“…Uh.”
Right in front of him was Ki Seonwoo. His face wore an expression so ambiguous that it was difficult to gauge his emotions. He seemed angry, yet also not.
At the very least, one thing was certain—he didn’t look pleased. Yoonjo blinked his eyes, then barely managed to put strength into his legs and pushed against Seonwoo’s chest to straighten his waist.
“Ugh…!”
In his flustered state, he must have pushed too hard. Yoonjo, who ended up pushing Seonwoo away, flailed about even in that brief moment of falling forward, his face coloring with embarrassment.
A dull sound of the two becoming entangled was heard. Before long, the commotion subsided. On the sandy beach lay Seonwoo, barely supporting his upper body with his elbows, half-lying down, and Yoonjo was in a position straddling on top of him.
Yoonjo let out a sound of “Uh” and flailed about. He simultaneously noticed that he was clutching Seonwoo’s chest area.
“Ahhh! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Are you hurt? Open your eyes! Hyung! Ah, I really messed up. I’m sorry!”
“I’m not hurt, so… please stop pressing down….”
“I’m sorry!”
Yoonjo quickly pulled his hands away and watched Seonwoo cough and sit up, unconsciously checking him over here and there. Sand was messily clumped onto his clothes and hair, but he looked okay.
“Hyung. Should we get an MRI? Uh, in this case would it be an X-ray? What is it, you need to get that test….”
Yoonjo blinked, finding it strange that Seonwoo was just sitting still. At that moment, their eyes met. He felt his face naturally turning red, and the skin where they touched felt hot.
As the midday sunlight beat down around Seonwoo, it seemed almost like a halo was shining. Yoonjo found himself staring at him blankly before letting out an “Ahhh” sound and rolling away from him.
“Wow, I’m human too, you know. When you react like that, it really hurts my feelings.”
“No… it’s just…. I’m sorry….”
Seonwoo, who had been brushing off the sand, loosely pulled and untied his hair tie, then began shaking out his hair.
“I guess you knew who I was.”
“…Yes. Um… I didn’t know when I first saw you…. Later… though.”
“I guess you were curious about me. First time seeing an actor who doesn’t act? Or were you planning to tip off the media later? So that’s why you got my number and pretended to look after me. Should I give you an autograph? These days they don’t sell much, but even that could fetch a pretty good price. Try to get a script book. I’ll sign it with a date for you.”
The tone was matter-of-fact, but the content was sharp. To be precise, it was words that would hurt Seonwoo, not Yoonjo. While Yoonjo should have felt offended by those words, they were also words that would wound the speaker, Seonwoo. Meanwhile, Yoonjo was already brushing off his shirt and shaking off the sand stuck here and there on his body.
Yoonjo, who had been removing sand from his slippers, spoke softly with his lips slightly protruding.
“Honestly, it would be a lie to say I wasn’t curious. But what would I use hyung for? I can barely take care of myself. And there’s always a good reason why people don’t talk about things, and there’s nothing worse than jumping to conclusions before the other person speaks.”
“…….”
“Um…. It was when I had just been accepted to university. I applied for a reach school without much hope, and I suddenly got in. And it was Seoul. It’s more than five hours away from here…. When I saw the acceptance window, I was so happy, but then I got scared. I’d never left home before, and I worried that without me, only grandma and grandpa would be left alone.”
It was winter, when cold air lingered around the tip of his nose. It was right after Christmas when he found out about his acceptance while taking out leftover cake from the refrigerator.
He was simply happy about being accepted and rolled around on the living room floor, screaming silently. The two elders who were watching TV in the main bedroom cracked open the door to look at Yoonjo, but that was all.
The problem started after that. He became afraid of the future where only the two of them would remain. What if they had an accident while doing hard farm work? In the summer without air conditioning, what if they had health problems and collapsed…. Those worries grew, one after another, and soon consumed Yoonjo.
“So I couldn’t say anything and just stayed quiet. I was so scared and worried… I just kept agonizing over it, and then exactly two hours before the registration deadline, I confessed the truth. That I got accepted. But that I was too scared.”
Yoonjo kept unnecessarily brushing off sand with his hands. His gaze remained fixed on the ground.
“Grandma just silently patted my shoulder and….”
‘It’s okay, it’s okay my baby. My baby, grandma will take care of everything. My puppy, my puppy.’
Yoonjo clenched his fist tightly, then slowly opened it and barely managed to open his mouth. Whenever he thought about that time, something inside him kept welling up and squirming upward.
