It's Actually Not Easy Wanting to be a Supporting Male Lead-Chapter 9 part11
Translated by Eve
Edited by Juurensha & Karasunofight
The wrap party ended smoothly. Aside from Sui Yuan, everyone had been speculating about why he and Le Sen had suddenly become 'strangers'. It was just a pity that one of the involved parties did not take it seriously, while the other party was someone who could absolutely not be provoked. Even though everyone was curious and yearning for gossip, they couldn't stir up any wind or wave and could only leave it alone for now.
Therefore, on the second day, Sui Yuan was woken up by his phone's ringtone.
Since Eason basically wanted to get rid of all living things who gave Sui Yuan 'special treatment', Le Sen, the senior who was especially considerate to his juniors', naturally was an important target that he was vigilant against. After Sui Yuan decided to participate in the wrap party, Eason's mood was not good at all. When Sui Yuan got back, he naturally wanted to unburden himself of these negative feelings, which is why Sui Yuan was still laying in bed in a daze at noon the next day.
The sleep-deficient Sui Yuan, who was woken up by his ringtone and had a sore waist and aching back, was naturally in a terrible mood. He struggled for half a day before reaching a hand out from under his quilt and grabbing his phone.
The number on the screen was unfamiliar. Sui Yuan, whose memory was quite good, thought about it for a moment and concluded that he really had never seen this number before. Baffled, he answered the call.
"Li Kun? It's me, Le Sen," When he heard Sui Yuan's question, the person on the other end replied. His gentle but distracted voice sounded a bit nervous to Sui Yuan, "What's wrong with your voice?"
"Eh? Cough, it's nothing. I probably caught a cold, so my throat feels a bit unwell," Sui Yuan promptly cleared his throat, trying to return to his original clear and bright voice and not this current deep and low voice that was seductively hoarse—this was all because of what Eason did last night!
Le Sen was quiet for a moment, "…That…I'm really sorry."
"What?" Sui Yuan was baffled by the other's sudden apology.
"Did no one tell you? Have you gone online yet?" Le Sen was evidently rather astonished.
Sui Yuan scratched his cheek, embarrassed, "Yesterday, I played around until pretty late, so I have just woken up…What's up?"
"Sorry… at yesterday's wrap party…I treated you a bit indifferently, and it was put up on the Internet by several busybodies. It's caused quite a disturbance…" Le Sen said with difficulty.
Sui Yuan's face was blank, bare of the anxiety and unease Le Sen was imagining. He only took Eason's phone, who had come in after hearing his voice, and browsed the web to gain a general understanding.
It wasn't any legitimate media sites, but rather several Weibos spreading groundless rumours. Bored celebrities had posted several ambiguous taunts, and some bored fans began to try to analyze the posts, attempting to figure out who the target was. In addition, some ambitious people added fuel to the fire. They said that Sui Yuan acted like a prima donna, that he was haughty because of other people's love and indulgence, that he was two faced—all of this was 'dug out'. They said that he offended a great person in the industry and was criticized by that person— Of course, no one dared to look too deeply into who this great person was. They only secretly made the connection to Le Sen.
Sui Yuan was dumbfounded when he saw this. He completely hadn't thought of himself as a tremendously popular celebrity, who was known to many people. Therefore, when he woke up and discovered that he had been blackened, he felt a complicated emotion ripple inside his heart.
Sui Yuan was silent. Le Sen, who heard this silence on the other end, was particularly nervous. He waited a while and eventually couldn't bear the silence any longer as the pressure made him feel as though he was a convict awaiting his sentence. He thus took the initiative to speak, "This is my fault. My mood was bad that day. It wasn't aimed towards you. I've caused you trouble. I'm really sorry. I've already asked my company and PR department to suppress this negative news. I hope that your company will also work on it. Don't worry. This matter will pass quickly."
"It's fine."
Actually, after immersing himself in the gossip and becoming oblivious to the world, he had just completely forgotten to reply to Le Sen. Sui Yuan promptly adopted a proper white lotus attitude of having been wronged but still managing to act strong, "I know that this isn't Le Ge's fault! It's because of those people who don't like me. This has nothing to do with you. You don't have to worry about it at all!"
All the regret and vexation in his heart was resolutely pushed away by Sui Yuan. For a moment, Le Sen didn't know what to say and could only hurriedly hang up the phone. Sui Yuan raised his head, embarrassed, to look at Eason, who had his arms folded and was looking at him coldly in disdain from the corner of his eyes. He knew that this fellow had definitely begun to feel unhappy again.
