#not entirely tho cuz i moved a prompt that i did that was supposed to be for day 6

[aria0fgold]

Gotta love how Mel kicked me in the ass when I drew him and now he's kicking me in the ass too while I'm trying to write a whumptober snippet with him.

[snowball-doie]

✮⋆˙ 𝐨𝐟𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐠𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐬, 𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟑 ˙⋆✮

| pairing: johnny x manager!oc

| warnings: 18+ MDNI. COVID-19 lockdown stuff. Alcohol consumption.

| aurora's note: finally getting to the chapters i enjoy cuz johnny and aurora actually get together instead of everything just being world building lol~~ my bestie says she loves these early chapters the most tho so idk ...?

| aurora's note 2: don't forget this is kinda(???) an au, so some things are SLIGHTLY different from irl.

A year and a half after Aurora was hired at SM, things were still going smoothly. Her job was secured after the executives decided to extend her contract due to how happy the boys were when working with her and there were only good things to say about her work ethic. It was a miracle, to be honest. There were a dozen times that Aurora thought that she would get kicked to the curb, but she was still holding strong, and she was happy there with Yuta and Taeyong at her side to help her navigate it all.

But of course, nothing good ever lasts forever… One day everyone was at work, practicing, messing around, Yuta and Taeyong hanging on Aurora while Ten waited impatiently to make another TikTok with her. The next day, they all got emails from the executives telling them that the company would be taking an in-person hiatus following South Korea’s COVID-19 epidemic preventative measures being implemented overnight. Everyone thought that it would last about a week. The government would find a way to contain the illness, a cure would be found, or everyone would simply forget about it and move on… But none of that happened. One week turned into two, then into an entire month, and then it went on far longer than anyone could have possibly imagined, putting everything on pause. No world tour for 127. No practices. No working at the office. No more music. It was like life came to a halt right when things were getting good, and Aurora had zero clue of what to do with herself.

In a random turn of events, Johnny and Aurora began getting buddy-buddy. They had always been friends at work, but because of the COVID lockdowns, he had a lot of free time on his hands to finally get to know her better, she supposed. It was weird to think of Johnny Suh as a friend. Ever since they met, he treated her with plenty of respect because that was the type of guy he was, but he also liked to give her a hard time every now and then which had a tendency to piss her off in a mild way, prompting her to give him a hard time back. He must’ve thought they were just having fun. It wasn’t the worst thing in the world, granted, since Aurora understood he meant well… But when they became actual friends who were constantly talking and hanging out in Discord calls together, the teasing seemed different.

When they would play multiplayer games together, Johnny would always roast the shit out of her— One of his favorite things was to play Among Us with the rest of 127, and every single fucking time, Johnny found a rhyme or a reason to throw Aurora under the bus, even when he knew that neither of them were the imposters! Oh, she despised that. Whenever Johnny would play story mode games, like Until Dawn which he had an obsession with in the early months of lockdown, he would stream his screen for her and let her rant about her day. Aurora had it a lot harder than he did. While the idols got to relax at home and simply wait for the restrictions to be lifted, Aurora and the other managers were still having to put in endless work to keep the company afloat, because if they stopped their efforts of promoting the boys, then everyone would be out of a job and on the streets in no time. That put a lot of pressure on Aurora. Not only was the work difficult given the circumstances, but the threat of being alone in a foreign country made her stomach twist. Aurora was a social creature. She needed to be in the office, meeting with execs face to face, yelling at the boys when they got too rowdy, cuddling Yuta whenever she was tired or overwhelmed. But all of that had been ripped from her in the lockdowns.

“I tested positive,” Yuta texted one day. Prior to that, Aurora considered sneaking him into her building so that they could spend a weekend together for the first time in months, but the idiot had to go and get COVID while attending an underground party in Hongdae. She decided she was going to smack him upside the head next time she’d see him.

So Johnny was one of Aurora’s only sources of comfort while Taeyong struggled to keep up with his own work for the company, Yuta slept away his COVID symptoms for two weeks or so, and Ten was busy hanging out with his other friends. Johnny was a good listener, surprisingly. He was one of the only extroverts in NCT, yet Aurora was amazed by his ability to zip his mouth shut and listen to her go on and on and on for hours like the extrovert she was too. It was easy to get over his humor— The moments where he could be so cringe Aurora would fall out of her chair were at least still funny, so she dealt with him. Barely.

