“I’ll eat it myself. Give it here.”
“Just hold Dongtae well. You saw how steep the path was earlier. Hyung needs to walk carefully too.”
Yoonjo, who had put a wild grape into Seonwoo’s mouth, slowly descended the hill. Only after passing through a path that somehow felt long and arriving near the house did Yoonjo dust off his hands. The confused thoughts in his brain settled down calmly. That was fortunate. Yoonjo threw the bare wild grape branch into the bushes and said to Seonwoo.
“Hyung, today was fun. Can I go in first? I have to wake up at dawn tomorrow and work.”
At Yoonjo’s words that seemed to ask for permission, Seonwoo smiled mischievously.
“Didn’t you say we’d eat together? We should eat together before you go in.”
“Ah… What! That’s right. But hyung, do you eat meals even though it’s late? I saw that celebrities don’t eat anything after 5 o’clock. Come to think of it, it was late when I brought you food too. What time do you eat, hyung? I’m fine eating anytime. Grandma’s food is freaking delicious. Really, no matter what or how she makes it, it’s delicious. I saw earlier that she packed various seasoned vegetables separately, and if you really put those on top of white rice and eat them, wow… there’s no heaven apart from that. Let’s go! I’ll show you how to eat vegetable rice!”
At the momentum as if he would charge in right away, Seonwoo chuckled and pushed Yoonjo’s back toward the house with light taps.
“Go on. I’ve been holding onto someone who has to work for too long.”
“What… how can a person be so fickle like this? Really? I’m going? Going?”
Seonwoo, who lightly patted the lower back of Yoonjo who kept asking, smiled brightly.
“We can see each other tomorrow when I walk Dongtae.”
“Uh, huh? Then… I’ll be going! Hyung! I’ll just watch you go over there and then go in. Hurry and go!”
Yoonjo, who nodded with eyes shining like a gatekeeper, opened the gate halfway and watched Seonwoo. Yoonjo watched Seonwoo go in and then slipped inside his own gate too.
Yoonjo, who opened the entrance as if rolling and entered his room, crouched down on the floor and then rolled around here and there.
“Wow, really, hyung is really cool. How can someone be that handsome and cool? Wow….”
Yoonjo, who was looking up Ki Seonwoo’s early works and photobooks for no reason, laughed emptily at his own small secret. Then he calculated the start date of next semester. He felt unnecessarily regretful. The expiration date of his small secret was long, but the days he could enjoy it were not many.
Yoonjo, who had been searching here and there for Ki Seonwoo for a while, glared at a title that caught his eye.
Actor Ki Seonwoo, a star that disappeared with a brilliant debut.
“Wow, I’ll shave this codfish head bald. Who disappeared?”
Even so, he was curious about why they said this. After brief contemplation, Yoonjo clicked on the article.
Actor Ki Seonwoo.
In the entertainment industry where monstrous rookies emerge day after day, an actor whose last film was 4 years ago should have already been forgotten. Of course, not Ki Seonwoo.
Nine years ago, he appeared with an independent film called ‘Halo Around the Moon’ and made a brilliant debut, taking home various trophies including the Blue Dragon Film Awards Best New Actor, Grand Bell Awards, and Film of the Year Awards that same year.
Usually arrogance should accompany such a brilliant debut, but if you listen to the stories of actors, directors, and staff who filmed with him, you get a consistent answer.
Even though he bore the burdensome title of a ten-million-viewer actor from his rookie days, you couldn’t find in him the arrogance that famous celebrities usually show on set, the so-called abuse of power. It might seem a bit strange that there wasn’t even the common gossip in the entertainment industry where those who can be ignored and those who must be respected are clearly divided, but such cleanliness felt natural for him.
Why? Because he’s actor Ki Seonwoo. The sincerity felt from his face is something that cannot be ignored.
A perfect mask with a white face that looks cool but gives the feeling of soft flower petals when he smiles with curved eyes, moist eyes as if about to shed tears exude an atmosphere that makes you want to protect him. His long body has beautiful lines like a model, but inside it’s packed with lean muscles, creating a feeling different from his face.
Some might say it’s an embarrassing expression, but anyone who has seen Ki Seonwoo in person will agree.
Ki Seonwoo was an actor who breathed life into his assigned roles with outstanding memorization and unique emotional expression. Every work he appeared in drew public attention, and the characters he played became the talk of the town with praise that they were not just fictional people but seemed to actually exist somewhere in the world, so it was a natural progression for him to become a box office guarantee as a trusted actor before long.
Thanks to that, his price skyrocketed, but even so, he proudly placed his name at the unwavering number 1 spot for models that advertisers wanted. It was natural. Every product he advertised created a buzz, and sales differed so markedly between before and after the advertisement.
The public loved Ki Seonwoo. To be precise, his face. In the entertainment industry overflowing with moderately pretty people, he had unparalleled beauty. He was someone who always had the old-fashioned compliment of resembling a young nobleman following him.
From his easygoing personality to the natural manners of taking care of others shown in various entertainment programs. Because of this, he was considered a rare ‘normal’ male celebrity to the extent that the phrase ‘one Ki Seonwoo per household’ circulated among numerous female fans.