Sui Yuan firmly tossed his phone away. With one hand, he grasped onto Eason's dress shirt, and with the other, he supported his waist. He raised his head, looking miserable, "My waist hurts. QAQ"
Eason slowly sucked in a breath. The words he had planned to say about staying away from Le Sen were immediately thrown far away. He eased up his expression and bent down, placing his hand on Sui Yuan's slim waist, slowly massaging it.
From Eason's blindspot, Sui Yuan's mouth shifted into a crafty smile, and he gave 5237 an ambiguous look. 5237 thought to itself that this idea was really quite good. It was a weapon that could evade the blame!
The child that knows how to throw a tantrum will get candy to eat. If Eason's mood was bad, then he just needed to act like a spoiled child!
5237 looked at its family's silly person who was immensely satisfied with himself. It simply did not know what to say regarding the other's silliness. Sui Yuan, in his silly moment of self-satisfaction, didn't even notice danger was approaching.
Even if you wanted to act spoiled, you should also consider the time and place! If you act spoiled now, aren't you just pushing yourself into the wolf's mouth?!
5237 felt that it couldn't look at Sui Yuan's miserable condition anymore and silently turned its body away. It floated out of the room, and very quickly after that, it heard Sui Yuan's brief sound of alarm. Soon after, his words of refusal were swallowed down by the other man and turned into a whimper. Then, there was the sound of rustling sheets from him being pushed onto the bed.
5237: …I hope that this stupid host of mine will be able to get out of bed today [lights candle].
On this side, Sui Yuan was forced into some passionate morning exercise. Elsewhere, Le Sen held his phone, after having been hung up on. He was in a daze, expression not particularly good.
His assistant, who had been watching this all that time, moved closer at once. His expression was full of concern…and also a concealed desire for gossip, "What happened? Is Li Kun unhappy? Did he get angry?"
"No," Le Sen took in a deep breath and raised a hand to rub his face, rubbing off that expression he shouldn't be making. He then returned to his default slight smile. The barely-restrained melancholy in his voice was inconsistent with his expression, however, "He didn't blame me at all. He said it was his own fault and told me not to mind it."
"Isn't that a good thing? It's just some people with bad intentions looking to make trouble out of nothing anyway," The assistant utterly did not understand what on earth caused his family's boss to look so grave.
Le Sen shook his head with a smile. Maybe even he did not know exactly why he felt this way. He had been apprehensive about the possibility of the other being displeased and wanting to become estranged before making the call. However, now he would rather the other complain and blame him a bit. It would feel better than this guilt that he had no way to get rid of.
When his manager and assistant had pointed out his secret feelings towards Sui Yuan, Le Sen had been startled and found it laughable. However, he gradually began to feel uncertain and wavered. Those involved can't see clearly; the spectator sees more of the game. Le Sen found himself participating in a game where it turned out that he perceived nothing at all. He only instinctively protected the other actor and treated him well, but he had never once thought that this consideration of his had already exceeded what one would typically give a talented junior with good prospects. Once he realized his feelings for Sui Yuan, naturally, everything changed. Le Sen's first reaction was to restrain himself and drift apart from the other man, striving to force his own feelings that had crossed the line back to where they should be. That's why, although the first thing he did when he walked into the room during the wrap party was to look for Sui Yuan, he chose to earnestly act indifferent to the other when face-to-face.
Even though his heart felt unwell, if Sui Yuan hadn't been blackened after this, then Le Sen definitely would not have regretted his choice. He would have persevered. After all, regardless of whether it was Sui Yuan or him, this kind of 'scandal' would be difficult to bear, but especially so for Sui Yuan, who had yet to establish a firm standing in the entertainment industry. In that case, they'd basically be sending him off in a funeral casket.
Only when he found out about the unrest on Weibo from his assistant the morning after, the barrier surrounding Le Sen's heart instantly shattered.
He wanted to alienate himself from Sui Yuan—to return to their former junior-senior relationship— but he absolutely did not want to hurt him, even if it was just other unauthorized people using his actions as ammunition against Sui Yuan, and it wasn't him who was directly hurting the other.
Sui Yuan was pure and untainted in Le Sen's mind. He was soft, young, immature, and inexperienced—this impression was deeply rooted in him. He was afraid that the other man would not be able to endure this news and was even more afraid that the other would hate him. Le Sen completely disregarded the boundary he had set up for himself and asked around before finally getting his hands on Sui Yuan's phone number. He then called him. He had never thought that this had nothing to do with him, that he needn't worry nor blame himself.
He couldn't say that this outcome was bad. After all, Sui Yuan's voice was cheerful as always—of course, he could have been forcing himself to smile— although he didn't blame him, Le Sen could not relax.
Could it be that that Sui Yuan was just being polite? So polite that he only regarded him as a respected senior? However, wasn't this what he had hoped for?