“Noona, I have something important to ask you,” Ten said urgently over the phone one day. Aurora hummed a tone that said she was listening as she cooked her dinner. “Are you and Johnny… A thing?”

Aurora accidentally dropped the knife on the cutting board with a heavy thud. “Excuse you?”

“He’s acting weird, okay! I figured you would’ve told me if you guys were dating, but I don’t know!”

“Why on Earth— How’s he acting weird?”

“He’s just been talking about you a lot. Like, an unreasonable amount. And he keeps asking me questions about you to get to know you better, and I keep telling him to leave me alone, but he finds every excuse to talk about you.”

Aurora rolled her eyes then casually went back to cooking. Men. “We’re just friends. We spend every day together playing video games, he probably has nothing better to do than talk about me.”

“Noona, I—”

“He’d probably have more of a life if you talked to us more instead of playing games with the WayV boys,” she teased, licking homemade spaghetti sauce off her index finger after dumping the sausage into the pot.

Ten dropped the topic after that. Aurora didn’t hear another peep from him about Johnny or the laughable thought of Aurora dating him. Was it actually impossible for people to believe that a guy and a girl could be friends, and just that? She was already just friends with Yuta, Taeyong, and Ten, so where was Ten getting the idea of Johnny and Aurora dating planted in his mind? He never fessed up, and Aurora didn’t ask.

Come the end of April, going into May, restrictions around the pandemic lockdown were slowly lifting, especially for companies who had a heavy impact on the country’s economy, like entertainment companies. Aurora was given the greenlight to host meetings in the office, so long as all social distancing laws were obeyed. Easy enough. She started pulling the boys of NCT into a meeting room on a schedule that allowed them to see each other for the first time in months while also getting a bunch of work done for the upcoming Resonance album that the company was desperately hoping would help bounce them back financially after a rough first quarter.

Each of the members got a chance to review the songs in the album and vote on which project or two they wanted to be involved in— Although neither Aurora nor any of the other managers could promise anything, they wanted to try their best to make everything fair, not only for the boys’ sakes but for the fans too who all had different biases. If the company wanted to make money, they needed to utilize the boys properly, and that was what Aurora was there for. She knew their international fanbase best. She knew who needed to stand out the most and who didn't, beyond putting Mark in every single song because he was the company’s golden goose.

Honestly, almost everyone was quick and easy to meet with. The only outliers were the expected suspects, like Taeyong, Yuta, and Ten who all wanted to talk story with Aurora first before actually getting to work, and they kept getting distracted throughout the entire conversation. Taeyong wanted to keep talking, but it wasn’t about random stuff, it was specifically about work, as if Aurora didn’t have a million other things to do after her meeting with him, and he was just delaying the process by prying unnecessarily. The person Aurora didn’t technically expect to also be chatty with her was Johnny. In the past, whenever they had work meetings, he was quite good at listening to her while he reclined back in his roller chair that he swayed side to side while nodding along to everything she had to say in a mixture of Korean, English, and Japanese like her mind was all over the place— Which it usually was. However, during this meeting specifically, perhaps because they had become friends more recently, Johnny was more on the talkative side. He had far more input than usual. He had his sights set on certain projects, and Aurora was more than willing to write her notes down in the hopes of helping him out.

The productive part of their meeting passed pretty quickly since Johnny was an easy client to negotiate with, so the conversation drifted to something more casual. He asked her about how her videogames were going and if she was doing okay balancing everything with work. After replying, she asked him about his games and if had the chance to see any of the other boys. His games were fine though he needed some of her help carrying him in CoD— She of course laughed uncontrollably at that because she was worse than him at the game and they both knew it. He didn’t get a chance to see any of the boys, unfortunately. He was looking forward to prepping for the album, though, so that he would be able to spend more time with them like before COVID struck.

And then, out of nowhere, a change in topic smacked her across the face as he asked, “What type of guys are you into?”

