The next Monday I walked confidently into work. Through the backdoor.

Paparazzi were scarcer since the initial news of a commoner dating a celebrity broke out, but since THESUN was the main act of the moment the interest hadn't waned altogether.

In contrast, my paranoia had tripled. Sometimes, I could feel eyes on me even when I was alone. I spent less time on the shop floor and more in my office, for once happy it had no windows.

That was where I spent most lunch hours too, including the current one. With one hand, I brought a sandwich to nibble on, with the other I typed on my laptop. I'd been working on a business case for weeks and I had a good feeling this time. After months researching the best natural products and testing them on my guinea pigs, and with more realistic pros than cons, Bryce couldn't say no this time.

My phone buzzed with an incoming call and I found it a shame I didn't have a third hand to take care of that. I set the sandwich down with a sigh.

Tae Yang's voice was all honey as he greeted me with, "Noona, I miss you."

I groaned. "I'm feeling so attacked right now."

That made him chuckle. "Would you feel more or less attacked if I go into further detail?"

"Definitely more attacked."

Because I missed him to an extreme visceral level, and the only thing that eased the clenching in my gut when I thought of him was work.

"Very well, I'll leave it at that. How are you doing?" he asked.

"Busy," I said, fixing up the format of the presentation after a few things I copied and pasted got it all skewed. "I'm finishing up the presentation for Bryce about the in-house product line."

There was a surge of noise from his end for a moment, almost as though he were in a construction site. Then a door closed and in the silence I heard only him again as he asked, "Ohh, the ones you've been working on?"

"Yup. I'm so excited about this one, I can't see how he'd say no." Then I thought better of it and added, "Well, unless he's stupid, which we know is precisely the case."

"Hopefully this time his brain cells decide to work."

"Speaking of working," I said, picking my lunch up and displaying poor manners by munching as I spoke. "What are you up to right now?"

"Recording the music video but right now I'm on break."

"Oh, wow! It's a shame I can't see that, it must be fun."

"It's fun, I get to wear a bunch of different outfits and look cooler than I am," he said, and I could feel the smile in his words. "But it's exhausting. There's so much footage we have to take for a three minute video."

"Do my girlfriend privileges include being able to see the video before anyone else?"

Tae Yang chuckled. "I'll see what I can do. But if you want, I can give you a live preview of one of the outfits."

"Oh, yes!" I fixed up my hair and checked my teeth before shifting to a video call.

My brain jumped out of its socket the moment his screen came on. He sat on a salon chair, phone raised up high. His makeup and hair were pristine, but the focal point was he wore a white suit with no shirt.

Only abs. Abs for days.

After picking up my jaw, I said, "I both love and hate this look."

"Oh?" He lifted an eyebrow.

"I'd love it one hundred percent if it were for my eyes only."

He grinned wide and slid the jacket open further. "At least no one else is going to get this intimate view, huh?"

"Stop, I'm at work. I'd absolutely love more intimate previews but let's keep that for after-hours."

"Bummer." Tae Yang shrugged the jacket back in place and shifted the phone so most of what I could see was his face. "By the way, my agent is going to reach out to you today."

"Huh?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, she called me and said it's now more important than ever that she meet you."

It sort of made sense, considering his popularity was taking off like a rocket and at the same time he'd got a girlfriend. Sometimes that kind of thing could break celebrities' careers.

"Okay," I said with the same feeling as someone expecting to be told off.

"Don't worry, Leti doesn't bite." He blinked. "Much."

"You're not helping."

"Anyway, my break's almost over." He sighed. "Just know I miss you a lot and I can't wait to be back."

"You're working towards your dream and so am I, so it's worth it." I put my chin on my hand and blew a raspberry. "But yeah, long distance sucks."

"We just have to hang in there," he said, before getting distracted for a second as someone called out to him. When he returned his attention back to me, he was smiling. "But just so you know, when I get back I'd like to give you the full demonstration, not just a preview."

Heat rushed up my throat and down my belly in a flash and nothing in this world could've prevented me from groaning. All it did was make him laugh.

"I hate you," I said.

"Right now I hate me too because I'm just making myself suffer."

When we finished with the call, I grabbed my cool water bottle and put it against the skin of my cheeks, forehead and neck. This was why I'd avoided any saucy nighttime calls with him, because he wouldn't be the only one suffering from blue balls.

"No wonder they named him THESUN," I said to myself. Boy was too hot.

Half an hour later, I'd finally finished my lunch and made some progress on the presentation, when my phone rang again with an unknown number. I was just about to send it to voicemail when I remembered it might be Tae Yang's agent.

Sure enough, the woman introduced herself as soon as I picked up. "Hi! I'm Casual Friday Funeral's agent, Leticia Colón, but you can call me Leti."

"Nice to meet you, I'm Cecilia Luna. Cee for short."

She laughed, which for a second freaked me out. I hadn't said anything to get this kind of reaction, right?

"Luna? Oh my God, you guys are adorable."

I cleared my throat. "I'm not sure I follow."

