Highway to Heaven 🔞

42. 뉴스

"Jiwoonie hyung!" Cheered Matthew, immediately helping with the heavy bags.

"Hey, babe!" Jiwoong patted Matthew's head. As he walked in, he noticed Hao and Hanbin around the table, waving at him. Taking a closer look, he asked, "Uno?"

"Yes! And they made me pick 16!!" Matthew complained.

"Well, if you don't have good cards then you gotta pick 16." He stated, earning yet another whine of complaint from his lover.

"Not you too!" He crossed his arms, but Jiwoong knew better. He pulled his man and kissed his temple. After getting sacked from the company, it had been weeks, weeks of them suffering and adjusting. Jiwoong was so glad everything was slowly getting back to normal.

"You brought lunch?" Hanbin asked. They had abandoned the game, and Hao was collecting the cards in a deck again.

"Hm, aren't you guys hungry?"

"Totally!" Hanbin pointed at his empty stomach.

"Let's sit down and eat first then, shall we?" Jiwoong suggested. They didn't have to respond verbally, cause soon, the table was set and four handsome men were sitting around. Jiwoong next to Matthew and Hanbin next to Hao. A cozy, familiar setting. They took food each, the rice, veg and meat. Jiwoong picked nicer pieces for Matthew, just as Hanbin was doing for Hao. This was a natural instinct. Showing a little favoritism for your favourite person. Nothing wrong with that. When they were almost finished though, Jiwoong suddenly declared, "So, I have three news to deliver. Good, good, bad. How do you wanna hear those?"

"Good bad good." Hao immediately said, "Better balance."

"Well, as you wish." Jiwoong chuckled. He looked at Matthew once, the younger looked very curious. Like a declaration, he started, "Well, for the first good one, you guys know it to some extents. Recently, the thing about us-" he pointed at him an Matthew, "People keep saying good things about us. Like some photos of us hanging out together spread out, and a lot- I mean a majority of fans are talking in our favor."

"Oh, yeah, I saw a post like this-" Hanbin excitedly said, "They condemned the agency so bad for failing to protect their artist- and then going as far as to cut hyung out. But then, his love still goes strong and such."

Jiwoong smiled, throwing a knowing glance at his boyfriend, "What's important is that they know we have done nothing wrong."

"Exactly." Zhang Hao added, "Like- I get that some fans are unhappy knowing hyung likes men but it's the 21st century. People should not be narrow minded, or prejudiced. I'm happy that they finally started to acknowledge what's true, rather than crying over what's right or wrong."

"What's the bad one?" Matthew asked. He knew all about these. Since the very exposure, monitoring fans' reactions had been his all time thing. He knew well how public eyes towards Jiwoong changed especially after the news of his agency sacking him off emerged. They sympathized with him, and that was such a relief!

"Well..." Jiwoong pursed his lips before saying, "I won't be able to spend as much time with you as I did in these couple weeks."

His lover immediately asked "Why?"

"Are you going somewhere?" Hanbin asked, "For work? Or are you.. wait you're already back at doing regular jobs? You found one?"

"Sort of." Jiwoong said.

"Where!??" Hao happily asked, "Is it far from here? Wait- not in another city, right??"

"Relax!" Jiwoong chuckled, "I won't be moving out of city." He pulled Matthew who was sitting on the chair next to him by the waist, "But yes, I'll be quite busy."