It was an invasive question for sure, but it wasn’t like Aurora kept it a secret from anyone else in NCT when they asked. Still, she shocked herself by answering honestly: Mostly twink guys with long blonde hair. She wasn’t sure why, but she really loved dyed blonde hair on guys with dark hair, especially when the roots started to grow out… That was the best part. Beyond that, though, she liked guys who were actually just real softies in private. Big cuddlers. Guys who didn’t mind her special interests. It was important to her that she had someone who would listen to her rant for hours on end about the things she enjoyed and even get involved themselves.

“So does that mean you like Yuta?”

Aurora laughed loudly, throwing her head back, hitting the table with a loud smack. There was no fucking way he had just said that. Yuta? Yuta Nakamoto? Pft! Sure, she knew that they were close— Closer than she was to anyone else at SM— but never in a million years did she think people saw them as having any kind of relationship beyond being friends. That was like saying she was in love with Ten or Taeyong! It simply didn’t make sense.

“What!” he defended quickly. “He’s got dyed hair, and you two are always all over each other, and he listens to you go on and on and on in Japanese when no one else knows what you’re saying.”

She couldn’t breathe, she was laughing so damn hard.

“Bruh, you’re impossible.”

She tried to catch her breath between words so that she didn’t leave Johnny hanging, “That’s… That’s like saying… my brother and I are in love…” She exhaled deeply to try to stop laughing. “No, I don’t like Yuta-kun.”

Johnny tsked while squinting to see if she was really telling the truth, but when she didn’t budge, he nodded and moved on to a different topic. To Aurora, it was a relief that he didn’t pry more because if he kept asking who she could possibly like, she feared that it would create some kind of drama at work, which was a big no-no for her. She wanted to keep things professional to the best of her ability. So Johnny showing her some mercy came with a breath of relief; However, throughout the entire conversation, the vibes were noticeably off slightly, but Aurora tried to trick herself into thinking that it was all in her head after Ten's comment about thinking that they were together… Johnny didn’t seem to think differently of their conversation, though. He kept talking and talking like they had been friends their entire lives.

When her eyes flicked to the time, Aurora realized that they had been wasting their afternoon talking story and now he was required to go to his schedules for the day, which included stamina training that all the boys had to attend together.

“Everyone is probably waiting for you downstairs.”

She checked her calendar to see what the practice was for exactly… It seemed that the boys were practicing their new dance for music shows now that their comeback was just around the corner. Shit. How could she forget that, and could she not keep Johnny on time?

Just as quickly as she realized her mistakes, Aurora jumped to her feet, collecting her belongings, eyeing Johnny to see if he was following her lead— Which he was— and they hurried out of the meeting room together.

“If you fall behind today ‘cause you’re late, I’ll still yell at you in front of the others.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Johnny replied teasingly.

A couple of days later, the dreaded topic of Aurora and Johnny came up again when Ten showed up at her office unexpectedly, wearing a medical mask, keeping his distance from her as he closed the door and sat across from her. He had more to report about Johnny. Apparently he was still talking about her, but ever since their meeting in person the other day, he was doing the most to the point it was pissing Ten off. Johnny was asking about each of Aurora’s special interests in order to try to get into them. Literally everything. He was already into anime and video games, that was the easy part for him, but he wanted to know more than that, and it seemed he thought he could trust Ten to keep it between the two of them rather than if he went to Yuta who he knew would’ve snitched to Aurora immediately. Unfortunately for Johnny, Ten was just as loyal to Aurora.

But she was genuinely confused. Why did Johnny care so much? Like, they had never been that close before, and suddenly he was trying to be her bestie? Where did it all start? What spawned those behaviors?

Ten giggled. “He must like you.”

She rolled her eyes. Johnny was the type of guy to be into models and fuck around with really pretty women, because as a celebrity that was the kind of person he had easy access to. She didn’t get the vibe that he would ever be into someone like her. There was no chance he would even take a moment to give her a second glance.

“No,” Ten shook his head, “Johnny stopped fucking around a couple of years ago— Actually…” He raised his brow at her. “It was around the time you joined SM. He’s been so consumed by work that he hasn’t had the time for girls, so the fact that he’s trying really, really hard to get your attention is saying something.”

Aurora scoffed because she thought that it was complete bullshit since no one had ever been into her, and Johnny of all people couldn’t possibly be. Ten couldn’t fathom that she felt that way about herself. He genuinely fell silent for minutes on end while trying to think of something to say except for, “Shut the fuck up,” which was ultimately what he decided on regardless. But to Aurora, statistically, it was true, and of course she knew it best because she was the one living her lonely, sad life.