“She said everything would be okay. And… grandma knew. She said since I was being stubborn without saying anything, she waited until I was ready to tell her. Until I could open up and talk about it.”
“…….”
“I had my own reasons for not being able to say anything. So hyung must have his reasons too.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry if it felt like I was hiding it even though I knew. I thought hyung had his own circumstances too. It’s not like my experience is always right or anything… but I thought hyung would be similar. Still, you must have… felt bad about it….”
Yoonjo, who had been fidgeting with his fingers for a moment, bowed deeply at the waist.
“I’m sorry.”
“Is that really all? Aren’t you curious about me? If you sold me out, you could at least afford an air conditioner for your house.”
“…Of course I’m curious.”
I knew it. Seonwoo’s eyes narrowed slightly. As he looked over Yoonjo who had bowed his head as if gauging him, he closed his mouth at the answer that followed.
“…Why don’t you eat, hyung? Grandpa Daeoh said so. That you had malnutrition.”
“…….”
“Why don’t you clean your house? The house was really dirty. You know that’s Grandma Sunja’s place, right? Because it’s the countryside, dust accumulates more easily. Because of the dirt and dust blowing from the fields.”
At the unexpected words, Seonwoo felt the faint suspicion and irritation he had just moments ago dissolve like water.
Negative emotions were indeed water-soluble. Seeing how they melted away just from dipping his feet in the water a few times and from the wet Yoonjo touching him.
Seonwoo burst into laughter without realizing it. At the sound of laughter, Yoonjo’s head shot up and he twisted his lips.
Looking closely, whether laughter had pooled there or not, the corners of his eyes were reddened and Seonwoo’s pupils were glistening as if soaked with water.
“Damn it…. Hyung, really!”
When Yoonjo irritably hit his shoulder, Seonwoo took a step back. His body swayed from just one punch. Seeing Yoonjo raise his fist again, Seonwoo raised both hands as if surrendering.
“I surrender. If you hit me more, I’ll really die.”
“You’re really mean!”
Fuming, Yoonjo glared at Seonwoo before striding away from the small beach. Seonwoo stood still in the stuffy wind full of salt, then followed after him.
He felt a little relieved inside.
Even the lip service that everyone else knew how to say felt sincere when Yoonjo said it. Perhaps it was because he spoke based on facts, or maybe it was because Ki Seonwoo was paying attention to Yoonjo.
The two passed through the rough rocky path together and talked about this and that the entire ride back to the village.
“So are you going to stay here, hyung?”
“Probably. What about you, Yoonjo?”
“I have to go back up when vacation ends! If I want to get a scholarship next semester, I really have to work hard.”
As if his sulking just moments ago was a lie, Yoonjo smiled showing his teeth. There was no telling what made him so happy as he kept wiggling his fingertips.
“I’m really relieved. Since hyung wasn’t saying anything, it was awkward to suddenly go and act like I knew, and it was too ambiguous to say I didn’t know…. Anyway, hyung, I like you.”
At the confession without context, Seonwoo’s hand twitched for a moment. Fortunately, Yoonjo added his next words, instantly clearing up the misunderstanding.
“I watched all your works. But my favorite is still your debut work.”
“…Halo Around the Moon?”
“Yes! The one-take monologue where you long for your dead lover and retrace their footsteps was really amazing. It was so sad, like I was hearing it right next to you. But my favorite scene is….”
“Another day has passed. The air that would have dissolved your breath, the sunlight, even an insignificant wildflower….”
Seonwoo paused as if taking a breath, glanced at Yoonjo, then opened his mouth.
“In all the beauty of the world, you exist.”
“In all the beauty of the world, you exist.”
The two voices blended together in one line. Yoonjo stomped his feet as if he might jump up and down, then spoke in an enthusiastic voice.
“Wow, that’s really amazing. You still remember? That was 9 years ago! I really love that! It was so cool how you retraced your lover’s traces alone in the old villa, recalling each memory one by one.”
Still remember? Of course, it would be impossible to remember everything, but as with everyone, it was natural for the first work to feel special. Like how idols remember the choreography of their debut song.
Yoonjo, sitting in the passenger seat, talked nonstop until they arrived at the village entrance. Seonwoo’s story was only briefly mentioned at the beginning, and most of it was other topics.
That flow was awkward yet becoming familiar. In Seoul, the people who conversed with Seonwoo knew Ki Seonwoo as a celebrity, so stories related to that always followed, but Yoonjo was different.
While Seonwoo was included in Yoonjo’s interests, it was only by a small amount. Like how sunlight shines on the world fairly, a moment of light seemed to shine on Seonwoo as well.
