The air in the university editing suite smelled of stale coffee, cold technology, and the lingering scent of professional exhaustion. Jihun was hiding there.
It had been twenty-four hours since Minho had touched his cheek—a touch that had perfectly ruined the flawless take and irrevocably stained Jihun's professional memory. Jihun felt like a camera whose sensor had been struck by a flare: everything was overexposed, blooming, and unreliable.
To cope, Jihun did the only thing he knew how: he buried himself in work. He was logging the footage from the "Confined Space" shoot, watching the perfect, raw emotion Minho had delivered, culminating in the moment the character broke the fourth wall and Minho, the man, broke Jihun's control.
He couldn't look at the footage for long. His face would heat up, and his hands would start to shake. He needed a distraction, a reset.
A cheerful, entirely uninvited voice cut through the noise-canceling hum of his headphones.
"DP Lee! You're going to burn out your retinas staring at that color-corrected misery."
Minho stood in the doorway, leaning against the frame with a casual arrogance that suggested the entire building belonged to him. He was holding a slender, dark blue bottle with no label.
Jihun immediately hit pause. "Mr. Ryu. I was checking the focus pull quality. We are behind schedule thanks to your... impromptu directing choices. Have you prepared the next location scout report?"
Minho pushed himself off the frame and walked closer, setting the mysterious bottle on the desk, its cold condensation immediately fogging the polished wood.
"Technical precision is your domain, Jihun. Mine is narrative immersion. And for that, we need to talk character motivation for the next scene. The scene where the God of Light finally loses his control."
Jihun adjusted his glasses. "We discussed this. I need a formal document. Not a performance art piece in the editing suite."
Minho sighed, a dramatic sound of creative suffering. "Formal documents kill the muse. We need a storyboarding session. But not here. This place is too clean. Too well-lit. It smells like a spreadsheet. We need a place that encourages vulnerability."
Jihun found himself nodding against his better judgment. He had to meet Minho in neutral territory. He had to lay down the law. If he refused, Minho would complain to Professor Choi about Jihun being "uncollaborative." It was a trap, but Jihun felt compelled to walk into it to maintain the illusion of control.
"Fine," Jihun snapped. "I will allocate two hours tonight. From 7 PM to 9 PM. We will meet at the café near my apartment. The one with the flat lighting. We will only discuss shot composition and technical feasibility."
Minho's predatory smile returned. "Perfect. But tonight, we're leveling up. Not coffee. We need something traditional. Something with soul." He picked up the blue bottle. "This is a specialty drink. It's made from black raspberries—a traditional Korean health juice. My grandmother makes it. It's supposed to help with focus and creative flow. I call it 'Narrative Elixir.' Drink it with me. For the sake of the project."
Jihun stared at the dark liquid. It looked like a rich, black currant juice. He prided himself on his disciplined intake—no caffeine after 2 PM, no sugar after 6 PM, and absolutely zero alcohol, ever. He needed a clear head.
"I don't drink fruit juice, Mr. Ryu. The sugar content is too distracting," Jihun stated, already putting on his coat.
"But this isn't just juice, Jihun, it's authenticity," Minho insisted, leaning in conspiratorially. "We are filming a Korean story. We need Korean inspiration. Besides, it's mostly just the raspberries. Just one cup. To toast the future success of our catastrophic failure of a partnership."
Jihun, who had never consumed anything stronger than sparkling water, was already mentally calculating the caloric impact of the 'juice.' He was so focused on the calories and the sugar that he completely missed the warning sign.
Minho's 'Narrative Elixir' was not juice. It was Bokbunjaju—a traditional Korean raspberry wine, often sweet and potent, sometimes reaching 15% alcohol, and frequently mistaken for a non-alcoholic beverage due to its thick, fruity taste.
The storyboarding session began, as scheduled, at 7 PM in the drab, low-light café. Minho brought two small, antique ceramic cups. The 'Narrative Elixir' was poured. It tasted sweet, earthy, and strangely warming.
"It's... robust," Jihun conceded after the first sip, a faint, pleasant tingling spreading through his chest.
"It's the soul of the narrative," Minho corrected, taking a large, satisfied gulp.
Jihun, determined to keep his professional edge, spent the first thirty minutes trying to outline the technical requirements of the next major scene—an argument in a subway car, requiring precise motion control. Minho, meanwhile, kept pushing the cup closer.
