When the Fans Ship the Wrong Couple [Entertainment Industry]

[One-line summary: The two stars win their fans back with their sweetness]

Luo Wen was an aspiring entertainer whose road was full of bad luck. First, after three years of grueling training, someone else took his debut spot just before he was set to debut.

2. He spent an entire year performing as a member of a little-known group and earned almost nothing.

3. He joined another little-known group.

It was the kind of group that could only stand at the edge of the stage and sing with other groups on some obscure local TV program, only for its scenes to be cut until not a single shot remained.

Still, Luo Wen refused to give up on staying in the industry.

For the sake of his dream, and so he could make that dream come true alongside Sheng Yan.

But Luo Wen never expected that his obscure little group, which could only post promotional content and practice-room updates on Weibo, would one day break into the mainstream.

It was a fan edit shipping Sheng Yan with another member that made them go viral.

As the group's official Weibo account rapidly gained followers, editors for all kinds of shows seemed to have stumbled upon a money-making formula, deliberately pairing Sheng Yan with that other member.

Naturally, they cut out all the interactions between Luo Wen and Sheng Yan that might interfere with the popular ship's fans enjoying their pairing.

Some shows even edited Luo Wen and Sheng Yan to look like rivals who never crossed paths, as if they had a terrible relationship. Their respective solo fans ended up fighting every day.

Even with all five members' ships thrown together, Luo Wen and Sheng Yan were never paired.

Then one day, fans devoted to each of them went digging through old material and unexpectedly discovered that the two had known each other long before the group was formed.

They had known each other in the way that meant hugging and cuddling during the day at practice, then going back to the same dorm room at night, pushing their two small beds together and cuddling some more. For three whole years.

And so the group's most obscure ship rocketed straight to the equator overnight.

The crown jewels of the fandom were a fanfic titled "If the Two Boys Had Debuted Together at Their Former Agency" and another titled "What If Sheng Yan Hadn't Left the Group and Chosen to Start Over?"

The first was sweet with a sting, while the second was pure heartbreak.

After laughing and crying, the fans shipped them even harder.

A cool, aloof heartthrob on the outside, but gentle and devoted on the inside, gong x a beautiful, determined shou with terrible luck

Notes and clarifications:

1. Although the blurb is from the shou's perspective, the main story is told from the gong's perspective.

2. The characters are not based on real people. In the story, the gong is the group's most popular member, its official visual, and its deep-voiced rapper; the shou is the group's ace, leader, and main dancer.

3. The group is recognized as a hidden gem right from the start, but the fans ship the wrong pairings and only realize the truth later. There will also be plenty of intense fandom-speak.

4. The gong doesn't play along with the agency's fake ship promotion. The agency is responsible for all the misleading edits. The gong and shou are mutually in love and dote on each other throughout.

Theme: Work hard to carve out your own path to stardom