“This. The brokers went to a lot of trouble to bring it in.”
“Nose or mouth?”
“Either’s fine.”
When his head hurt this badly, drugs were the best answer. He had gotten through his panic disorder with them, and whenever the occasional hyperventilation made his mind go hazy, nothing worked better. He had started with something light at first, but after realizing the effect was better than his psychiatric medication, he had come to enjoy it quite a bit. Without this level of stimulation, nothing felt interesting anymore.
But staring at the pills right in front of him, he felt no urge whatsoever. Strange. He knew perfectly well that this was the most appropriate solution for getting rid of these complicated feelings right now — and yet for some reason it just didn’t appeal to him at all.
“Not taking it?”
At Seo Jaeha’s question, he stared into the distance for a long while without answering. Then, after that brief silence, he opened his mouth out of nowhere.
“Yesterday.”
Seo Jaeha, who had been sitting under the table diligently grinding up drugs, looked up at Yoo Sinju with wide eyes.
“Yeah?”
“…Yesterday, the person who took me.”
“Oh, that person. Right. I was going to ask about that.”
“The person who came to get me.”
“What’s his deal, treating you like that?”
“That person… you saw, right?”
Yoo Sinju asked consistently, without answering Seo Jaeha’s question, following a single thought that had suddenly surfaced.
“Saw what?”
“…Damn it.”
“What did I see? Us having sex?”
“We had sex? You and me?”
“Yeah. There was no penetration, but I was sucking you off?”
“What? He saw that?”
“Ah… probably?”
“Fuck…, who said anyone could suck my cock without permission?!”
“No, I mean… you told me to…!”
“When did I! Fuck, ah fuck—!”
Yoo Sinju slammed the sofa over and over and wailed like someone who’d been caught doing something catastrophic.
“What’s gotten into you, suddenly—!”
Seo Jaeha flinched back from him, looking bewildered, as he threw a fit like a madman. Coming to the gathering had brought it back. Moon Heesung’s words from yesterday — saying that he was the one who had taken him — and at the same time, the memory of what state he had been in here yesterday.
“So I was…… completely out of my mind on drugs….”
“Yeah?”
“Completely out of my mind on drugs, just lolling around letting you suck me off.”
“Sinju…?”
“And he… that person saw that?”
…So embarrassing. Unbearably embarrassing. And that’s the first thing he saw when we met again?
Yoo Sinju muttered with a face in full panic. No one was paying attention to Yoo Sinju spiraling into a panic and making a scene. There was no sane person here to begin with, and everyone was too absorbed in their own pleasures to see what was around them. Only Seo Jaeha, who had been stuck to Yoo Sinju’s side like gum, was flustered.
“What’s gotten into you suddenly. Did you drink during the day? You had filming.”
He had heard about Yoo Sinju getting blackout drunk before the awards ceremony, but he had never heard of him drinking through a filming session — had things really gotten that far now?
“Ha… seriously.”
Still, he had always had a certain image in mind, more or less. Part of why he had become an actor was so that if he ever met that person again, he would look like someone worth something. For an illegitimate child from a wealthy family who had fallen out of favor, this was about the only thing available to him.
The chairman of Dowon Group, who was consumed by women, already had multiple illegitimate children. Counting the children from his first and subsequent wives on top of that, the ones Sinju personally knew of numbered six or seven. Among them, Yoo Sinju was the son the chairman treated least like his child. It was only natural — he had never tried to get into the chairman’s good graces in the first place.
Still, it seemed the chairman disliked family business leaking out, so he at least went through the motions of being a parent with money. Of course, he had kept Sinju’s mentally ill mother locked away in a house on the outskirts of Seoul and left her to rot — and because of that, his mother, who had rarely been in her right mind during his childhood, had taken it out on him constantly.
People are creatures of hierarchy. Humans are always capable of cruelty toward those weaker than themselves. His mother was one of them, and his father was simply a bystander who looked down on both the weak and the strong without intervening. His half-siblings were the same. The children of the first wife treated the illegitimate children like vermin, and even among the illegitimate children themselves there were ranks. He was sick of it. The ones who lashed out recklessly at anyone weaker. But there had been one person.
Out of everyone he had ever seen, just one person. Who was different.
‘Protect yourself. Live taking care of your own body.’
Someone who told the weak to become strong.
‘I’ll deal with them for you.’
Someone who acted strong for the sake of the weak.
He had wanted to look perfect — perfect enough that if he ever met that person again, they would regret leaving him behind….
“Damn it… this is so fucking frustrating….”
