Well. You know...

"You're studying photography," the host said. "Is the original plan still to go back behind the camera?"

"I never really left it."

Whatever Ho-jin had found funny, that was the end of it. "Ji-hun… Talk properly."

"Modeling doesn't mean I stopped taking photos. People just happen to like my face more than my photos right now."

"Does that bother you?"

"As long as they give me my money, no."

The studio laughed at that.

"Aigoo, Moon Ji-hun." Back against the couch now, Ho-jin tipped his head onto the cushion.

Camera three found Ji-hun again. Red light. Yeah, yeah. I heard you, sunbae.

At home, Ho-jin had already abandoned the couch more than once, only to end up on it again a minute later. 

The host, meanwhile, looked perfectly comfortable. Ji-hun was no idol polished by years of media training. Anything might come out of his mouth, and what made it worse was how little the aftermath mattered to him. His agency had backed him from day one, and the sheer absurdity of Ji-hun's life had somehow turned him into one of the public's favorites. 

And Ji-hun... He was spoiled. Very spoiled. It was almost like he was getting revenge for all the pain he had gone through and the childhood he never got to have. 

Most of the time, he barely did more than greet the models he worked with. He did not suck up to the audience when he appeared on shows, and whenever he got the chance, he made it clear that he thought fan events arranged for him were ridiculous.

The host turned toward the giant screen behind them. "I want to talk a little about your family, Ji-hun-ssi."

"Yes, please do."

His mother appeared on the screen first. She was standing there laughing, holding a huge telephoto lens.

Ji-hun did not even wait for the host to say anything. "Ah, my dad took this one..." he said with a smile. "I'm actually somewhere off to the side too. We were on vacation in Greece."

Ho-jin turned the TV up a little and, without taking his eyes off the screen for long, picked up the T-shirt and shorts Ji-hun had thrown on the living room floor before leaving for school that morning. His shoot had run long that day, and he had rushed home the moment it ended so he could catch the program.

The next photo showed Dong-min with a little Ji-hun sitting in his lap.

"Man... you were so damn cute, Ji-hun," Ho-jin said, bringing the T-shirt to his nose and smelling it.

The light on camera three came on, and Ji-hun turned toward it without saying anything. He looked into it for only a second before turning his head away. Neither the host, the cameraman, nor the audience realized that Ji-hun had just looked straight at Ho-jin with a very clear "See, sunbae? Wasn't I so cute?" written all over his face.

While the host talked about his father, Ho-jin found an empty condom box Ji-hun had somehow wedged between the couch cushions. "Moon Ji-hun, do you think you have a maid?" he muttered. "Why the hell is this here?"

Ji-hun had started talking about the years after his father's death.

Everyone knew the subject would come up. Nobody could ever know what Ji-hun would actually say once it did.

He seemed relaxed while talking about what had happened after Dong-min died. The public knew him as the young man who had worked at a host bar to find his mother's killer, but Ji-hun wanted to correct that this time.

When Ho-jin had told him, "You don't owe anyone an explanation, but if you want them to know the truth, you don't really have another choice," Ji-hun had tried to laugh it off.

"Can't I just write a book when I'm as old as you, sunbae?"

But even Ji-hun knew by now that this subject needed to be closed in his own words.

"People make it sound more planned than it was," Ji-hun said. "I was actually working at the host bar because I needed to pay for school and support myself. I found out who Hwang Tae-sung really was later."

Good, Ji-hun-ah... That's enough.

"I'm not some hero or anything."

"Okay. Don't keep going..."

When the host finally said, "We're done with the serious questions now, right?" Ho-jin, the cameraman, the agency owner, and Ji-hun's manager all sighed at the same time.

At least, Ho-jin imagined they did.

"Ji-hun-ssi, seeing you this close, I have to admit something. You're unfairly handsome."

"Oh, thank you. Yeah, I am."

"I'm not asking if there's someone in your life," the host said. "We've already seen how much you hate that question." Then he turned to the audience and laughed. Not because anything was funny. He looked more like a man checking whether anyone else in the room might save him if Ji-hun decided to bite.

Only a week earlier, a paparazzi had approached Ji-hun outside a bar and asked him the same thing.

Ji-hun had answered, "I'll shove that camera up your ass," and gotten straight into his car.

His rudeness had mostly been excused because the paparazzi had been acting out of line, but people were still talking about it.

"So what are you asking?" Ji-hun said. "Go ahead. Ask. I'm in a good mood today."

The audience laughed. Really, they had just been waiting for an excuse to laugh at how nervous the host looked.

Ho-jin had opened the refrigerator and was searching for honey water. He felt like he might be getting sick and wanted to stop it before it got worse, but he turned his head from the open fridge and looked at the TV. "Shit. No. Ji-hun, don't you dare."

"Can we at least find out your ideal type?"

"Older," Ji-hun said.

The studio went so quiet you could have heard a pin hit the floor.

The red light on camera three came on.

Ji-hun looked straight into it. You were the one who made me come on this shitty show, Ho-jin sunbae…

"Wouldn't hurt if they had thick lashes and a little beauty mark beside one eye. Oh, and their eyes should be really dark." 

Ho-jin, the agency owner, the manager. All of them were holding their breath now.

"A photographer. When you work in the same field, you have more meaningful things to share."

"Holy shit, Moon Ji-hun, stop it!"

"Hmm..." the host said. "That almost sounds like you're describing someone who already exists, Ji-hun-ssi." He burst out laughing and turned toward the audience. The floor manager signaled for everyone to laugh with him.

Ji-hun was not laughing. Not even a little. "Someone stupid enough to think they can protect me from everything." 

The audience suddenly stopped laughing.

Ho-jin slammed the refrigerator door shut and ran toward the TV. "Don't do it, little shit. Don't you fucking do it..."

"And I guess it wouldn't hurt if he were a man. After working at a host bar for that many years... Well. You know."