However, as time went on, Aurora couldn’t completely disregard Ten's claims. Especially whenever Johnny kept appearing in Aurora’s life— Or rather, popping up, like a whack-a-mole or something. He would ask to play video games with her, which mostly consisted of Call of Duty that he played on his PS5 at his place and she played on her Xbox at hers. Sometimes they would dabble in other things for fun like Fortnite, Among Us, etc. When they weren’t gaming, he would watch Criminal Minds and various anime shows with her. He got into all of it. Fast. He spiraled into reading manga that she would recommend, he would do online figurine and manga shopping with her, and he’d help her look into different conventions she could potentially attend in the future.

Every time she talked to Johnny, the conversation she had with Ten always played in the back of her mind. Surely it wasn’t true. She just wanted to appreciate the new friend she was making. But Aurora couldn’t deny that he was being extremely suspicious… and she was trying so, so hard not to get her hopes up… Yes, her hopes. Even though she thought the whole thing was silly, part of her wondered if there was some merit to it and if she should’ve chased him, but what did Ten say all those years ago about needing to be more careful than everyone else because she was a foreigner, but Johnny was too, so maybe it wasn’t insane to think— No. No. She had to keep things on a friendship level and she couldn’t allow her imagination to run wild.

By July, Aurora took notice over how Johnny had been growing his hair out without any requests from the execs on the matter, and the most shocking part was that he was going for a length that was longer than he ever had before. Eventually, when it finally got down to his shoulders, he suddenly dyed it without any warning. One day he just FaceTimed her out of the blue, showing off the blonde, bragging that he thought it looked good but that he also wanted her opinion since she was the “expert” on blonde men. Though she rolled her eyes, she played along. It was hard to deny that it did in fact look good… And that it really was working for her… Though she would never tell him that.

Aurora immediately texted Ten after she got off the phone with Johnny because it was no longer all just a coincidence— Johnny was being incredibly suspicious. The fact that he dyed his hair, complimented her, and practically begged for her opinion convinced her of everything that Ten was teasing her about for months.

"I told you so," he bragged when he FaceTimed her. "I knew he was obvious, but I didn’t think he’d actually go as far as to become the exact type of guy you’re into.” He face palmed.

“Can you ask him?”

He looked up at her.

“Can you get a serious answer out of him, see if he actually likes me or not? But be smooth about it, obviously….”

“I can try, no promises.”

Come October, there was still no news from Ten on the Johnny situation. Aurora had limited time to bother him about it, honestly, and he was just as busy that she figured there was no time to prod about office romance gossip, so Aurora easily let the thought drift to the back of her mind. In the meantime, she worked hard on the upcoming album that she’d been planning with the boys. The songs were recorded, the dances were rehearsed, now it was down to the last few weeks where they would be filming all of the music videos back to back, hardly giving some of the boys like Mark and Taeyong a chance to rest. She felt bad… It was technically her fault because she was in charge of scheduling them, but she tried to pass the blame off to the execs who forced her to use their best idols as much as possible, and unfortunately for them, that meant Mark and Taeyong were in practically every song on the album.

During the filming of the song Work It, Aurora was on set both days to make sure everything ran smoothly since the majority of the group assigned to the project were from 127— AKA, her responsibility. Since they filmed so early in the morning until late at night at various locations around Seoul on the first day, the boys were incredibly tired, which meant that they were docile, so they did whatever Aurora wanted, and they worked well with the crew who was even more tired than they were.

It was a major relief to Aurora that the project turned out as well as it did because she had her hopes set high ever since assigning Johnny to it because he didn’t get many other NCT U opportunities. She hoped that it would finally be his breakthrough— His turn to stand out. And stand out he did. The execs asked him to cut his long blonde hair for the videos, but he refused very adamantly. Aurora couldn’t wrap her brain around why on Earth Johnny would put himself on the execs’ bad side after she went to all that trouble shoving him into as many projects as she could… Johnny wouldn’t explain it to her. She asked plenty of times when trying to convince him to listen to them, but he refused and walked away with a laugh and a shrug that brushed her off. Asshole. It was just hair. It would grow back if he really liked it that much. Regardless, he still adamantly thanked her for fighting for him because he was usually overlooked; He kept promising that he wouldn’t let her down.

