epilogue

͙⁺˚*･༓☾

"i think we need to rethink everything."

sunghoon had come to realize his jean pocket felt noticeably lighter on their walk down the hallway back to the van. that revelation is what brings him back to the outside of the boss's closed office door, concluding his wallet must have slipped out. he can barely prepare to knock because he hears the familiar low and irritatingly loud speaking voice of his boss coming from inside the room holding his poor wallet hostage.

curiosity gets the best of him as he gently presses his ear to the smooth wood. clearly, he can't just burst into the office and grab his wallet in silence. honestly, he doesn't even want to knock and interrupt whatever the boss is conversing about. some small gut feeling inside of him is saying to stay put. so he does. there's a bit of shuffling coming from the other side until there's talking again.

"suddenly, they don't want to do anything about it." —a scoff—"why come out as homosexual all over the fucking internet, then?"

sunghoon wants to laugh. hm, maybe because we still want to live a truthful and happy life alongside our career, you ignorant fuck?

it dawns on sunghoon that there's no getting around this. he's in too deep to just walk away and retrieve his wallet another time. he's been given this chance to be invisible, simply an ear to listen. or maybe....

the gears begin turning in sunghoon's head. his hands react faster than his brain does, so they fumble a bit as he reaches into the jean pocket that didn't contain his wallet to pull out his phone instead. he sucks in a breath, his trembling fingers hurriedly admitting his phone password and then clicking desperately on the voice memo app. he presses record.

"if they're not gonna use their homosexual relationships to benefit themselves, the group, or the company, then i don't see a fucking point....delete their posts. and make sure you approve each one of them in the future before it goes up."

it's all he needed to hear. sunghoon quickly ends the recording and shoves his phone back into his pocket. does he know what he's going to do with this video? not a clue. but it's evidence. evidence that could be used against the monster behind the door. for now, that's enough.

sunghoon decides his wallet can wait until morning as he scurries back to the van outside.

͙⁺˚*･༓☾

he's unusually silent the whole way home. how should he approach it? does he show it to his members? does he show just sunoo? who's bigger than the boss? how do you fire a boss?

these endless questions follow sunghoon up the elevator all the way to his apartment door.

"hoonie?"

a voice of reason breaks his trance. he shoots his head toward sunoo, who displays a look of concern. "yeah?" is all he croaks.

"is everything okay?"

he wants to play it cool, but it's sunoo. sunoo can see through him. wordlessly, he takes sunoo by the hand and brings him into the apartment.

sunoo, despite his initial confusion, doesn't question anything as he follows sunghoon's lead. the two wind up on the sofa, sunghoon already pulling up the recording to play it for sunoo. once it's over, sunoo takes a moment to process all he heard. sunghoon speaks first. "who do we tell? how do we get him fired?"

if only it was that easy. the boss is powerful and the boys are under a contract. suing is a long and painful process. what if it costs them their careers? if they're left without a label to be signed under, enhypen could disband. the thought sends a shiver down sunoo's spine.

"there's only one thing i can think of."

those words don't sound from sunoo or sunghoon. instead, a lingering voice coming from the hallway speaks. jungwon stands peering around the corner, ni-ki behind him. sunghoon forgot for a moment that he had a roommate.

"sorry for eavesdropping, by the way," ni-ki adds, both boys now making their way to the ones on the couch to sit opposite them. "was that the boss?"

sunoo nods dejectedly. jungwon is studying their faces before repeating himself. "there's only one thing to do. we bring this to the media."

the boys shoot him quizzical looks, looking for elaboration. of course, jungwon delivers. "we leak this recording on twitter, weverse, wherever. once engenes hear it and the media hears it, something is bound to happen."

"what if that something ruins everything?" sunghoon instantly retorts, his eyes fixated on jungwon's optimistic ones. "this could only lead to more chaos."

"but isn't that a risk we should take? for the sake of our well-being?" jungwon counters, his arms crossed in a way that makes his leader title stand out like a sore thumb.

riki thoughtfully nods from next to him before saying, "as the first openly out k-pop group, with positive responses might i add, i think more people would fight for you rather than the other way around. plus, this is a fanfiction, so there has to be a positive outcome."

the boys consider all the possibilities. they decide it best not to do anything before telling the others, so they quickly beckon heeseung, jay, and jake over group text to meet in the apartment.

once the three arrive, sunghoon plays them the recording.

jay's jaw practically drops to the floor. "no way in hell that sick fuck just said that out loud."

jake wears more of a saddened expression in comparison to jay's rage. "i can't believe there are people that think like him."

"how are these the kind of people that end up as a boss?" heeseung shakes his head, disappointed.

jungwon then tells them their ideas. "do you guys have any insight?"

"i say we post it. the world needs to hear this shit. there needs to be change and we may as well start it," jay explains.

jay has a knack for being right, so it doesn't take much convincing for the boys to be on board. sunghoon opens twitter, but soon comes to realize that he's been logged out of the account.

"fuck, did they change the password? i didn't think this is what he meant by monitoring our posts," sunghoon says, a bit of worry laced in his tone.

