After every fifth outfit, Jenna kindly calls out for a break much to Jia Hyson's relief. He didn't realize modelling was this intense. It was one thing to practice with Bebe or take photos when he was still famous enough that no one really cared if the way he stood emphasized his body type or not, but it was a whole other thing when he was a poor nobody under a professional's scrutinizing gaze.
For starters, the pressure over time becomes immense. Jia Hyson memorized only so many poses and eventually ran out of ways to twist his body into attractive shapes. Even with Bebe there to offer advice and suggestions his body would still feel awkward at the unpracticed postures. There were body parts he wasn't aware had to be tensed in order to make even lying down look good. Jia Hyson had a new respect for the fashion industry.
Luckily, he had made such a good impression with Jenna's mysterious old uncle that he only received constructive, if a little overly harsh, criticism every time he did something off.
'It's probably because your learning ability is quite good,' Bebe comments mildly, 'He's never had to nag you after he tells you to do something.'
Jia Hyson smiles faintly, 'Yes, well, my short term memory is very good but my long term memory is not, so tonight we have to go over all the things he's pointed out today.'
'Of course!' Bebe sounds delighted. Maybe, it spoke too soon in calling it's host cheap. If it isn't too physically strenuous or monotonous, Jia Hyson seems to be naturally quite hardworking. 'Bebe has been recording everything, Bebe will naturally carefully look through it to help host.'
'Bebe...' Jia Hyson smiles coyly, 'you pervert~'
Bebe: Σ('◉⌓◉')
'Don't worry,' he teases silently, 'I like it (灬ºωº灬)♡ '
Bebe: (ノಠ益ಠ)ノ彡┻━┻ Sh*tty host! Why must you play with Bebe's feelings like this?
Jia Hyson goes through a total of fifteen different outfits of varying themes. His personal favourite was the androgynous mermaid-inspired tribal wear even if it had been very difficult to pull off as he had to try to strike a strange balance of primal fierceness and elegant beauty. Bebe still liked the futuristic suit, especially when Jenna complimented at how well his bangle suited it.
'Bebe likes this Jenna character a lot.' Bebe happily tells him.
'Good,' Jia Hyson tells Bebe amusedly as he goes back to his assigned changing room to wear his old clothes, 'I'm thinking of letting Maddy interact with her. She needs a female friend and this story needs more well-rounded, likeable characters like her.' In the original story, Madeline Fenwick didn't have many good girl friends that stuck around when she became poor. When she left Adrian and her brother to spend the night at a friend's place it was a male friend who was secretly in love with her. Her time on ‘Can't Take the Heat’ wasn't much better. She had one female supporter who had been pushed out early by a rival's schemes leaving the fresh-faced Maddy in the den of culinarily skilled foxes and vixens. Earning the attention of the hottest contestant as well as a few other attractive men that had been participating hadn't helped much either.
Having no support system in either family or friends, it is easy to become dependent on the handsome, rich and powerful male lead to the point she would, well... as someone who now genuinely views Maddy as a sister, Jia Hyson was very unwilling to let her run from foxes and straight into the open mouth of a horny wolf. He can't even read the story without feeling disturbed. Jia Hyson is very open-minded and his sexuality was just as flexible but no one wants to imagine their underage sister having vigorous sex with a man and an assortment of food products.
'I can't just make the story have no romantic subplots right?' He questions.
'Host is free to do whatever as long as it improves the plot,' Bebe sniffs, having heard this question more than a few times already, 'but the question host has to ask is if removing the romance will improve the plot. So?'
Jia Hyson sullenly stays silent as he pulls on his original shirt. They both know the answer to that and solemnly lights a candle for the main character's chastity. Jia Hyson swears that as long as he can help it, he will prevent her chastity being lost on a tv show at the very least.
Once changed, he walks out of the room to find both Jenna and her uncle huddled over the camera whispering excitedly. It takes a few minutes of him awkwardly hovering around them before Jenna realizes someone was watching them and lifts her head up with an apologetic smile. "Sorry Adrian, I almost forgot about you,"
"No worries, no worries," He replies with good-natured politeness. "How are the pictures?"
Immediately Jenna bursts with enthusiasm, eyes sparkling brightly, "They're great! Oh my god, Adrian, you look so good in them I cannot even, like wow!"