Ki Seonwoo, who suddenly appeared in the entertainment industry 9 years ago, had virtually nothing known about his activities before debut. Rumors like Ki Seonwoo is actually an illegitimate child of some rich family, it’s because he lived abroad for a long time, he’s actually a robot, raised their heads once in a while, but none were confirmed. The fact that he dropped from the sky made him accepted by the public as an even more mysterious existence, and such rumors also contributed to that.
His sudden declaration of retirement from acting and jumping into the path of a screenplay writer was an abnormal move that couldn’t be watched with open eyes.
People wondered why he would quit being a successful actor to become a writer, but his debut as a writer was also brilliant. Just like his acting career.
We went to the movie theater to see the three letters of Ki Seonwoo’s name written in the screenplay writer column, and we also waited for the release date to watch the movies he made. His fellow actor Seo…
“Is this an insult or a compliment? They say highly developed haters are fans. Who wrote this?”
Yoonjo, who grumbled and checked the columnist’s name, turned off his phone screen and sprawled on the spot. Suddenly his ear felt itchy. The ear where Seonwoo had whispered asking if he was okay, where his breath had touched.
“Is there a mosquito flying around?”
Yoonjo poked deep into his ear hole and then roughly rubbed his entire ear with his palm. Since a faint ticklish feeling still remained, Yoonjo rubbed his ear several times before curling his body into a ball. On the phone screen was a photo of Ki Seonwoo’s pictorial.
***
It poured rain from the morning. Yoonjo finished all the morning farm work and rattled back home on the cultivator. The yellow raincoat he was wearing was already soaked in rain and squelched. Yoonjo, who went under the eaves and roughly shook off the water with his hands, stared blankly at the rain pouring down with a patter.
The weather forecast said it would rain all day today, so that would be correct. Seeing the rain like this now, he had a premonition that the rainy season would last quite long.
A rumbling sound came from his stomach. He couldn’t tell the time, but he roughly thought it must be lunchtime. Yoonjo was gently stroking his sunken stomach with his palm when he suddenly thought of Seonwoo. Naturally, the white and fluffy Dongtae also came to mind.
“It’s been raining since morning, so hyung probably couldn’t even walk Dongtae….”
He probably didn’t eat either. Looking at him, that hyung doesn’t eat and lives all dried up and gaunt.
Muttering to himself and standing under the eaves for a moment, Yoonjo hurriedly took off his raincoat and packed side dishes and rice. He didn’t care about Grandma’s criticism asking if he was eating outside again. Rather, Yoonjo smiled broadly.
“What if that hyung collapses without eating? No… actually, that hyung collapsed once. From enduring without eating!”
At those words, Grandma silently added one more side dish. An expression of how a person could collapse from not eating rose over Grandma’s calm face. Yoonjo, who held in his hands the citron tea he couldn’t hand over last time, put on his raincoat and left the house with his hands full of things.
Yoonjo, who entered Seonwoo’s house and neatly organized the side dishes he brought, then scooped rice largely with a ladle and transferred it to a rice bowl. The heaping rice was Seonwoo’s, and Yoonjo’s was a moderate size. Seonwoo, who was watching from the side, slyly switched the rice bowls, but Yoonjo pretended not to notice.
Yoonjo, who picked up one soybean side dish with chopsticks, pointed at Dongtae with his chin. It was because he was bothered by how he was curled up near the entrance as if protesting.
“Why is Dongtae like that?”
“…Because we couldn’t go for a walk today.”
As expected, it seemed they couldn’t go out because it was a rainy day. Do all the members of this household lose energy when it rains? The answer came just from looking at Seonwoo picking at his rice with chopsticks. Yoonjo, who had been alternately looking at Dongtae and Seonwoo for a while, suddenly asked.
“Can I do it? Today there’s no thunder or lightning, so it’ll be okay. And um… instead of a raincoat, can’t we just cover him with plastic like this? Ah! If you have time, let’s go to town and buy one. For today, I’ll try to do well.”
“It’s okay. I can go.”
“Aw… hyung, you look like you’ll collapse if someone just pokes you right now.”
Indeed, Seonwoo right now looked like a corpse with only its eyes open. There was no way to tell if it was because of the hair stuck to his forehead, or if it was because he was hot.
“Mm….”
Seonwoo, who showed signs of contemplation at Yoonjo’s words, soon nodded. He was bothered by how droopy Dongtae was, and there was no reason to refuse the offered kindness. Seonwoo picked at his chopsticks for a while before eventually having to finish all his rice at Yoonjo’s criticism, like a grandma’s, that he had to chew well.
Seonwoo, who slyly stroked his slightly full stomach with his palm, watched Yoonjo wrapping plastic here and there. As if he noticed the gaze, Yoonjo looked up.
“Hyung, isn’t this enough?”
Yoonjo proudly showed off his work. Dongtae had transparent plastic wrapped around his body and plastic pressed down on his head like a hat. He even had blue string wrapped around here and there. It didn’t look like a raincoat but just a lump of plastic. It was a sight that made one laugh naturally.