"it's okay, i know what to do," heeseung interjects. he takes out his own phone and finds a selca from his camera roll before texting the socials manager. "i'm gonna ask him for permission to post this."

within minutes, he's given the okay and the new password for the twitter account. "too easy," riki notes with a laugh.

"i'm texting you the password, hoon," heeseung states.

the room feels tense. everyone is on the edge of their seats as sunghoon conjures up a twitter post. in the end, they decide to leave a vague caption stating the day, time, and an explanation saying: a phone call of our boss.

then sunghoon hits post.

͙⁺˚*･༓☾ONE MONTH LATER. . .

"get up, hee! we have the interview in one hour," sunoo cries, attempting to drag heeseung from his bed by the foot.

heeseung groans, clinging onto the bedsheets. "just five more minutes–" he whines, voice muffled from the duvet cover.

sunoo rolls his eyes and releases the latter's leg with a huff. there's no getting around it, so he'll just let heeseung suffer the consequences of less time to get ready. in the meantime, sunoo figures he can go check on his boyfriend.

normally, sunoo isn't ready before everyone else, especially when it comes to getting ready in the morning, but today is unlike most days.

today is the day enhypen has their exclusive interview about the story of how their boss got fired.

long story short, jungwon's hunch was right. leaking the voice memo sunghoon recorded all over social media got heaps of attention to the point where it was enough evidence for termination. to the member's surprise, some of the boss's actions had been against the law, so this further supported their case. to make matters even better, other employees within the company began speaking out about their negative experiences with the boss, including some pieces of evidence they had been too afraid to share prior.

because of his actions alongside the boss, their social media manager had been fired, too, leading to the hunt of finding both replacements. a new boss has yet to be hired, for the current fill in is their regular manager, who fortunately hasn't given them much of an issue thus far. the interviews for socials manager are to be conducted soon.

in celebration of everything, sunoo and sunghoon got to finally and officially come out to the world as a couple as well, following in wonki's footsteps with a cute couple photo. of course, even more support resulted from it, outweighing any negativity.

eventually, sunoo reaches sunghoon's apartment door, but it's quickly yanked open by sunghoon himself. startled, sunoo retracts his arm (in which he was about to knock with) in response. "hoon! is everything okay?"

sunghoon lights up once he sees sunoo before him. "no, it's not. the pants i was going to wear for today got stained."

"then put it in the wash?" sunoo questions, as if it was an obvious solution.

"i did," sunghoon says with a pout. "i need to go replace it so the wardrobe lady doesn't find out."

according to sunghoon, the store in which she got it from is only a ten minute walk away. thanks to sunoo's incredible ability of getting ready early, he supposed making that stop couldn't hurt. "don't panic, it'll be fine. let's go!" sunoo says, interlacing his fingers with sunghoon's.

"wait!! take us with!" ni-ki's voice calls from inside the apartment. he emerges with jungwon by his side.

"it's like you live in there now," sunoo observes.

ni-ki shrugs. "i just like to be where wonie is," he says nonchalantly, oblivious to the blush it enforces on jungwon's cheeks.

sunghoon rolls his eyes, annoyed by the extra company. "fine, just hurry up."

the four boys speed walk to the clothing store, sunghoon taking lead. once outside of it, sunoo gasps. "wait, this is the same balenciaga store ni-ki and i went to before the concert!" he recalls, not realizing how close it was to his apartment.

ni-ki hums in realization. "oh yeah. damn, that feels like forever ago now," he exclaims.

the four boys enter the store. each couple instantly splits off, sunoo following sunghoon and ni-ki dragging jungwon to some random section of the store.

"ugh, where are they..." sunghoon mumbles to himself, desperately scanning the racks for the pants.

suddenly, sunoo spots the sale section. but it isn't the sale sign that catches his eye, it's a particular cargo jacket instead. the cargo jacket he tried on that time with ni-ki.

sunoo chuckles under his breath. "i can't believe it's still here," he says aloud. by now, sunghoon has found the pant section, so sunoo takes the chance to approach the jacket. he lifts it off the rack it hangs on, allowing his fingers to glide across the fabric.

"i found the pants!" sunghoon exclaims, suddenly behind sunoo with a big smile that sunoo just melts for.

sunoo holds up the jacket. "i'm going to get this, too."

"i can imagine how handsome you'll look in it," sunghoon remarks flirtatiously, sending a swarm of butterflies to sunoo's stomach.

he lightly swats sunghoon's arm, embarrassed by the suddenly comment. "let's just go to the register," he says.

sunghoon takes him by the hand, leading them both to the register. it's in that moment that sunoo considers all he's been through in the past few months. how everything has changed in the blink of an eye. he went from not being able to afford his rent, to being an idol in his favorite boy group. he went from being the gay kid disowned by his own family, to an openly gay idol in the first openly gay k-pop group. he met his boyfriend and his bestest friends that he can call family. he went through every emotion possible and fought through countless ups and downs.

and he would do it all over again just to be here in this moment.

before sunghoon can pay for the items, sunoo proudly hands him his wallet.

"here, it's on me."

and once the four exit the store to head back to the apartment, sunoo glances up at the boy holding his hand, the boy that truly helped all his dreams come true.

who knew all it took was singing to himself in the public bathroom?

͙⁺˚*･༓☾THE END.