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“are you trying to tell me that mark-hyung doesn’t love me?”jaemin pressed the bridge of his finely-shaped nose with his thumb and pointer finger in an attempt to soothe the migraine he sensed coming on, wincing as lee donghyuck’s loud, shrill voice tinged with panic ripped through the air-conditioned room and frazzled his sensitive ears. “you’re saying that this whole,” donghyuck gestured wildly around himself, his fingers outstretched and hands creating circles, in an attempt to address what he couldn’t formulate with words, “was a lie? was an fucking experiment so you could understand romantic attraction in a 'deeper sense of the word' and that mark-hyung was only doing this for the sake of science? that he was fake? that his love for me was fake?” jaemin ignored the tears threatening to spill from his panicked subject’s brown, almost black, eyes. he wouldn’t let pity stand in the way of his research. science was more important than any human emotion he could ever experience.
“yes.” donghyuck let out something akin to the sound a kicked puppy makes. “now that we’re over the difficult bit, please tell me for what reason you fell in love with lee ‘mark’ minhyung. did he do something appealing to you? were you just naturally attracted to him? or, better yet, could you tell me what your love for him was like?”
chenle threw him a warning with his eyes. jaemin waved his hand dismissively. it was fine. he heard chenle sigh, and watched as his assistant turned back to scribble notes down and analyze donghyuck, probably reading into his aura and studying the way the distraught young man’s tan face contorted into an anguished, uglier version of itself. his eyes narrowed as they were naturally drawn to the rude pop of his assistant’s vibrantly-dyed hair. jaemin made a mental note to tell chenle that purple really was not his color later. a more natural blonde or dark brown would suit him better and be less eye-catching.
“just describe it. was it like fire? was it as passionate as that? or was it more like the waves of the ocean? what about a calm meadow?” jaemin was more focused on asking his serious questions in an engaging, bubbly voice than trying to appease donghyuck’s obvious heartbroken mess. “if you can’t describe it in words, you could demonstrate with your actions. actions speak louder than words, i’m sure you know.” jaemin gave his signature plastic-doll grin, his extroverted eyes crinkling at the corners.
donghyuck apparently took the gesture as a threat and grit his teeth, causing jaemin’s pearly white smile to falter slightly. “okay, i’m done. shut the hell up. just– just shut up. i don’t want to hear you talk or any more of your– your lies. i don’t want to answer your goddamn questions. i don’t want to play your sick, messed up game. leave me alone, mr. na.” jaemin’s eyes widened a fraction more than what relaxed would be. donghyuck stood up, making his way to the door, sparing one last glance at who he was convinced was satan’s incarnate.
“wait, give me a short description, at least. it can even be just one word, this is very impor-“
jaemin expected the punch that was aimed at his face, but he did nothing to stop donghyuck’s trembling fist from coming into contact with his cheek. he stood there, holding his face tenderly with a blank expression and locking eyes with the bearer of his experiment.
“that’s what my fucking love for minhyung-ssi was like. i never want to see your shitty face or hear your shitty voice ever again after this,” donghyuck uttered shakily, salty tracks of tears running serenely down his face. “are you a damn robot? do you have any feelings or empathy or pity or any kind of regard for other people in that head of yours?” with those two questions lingering in the disgustingly sterile atmosphere in the room, he departed, storming out the whitewashed door, flinging down the daniel wellington wristwatch (the very same one jaemin had told mark to give as part of the courting process) as he went.