Jenna's uncle nods in agreement. "You have potential kid," he says gruffly, "have you ever considered being a model?"
Jia Hyson wants to cheer at succeeding in his plan however outwardly he looks shocked, "Me? A model? I don't think.."
"It'll pay you a lot more than some of your other jobs." Jenna quickly adds.
"I'll do it." The eager Jia Hyson immediately says before blushing and coughing a few times in mortification. He really hadn't meant to say that so fast. "I mean, sounds, uh, sounds good."
The uncle and niece pair laugh at his obvious humiliation, finding this good child very sweet in their hearts. "Here, my card." The uncle hands him a pristine white business card with the name 'James Christoper, JC Photography,' imbedded in bold print along with a phone number and company website. "Text me and I'll see if I can get you some job offers kid."
Looking at the card, Jia Hyson chokes up a little. "Th-Thank you, you, this means so much to me, thank you!"
Jia Hyson: Finally! No more sh*tty retail jobs! F*ck yeah! ゚+.(ノ*^o^)ノ*.☆゚・:*☆
Bebe: ...
Feeling moved by Adrian's emotion, Jenna hugs him and feels incredibly guilty she never asked him for help sooner. "Don't worry Adrian, once I become a famous fashion designer you'll be the first guy I'll ask to model for me!"
Adrian smiles gently at her and pats her head, "En, I'll hold you to that okay?"
Jia Hyson: Remember this, remember this okay? I need job security. If you don't I'll really hold it against you, I'll curse you to death!
Bebe: Host, why must you be like this?
Jia Hyson: Because no man can be this perfect ╮(╯∀╰)╭
Bebe: This cheap host... (◞‸ლ)
Afterwards, Uncle James Christopher really did contact him for a very generous job. It seems after grilling his niece for details he heard of Adrian's sad plight and became sympathetic on top of his already good impression toward this nice young man. While many people dislike being pitied, Jia Hyson happily lapped it up like melted chocolate. In his opinion, the four best emotions to manipulate someone was pity, guilt, greed and lust. He isn't debasing his tragedy, he's merely making the best out of a bad situation.
'Bebe believes that is called exploitation.' Bebe chimes in.
"Bebe," Jia Hyson sighs as he types his acceptance to the job offer to Uncle James, "do you come with a mute function?"
'If Bebe does Bebe would not tell you.'
"Adrian?" a deep voice says in surprise.
Jia Hyson turns around and smiles softly. Monroe enters the house and his usual blank face cracks a faint smile, eyes softening as he takes in the rare sight of his older brother at home so early. Usually, Adrian would still be working till midnight, and he would start working again at five in the morning so it truly had been a long time since either he or his sister had seen the man while he was awake. "Monroe, I thought you had piano lessons?"
"Dropped them," Monroe replied easily like it meant nothing to him. How on earth could he have the face to continue playing such a frivolous thing when he knows that the money going into his lessons were being taken from his brother's exhausted hands? The moment he learnt how much they cost, he had dropped the classes immediately and secretly deposited the money back into their shared bank account.
Adrian frowns, "But you love the piano."
"Not as much as you." Monroe bluntly says.
Jia Hyson blinks, a little stunned at the unexpected sweet words but his heart soon warms up from it. Chuckling lightly he goes up to ruffle Monroe's hair, the teenager was still so young and yet he can spout such flattery! "Such a good child," he laughs before leaning down to playfully kiss his forehead, "you really are so responsible, before I know it one day you'll be taking care of me!"
From getting a decent paying modelling job to receiving Monroe's love, today was truly a good day. Jia Hyson practically floated to the kitchen to make dinner with a heart filled with joy. Ah, taking care of kids really was very rewarding! Especially good boys like Monroe!
So happy that he completely missed the way his beloved younger brother's grey eyes flashes darkly as he softly touches his forehead.
...
As a year passes, Jia Hyson felt that he was doing quite well for himself. He was slowly gaining popularity in the modelling industry and the pressing urgency for money was lessening little by little after every job. Monroe has been working hard at school and his grades made Jia Hyson want to kneel down and weep. His little bro was so capable! He will surely succeed in life.