On the second day, that was when the boys somehow got an extra boost of energy, which made Aurora’s life hell because not only was Work It filming, but so were some other subunits who needed to do B-Roll for the NCT U song, Resonance. Aurora was so busy running between sets that she really didn’t have time to fuck around, but the boys couldn’t care less. Whenever she was on the Work It set, Yuta and Ten were all over her, teasing her, successfully distracting her from her actual work between their takes. And then there was Johnny. He was always lingering behind Ten, laughing along with their jokes, making comments to try to fit in, and so on until he got more comfortable to step closer and closer… until he was in every conversation and was able to pry Aurora’s attention away from her friends. Yuta was honestly ready to fight them both so that they could just focus on filming and not Aurora. “Says you,” Ten teased with his tongue out. That only ticked off Yuta more, however, earning Ten the wonderful experience of being dragged back onto set via his ear by Yuta, meanwhile Johnny pointed and laughed the entire time until Aurora kicked him in the shins and told him, “Get moving.”

When the dreaded day to film the large group shots for Resonance finally dawned, Aurora knew what was going to happen, and she wished that she was a time traveler in order to just skip right past the entire thing; but, alas, she had to be there from early in the morning until late at night to wrangle all twenty boys… Laying in bed the morning of, Aurora asked herself if it was worth it. Sure, she loved them. Her job was fun. But she was tired and there were only so many times she could complain to Taeyong and Yuta about her stress and workload. Maybe she just needed a personal life. “Maybe a dog would be nice,” she said before forcing herself to roll out of bed.

“Good morning, everyone,” Aurora greeted confidently upon walking onto set.

Because there were so many members they needed to film in a single shot, the creative team came up with the idea of filming them in a stadium where there would be plenty of space, and it would also make up for the lack of concerts due to the pandemic, so fans would be happy to see their favorite members on some kind of stage. Most of the crew was already there since their call time was earlier in order to set up. Most of them stopped to bow in her direction once they realized who she was, but all of the new crew whom she’d never worked with previously didn’t know who she was or the power she held, they just saw a foreigner and decided to keep going on with their day. Aurora truthfully didn’t mind. The only person who did seem to care was Johnny who stepped onto set behind Aurora, still dressed in his street clothes, to loudly announce that they needed to show their manager some respect.

Aurora rolled her eyes. “Morning to you too.”

“Late night?” he asked her with a grin.

“Yeah.”

“CoD still kicking your ass?”

“Every day.”

Hayoon approached silently to give Aurora a cup of iced Americano provided by the catering company on set for the day. Aurora thanked her quickly. Johnny still stood there, waiting for Aurora’s attention, but she didn’t have much to give him when the rest of the boys were arriving in droves in all their loud glory, needing assistance finding their changing rooms where they would also get their hair and make up done. There was never a moment to rest, not even for Johnny and those sad puppy-dog eyes of his that he gave her as she walked away to pull Haechan off of Renjun.

During the long day of filming, Dream was the least well behaved group because Aurora had no leash on them. Chenle, Haechan, and Jaemin were the worst because they fucking fed off of each other’s constant energy! Not even Taeyong could get Chenle and Haechan to listen at that point. WayV was fine because Ten was like a stern dad that sent silent glares to each of the other members to make sure they listened to Aurora… and it worked! 127 were literally there like, “Mommmmm…” so they did whatever she said, and they were constantly on their best behavior for her and Taeyong. Yuta looked like he was on the verge of killing whoever wasn’t paying attention— Mark and Haechan specifically. Because the majority of them were able to behave themselves at least to some mild degree, they were able to get through shooting on time, so Yuta, Shotaro, Ten, and Taeyong immediately asked Aurora out to dinner. As she gathered her things to follow them out to a taxi Taeyong called, she noticed Johnny still waiting to talk to her. Hours had gone by and he was still waiting for her? Maybe she just needed to play more games with him later on that night. But he seemed to back down once he saw her leaving with her friends.

