The Double

𝒯𝓌𝑒𝓃𝓉𝓎-𝒩𝒾𝓃𝑒

The next two weeks pass in a fairly predictable routine. Taehyung and Duna work. I half-assedly job search and whole-assedly refine Eppy. Every few days, I visit Eomma. At night Taehyung and I go out to smile and be seen, and I am careful to keep conversation light and my hands to myself.

Thus ends the first month of me pretending to be a movie star. This is what I've learned.

Eppy is super amazing and I'm going to be a millionaire and maybe in Vanity Fair to table out how it changed my life in a very inspirational but humble profile story. I have put this out to the universe multiple times.

Being a movie star has become easier now that I have the hang of it.

Duna is cool and I like her very much.

Ira is professional and I take it at that. She considers me staff.

Eomma doesn't do much but look out the window every time I visit, and I call Kim's Private Home every two days in a polite and cheerful not-pushy way to say "I remain very interested."

Taehyung . . . is killing me. Killing me simply by existing. Even when he's not near me, I think about him and I don't like it. Susan Bae Prime always warned me against letting a man take up too much space in my thoughts, and Taehyung consumes an inordinate amount of my waking time, partly because he's around so often. My suite has become a bit of a gathering place for the three of us late at night—Duna, Taehyung, and me—where we watch movies, go online to check out the world's weirdest houses or the grossest recipes, do quizzes to see what Disney princess we are, or play cards. That's the most fun because although Taehyung might have crushed me at video games, he's atrocious at cards and Duna and I take great pleasure in his inability to hide how much it bothers him to lose.

"War?" I ask one night in disbelief as Duna checks over the deck to see how he messed up yet again. "You even lose at War?"

"I had bad cards," he sulks.

"Five times in a row?"

It's this side of Taehyung that has me stuck. He's unguarded and that makes him more real and unbearably attractive. He doesn't change from when he speaks to me or Duna and me together. I know it's genuine but it's as friends. Sometimes the two of them lapse into Korean but my app has gotten me to eating in a restaurant (Naneun bokk-eumbab-eul wonhanda, I can now order fried rice) so there's a lot I miss. Occasionally he shoots me a look from the corner of his eyes paired with a sly smile, and my heart stops. He doesn't mean anything by it. He's not a professional flirt but he's aware of his visual power and I think it's become second nature.

Messes me up every time, though. Every time. What also ruins me is that he wants updates about Eppy. That he takes it so seriously thrills me.

"Tell me the changes you made on it," he says as we attend another soiree. Orange County's big film festival is coming in September, and since Duna's management wants her to be seen and Taehyung has a movie premiering at it, we're on a bit of a circuit.

I hold my gradually warming glass of white wine that I'm forbidden to drink as we stand at a table in the corner taking a quick break from schmoozing. "It's going well," I say.

"When do I get to try it?"

"Later." Why am I dreaming about Vanity Fair and morning shows but I immediately say no to Taehyung trying it out? The whole point is to have people use it.

"You're going to need testers, and you already promised me I could beta test," he says reasonably. "It has to scale and I gave you a bunch of ideas."

"Why do you want to try it?"

He grins. "You make it sounds exciting, like it's going to turn my life around. I could use that."

"You. Kim Taehyung, famous actor."