“i warned you.” jaemin grimaced when he heard chenle’s i-told-you-so tone. “see, this is what you get when you don’t listen to me. if you could just put more trust in me, or, i dunno, actually take my advice, everything would b–“
“enough, chenle.” the purple-haired teenager (‘i’m an adult, jaemin-ssi!’) bit his bottom lip in annoyance. “let’s go. you’re driving.” jaemin tossed his keys over to where chenle sat, sighing at how wrongly the analysis, review, and result had gone. “and while you’re at it,” he glanced over at his assistant, who was barely paying him any mind, “pick up that watch and see if it’s damaged beyond repair or if we’re able to use it again for further experiments. oh, and also, you should dye your hair blonde next week. purple’s too distracting for our patients.”
chenle sent him a look of disbelief while his mentor stalked out of the room with an unbothered, complacent expression on his face, most likely headed out to the sleek, dark grey honda civic out in the parking lot behind the building.
they were doing this whole breaking-people’s-hearts-and-asking-them-difficult-questions-while-they-sob-their-eyes-out thing again? the chinese boy couldn’t believe it. he fished out a blue mechanical pencil from his coat pocket, staring at it before dumping it back in and swapping it for a professional, black papermate pen that he got (read: stole) from staples the other day. he jotted down a few notes in the mahogany-dyed, leather-backed moleskine notebook, shaking his head. his left hand twitched in his coat pocket, brushing over the rubix cube concealed inside.
na jaemin-ssi was one mean, complicated man, chenle decided. but mean and complicated or not, zhong chenle had chosen to study under the famed psychologist na jaemin, and he’d be damned if he didn’t follow through with his decision.
jisung groaned when he heard a loud thump and a string of expletives coming from the back kitchen concealed by the bar area of the small, cozy café. “shit. shit... fuck! jisung!”
he rolled his eyes and scrunched his nose in distaste. “what is it now, renjun?” he called from where he was manning the cash register. “you okay? is everything good?” renjun was lucky there were no customers inside the vicinity, otherwise jisung would have his head.
“that’s ‘renjun-hyung’ to you!” came the agitated reply. jisung grumbled something definitely unkind under his breath. “whatever. fine. renjun-hyung. what’s the issue?”
“i can’t find my cell phone, and i’m supposed to call jeno in five!” came the rushed, slightly accented voice. renjun’s accent always became obvious when he was upset. “help me find it.”
sometimes, jisung wondered which of them was really older. renjun really was an immature (at times) force to be reckoned with. “but hyung, i’m at the cash register right now. what if a customer comes in?”
“ignore the customer, i need my phone– oh, wait. i found it, nevermind!” the younger male shut his eyes, imagining his dumb, ash blonde hyung’s giddy smile as he triumphantly held the damn mobile device in question as if it were a wad of one hundred fucking thousand won. he felt a strong headache pounding inside his skull. “oh my god, renjun-hyung.”
his attention was seized by the familiar clinking of bells, a signal that a customer arrived. “hello, welcome to the madame antoinette café.” jisung cringed internally at the name. why renjun had to choose that as a name, he didn’t know. (well, he actually did, but the reason made him even more embarrassed.) “would you like tea or would you like your fortune told by injun-ssi?” aside from the café aspect of renjun’s small business, he also provided fortune telling services. renjun told jisung when he first applied to work at the place that the fortune telling was a hundred percent fake and he was just simply using his heightened sense of observation, but jisung begged to differ. he swore renjun had some kind of mind-boggling power because he was always right about his clients’ problems and their solutions and what would happen after and prophetic things like that.
“fortune, please,” the stranger uttered, a remorseful expression on his pale face. jisung couldn’t really tell, but it seemed like the customer had been crying or something. there were what he could maybe call tear stains on his cheeks and behind his thin wire glasses, his slanted, big eyes were slightly puffy and red. the teenager decided not to pry, since he neither had the interest nor the effort to. “i see. please come this way, then,” jisung mumbled the phrase that he knew almost by heart.
he led the customer to what he liked to refer to as ‘the satanic ritual room’ (in other words, the gaudily-decorated, cramped room where ‘injun-ssi’ carried out his fortune telling work) and sat him down in a borderline-rickety, wooden chair with unappealing green paint peeling off on the legs. jisung made a mental note to get that replaced at a later date.
“okay, um... injun-ssi is getting ready in the back, i’ll call him. just give me a couple minutes.” the brunette man shrugged, looking like he could care less how long the wait was. jeez, what a moody guy, jisung thought, frowning. whatever, he shouldn’t judge.
