“What is this, when did he become an actor?”
“I don’t know. He’s been popping up here and there for a few years now.”
Haechan hyung answered flatly, his furrowed brow still not smoothing out.
“What do you mean? Hyung, have you not seen Kwon Wookyung this whole time?”
“Why would I see him? He was your friend, not mine.”
“Well… but he lived next door. You would’ve run into him coming and going.”
“He hasn’t lived next door for a long time. It’s been ages since he moved out.”
“……What? He moved? Where to?”
It was shock after shock. The fact that a childhood friend I had spent ten years glued to had become an actor was surprising enough — but honestly, the news that he had moved away hit harder.
How could he move without even telling me…?
Of course, even if he had told me, I wouldn’t have heard it… but still. A strange sense of betrayal rang through my head like a struck bell.
“Ah, I don’t really know either.”
Hyung snapped at nothing in particular, then walked out of the living room carrying the soggy clump of tissue and the cup. He looked like he found the whole topic of Kwon Wookyung irritating.
Come to think of it, Haechan hyung had never been fond of Wookyung in the past either. Even when Wookyung used to come and go from our house, the two of them only ever exchanged greetings — nothing beyond that. Haejun hyung was only marginally better; not much different. So I had always had a vague sense that neither of my hyungs particularly liked Wookyung.
I stared at the spot where hyung had walked out, then turned my gaze back to the screen. The interview was still going.
〈You’ve recently been voted the number one male actor that people in their twenties most want to go on a date with — and with the noir romance you’re about to show us, many people are already feeling the anticipation. How does that feel?〉
〈I always think the love from the fans is far more than I deserve…〉
“…Look at the way he smiles.”
The way his left corner of his mouth rises first at an angle when he smiles — still the same.
The mole on his nose bridge. The habit of casting his eyes downward when he smiles and laughing quietly without making a sound. Those were all still there. What had changed was that the mature Kwon Wookyung that time had carved out was even more striking than the vague future version of him I had imagined — and the fact that someone who had been reserved and rarely laughed out loud now knew how to look straight into a camera and smile freely.
“Annoyingly even more handsome. That’s just unfair.”
Something stirred strangely in my chest, and I grumbled loudly at the screen for no particular reason.
Back at school, if you held a popularity vote, Shin Haehyeon from the ballet department and Kwon Wookyung from the acting department would always appear side by side. But unlike me, who had fallen apart since then, Kwon Wookyung — who must have been well taken care of — shone brilliantly on the screen. I couldn’t take my eyes off him.
〈The talk-of-the-town Black City — please do come find us in theaters. We hope for your continued love and support.〉
A low, soft voice replied.
A week passed after that.
Having thrown myself into rehabilitation without missing a single day, I had managed to extend the distance I could walk by a little. I was also going up and down stairs more steadily than before.
The atmosphere at home had grown brighter. While I had been bedridden, my hyungs had apparently been living independently. Then, when I came back, they had both decided to move back to the family home. No wonder the house had seemed so desolate before.
“Haehyeon, what are you planning to do this afternoon?”
Haejun hyung asked, neatly folding a sheet of gift wrapping paper.
A leisurely weekend. My hyungs were helping me sort through the gift boxes that had been piling up in my room. To be precise, the older hyung was helping, while the younger one just ran his mouth. While Haejun hyung sorted through the clothes, shoes, and wallets that came out of the boxes and put them away in various places, Haechan hyung peeled the ribbon sticker off a piece of wrapping paper and pressed it firmly onto my forehead.
Hff, honestly, he’s such a child.
“I’m going to go see a movie.”
“A movie? With who?”
“Um… I’m going alone.”
I rolled my eyes. Sadly, I currently had no friends. To be more precise, no one outside of my family even knew I had woken up. And I couldn’t exactly send a text to friends who had probably forgotten about me long ago saying something like “☆★Hey! It’s Shin Haehyeon, guess what, I’m awake lololol☆★”
“Want hyung to come along? Is there anything good out lately?”
“Ah, no. You can’t even talk during a movie, so what’s the point of going together. I’ll go on my own.”
“Still, it might not be safe for you to go alone to places with a lot of people yet.”
“Driver Park is coming with me. I’ll really be fine.”
I turned Haejun hyung down to the very end and came to the movie theater with Driver Park. And for good reason…
Please select the film you wish to watch.
‘Black City (Restricted: Under 19 Not Admitted)’
…What exactly did Kwon Wookyung film?
Is it okay for me to watch this? I found myself unnecessarily glancing at the passersby around me, people who paid me no attention whatsoever. I was a legal adult with absolutely no issue — but my heart hadn’t quite caught up to being twenty-four yet, and so with a strange, absurd guilt, I pressed Black City on the screen. The first rated film I’m seeing in a theater, and the lead is my childhood friend.