"I mean, your boyfriend's name means the sun, which is where we got his solo name. And your last name means moon. It's like you're meant to be."

For a moment, my mind drew a blank.

Then I realized she was right. And I started laughing. "I feel so dumb for never realizing this."

"Actually let me make a note here because this might be a good promo opportunity. He's already said you were his muse for his debut single, so we can pitch you as the moon to his sun."

"Wait," I said, sitting up right. "Why do we need to pitch me?"

"Right, that's what I'm calling about." Her tone shifted away from casual banter into full business mode. "As you know, there's lots of attention on Link right now and I'm so sorry you haven't come out unscathed from it."

"Thanks," I said.

"To be honest this is a little too late, but it took me a while to convince my bosses to put out a statement about you."

I froze.

The flashes of paparazzi's cameras went off in my memories, the cloying heat of tens of bodies pressing against mine and shouting questions about my private life.

Shit, I was so glad I'd never actually made it big in the Venezuelan celebrities scene because that wasn't an experience I looked forward to repeating if I could help it.

"Uh, can we not say anything at all?"

She sighed. "That's what they said—hell, that's what I thought too. But Link has a good point, silence from our end will just stoke their curiosity and they'll harass you even more."

"Oh," I said. And for a while that was all I could manage.

"He's trying to protect you," Leti said. "And I don't see why we shouldn't try."

I pushed my chair back and stood up to pace in the cramped space. Back and forth I went, mulling it over.

What was the worst that could happen? My entire biography was pretty much public domain now. My Miss Venezuela failure was the subject of memes online. Comments ripped me to shreds in every new online article about THESUN. I was both a slut for my short-lived modeling career, and also a bore for being such an unremarkable, non-celeb.

But still everyone wanted to know why. Why Tae Yang had hooked up with me. What he saw in me. What I could possibly offer to someone like him.

My short stint under the spotlight ten years ago had entirely put me off from it. I hated having to smile when I felt threatened or was uncomfortable.

Deflection had become my main survival mechanism. It didn't work if I wanted to keep dating Tae Yang—and I didn't want to push him out of my life, like I had originally intended.

"Do you think," I said, tentatively. "That if I say something, people will leave us alone?"

"I can't guarantee it, but I think it'll calm down for a bit." She made a pause where she clicked her tongue. "And in full transparency, I think it'll give Link a lot of peace of mind. He's been agonizing about this and that, on top of the crazy workload he has right now. It's really making me worry for his health. So I guess at the end of the day, I want to try this out for his sake more than yours."

I should've been offended but I wasn't. I was a virtual stranger for her, so she owed me nothing. In contrast, she clearly cared for Tae Yang, and anyone who did was good in my books.

"Okay, let's try it."

Leti let out a holler. "Awesome! I'll send you some info by email. And don't worry, I'll watch out for you too. Otherwise Link will kill me and everyone I hold dear."

I chuckled. "Thank you."

For the remainder of the week, I spent my work hours pouring my efforts into the business case, along with my regular tasks of dealing with local suppliers and abroad, processing invoices and drafting contracts. At night, I worked on the statement that would hopefully answer the why everyone kept asking about. Tae Yang, Leti and her bosses reviewed the final result, before they put me in contact with a reputable news outlet.

And off it went.

THESUN and His Moon

Op-Ed by Cecilia Luna

It started with a plane going down.

As the oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling and the captain announced we were losing height fast, I thought it was how my life would end, adrift somewhere in the middle of the Pacific.

That was how I'd been until that moment: adrift. My life had become a sequence of motions I went through because I had to. Have breakfast. Go to work. Eat lunch. Keep working. Go home. Sleep. Repeat. I was full of regret as I put on the oxygen mask, sitting alone in a cabin full of people. What had I done with the time I'd been given?

I closed my eyes and prayed that this wouldn't be it, that I could have another chance to make my life worth it. And in that moment of desperation I reached out, and my hand found someone else's.

The moon and the sun are together in the sky, trapped in an endless dance of attraction where they never meet. But on that flight from South Korea to the US, the moon and the sun finally met. He introduced himself as Tae Yang. I told him to call me Cee. It might have been the near-death experience we had just shared, but he appeared so bright to my eyes. And ever since, I haven't been able to to look away.

Even though I had no idea he really was a star.

And so, I bared myself in the article. All my insecurities and shortcomings, finally voiced by my own mouth and not anyone else's speculations.

Yes, I was unremarkable except for my face and my body. Yes, I was poor and yes, I had peaked ten years ago. There was no logical reason for why Tae Yang and I had clicked.

Yet, we did. Aside from living in the same city, there was nothing else possibly connecting us. But a terrifying twist of fate did, and it was about time people sucked it the fuck up because even though THESUN was traveling all across the world, I was part of his world now, and I was going nowhere.

The article was shared two million times in twenty four hours. The comment section filled up with people wishing us well or lamenting that their favorite celebrity was taken, but finally the interest in me died down both online and in real life.

SONG OF THE DAY: Christina Aguilera - My Reflection

awww but also