When Kim Taehyung's fictional romance with his costar Jeon Jeongguk feels more genuine than his entire acting career, he believes it shouldn't be a problem: after all, it's just acting.
But isn't it wrong to be envisioning someone else by his side...
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When Taehyung signed that contract agreement last summer, he remembered the guidelines crystal clear.
For publicity, Jeon Moonhee, the biggest and most beautiful actress in the country, was going to be his fake girlfriend for the entire duration of their movie promotions.
But what he didn't signup for?
Tonight, he was going to meet her family.
The Jeons were the typical, rich chaebols in South Korea. Compared to Taehyung who basically had to crawl his way up the ranks, juggling multiple absurd jobs to make ends meet and auditioning for roles as crappy as toothpaste commericals, the Jeons had it easy.
You wouldn't ever catch a Jeon scrubbing the bathroom floor of a Mcdonalds. Things like that just never happened.
They were filthy rich and had connections all over the industry. Taehyung genuinely couldn't really believe that he got a deal to star in a romance movie with Jeon Moonhee herself. Much less sign an agreement to be her fake boyfriend for the next year.
He wasn't too under qualified, don't get him wrong. He did manage to score great reviews on the last few projects he was in, even if he only had a small part like in the historical drama Hwarang. But in the few scenes he played as Hansung, he effortlessly stole thousands of people's hearts despite being a smaller name in a star-studded cast.
It showed he had potential. A lot of it.
And with that, he wasn't going to let his career die out and become one of those one-hit wonders that you passed by on the street or saw washed up on bars, telling drunken tales about their faded glory.
Sure, his life was comfortable. After Hwarang, he scored bigger romance projects, giving him more and more momentum until he finally landed his first lead role with Moonhee. But it wasn't enough.
His career was going to plateau. He couldn't reach his full potential unless he did something drastic, something extraordinary.
Or well, that was what his company said. If he didn't stand out even more than he did, his career would end.
Obviously, he wasn't too keen on watching all his hard effort go down the drain, so he did what his company told him to do. Except, well, he wasn't so sure how meeting Moonhee's family would end up.
Like he said, the Jeons were terrifying. They were bold and beautiful and out-of-this-world. He didn't belong in their inner circle at all, but he guessed if he was going to date their only daughter, huge risks had to be made— even though the Jeons would probably eat him alive.
He shuddered at the idea of it.
"Don't worry about it," Moonhee said. The two of them were sitting in her car, accompanied by her personal driver. "My family's not that scary."
