Chapter Text
Jeonghan was always almost.
Almost tall enough. Almost sharp-featured enough. Almost charming.
In the brutal world of modeling and half-baked K-drama shoots, “almost” meant hunger, missed rent, and sleeping on a broken sofa in a studio apartment that always smelled like hair dye and leftover ramen.
He wasn’t famous. Never had a viral moment. Never a breakout scene. His casting always followed the same type: quiet roles, background beauty, someone to stand behind the star and look soft.
And he was.
Too soft.
Too shy to fight for screen time. Too kind to flirt with directors. Too anxious to post thirsty selfies or follow the nightlife circuit where stars are born over whiskey and money.
So when the agency called him in with a strange offer—“you’re requested for a private styling project, very high pay, just sit still”—he didn’t dare refuse.
_____
The car that picked him up was black, silent, luxurious.
The building it brought him to had no signboard.
Inside, the lights were sterile white and surgical, the kind that exposes every pore. Every stylist wore black, moved in precision, and didn’t bother greeting him.
Not until he arrived.
Choi Seungcheol.
Old money chaebol. CEO of C Group. Cold, quiet, dangerous in the kind of way you don’t survive if you cross. He walked in wearing a black Ermenegildo Zegna wool suit, unlined but worth more than a whole year of Jeonghan’s rent. On his wrist sat a vintage A. Lange & Söhne watch—time ticking slow, heavy, deliberate.
Jeonghan had never been in the same room as someone like that.
“Strip him of everything cheap,” Seungcheol said, not even looking at him. “And make him glow.”
The salon burst into motion. Jeonghan didn’t speak. He sat. He obeyed.
They bleached his roots until the ammonia made his eyes sting.
They trimmed and feathered his shoulder-length hair into airy layers.
They toned the color into pure pale white-beige blonde—soft, cool, ethereal.
Not tacky champagne. Not yellow.
This blonde was angelic.
By the end, he looked in the mirror—
—and saw someone unreal.
Pale skin glowing under the soft halo of long blonde hair.
Wide, innocent eyes ringed with shadows of sleepless nights.
Full lips, faintly pink, untouched.
The stylist whispered, “He doesn’t look human…”
And then Seungcheol finally turned to look.
His eyes dragged over the image, slow. Calculating.
Then he simply said,
“Perfect. You’ll be my husband.”
Jeonghan blinked.
“…Sorry?”
Seungcheol offered him a contract, bound in black leather.
“Six months. Public marriage. No touching unless required. You’ll be paid. You’ll look expensive. You’ll say yes when I speak.”
Jeonghan stared.
He wasn’t special. Not famous. Not powerful.
But now he looked like an angel you’d pay anything to own.
He said yes.