‘Get over here, all of you. Don’t make me come find you!’
He’d gone after them with every intention of dragging them all back — but kids who’d made a habit of running away were practically professionals at it, and every last one of them vanished into their own houses.
‘Hyung… hyung…’
Moon Huijae called out to Moon Heesung desperately, a scab of dried blood on his lip. Heesung felt sorry for him — but there were moments when that same sight felt like a shackle. Having someone he had to step up and protect every single time was a considerable burden for Moon Heesung at seventeen.
‘Crying again, great.’
Just as Heesung was about to squat down and open his arms to his brother, who was sobbing and reaching up for him, a sharp little voice cut in. Heesung paused and turned — and there was a kid with just as many cuts on his face as Huijae.
Around that area back then, there was another kid who was always showing up with injuries on his face — one besides Moon Huijae. It was common enough knowledge that the whole neighborhood talked. Because that child lived in the most expensive, palatial house in the vicinity. Same neighborhood, but that kid lived in the finest house on the block while Moon Heesung and Moon Huijae lived in a shantytown perched at the top of an endless staircase climb. The circumstances couldn’t have been more different — and yet here was this kid everyone whispered about, clearly in no better shape. It was the first time Heesung had seen him up close.
‘What are you staring at?’
Heesung was looking at him with what must have been obvious curiosity, and the kid — sporting bruises just as big as Huijae’s — snapped back sharply. His clothes were neat and princely, but he’d clearly been rolling around in the dirt somewhere and was covered in filth. His pretty face was a mess from a thorough beating. But the eyes glaring back were sharp, and the voice throwing casual speech at him rang clear as a bell. He was similar to his brother Huijae and yet completely different.
‘Watch your mouth.’
‘So what.’
The rude response made Heesung let out a disbelieving breath before lightly flicking the kid on the forehead.
‘Brat’s got no manners.’
‘Ow. Why’d you hit me!’
‘Talk informally to an adult and you get smacked for it.’
‘What kind of adult are you?’
‘More of one than you.’
‘…Annoying. Think you’re something just because you’re tall?’
‘Keep it up while you still can, little one.’
Heesung tossed the comeback at the mouthy kid and swept his sniffling brother up into his arms without effort. The kid’s face soured further.
‘Are you his hyung?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Not that impressive.’
‘What?’
‘He never shuts up about his hyung, so I figured you’d be something special.’
The kid crossed his arms and delivered the jab. At that, Heesung’s expression shifted — something like warmth crossing his face.
‘You — you’re friends with my Huijae?’
He asked with a barely-there look of disbelief, and the kid reacted with immediate, flustered denial.
‘Friends? As if. Why would I be friends with that dimwit? He just follows me around.’
‘Fr — friends, we’re friends, we are.’
Huijae, still held in Heesung’s arms, grabbed onto his collar and nodded.
‘Why would you and I be friends? That’s ridiculous.’
At the word friends, Heesung suddenly crouched down in front of the kid and met his eyes. For a child, he had a remarkably pretty face. A round forehead, a nose that commanded attention, long lashes — and above all, eyes that caught the light from the streetlamp and shone with a transparency that was almost startling. The injuries on his face looked almost wrong on features that fine. Just barely past ten years old. He looked like a pampered little lord, and yet here he was with a face like that — Heesung couldn’t help but feel something.
‘Thanks for being friends with my brother.’
He smiled faintly and ruffled the kid’s hair. There was a perceptible flicker of surprise in the kid — a brief, unguarded stammer of confusion.
Heesung glanced at his brother, then continued:
‘He has his shortcomings. Be patient with him.’
‘……’
‘In return, I’ll take care of anyone who gives you trouble.’
At the touch — unhurried and gentle — the kid’s eyes visibly wavered. Heesung had expected his hand to be swatted away, but the kid just stood there, small fist clenching and unclenching at his side, peeking up at Heesung from under his lashes.
A child broken in some way, completely at a loss over one simple touch. Back then, something complicated had settled over Heesung at that sight. The same age. A small body. And hurt. Looking at this child standing next to his brother, a sudden grief for life welled up in him. What did these kids ever do wrong, to end up this beaten up. Who exactly does life’s fairness get handed out to. It wasn’t pity. It was a hollowness scorched into him by hardship.
Heesung surfaced from the memory with a faint smile, shifting where he sat on the floor and folding one knee up to rest his arm on it. Back against the wall, he kept talking to the air in front of him.
“Still as rude as ever.”
