripod to move from one side to the other.
Each angle that captures Taeyong only seems to pay him more favors. Johnny has never seen anything like it before, how someone can look so perfect in every frame. He swallows the heartbeat that made its way up into his throat, setting down the camera out of his hands.
The final frame captures Taeyong with the pup in his lap, sitting in the chair with the posters for their animals scattered on the board behind them. The papers with photos and names halo out in color around Taeyong, who now looks like the center of the universe. Johnny wonders if this matches the impression that Taeyong's husband has of him.
“Great, let's get started,” Ten says, holding his hand up with the clapperboard in front of the camera, calling for the beginning of filming. “Ready, set, action!”
Taeyong shifts in his seat at that, like he suddenly feels the gaze of the camera very presently on him. On the opposite end Johnny takes comfort in being able to hide behind it — maybe even secretly revels in the freedom, that he can just watch without really being seen.
“We want the audience to get to know you a bit first,” Ten says, always careful with his words to distribute the blame.
Something tells Johnny that Ten doesn't have to be playing all of his games around Taeyong. Taeyong adjusts his hands around the pup's limbs, letting him keep napping as a bundle of fur.
“I thought this film was more about my husband,” Taeyong says with a nervous grin, seeming more than outside of his comfort zone even though the camera adores every single one of his movements.
“It is, but you play an important role,” Ten explains. “Sangjun gave us the impression that you run a lot of things around here.”
Taeyong shrugs. “Well, the Halo Home was mostly my idea, but it took his support to get it started.”
Ten nods, encouraging Taeyong to continue. “Tell us more.”
One of Taeyong's hands idly strokes the fur of the puppy in his lap, occupying his fingers with massaging his little forehead.
“Well, this was really a passion project for me,” Taeyong explains, his mouth tilting when he thinks of what else to say. “With Sangjun dedicating so much of his time to his work — to serving his people, I wanted to have sort of a hand in it too.”
“You must really love animals,” Ten states the obvious.
That makes Taeyong break out into a grin. “More than anything. They have no one else to help them but us.”
Johnny can't tell if Ten is buying it, but he makes no indication otherwise as he continues the interview in a perfectly plain voice.
“And how has Sangjun supported the shelter?” he asks.
“All the money put into it was his. It had to be a big investment,” Taeyong explains, and he is vague enough that Johnny wonders how much Taeyong really knows. Something about him seems so unexpectedly sheltered.
“We've had a lot of unexpected success and eventually we were fortunate enough to open the pet stores,” Taeyong smiles as he talks, his tranquil voice starting to sound much more animated. “Everything feeds directly back into the shelter.”
“Looks like all the risk paid off,” Ten comments after Taeyong's speech, tapping a pen against his notes. “Not every business in this city can say the same.”
Taeyong seems confused by that, but Johnny isn't sure that Ten catches it. Johnny does though, in the subtle twitching of Taeyong's bold brows over his eyes.
“I think we were very lucky,” Taeyong says, turning so his profile is flat to the camera. The outline of his face is a painting, and Johnny can hardly handle how well the film captures it. “Aside from the investment, Sangjun is very involved in its operations too.”
Ten scribbles something into his script, then continues questioning Taeyong without looking back up from his notes.
“You're providing a pretty good impression of Sangjun.”
Taeyong's head tilts, just slightly so. “Well, this is about him, isn't it?”
He surprises Johnny at every turn, and yet the more Taeyong talks, the less Johnny can pinpoint who he really is outside of his relationship with his husband. Taeyong Lee with his unforgettable face, there isn't enough time in the world to figure him out.
Ten is not bothered by Taeyong's clueless response because he is too smart of a director for that — never rattled, especially not while they were filming. He understands that once the camera starts rolling, the only thing that matters is what it captures.
Their conversation continues by going through some of Taeyong's stories, mostly letting him talk up his husband and give them his own impression of what he thought Sangjun did for work. And just as the mayor did, Taeyong says all the perfectly right things. But compared to Sangjun, Taeyong seems to be a bit looser with his words, a little naïve, just enough for Johnny to believe that he's speaking from the heart.
Johnny checks the time and they've been rolling for about an hour now, with the light out the window starting to take a noticeable change. He signals to Ten to wrap it up, just so they can hopefully get enough time for some B-roll of the shelter.
“I think we can stop here for today,” Ten says, signaling the cut to the film crew in the room. “We'll have to come back tomorrow for a proper tour of the place.”
“We don't have to go into the reptile room if you don't want to,” Taeyong teases, hopping up from his chair as the pup starts to stir in his hands. “You strike me as more of a cat person anyway.”
Johnny knows that Taeyong is exactly right about that, with Ten owning two cats of his own. But Ten doesn't let his surprise be known to Taeyong when he shrugs.
“Most of us here are, with our schedules,” he says, already divulging more information than Johnny ever expected him to.
Maybe Taeyong had a similar effect on Ten as he does on him, melting something from within the more he tried to figure him out.