"Fine. Don't think too much anymore. Your schedule's packed these days," the assistant saw that Le Sen had gotten distracted, like his soul had started to wander, and interrupted his thoughts at once. He shoved a script into the other's hands, "We're recording in half an hour. Quickly memorize the script. There's no use overthinking things now!"
Le Sen grabbed the script and nodded with a smile. He silently sighed and flipped open the script.
Under the combined efforts of Le Sen and Eason, these two important figures in the film and music industries respectively, in suppressing the issue, the Weibos spreading the rumours did not manage to cause any waves. Sui Yuan, who had been blackened into a wretched state, did not suffer any substantial harm. On the contrary, it was the bloggers behind the Weibos and the small-time celebrities who had quietly fanned the flames, who found themselves in trouble. There were people making things difficult for them, both in the light and dark.
Fashion Mix's new album's production was smooth sailing. While it would seem that Sui Yuan and Eason's exposure would lessen because they were busy with recording the new album, in reality, their reputation continuously rose up because their EP's songs became mainstream and increasingly widespread.
On every major music chart, the first few places were all Fashion Mix's songs. Quite a few websites, in order to pacify the other singers' complaints, had no choice but to remove the "superfluous" songs and choose only one of them. They would then merge all of the data under the name of this one song, in order to avoid the 'tragedy' of having the first five spots all belong to Fashion Mix.
When you turned on the radio, you'd hear the songs from their EP. When you entered a restaurant, you'd hear the songs from their EP. Even when you walked through the streets of the city, AV stores, clothing stores, etc—eight or nine out of ten stores would choose to play songs from the new EP. The people were tortured by this endless brainwashing. Even middle-aged people who didn't follow mainstream music could even hum a few phrases. The lyrics and tunes were suitable and appreciated by people of all ages.
At the same time, the opinions that these songs were "so overplayed it now makes me want to vomit," "cause physiological disgust," and so on were beginning to become more prevalent. Except an even larger portion of people grew thirstier and thirstier for the new album, looking forward to seeing if Fashion Mix—or rather, Eason—could create more masterpieces.
Fashion Mix's high tide lasted for a long time and completely oppressed all other rival singers. Only several large movie and film productions could fight against it in terms of popularity. It was like a dream come true for the music industry that had been in a slump all this time. Compared to Fashion Mix's explosive popularity, the protagonist Huo Ke's path as an actor was quite dark.
Compared to the original plot in which Huo Ke received a lot of attention for his first role and had cultivated 'friendly feelings' with Film Emperor Le Sen during the filming, now the attention he received on TV after having his role stolen by Sui Yuan wasn't much. Likewise, because of Sui Yuan, Director Zheng Bin and Le Sen's attention and care had been split between two people—the larger portion of it was given to Sui Yuan—so Huo Ke had not received Le Sen's recommendation and thus had not participated in a large-scale movie. Instead, he stayed on the small screen, making steady upward progress.
Unfortunately, Sui Yuan who was kept frantically busy by Eason, didn't have any time to pay attention to Huo Ke's progress. If it wasn't his packed training schedule or recording for the album, he'd be busy dealing with Eason's nagging propositioning. Even if he had the time to give Huo Ke any attention, he probably wouldn't be any help anyway.
The new album was released as scheduled. Compared to the first EP where people were waiting to see if it was any good, the fans had learnt their lesson last time, practically rushing to get their hands on the album immediately after release. Furthermore, the new album did not disappoint them at all. Every song on the album was good enough to be the lead single. Every MV could be considered a classic. They all left a strong impression on both the eyes and ears—they were the result of the intersection of cultures between different worlds.
While the new album caused yet another craze, Fashion Mix was invited to the annual Music Awards as this year's most successful winner.
Top Album of the Year, Top Song of the Year, Top Record of the Year, Top Band of the Year…when Sui Yuan and Eason stood side-by-side on the podium, in front of the cameras, the audience, and even the entire nation, Sui Yuan was pulled into Eason's arms and kissed on the forehead.
Sui Yuan paused, then lifted his arms to hug him. He patted the other on the back to placate him, but also to admonish him.
Besides the CP fandom members, who all screeched at this scene, crying out that their CP was showering them with official PDA and being so obviously canon that it left them no room for imagining other CPs, all other legal media outlets did not have great reactions to this scene.
Fashion Mix had gone from almost disbanding to counter attacking and becoming an instant hit. Furthermore, the revolutionary twists and turns they've experienced were enough to explain why the members of the band were so moved that they forgot their manners. Besides, Eason was of mixed blood and had grown up overseas, so his behaviour was more relaxed than the reserved Chinese. Of course, what was more important was Fashion Mix's managing company's PR team did good work and suppressed reports of this 'negative sex scandal' in a timely fashion.