"We need the camera to be on a slider, a three-axis gimbal, and programmed to mimic the precise deceleration curve of the train," Jihun explained, meticulously drawing vectors in his notebook.
"Boring! The camera needs to be drunk, Jihun!" Minho insisted, waving his hands. "It needs to sway with the characters' emotions, not the train schedule. Drink. Let the fear dissolve."
Jihun took a second, larger sip. The buzzing in his head intensified, becoming a pleasant, warm hum that seemed to soften the edges of the flat lighting. The fluorescent tubes suddenly looked... atmospheric.
"The fear," Jihun repeated slowly, staring at his notebook, the vectors blurring slightly. "The fear is quantifiable. It's a depth of field issue. The emotional truth... is 1.4. Not 8.0."
Minho laughed, a rich, full sound that made the cafe seem brighter. "See? You're already speaking poetry! DP Lee is entering the artistic plane!"
After the third cup, Jihun was entirely lost. His internal monologue—usually a disciplined, technical script—had dissolved into a mess of uncontrolled feeling. He started to sway slightly, gesturing wildly with his pen.
"You know what the problem with the world is, Minho?" Jihun slurred, leaning so far forward he was practically resting his chin on his notebook. "It's the noise. The chromatic noise. Everyone is too loud, too bright, too... saturated. I just want everything in monochrome. Perfect, controlled gray."
Minho, utterly delighted, leaned in, resting his face in his hand, his eyes sparkling. "And why is that, Jihun? Why do you need everything to be gray?"
Jihun hiccuped, a small, embarrassing sound. He suddenly felt a desperate urge to confess his biggest, most terrifying secret.
"Because," Jihun whispered, his voice thick with uncharacteristic emotion, "because... if everything is gray, Minho, you can't tell what is dirty. You can't tell what's messy. You can't tell what's... unprofessional. And I... I can't be unprofessional. It's not on my schedule."
He then looked up at Minho, his usually sharp, critical eyes swimming with sudden, profound admiration.
"But you," Jihun continued, his voice softer, laced with genuine wonder. "You're the most beautiful saturation I've ever seen. You're too much exposure. You're a highlight clip, and I'm a shadow detail, and we should never... never work together."
Minho's amusement vanished, replaced by an intoxicating intensity. He reached out slowly, his fingers tracing the rim of Jihun's empty cup.
"I think we should," Minho murmured, his voice low, husky, and entirely sober. "I think the shadow needs the highlight, or it's just a black hole. And the highlight... needs the anchor of the dark."
Jihun stared at the proximity of Minho's hand, feeling the heat rise in his face again, a heat entirely unrelated to the alcohol. He suddenly felt the desperate, overwhelming need to close the distance, to finally stop the maddening calculation between them.
Jihun didn't initiate the kiss; his body simply moved, driven by a logic that defied his brain. His meticulous, rule-bound body, loosened by the forbidden alcohol, simply decided to shut down the verbal processing unit and engage the sensory one.
He lunged forward, not elegantly, but with a clumsy, desperate urgency, bridging the small gap across the table.
Minho was ready. He didn't pull back. Instead, he caught Jihun perfectly, steadying him with one hand on the back of his neck, his fingers tangling roughly in Jihun's impeccably styled hair.
The kiss was catastrophic. It was nothing like Jihun's tidy, predictable life. It was messy, wet, and demanding. Minho's lips were firm, tasting of the sweet, fermented raspberry and something fundamentally masculine—spice, and the soft leather of his jacket.
Jihun melted into the contact. His glasses slid crookedly down his nose, and Minho immediately removed them, tossing them onto the table with a soft clink before deepening the kiss.
Minho's hand moved from Jihun's hair to cup his jaw, tilting his head back slightly, forcing Jihun to open up completely. Jihun was a tangle of contradiction: he was desperate to pull away, to regain the control he lived for, but his body was utterly betraying him, responding with a fierce, starved hunger he hadn't known he possessed.
Jihun let out a soft, low moan—a sound of submission and surprise—as Minho used his tongue to trace the seam of Jihun's lips, demanding entry. When Jihun granted it, the kiss deepened into a furious, non-verbal argument. Minho's free hand clamped tightly around Jihun's waist, pulling him further across the table until Jihun's starched shirt was wrinkled and his chest was pressed against the hard edge of the wood.
