two people exhausted by performance unexpectedly find honesty in each other.
The interview is supposed to last forty minutes. At least, that’s what his editor had promised him over the phone with all the enthusiasm of a man who wasn’t the one being sent across the city in February rain.
“Write a piece on everyone’s new favourite actress,” he’d said. “It’ll make your career.”
Now, sitting in the corner booth of a hotel lounge that smelled faintly of expensive perfume and polished wood, he was beginning to suspect the only fool being made here was him.
Because she was late.
Not fashionably late either. Not the kind of five-minute delay publicists apologised for with tight smiles and free coffee. No, fifteen full minutes late.
Ning Yizhuo.
Current darling of Hollywood. Fresh Golden Globe nominee. Projected Oscar frontrunner before the nominations had even officially dropped. The woman currently staring down at America from every magazine stand, billboard, and glowing Times Square screen imaginable.
And apparently incapable of arriving on time.
He glanced at his watch again.
7:16 PM.
He’d already considered leaving twice. Three times, even.
Not because he couldn’t wait - journalists practically built their careers waiting around for people richer and more important than them - but because he already knew the type of interview this would be.
A charming laugh rehearsed a thousand times.
Something about “gratitude” and “staying grounded.”
Forty minutes of curated personality wrapped in designer silk.
He’d written hundreds of iterations of this article before. Rising stars. Internet obsessions. Actors hailed as the future of cinema until the industry inevitably found someone younger, prettier, newer.
Same old Hollywood cycle.
Usually they arrived with an assistant, a stylist. And not to forget, the publicist who answered half the questions for them.
He was halfway through mentally rewriting his opening paragraph for the third time when someone slid into the seat across from him.
“No assistant?” a voice asked lightly.
He looked up.
And for one deeply unfortunate second, his brain stopped functioning properly.
Not because she was beautiful - he’d expected that. Hollywood actresses were beautiful in the same way skyscrapers were tall: by design.
But photos hadn’t prepared him for how tired she looked. Not in a bad way. Not unflattering. Just human.
Dark hair slightly damp from the rain, falling loose around her shoulders instead of sculpted into something red-carpet ready. Minimal makeup. Faint shadows lingering beneath her eyes, barely concealed, like exhaustion had managed to survive beneath all the glamour.
She looks like someone who hasn’t slept properly in weeks.
He was annoyed by how quickly the irritation faded, replaced by something he couldn’t quite understand.
Most actresses in her position walked into interviews already performing. Smiling before they’d even sat down. Every expression just as much of a performance as the movies they starred in. But Yizhuo just looked… cold.
Not emotionally, literally.
Tiny droplets of rain still clung to the sleeve of her dark coat. Her fingers looked pale from the cold, frozen around the phone she set face-down on the table.
“No publicist either,” he replies before he can stop himself.
Her mouth curves slightly at that. Not the dazzling movie-star smile plastered across magazine covers. Smaller. Sharper around the edges.
“I find them to be more hindrance than help.”
Something about the honesty in her answer makes him laugh softly. Not because it’s funny, exactly. But it catches him off guard.
Most celebrities spent interviews carefully sanding themselves down into something universally digestible. Media-trained. Inoffensive. Every answer polished smooth by years of coaching until nothing sharp remained.
Yizhuo, meanwhile, had arrived soaked from the rain and immediately insulted publicists.
For the first time since sitting down, Yizhuo glances properly at him. Assessing.
For a moment, neither of them says anything.
Yizhuo reaches for the menu resting near the edge of the table, glancing over it briefly before looking back at him. “Now, maybe I’ve been lied to this whole time, but I was under the impression that being interviewed involved answering questions,” she eventually says, amusement in her eyes.
He looks down at his notebook.
Still blank.
A quiet laugh leaves her at the sight of it, softer than before. Less careful.
And for reasons he can’t quite explain, watching that unguarded smile feels infinitely more interesting than anything he’d originally planned to write.
Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realises two things simultaneously.
Firstly, this article is already more than he bargained for. Secondly, he hasn’t enjoyed his work this much in a very long time.
He flips open the notebook again, more out of obligation than professionalism now.
“Right,” he says, clicking his pen between his fingers. “Let’s pretend I still remember how to do my job.”
By the time he finally glanced at his watch again, the lounge had almost emptied around them.
10:02 PM.
The interview had started at seven.
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