In a surprising turn of events, Johnny decided to keep his unique hair for the entirety of the promotional season for Resonance. It became such a joke as his hair continued to get longer that the boys started calling him “Aphrodite” or “Aphrodite’s son” regularly instead of his actual name— Ten was specifically notorious for doing so, and Aurora found it to be hilarious. Johnny didn’t seem to mind— In fact, he was kind of leaning into it in order to entertain her and Ten. One time when Aurora showed Johnny a clip of Glinda on Broadway flipping her hair everywhere and said that it reminded her of him, Johnny made it his thing. He strutted everywhere, flipped his hair dramatically, winked at everyone. He was really going for the Aphrodite thing.

Aurora assumed that he would stop once promotions were done, so she just enjoyed it while she could because it wasn’t the worst look on him, admittedly. However, the hair didn’t disappear. The last of their schedules for the album finished, all of the music videos were nearly done and ready to be posted in December, yet Aurora never saw the words “Haircut Appointment” appear on Johnny's personal schedule, and he never appeared suddenly with short hair. Despite her want to inquire about it, there just wasn’t any time. She’d concerned herself enough about Johnny as it was, she needed to focus on getting the album out and what the boys would do after that in preparation for the next album. Tour was a possibility if COVID ended soon. Fan meets were a must the second restrictions would be lifted. Honestly, the boys were about to be a fuck-ton busier than Aurora ever was during lockdown when they all pitied her for the amount of work she had to do while they sat around on their asses everyday.

“You want to play some games tonight” Johnny pestered one day in their Discord DMs. Usually Aurora would’ve said yes, but it was already going on five o’clock and there was no end to her daily efforts in sight, so she had to turn him down. He followed up by asking if she wanted some background noise while working. She chuckled at that text. If she were working at home, then perhaps, but since she was stuck at the office and likely had to meet with the American office within the next few hours, she had to turn him down once more. “So you hate me” Aurora rolled her eyes and replied, “Not all the time.” “Wooowwwww” “Have a good night, Johnny.” “So official. Period.” Aurora rolled her eyes again then left him on read so that he wouldn’t continue to distract her.

“Noona, can we have a watch party for the new album?” Taeyong texted during her meeting with the Americans.

She responded while still looking up at the Zoom meeting on the TV screen, “What?”

“The boys are begging to watch the MVs together.”

“I’ll see what I can do. Meeting rn.”

Taeyong, unlike Johnny, understood that meant Aurora didn’t want to be bothered, so he left her alone immediately. 

It wasn’t unlike the company or the group for that matter to break a few rules here and there so long as no one else found out about it. With the new album coming out, Aurora tried to convince the company to let the boys watch the new music videos together to celebrate, but they declined, citing that it was too many people to have in such a small, confined space, they didn’t want to get in legal trouble. But, honestly, that didn’t stop anyone. Once the boys heard they couldn’t meet on official terms, they started sorting out whose house they could go to instead, who would bring what snacks, what alcohol everyone wanted, and so on. Aurora pretended to not know a thing. She just coincidentally happened upon Chenle's house one afternoon and was completely surprised when all the other boys were there, waiting for her flash drive that held the music videos! How did that happen?

Most of the boys were already there when Aurora arrived. They had rearranged Chenle's living room to make a giant couch where the majority of them could sit while the rest of them lounged on blankets and pillows spread out on the floor in front of the TV. Everyone was spread out around the house, however, until one person took notice that Aurora was setting up the TV to show the music videos, at which point they all began cheering her in both a teasing but also grateful manner. The boys ran to claim space on the couch. Literally, sprinted, like their lives depended on it. Hendery and Xiaojun pushed each other out of the way, Haechan tackled Jungwoo who was taller and stronger than him so he ended up getting pinned down for a moment before Jungwoo made a run for it. Aurora rolled her eyes at them as she finished connecting the flash drive to the TV.

Aurora’s spot was decided for her as Yuta, Ten, Taeyong, Shotaro, and Johnny all made room for her to be squished in the middle of their group on the couch. She happily took the space. Laying down with her head on Yuta's chest so he could wrap his arms around her while Taeyong hugged her left side and Shotaro inched closer to her right side, she started the videos.