After receiving the award, Eason immediately received a call from the company's upper management. Although he wasn't exactly scolded with a torrent of abuse, they did highlight their annoyance over his behaviour during the award ceremony. Eason couldn't care less and shrugged his shoulders. The manager who was watching facepalmed, feeling that he had no way to deal with this reckless, headstrong, money-making tree.
Soon after, the manager shot a grateful look at the clearly much more lovable Sui Yuan and also glimpsed at Huo Ke, the former member of the band who had also been invited. He felt a bit of regret and couldn't understand why the other man had voluntarily withdrawn from the band at the time, renouncing this easily attainable success and choosing a much more difficult path instead.
Currently, Huo Ke looked at Sui Yuan from the corner of his eye, satirizing and silently ridiculing him: See? Look at Eason who you've been indulging all this time. He's getting more and more over the top. He even kissed you in front of all those people in a public place! He's just itching to come out of the closet! Serves you right!
Sui Yuan looked back at Huo Ke, feeling that it was not his fault: I have no control over Eason, ok?!
After Eason hung up the phone, Sui Yuan's phone immediately sounded. He had originally thought that it was the company wanting to reprimand him and picked it up with a bitter face. Unexpectedly, he discovered that it was Le Sen.
Since the Weibo crisis occurred, Sui Yuan and Le Sen's relationship had improved a lot. The other man would give him a call every few days, not because of work, but because he liked to talk to him about one another's work and life. This made Sui Yuan feel baffled, not knowing what exactly Le Sen wanted—was it possible that he considered him a friend who he could complain and grumble with?
Sui Yuan had to admit he really couldn't deal with this man's hot and cold behaviour.
However, as a white lotus, Sui Yuan could only express happiness in receiving Le Sen's calls, acting like he was overwhelmed by the favour and patiently handle it. Because of this, after every call, he would be ruthlessly tormented by Eason afterwards.
Fortunately, Eason also understood propriety. Even if he was jealous, he never restricted Sui Yuan's actions nor did he force him to cut off all ties with Le Sen.
Le Sen's call this time was naturally to congratulate Sui Yuan for winning the awards. Sui Yuan kept up his cheerful smiling expression in reply, while also meeting Eason's increasingly chilly expression that made him want to cry without tears. He had originally planned to get this call over with as quickly as possible, but he never expected that the other would change the subject, "Now that the new album is done and the promotions are almost over as well, do you have any free time? I know a role that would be suitable for you."
Sui Yuan didn't expect that the other would suddenly raise this subject and drew a blank, "A role? What kind of role?"
Without waiting for Le Sen's explanation, the phone in Sui Yuan's hand was seized by Eason with an unquestionable strength, "Sorry, even if my bandmate has free time, he can't become an actor."
Le Sen, who was on the other end of the line, fell silent.
Although Le Sen and Eason did not have many interactions, the innate vigilance and hostility that came from being love rivals made both sides incapable of having any sort of good feelings towards one another. Le Sen instinctively felt that the relationship between Eason and Sui Yuan was more than ordinary bandmates and felt that the other man's gaze when looking at Sui Yuan was so intimate that it made him feel apprehensive.
"Li Kun is your bandmate, not something that belongs to you," Le Sen's voice was suddenly impassive, carrying a slight chill, "Even though you're his bandmate, you have no right to obstruct him from expanding his projects, no? This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. If he misses out on it because of you, aren't you afraid that he'll resent you?"
Eason, of course, was not afraid because he knew that Sui Yuan didn't care about this matter at all. However, Le Sen's criticizing tone, as if he was protecting Sui Yuan, made him especially unhappy, "If he wanted it, then I would be the one to give it to him. His future has nothing to do with you, so there's no need for you to be concerned!"
After saying this, Eason hung up the phone. He then met their manager's stunned expression.
Sui Yuan silently took his phone back. Huo Ke turned away, facepalming. The manager raised his hand, faltering as he pointed at Eason and then Sui Yuan, "…You guys…it can't be….?"
"That's right," Eason wrapped an arm around Sui Yuan's shoulder without any sort of guilty conscience. He faced the manager, who was struck by a bolt out of the blue, and nodded his head, "I wanted to tell you way earlier and discuss with the company about what to do after we come out. There are too many people who are lusting after him. I think that I can't bear it any longer."
Sui Yuan："………………"
Huo Ke："………………"
The Manager："…You speak of this so calmly. You're really seeking death here, you know?!"
Eve: Hi everyone! I’m back in one piece from my trip~ It was a fun vacation and it’s time to get back to translating T^T.