Maddy, after some encouragement from Jenna, she has learnt that being thrifty doesn't automatically make you lame and no longer feels ashamed at her poor household. By being less defensive and sensitive about her background she managed to catch a few like-minded friends and swapped neat life hacks about various things and having fun on a budget. Adrian appearing in magazines was also an unexpected bonus to her social life. Many of the previous girls who harassed Maddy in the original story no longer dared, after that one time Adrian came to school to drop off lunch for her because they all had immediately fallen for his handsome gentle face.
If this wasn't enough, to make sure their familial bond stayed strong, Jia Hyson insisted everyone will have dinners together at least thrice a week now that he no longer has to work an insane amount of hours. Both Maddy and Monroe had no objections to this and soon the easy lighthearted interactions they used to have before the strain of being poor returned. Jia Hyson hadn't been truly aware of this strain until it was gone and suddenly it felt like a breath of fresh air had returned to their little family of three.
Going through Maddy's new blog post, something which she has recently started after Jia Hyson suggested it to help her writing skills, he can't help but smile helplessly while reading her latest kitchen flop with their leftovers. He types a message under the post telling her she needs to clean up before he comes back home. A few people comment at this, complaining about being constantly fed dog food, completely unaware that the blogger MadCheesey and the user BurgerBunny have a completely innocent brother-sister relationship.
"Who are you texting?" His current stylist asks curiously as he stains Adrian's blonde hair with pink and silver streaks. Proud of his cute sister, he shows her the blog on the screen. "Oh! I've heard of MadCheesey, I really like her five and under ingredient recipes the best."
"En," Jia Hyson says with obvious warmth and fondness. "She's my little sister."
"No way," His stylist claps her hands in excitement, "can you ask her if she can do more desserts? I'm really a baking-idiot and it would be nice to show people that I can make a cake without using box-mix." both of them laugh at that.
"I'll ask her tonight." Jia Hyson promises.
"You should've asked her to come over today," The stylist lightly scolded, "I don't know what's happening but it seems like it's ‘bring your kid to work’ day for the higher-ups. I've heard that one of the media bigwigs is bringing his second son over and everyone with a daughter under thirty had brought them along for a 'fated meeting'."
"Maddy's too young to date," Jia Hyson immediately says before he could even think about it. The stylist pauses for a moment before giving an 'Ah so he's like that,' face and continues devotedly drying his hair.
"Your sister is lucky to have a big brother like you." She sighs wistfully.
The smile Jia Hyson gave her in return was blinding.
....
"That's enough! Good work Adrian!" James Christopher shouts as he pulls away from the camera with a satisfied look. Jia Hyson finally relaxes and starts to cough violently. During the shoot, people kept throwing pink chalk-like dust at him and it had been impossible to not breathe some of it in.
Taking pity on him, James pats him on the back where the pink dust hadn't completely covered him and gestures for an assistant to hand him a bottle of water and a damp towel. Jia Hyson takes both gratefully. "The last jump shot was very good this time," James comments, "you need to try to be more aware of your arms and look more intensely at the camera but since this is meant to show a playful feel that can be ignored for now."
Jia Hyson nods to show he's listening as he thirstily drinks his water. James doesn't mind it since he knows how hardworking and enthusiastic, Adrian is since working with him. Currently, they were taking photos to advertise for a fundraising event that involved participating in various brightly coloured fun events to raise money for shelter and clothing toward people in need. Each model represented a colour and to avoid gender stereotype criticisms Adrian, who was the newcomer, was assigned the colour pink.
He didn't mind it as much as some of the other male models who had been stuck with more 'feminine' colours did but he sort of wish it wasn't so... bright.
Bebe: It looks like the lovechild of a highlighter and a glitter pen threw up on you.
'It's okay,' he comforts himself sadly, 'this is what photoshop is for.'
"Hey kid, can I ask you for a favour when you have your break?" James suddenly asks looking uncharacteristically nervous. Jia Hyson immediately turns all of his attention toward this middle-aged uncle, surprised that the man was even capable of nervousness. He had the type of personality that, if Jia Hyson didn't know better, made people think he was an ex-military general or something. If he had to describe the man in three words it must be strict, strong and stable. Whatever James was worried about must be important.
"Uncle, you're my benefactor, if it's within my power of course I will happily help you." Jia Hyson seriously says, using the full power of his blue eyes and angel looks to convey his utmost sincerity.
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