Yoo Sinju muttered as if in a daze. His voice was drained, soaked in regret and resignation. Somehow the energy had gone out of him. Whether it was the shame of showing that pathetic side of himself even as an adult, the strength left his entire body. What a sorry excuse for a person. Yoo Sinju laughed at himself bitterly and brought the drink to his lips.
**
Several hours of drinking himself senseless like that. Yoo Sinju killed the time cycling between pouring drink after drink as if trying to forget everything, and throwing fits. He figured that if he let time pass without a single thought, he might be able to forget about Moon Heesung, who was probably still doing something pointless at that place searching for the bracelet. It’s not that he’s on his mind. It’s just absurd, so it keeps coming up. Showing up out of the blue to play manager, insisting on apologies, even trying to play some ridiculous guardian role — it was so beyond him that he couldn’t even laugh.
“Heading out?”
Seo Jaeha asked, watching Yoo Sinju stagger to his feet. Today Yoo Sinju had been unusually off. Quite different from the Yoo Sinju Seo Jaeha had known up until now.
The Yoo Sinju Seo Jaeha had observed all this time was someone who was profoundly bored. For someone who acted so brilliantly, his everyday self looked like a person utterly devoid of emotion. He almost never smiled, and though he got annoyed often, he wasn’t someone who easily showed his feelings. His unpleasant personality had always been consistent, but seeing his emotions swing up and down like this — that was a first. Roaring out of nowhere, then suddenly snickering to himself alone. And by the end he had gotten blackout drunk and, with his face hidden, let out sounds like quiet sobbing.
Seo Jaeha had known Yoo Sinju for quite a long time. And yet today’s Yoo Sinju was truly… like someone who had lost their mind.
“Should you… get home safe…?”
He would normally tell him not to go and pull him back, but today for some reason Seo Jaeha didn’t feel like holding him there — he waved his hand with an ambivalent look. But Yoo Sinju lightly ignored it and staggered his way out. As if waiting for exactly that, the road manager came over and steered him into the car. With the manager away because of the jewelry incident, road manager Shim Yanggu had to stay close until he got home safely. The new manager Moon Heesung had also made a separate request.
‘Even if he goes somewhere else, please stay with him until he gets home.’
It had been an indifferent but courteous request. It was his job to begin with, so of course he would — but Moon Heesung had asked separately anyway.
Having spent the whole day watching them, it was clear those two were like sworn enemies. Of course it was one-sided — Yoo Sinju, to be exact, was the one doing all the barking. Whatever history they had between them was obvious. Judging by how especially sharp Yoo Sinju’s edge was with him. Yoo Sinju was unpleasant toward people in general, but it was rare for him to show raw emotion like that.
“Should I take you home?”
He asked the thoroughly drunk Yoo Sinju, but there was no answer. Shim Yanggu waited quietly. Yoo Sinju, who had been sitting perfectly still like someone asleep, staring blankly ahead, let the silence continue before finally asking in a low voice.
“…What time is it.”
Shim Yanggu didn’t catch it the first time, thrown off by the unexpected question.
“Pardon?”
“I said, what time is it. Right now.”
At the answer that carried a hint of irritation, Shim Yanggu answered quickly.
“It’s two in the morning!”
Two in the morning. That meant five hours had already passed since filming ended. Which meant Moon Heesung might still be doing something pointless there for six hours straight.
“…No way.”
He would’ve given up and gone home by now. It was something that dozens of people had searched for and couldn’t find. The filming crew’s equipment was still there, but some of the disposables had been cleared away. In that process, there was no telling where the jewelry might have ended up. It was possible it wasn’t there anymore. The chances were extremely slim.
“Should I take you home?”
Shim Yanggu asked the silent Yoo Sinju. After a brief pause, Yoo Sinju leaned back languidly and said quietly.
“…Yeah.”
Yeah. It was none of his business. At the sight of himself absentmindedly thinking about Moon Heesung, Yoo Sinju let out a self-deprecating smile and stared out at the dark window with a sunken expression. He couldn’t wipe away the cold sneer at how completely unraveled he’d become the moment he saw Moon Heesung.
Idiot.
After resenting and hating him for over ten years. And this is how easily he gets to me.
Yoo Sinju ground his teeth and squeezed his eyes shut to suppress every revolting emotion inside him. Shim Yanggu swallowed silently at Yoo Sinju’s even more subdued state than usual and focused on driving. A silence quieter than the dead of night settled over the inside of the car.
**
Bolt upright.
In an instant Yoo Sinju’s eyes flew open and he jolted up in shock. What time is it? — the question shot through him as he pulled himself out of bed and threw open the blackout curtains covering every inch of the bedroom. He glanced at the window where sunlight was beginning to filter in, then frantically checked the time.