It was an act of complete, mutual violation of all professional and personal rules, fueled by months of stifled antagonism and searing tension. Jihun was suffocating, reeling, lost in the pure, dark sensation of Minho's mouth, Minho's weight, and Minho's dominance.
It lasted maybe twenty seconds.
Then, just as suddenly, the alcohol, the adrenaline, and the overwhelming sensory input hit Jihun's zero-tolerance system like a power surge. His brain, already running on insufficient battery, flickered out entirely.
His grip went slack. His head lolled forward against Minho's shoulder, a dead weight.
Minho broke the kiss, a low, ragged chuckle escaping his chest. He held Jihun carefully, his eyes dark with residual hunger, but also with an amused tenderness.
"Just like that, DP?" Minho whispered, running a hand down Jihun's spine. "You break the light meter, you break the budget, and you break the man. And then you pass out."
Minho sighed, a mixture of exasperation and intense satisfaction. "Come on, Jihun. Let's get you home before you wake up and try to arrest me for 'professional misconduct' in the morning."
Jihun woke to the sound of soft jazz, a sound entirely alien to his usual 440 Hz tone.
His head was splitting. His mouth was dry. He cracked open his eyes. He was in his own bed. His familiar, crisp white sheets smelled faintly, horrifyingly, of Minho's expensive cologne.
Jihun bolted upright, clutching the sheets to his chest.
He was wearing a pair of his own pristine, unused silk pajama bottoms. Only the bottoms. His tailored shirt, his trousers, and his immaculate underwear were gone.
Panic, cold and sharp, replaced the alcoholic haze. He looked around the room, which was pristine and empty.
Then, he noticed it.
On his inner left forearm, just below the elbow, was a small, angry red welt. It wasn't a bruise or a hickey. It looked like a bite, or perhaps a strange, new kind of mark.
Jihun's heart began to beat a furious tattoo against his ribs. He remembered the kiss—the desperate grab, the suffocating proximity. But after that... nothing. A void.
Had Minho… had he taken advantage of him? Had the Chaos Genius, having broken Jihun's composure and equipment, finally broken his physical boundaries? The mark was a testament to something happening. The missing clothes were proof that Minho had been hands-on with his unconscious body.
Jihun scrambled out of bed, grabbing the silk pillowcase and wrapping it around his chest like a towel. He needed to find Minho. He needed answers. He needed to re-establish the narrative that nothing sexual had occurred, even if he had to scream the lie.
He burst into his own minimalist living room, ready for confrontation.
Minho was there. He was fully dressed in the same vintage leather jacket and black jeans, sitting casually on Jihun's stark-white, modular sofa. He was holding a steaming mug and reading Jihun's printed, annotated copy of Cinematography: Theory and Practice.
The jazz was coming from Jihun's own high-end Bluetooth speaker, which Minho had apparently commandeered.
"Good morning, Sleeping Beauty," Minho greeted, looking up, entirely relaxed. "Your recovery lighting is terrible, by the way. Too harsh. It accentuates the bags under your eyes."
Jihun stood rigid, clutching the pillowcase. "What… what happened last night, Mr. Ryu?"
Minho raised an eyebrow. "You mean after you declared your love for monochrome and then launched yourself across the table for a deeply inappropriate, if technically superb, kiss? You passed out, Jihun. Hard. You look like you need this." He held up the mug. "I made you a 400 Lux-level cup of Americano. Extra strong."
"The kiss… and the rest," Jihun demanded, his voice trembling despite his efforts. He shoved his forearm forward, pointing at the red mark. "And this. What is this mark? What did you do to me when I was unconscious?"
Minho looked at the mark, then back at Jihun's terrified, flushed face, framed by the white pillowcase. He set the mug down, his expression shifting from amusement to a patient solemnity.
"Jihun," Minho said softly. "Look at me. I brought you home. You were dead weight. You were a gentleman's nightmare. And you smell horribly of fermented raspberries and desperation."
He stood up, slowly approaching Jihun. Jihun instinctively took a step back, the panic intensifying.
"I didn't touch you like that," Minho stated, his eyes steady, utterly sincere. "You're too precious to me, Jihun. I'm waiting for you to be sober, conscious, and willing. Not passed out on a café floor. You think I'm a savage? I'm the director. I wait for the perfect take."