He rambled on as though talking to himself — as though his brother were really there.
“Just wait a little longer.”
He let out a slow, heavy breath like a man running on fumes, and closed both eyes.
“After I’ve taken care of that guy.”
His voice dropped deep, settling into the damp quiet around him.
“…I’ll be there soon.”
**
The next day.
Having received the message, Director Cha was getting ready to receive his guest right on time. Just like the boldness with which Heesung had taken his card, the message had come early the next morning. Director Cha didn’t have many people in his life who moved that early, and somehow even that small fact struck him as something fresh.
‘Please set a time.’
It might have come across as rude or presumptuous to some — but Director Cha found it oddly appealing. A person with no need for unnecessary words. As if nothing anyone said to him could touch him.
“Welcome. Please, sit here.”
Even at the Director’s greeting, the man showed no particular reaction and simply took the indicated seat.
“I hope the trip here wasn’t too —”
“What do you want.”
Heesung set aside the pleasantries and cut straight to the point. Director Cha let one corner of his mouth curve upward at the bluntness.
“I like that. Getting straight to business.”
Director Cha pushed his glasses up. Then he tapped the documents laid out in front of him — a list of proposed terms — and spoke again.
“Would you be interested in working with our company?”
With an expression that gave away nothing of what he was thinking, Moon Heesung sat and watched Director Cha lay out the proposal.
“I’d like to put you in charge of managing one of our signed actors.”
“……”
“Bodyguard and private manager. It’s technically called a manager role, but what I’m really asking for is personal care.”
Director Cha had spent over twenty years dealing with people. His eye alone had built more than a few stars, and alongside that he’d long taken on the job of identifying and scouting solid staff. He’d developed a near-sixth-sense for it — a few words, a person’s bearing, their energy, and he could read what they did and what kind of person they were.
“…You barely saw me yesterday. That’s not much to go on for a job offer.”
“Are you currently employed?”
Director Cha asked just in case, and Heesung shook his head.
“No.”
Satisfied, Director Cha smiled lightly.
“Then if you’re willing, we can go over the terms we’d like to offer—”
“I’m not employed, but I have a criminal record.”
“Sorry?”
Director Cha stopped mid-sentence and went momentarily blank. He’d been in the industry over twenty years, but this was a first — he was briefly struck speechless. Heesung watched his reaction quietly and waited. For the other man to respond.
The heavy silence lasted only a moment before Director Cha collected his surprise and continued in a businesslike tone.
“Ha…… I did think you weren’t an ordinary sort.”
He’d genuinely thought exactly that. Clothes that didn’t suit the weather. Unkempt hair. A way of speaking and looking at people that seemed at a slight remove from normal sociability. He’d known the man was unusual — he just hadn’t imagined that kind of unusual. Director Cha pressed his temple with his fingers in the face of this unexpected turn and took a moment to think. In the pause, Heesung spoke up.
“Are you finished?”
“Sorry? No—”
“Then it’s my turn.”
Heesung ignored Director Cha’s repeated flustering and pushed on regardless.
“Actor Yoo Sinju. I want to take on his security.”
At the completely unexpected proposal, Director Cha’s eyes went wide. More than surprised — he was stunned into silence, mouth hanging open. Heesung continued in a matter-of-fact tone, as though he’d anticipated exactly this reaction.
“If that’s not possible, anything else will do. Driver is fine too. Whatever — I’ll do whatever’s available.”
“Ha.”
Director Cha let out a dumbfounded breath and raised a hand as if to say hold on.
“Just a moment.”
“……”
“This is a bit strange. Do you know our Sinju?”
It had been the company’s side that intended to make the offer — so he couldn’t quite understand why the person he’d called in was making his own proposal first. Director Cha blinked rapidly and asked.
“He’s famous.”
“No — personally. Because otherwise I can’t make sense of why you’d suddenly bring this up.”
“…We grew up in the same neighborhood. I was his hyung.”
“Sorry…?”
“He was like a brother to me.”
Hyung?
Brother?
Director Cha let out another baffled, hollow laugh. Yoo Sinju’s officially known brothers were his half-brothers — Yoo Daeyoung, currently Executive Director of Dowon Group, and Yoo Sehyeon, who served as a director at one of its subsidiaries. Both were the kind of men who wouldn’t give a second glance to an illegitimate sibling — naturally, they’d never treated Yoo Sinju as family. Of course, beyond them, there were other illegitimate half-siblings as well — but Director Cha, who had watched over Yoo Sinju for years, was not unaware of any of them.
