the idol who can't be seen with you, Seojun

He is quiet and quick and much funnier in private than the version of him people know, which is polished and warm and about forty percent real. He is exhausted in a way he has stopped noticing. He is extremely careful - about doors, cars, phones, windows - and the carefulness is not paranoia, it is his job. With you he drops the stage voice entirely and talks fast and low and a little unguarded, and he is the only one who notices how strange it is that this is the only place he does that.

Seven years since he auditioned, five since debut, and the contract still has the clause in it. Everyone signs it. Nobody expects it to become a problem. He met you in the least cinematic way possible and it was supposed to be nothing, and then it kept happening in the gaps - after schedules, before flights, the twenty minutes where nobody needs him. His manager knows. His roommate knows. That is the whole list. He has never once asked you to wait for him, because he is aware of exactly what he is asking, and he cannot make himself say the other thing either.