He gently took Jihun's marked forearm. "That," Minho explained, pointing to the red welt, "is a mosquito bite. A very large one. Your immaculate apartment has an infestation. I crushed one on your wall five minutes ago. Your immune system is probably just hyper-sensitive because you never encounter germs."
Jihun blinked. The terror began to recede, replaced by a sudden, consuming wave of mortification. He had just essentially accused the man who kissed him of sexual assault, only to be told he was attacked by an insect.
"But... my clothes," Jihun managed, his voice barely audible. "Why are my clothes gone? Why did you change me?"
Minho's eyes darkened slightly, a brief, hot flash of memory passing through them.
Minho walked toward the sofa, picking up a pile of dark, damp fabric: Jihun's tailored charcoal trousers and his pristine white shirt.
"You were soaked," Minho explained, his voice taking on a lower, detailed timbre that made Jihun's skin prickle. "You had spilled the 'elixir' all down your chest and the side of your trousers when you lunged for me. You were sticky. And I could not, for the life of me, maneuver a fully clothed, rigid Cinematography major into his bed without breaking your neck or my back."
Minho tossed the shirt onto the sofa, his eyes locked on Jihun's. The details he recounted were slow, deliberate, and entirely sensual, even though his actions had been chaste.
"First, the shirt. I had to unbutton it," Minho said, holding Jihun's gaze. "I tried to be quick, but your shirt is starched and tight, Lee Jihun. And even passed out, you are so stiff. I had to use two hands to pull the fabric away from your collarbone. That's when I noticed... you smell like fresh linen and expensive soap, even when you're sweating out raspberry wine. You have the cleanest skin I've ever seen."
Minho paused, letting the implication hang in the air: I saw your chest.
Jihun swallowed hard, feeling his blush return with a vengeance. The pillowcase felt utterly insufficient.
Minho continued, his voice soft but relentless. "I got the shirt off. You have almost no body fat, Jihun. Just beautiful, taut muscle from all your little 6 AM routines. I had to support you with my arm under your shoulder the entire time. I saw that little mole just above your ribcage. Perfectly symmetrical."
He moved to the next item of clothing. "The trousers were worse. I couldn't just pull them down. I had to lift each leg. You kept making these little noises—not protests, just… soft sounds. Like a wounded animal. So I took the trousers off, carefully, pulling the fabric over your hips."
Minho ran his tongue slowly over his bottom lip, his gaze dropping to Jihun's exposed waist, just above the pajama drawstring.
"That," Minho finished, his voice a low, gravelly confession, "was the hardest moment of my life, DP. Not because I wanted to do something. But because I had to touch you, naked and vulnerable, and then stop. It was an exercise in self-control you will never understand. I had to remind myself that my desire is not your weakness. I put your silk pajamas on you because I didn't want you sleeping naked, Jihun. I wanted you safe."
The air between them was thick, heavy, saturated with the intimacy of the unspoken encounter. Jihun was breathing heavily, his entire body trembling. He was humiliated beyond measure, not because he was assaulted, but because he was exposed—physically, emotionally, and professionally—and the man who exposed him had acted with more restraint than Jihun had given him credit for. Minho hadn't violated him; he had protected him, and in doing so, had taken an even deeper, more profound form of control.
"You... you saw everything," Jihun choked out, his voice laced with absolute despair.
"I saw the physical architecture of a man who is terrified of being seen," Minho corrected gently. "And I changed his clothes. That's all. Now, drink your coffee, Jihun. We have a film to make."
Minho walked back to the sofa, picking up the technical book he'd been reading. He opened it to a page Jihun had dog-eared about the psychological impact of low-key lighting.
"And for the record," Minho added, his eyes sparkling with a familiar, predatory gleam. "The kiss was exactly what I wanted. Don't blame the raspberry wine for your true intentions, DP. Now that we've established that, let's talk about the emotional temperature of the subway scene. I need you to give me a f-stop that feels like a confession."
Jihun stared at the mug Minho had made him. He was completely undone. His schedule was gone. His rules were broken. His body had betrayed him. The only thing left was the terrifying, undeniable reality that Ryu Minho knew him better, and had seen more of him, than anyone alive.
The film project had officially, and spectacularly, transitioned into something entirely else.