Ever since they worked on music videos for the album together and Shotaro actually had a chance to talk to Aurora in depth and in Japanese, they had become pretty inseparable. Aurora knew that it was possible. Back when she got hired at SM, she imagined that she would be friends with Shotaro because they both spoke Japanese, but she also guessed back then that there wouldn’t be many opportunities for them to interact because of their conflicting schedules… and she was right. Now that they finally talked, of course they were friends. He would text her to ask if they could go to a cafe almost every day, and if she didn’t have time, she would ask him to go to dinner with her and Yuta so that they could relax and just talk in Japanese for the evening. Ever since their friendship bloomed, Shotaro seemed to come out of his shell a little bit. He talked to the rest of the boys more often, he joked around loudly, he wrestled Chenle on occasion… Aurora was always filled with joy when she saw that after knowing him to somewhat of an introvert for so long.

Ten and Johnny were a bit further from her on the couch, but honestly it didn’t matter too much once the videos started playing and everyone was more focused on teasing each other than figuring out their seating arrangements. Work It was by far Aurora’s favorite. She just loved to give Ten and Yuta a hard time about it because they had given her a difficult time working on the set that second day, but they took her teasing with laughter and returned it with pokes in her side that made her laugh so hard she couldn’t breathe.

But then there was Johnny.

The lingerer.

The guy that was always around her, begging for her attention.

There were certain parts of the video where he looked incredibly good, and every time the thought struck her, Aurora panicked slightly. She just couldn’t help herself! Her kryptonite was men with long, dyed blonde hair! But the scenes which caught her off guard were the ones where he wore a skater boy aesthetic outfit with the black t-shirt and a white long sleeve shirt underneath, paired with black skinny jeans which were decorated with chains and tons of jewelry. The hair was an added plus— The length was down to his shoulders, and it was tied into a messy half ponytail to show off his roots that were slowly growing out… Ah, fuck… She was trying her absolute best to remain professional and just cheer on her friends, but it was damn near impossible to look anywhere but at Johnny.

“You could pick up your jaw, you know?” Yuta whispered to her.

Aurora snapped out of her trance, her mouth closing, her gaze turning to meet Yuta's while he was laughing at her.

However, her torment didn’t end there because the next video to play was Resonance. It was fine to whistle and cheer for all of her friends, bragging about how sexy they were, laughing at how silly some of the memories from set had been, and all that; but what carried over from Work It into Resonance was Johnny. Just Johnny. His hair… A black outfit that hugged his fit body and the shirt was even hemmed short so every time he raised his arms over his head while dancing, his stomach was shown off as he winked at the camera. What was Aurora supposed to do with that? For months all she could do was think about why Johnny was acting the way he was, and what she was supposed to do about it… Then all of a sudden he looked like that, and he seemed proud of himself from his spot on the couch as the boys continued to rightfully tease him for looking so “pretty.”

“I need a drink,” she quickly whispered to Yuta.

He nodded, his gaze still glued to the TV, so she felt like she couldn’t move quite yet or else it would be a total distraction to all the boys sitting in the living room as they had casual fun with each other for the first time in a long time.

“Get me one,” Yuta said, still staring at the TV.

“Hai.”

The second the music video was over, Aurora stood to get some alcohol. She shook out Shotaro's hair until it was all messy and he was giggling while trying to get away from her. She kissed the top of his head and finally complimented him for doing so well. He blushed a deep shade of red. A quiet, “Arigato,” left him, but then they were both quickly distracted by the others pulling out champagne that wasn’t even being given a chance to properly make it into glasses before the likes of Jungwoo and Haechan decided to just start chugging out of the bottles. Aurora pulled an Asahi out of the fridge for Yuta, then she poured herself a glass of wine— Perhaps a little more than she should’ve, but she felt like it was needed after the long year they had with the pandemic and all, and she was desperate to do anything but look at Johnny, so the alcohol would have to be her distraction. However, when Aurora returned to the living room, she discovered that she’d been betrayed. Everyone had moved around. Yuta was no longer available since he’d moved to talk to other people, Shotaro was being smothered by Renjun, Ten and Taeyong were pouring drinks for each other. The only empty space she could find for herself was beside Johnny who seemed to have nothing to do as he drank a beer of his own.

“Traitor,” she whispered to Yuta as she handed his beer to him before going to sit beside Johnny.