“hey, renjun!” said male scowled, adjusting his glasses and fixing his hair while looking at the body-length mirror on the wall. he saw jisung (that little, blonde, scarily-tall yet innocent and harmless brat) in the corner of the mirror, standing behind him looking lost, as always. “what is it? and you forgot the honorific again,” he pointed out, his voice rising a little in volume to show how angry he was at the obvious disrespect.
just as renjun was about to strike jisung with his famous chokehold attack, the younger spoke. “there’s a customer.” renjun’s eyes widened. “crap. wait, now?”
“yeah. like, right now. go! he’s waiting, hyung. it’s been three minutes too long already.” renjun bolted out of the kitchen and into the small, well-lit room. in it, he encountered a solemn-faced, brunette male who was hunching over in one of the two available seats. renjun immediately observed that the customer was either nervous, upset, or scared from the way his fingers were shaking on the surface of the table.
“customer-ssi,” renjun began, sliding into the seat across from him, only to be (rudely) interrupted.
“just call me mar- i mean, minhyung. minhyung is fine. customer-ssi is... too formal.” the (fake) fortune teller made a face.
“alright then. minhyung-ssi,” he noticed how minhyung instantly stiffened. “is there something wrong?” his customer shook his head. “okay. let’s get started, then.”
renjun murmured a few useless phrases in french, crossing his fingers under the table and hoping that his customer had no idea what he was saying. even if minhyung had understood what he said, he didn’t make any move to call renjun a fraud and call the nearest police station, so he continued, muttering things to the nonexistent ghost of marie antoinette.
“really? is that really what he said?” renjun asked in korean, attracting minhyung’s attention. “wow, i wouldn’t ever have guessed.” he nodded, feigning interest in the entirely fake, one-sided conversation he was having with a dead french queen. “merci beaucoup.”
“what... what did she say?” renjun was surprised at how desperate his customer seemed. (he was also surprised at how dumb he was, too. actually, he was surprised at just how many people thought his fortune telling skills were legitimate. idiots, that's what they were. but those same idiots were what kept the money rolling in, so he guessed he couldn't complain.) it was like he could feel the guilt radiating off of him. his keen eyes glanced at minhyung’s docile, pleading face. his eyes were practically almost shining with unshed tears and his brows were knit so tightly together that renjun was sure they would stay like that permanently.
“you’ve been through something terrible, haven’t you?” he ignored the question and asked a question of his own. his voice sliced through the tightly-wound web of minhyung’s dejection. “something– ah. love trouble? i’m correct, yes?” hopefully he was right. he prepared himself to be yelled at for being a con-artist, a fake, a fraud, but that didn’t happen. (of course it didn't. all his clients were fools. they wouldn't notice that he was lying right through his teeth.)
instead, the man sitting across from him stiffened and tension immediately wracked his body. it was then that renjun knew he had it, spot on. he shut his warm, honey brown eyes, a concentrated expression gracing his soft features. “and... this involves a... another party, different from your love interest. perhaps a... doctor, of some sort. correct?” the kind of doctor he meant was a love doctor, an option which seemed blatantly incorrect, but apparently that was the right guess.
the sorrow was so thick in the room that it was making even renjun feel slightly depressed. “this is why you are worried– no, guilt-ridden – correct? because of this doctor?” he received a small nod from his trembling customer. he felt pity for minhyung, reaching out to gently brush his small, delicate hands over the other’s tumultuous, calloused ones.
“it’s alright. it’s alright, don’t worry. would you like a moment to yourself, or would you like me to stay?” minhyung gave him no answer, so renjun decided it was fine to stay and console the other. “do you want to know what her highness, marie antoinette, told me?” he heard sniffling noises come from the other. “tap the table once for yes, twice for no,” he said, patiently awaiting minhyung’s verdict.
one tap on the cream tablecloth. renjun nodded.