But this wasn’t my fault. Nobody asked him to film something rated.
He was a friend I used to spend practically every waking hour with — and now, to see that face, I had to pay money and watch it on a screen. That was genuinely ridiculous.
No, wait — actually, that wasn’t the main reason. The film’s storyline was truly interesting. That was why I had bothered coming all this way to see it. Seeing Kwon Wookyung’s face was just a bonus on the side. There was no other reason. Truly!
Perhaps because most tickets were sold online and through mobile booking, there weren’t many left at the counter. Buying in advance would have been difficult anyway — my fingers were still clumsy with fine movements.
In the end, I bought the only remaining ticket for the nearest showtime — a seat on the edge of the second row. My neck would probably ache from craning up at the screen, but there was nothing to be done.
With the ticket in hand, I moved forward on my crutches, and people naturally parted to make way. I had brought the crutches because I was worried about being jostled and knocked down in such a crowded space — and it turned out to be the right call.
It’s really been a long time since I’ve been to a movie theater.
I glanced around idly, scanning the film posters on the walls. Among them, Kwon Wookyung’s face — dressed in a suit, with a slight frown — stood out immediately. Seeing the name “Kwon Wookyung” printed below in large letters near the front of the billing, I finally got a small sense of just how famous he had become.
There was something I had said to him once.
“What do you think we’ll be in about ten years? …I’ll be performing as a lead on stage with a famous ballet company… and getting invited by other dance companies to do a world tour. I hope you’ll become an incredibly famous actor and have your face on billboards in big cities all over the world. So that wherever I go, I can see your face and brag that that’s my friend.”
What had Kwon Wookyung said in response to my excited rambling?
I couldn’t remember exactly, but he hadn’t seemed nearly as swollen with hope and dreams as I was. Now, six years later — about halfway to that imagined ten years — Kwon Wookyung was pretty close to the future I had pictured. Even though I had completely derailed from that path.
It wasn’t envy. It was just that the fact that my closest friend felt this distant now left me with a strange feeling I couldn’t quite name.
“Black City begins in ten minutes!”
At the staff member’s announcement, I headed straight into the screening room. Sitting in the second row, the massive screen was unmistakably too close. I’d have to rest the back of my neck against the seat and tilt my head back as far as it would go.
The screening room filled up with audience members trickling in in small groups. As showtime arrived and the lights went out one by one, the murmuring noise gradually faded. But then, instead of the screen lighting up, the house lights came back on — and the staff member standing by the door called out loudly,
“We’ll be having a surprise cast greeting! The director and cast will be coming in shortly!”
The announcement of an unscheduled event sent a ripple of excitement through the audience.
“Oh my gosh. Don’t tell me Kwon Wookyung is coming too?”
“Please, please… let it be Kwon Wookyung.”
“Front row seats, best seats in the house.”
The women sitting right behind me whispered in low, excited voices.
I, on the other hand, was completely at a loss with this unexpected turn of events.
Are we really going to see each other like this? Does this even make sense?
But before I could think any further, the door opened and the director walked in wearing an affable smile. And when a tall man followed in behind him, the audience erupted in cheers and applause.
The man draped entirely in black — coat, knit, trousers, all of it — was, exactly as the audience kept calling out, Kwon Wookyung.
“Kwon Wookyung is so handsome!”
Someone in the back rows cried out desperately, and laughter rippled through the crowd here and there. Kwon Wookyung turned his gaze in the direction of the shout and smiled faintly, then dipped his head. Whether he was genuinely embarrassed or simply practiced at this, the reaction was impossible to read — and over two hundred phones, lifted in an instant, captured it all in real time.
As the actress and supporting cast who followed in behind him lined up in front of the screen, the director took the microphone first and began to speak.
“Hello, I’m the director, Bae Seokjin. Thank you so much for making the trip out here…”
It’s really Kwon Wookyung. I never once thought I’d see him in person like this.
I was swept up in a feeling I couldn’t put into words, and I stared openly at Kwon Wookyung. Every audience member in the room was watching the cast and snapping photos on their phones — so I figured a gaze like mine wouldn’t stand out.
Kwon Wookyung scanned the audience with an indifferent expression. At the tail end of that sweep, his gaze might have landed on me just briefly. But the look that should have passed right over me — hesitated. And then it fixed on me, unmistakably and clearly.
As if trying to confirm something, his eyelids — which had narrowed ever so slightly — widened in what looked like disbelief, and his lips parted just a little. I could see it clearly.