Johnny was focused on the TV where Mark had put on a soccer match to keep them occupied as they all talked, drank, and hung out like old times before it wasn’t allowed. For a moment, however, as Aurora settled beside him, his gaze flicked to her out of the corner of his eye until he realized that she caught him so he went back to watching the TV.

“Hendery looks good, doesn’t he?” Johnny asked expectedly, like he was egging her on to say something incriminating, yet there wasn’t a single thought that crossed her mind other than confusion as to what he was getting at. He shrugged nonchalantly, “I just mean that the pink hair suits him. You like that kind of thing, you should know, right?”

Aurora snickered. “Sure.”

“So you don’t like him?”

“Who says I like anyone here?”

Johnny sipped his beer and finally looked directly at her. “I can see it on your face most days… There’s someone you like, I just haven’t figured out who yet. If it’s not Hendery's pink hair, and Yuta and Ten are like your brothers, then the options are narrowed down a bit— You’re not into younger guys, are you? I think Jisung's a little too young for you—”

Aurora hit his buff bicep roughly. “Fucking weirdo. Stop trying to assume things about me. You hardly know me.”

“After two years, I hardly know you?”

“Yes.”

Johnny snickered. “Guess I’ll have to pry harder in the future, then.”

While he went back to watching the TV, Aurora continued to stare at him, inspecting his features while simultaneously asking herself if he knew the truth for real or if he was just messing with her. The skin tag he had around his septum was cute. He had a deeper, more pronounced philtrum than most people. His chin was sharp, his cheekbones were always highlighted naturally wherever he went, and he had long eyelashes that men usually didn’t have. She tried to hide behind her drink by taking a lot of big sips. Surely he couldn’t know about all the conversations she and Ten had about him— Unless Ten snitched. No, he wouldn’t! Right?

“What?” Johnny asked self-consciously after he caught her staring while thinking.

“I’m honestly a bit surprised that the long blonde hair suits you so well, and that you fought the execs on it.”

“How come?”

“It’s just hair… You usually keep it short, anyhow.”

He lifted a brow. “Is it a good or a bad thing that I kept it?”

“Good.”

“So, then, you like it, huh?”

“I do…”

Maybe it was the alcohol, but she could have sworn she heard him wrong when he asked, “Will you go to dinner with me some time?”

And it was most definitely the alcohol when she had the audacity to say yes to him.

Johnny grinned with pride and excitement before attempting to hide it behind his beer in the hopes that no one would tease him for being such a sucker for her. However, Aurora noticed, and she couldn’t help the smile that grew on her face too.

A few minutes later, Aurora got up to get another drink, and in the process of doing so, Doyoung took her spot next to Johnny, so she instead went to sit with Yuta and Ten again. They were in the middle of talking to each other about something nonchalant that they didn’t stop to acknowledge her for a few minutes. Aurora was fine with that. She continued to drink in peace while listening to them and glancing over at Johnny who was twirling his long blonde hair around his finger. Doyoung was chatting his ear off and he seemed distracted. Aurora quickly realized that she was the reason because Johnny made eye contact with her randomly and suddenly he was fixing himself up to look pretty for her while blushing like an idiot.

“Why are you eye fucking him?” Ten asked all of a sudden.

Aurora broke eye contact with Johnny to slap the grin off her face before looking at her friends. “I, uh… Well, I actually came over here to tell you that he asked me out.”

Yuta choked on his beer.

“And I said yes.”

He swallowed hard before smacking his lips and exclaiming, “Finally!”

Before the conversation could continue on, Yuta got up to talk to the other boys. Apparently everyone was putting bets on if and when Johnny would finally grow the balls to ask her out, so the second the rest of the room found out the truth, half of the boys groaned and started coughing up their money. It seemed that Ten, Jaehyun, Hendery, and Jeno were the only ones who ever had any faith in him, the others all lost their bets.

Aurora hit Yuta's arm. “You bet against us?!”

“He’s so whipped for you, I thought he was going to chicken out of it because he thought you were too good for him!” he defended himself in Japanese.

Her? She was too good for him? Yuta must’ve been insane. There was no one in the world too good for Johnny Suh, especially not frumpy ol’ Aurora who didn’t believe a guy like him would even look her way once. She figured that she would just play it by ear and hope for the best… And not let Yuta give her too much shit about it in the meantime.

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