“she told me,” he paused, hearing a sob coming from the other male. “she told me,” he repeated, raising his voice so that minhyung could hear him over the sniveling and crying commencing in the room and echoing around the thin walls, “that you will see that person, the one you love, of course, again. definitely. if what you feel is strong enough, then you will see them again.” renjun didn't want to chance getting the gender of minhyung's lover wrong and busting his act, so he lamely supplied it using they/them just to be on the safe side. the brunette lifted his head and looked over his wire glasses at the fortune teller.
“are you– are you sure? are you really, absolutely sure?”
“of course.” renjun smiled, the purity of it having a calming effect on his customer. “i’m never wrong.” (that was a lie. there have been countless times he’d been wrong, but he’d somehow always managed to worm his way through those few times.)
minhyung let out a relieved cry, finally letting the tears flow out of his eyes freely. renjun stood up from where he sat, making a motion to leave the fortune telling room and to give his client a personal moment. he just made it to the string of dangling bead ornaments hung up on the top if the doorway (‘for a more mystical effect! this is what they all look like in movies,’ jisung had told him when renjun first came up with the idea of pretending to be a fortune teller under the fake persona ‘injun-ssi’ to pay his debt, since just running a café was too slow), when minhyung called out a faint, “please, wait.”
he stood before the beads, his hand brushing a few out of the way to make room for him to exit. “yes, minhyung-ssi?” there was an undertone of irritation in his breathy voice.
“injun-ssi. i... thank you. thank you so much. you really don’t know just how much this means to me.”
renjun smiled his plaster smile, the fake smile he always had on when he received genuine thanks for telling lies, for being fake. the gratitude he was given was like being shoved off of a hundred foot cliff into the deep depths of the cold realization of what he’d done after every session. he suddenly felt like he was doused with a bucket full of freezing ice water, like he had just participated in the asl ice bucket challenge or whatever that shit was. he felt like bawling his round eyes out, like wanting to crawl deep underground where not even jisung or jeno could find him.
“of course.” he walked out of the room, not daring to glance back for fear of breaking down in front of his client, leaving minhyung to wallow giddily in the artificial happiness spun from renjun’s words, the ones renjun knew every one of his clients wanted to hear.
shit, the guilt of lying really was going to kill him one of these days. maybe jisung could look after the café when he was dead, his body decayed and wasting away in a casket.
yuta was busy. sicheng knew this.
if he understood that, why was he currently standing in the middle of the doorway, fighting off that new assistant (what was his name? jimmy? jeremy? well, it didn’t really matter much) in an attempt to enter his office?
“let him in,” his sad excuse of a voice (for the moment. his voice would be back to its powerful self after a good rest) boomed (or tried to boom) from where he sat, legs crossed primly, at his expensive, polished wooden desk, bought for him personally by sicheng (‘i bet your wallet is sobbing pitifully right now,’ he had joked, and received a smack to the shoulder for it. he’d only smiled, because that was how whipped he was. also, the hit hadn’t hurt at all, since sicheng was as strong as a leaf shaking in the wind). the desk was his most prized possession, since the person he loved bought it specially for him. but that was years ago, right when he became ceo of this makeup company.
“what is it, winko?” he looked expectantly at the chinese male when he had finally finished staring yuta’s korean-american assistant-turned-bodyguard down. sicheng sighed grimacing slightly at the old nickname and (attractively) running a delicate hand through his strawberry-blonde hair that was as soft to the touch as it looked.
“jaehyun-ah wants to know why you canceled that deal with his cousin... ten, i think his name was? well, that’s what jaehyun-ah calls him. you know, that guy's," he jabbed his thumb in johnny's direction, "boyfriend? the one that has a really strong branch in europe. uh, i think it's located specifically in france. not sure. but anyway. why?”
yuta’s nose instantly wrinkled upwards when he heard jaehyun’s name, not missing the infatuated tone that sicheng took when mentioning him. ugh, that ugly oaf again? he shook his head. “i canceled it simply because chittaphon is related to jung. and you know how i don’t do business with him. why’d you even have to ask?”
it was sicheng’s turn to make an irritated expression. “i don’t understand why you think he’s so terrible. he’s actually really nice, and you’d see that if you’d actually let him talk to you. your hatred’s really bigoted.”
“using big words, are we? did jung teach you how to do that?” the japanese ceo instantly regretted saying what he did, watching silently as the bearer of his romantic desire began to seethe. his pretty face became dangerously irate.
“shut up. are you always this infuriating when you’re mad? talk to me when you calm down. and when you start to believe that i’m actually not simple-minded and stupid. i've always had an extensive vocabulary, but you wouldn’t know because you never let me talk back then, ever.” yuta could only watch as sicheng stomped out of his office, pushing johnny harshly to the side, letting him leave again, slip out of his hands again because he was too cowardly to take action. yuta hated that tendency of his.
“fucking damn it.” he ran a worn hand through his gelled hair. “shit.”
johnny peered curiously through the doorway at his boss. yuta glared at him back.
“fuck off, johnny. go back to work.”
he clicked the television in his office on instead of doing his paperwork, not wanting to project his emotions onto the flimsy paper and screw up his business ventures like he did to his already tightrope-thin relationship with sicheng.
the newscaster was buzzing something about a psychologist who had finally come back to korea, specifically seoul, from america or england, one of the two, and opened his own counseling office. he hummed when the clip switched to a live recording of said psychologist receiving several certificates and awards for his studies of the human psyche and human tendency to have romantic attraction, slightly interested in how highly praised he was and even more intrigued in what he researched. the newscaster mentioned that his business was in a location undisclosed to the public, something yuta deemed a smart move. psychology wasn’t exactly celebrated or appreciated by the public right now, considering that a murder case investigation just closed and all the evidence gathered proved a famous psychologist guilty in court of the multiple murders of highschoolers.
“johnny.” his tall assistant turned his head, entering the room when yuta moved his finger in a ‘come hither’ motion. “yes, yuta-ssi?”
“god, how many times have i told you to just call me yuta or nakamoto-ssi? if you want to be formal, you have to be one hundred percent formal and use my last name with the honorific, there’s no in between.” johnny nodded along to the mini lecture, the information probably going in through one ear and out the other.
“anyway, do you know anything about this...” yuta squinted at the television screen, eyes locking onto the psychologist’s name, “na jaemin?” johnny shook his head, the useless piece of... yuta briefly considered firing him, but he realized that the consequence of that would be sicheng heatedly ordering him to hire him back because ‘god, yuta, this is the twentieth assistant you’ve fired! i’m not having this, you cold-hearted bastard. johnny's trying his goddamn best, okay? hire him back, for fuck’s sake. the last time you fired him, i saw him and he was in jaehyun’s office begging on his knees on the carpet to hire him. and you know jaehyun-ah can’t because he already has like, five assistants, not including taeyong-ssi (sicheng’s brother-in-law and jaehyun’s brother and secretary)!’
yuta was broken out of his musings about sicheng when johnny cursed loudly after walking hard into the wall by accident. the japanese male sighed.
“johnny, find more information on this na jaemin. i have a feeling he’ll be useful.”
“wait, but before you said he was useless two days ago.” his assistant looked confused.
“did i? well, i was probably tired then and hardly coherent. i’ve changed my mind. research him, then find him. i’ve decided to invest in him.” johnny still looked confused, but yuta shot him a look and he nodded, pulling his tall (probably over six foot) self out of the ceo’s office and probably into the lobby to call chittaphon and ask him. as if that bastard knew anything about this na jaemin. the thai ceo had only stepped once or twice on korean land and could care less about korean matters unless johnny was involved. there was no way he knew about local korean news. yuta scoffed.
he had to get ahead of jaehyun somehow, and this, investing in a man who knew how romantic attraction worked, he thought, was probably the easiest way to do it. it was a crazy, risky plan, but yuta had money to spare and he was desperate as hell.
he’d convince sicheng to love him again using this hotshot psychologist, he was sure of it.