But from the struggle just now, Dowon wasn’t even on his mind at all. Just the fact that he’d been enduring and hiding in the flower bed at the entrance of Muyoung’s apartment showed that. Rather, he was trying to drag Muyoung down by catching only his weaknesses while avoiding Dowon.
“You’re working with Seo Kyungju right now.”
“…?”
At Seo Kyungju’s name coming up in this situation, Muyoung was puzzled once again. He couldn’t understand why that person’s name was being mentioned here and now. Dowon rubbed his furrowed brow while averting his gaze for a while, then finally opened his mouth.
“There’s a possibility that the person who hired him was Seo Kyungju.”
“…I don’t understand. Why me, of all people? That can’t be.”
“We can’t be certain until we shake him down for physical evidence, but that’s the speculation for now. The problem is that this situation is something I need to apologize to Muyoung-ssi for.”
“CEO-nim…?”
Dowon, who had been turning his body toward where Muyoung was sitting but couldn’t quite look at him, quietly met his eyes. When the face full of apology looked at him, it was more confusing than the tense situation earlier.
“You said Seo Kyungju asked about the coffee truck, right?”
“Yes, he did.”
“At the time, our company’s production support goes into films Seo Kyungju had expressed hope to appear in. It’s called production support, but all the casting authority is on our side. So Seo Kyungju’s agency had been lobbying under the table.”
“…”
“I know the same film scenario probably went to Muyoung-ssi’s agency too. I’ll say this first – I wasn’t involved. But Seo Kyungju’s thoughts would have been different.”
It was something that commonly happened in the industry. A situation where you had to compete with colleagues for a role. Most of the time they proceeded with auditions to block noise, but when the decision-maker’s power was clear, actors had no choice but to wait. The person who was pushed out would feel bitter knowingly or unknowingly, and the person who got into the desired work would be happy, but ultimately it was a process of fighting over one position with someone you didn’t know. And that process of rising and falling wasn’t always smooth every time. Even if it was normal competition it was like that, but when lobbying came and went, it would become a mud fight, though they couldn’t speak of it openly.
“Even so… why attack CEO-nim and me? What does the coffee truck have to do with it?”
“Information about the agencies that received the scenario seems to have reached Seo Kyungju’s ears. It’s never leaked from our side so I don’t know how it happened, but he’s worked for a long time so he has wide connections. He knows a lot of bad types too. But the coffee truck that went to the filming site went under Muyoung-ssi’s name. I commissioned it from a vendor the company mainly used and chose them because they had good reviews, but it seems he contacted that vendor and found out my name.”
“…”
Muyoung’s face hardened upon learning there was a reason he’d asked about the coffee truck information. Probably Seo Kyungju had been finding out and checking the actors who received scenarios from before that. Come to think of it, the items that disappeared going back and forth to the filming site, Section Manager Kim urgently looking for documents that had disappeared from the car. He couldn’t know how it was handled after that, but once suspicion started, there was no end. Too many things were caught.
“It’s a situation that’s easy to misunderstand that I’ll tentatively put Muyoung-ssi in the lead role.”
“…As CEO-nim said, isn’t it a misunderstanding?”
“Even if it’s a misunderstanding, if the scheme succeeds, it means removing one of his competitors.”
Listening to Dowon speaking calmly, Muyoung let out a long sigh and buried his face between his knees. The tension that had enveloped his whole body released, and catching his breath was all he could manage.
“How… how did CEO-nim know?”
“While tracking back because of the tabloid, several brokers came up, and when such people contact industry people, it’s not difficult to find out who. It’s just that there’s no evidence…”
“…No, no. That’s enough.”
It was absurd to be needlessly checked because of work he hadn’t coveted, and if it was as Dowon said, he himself had provided the pretext. The suddenly given information was more unexpected than he thought, and he felt pity wondering if it wouldn’t have been better for Seo Kyungju to use the energy for this work on a fair approach. Looking at this, that role wasn’t his from the beginning. And soon he felt fortunate to properly know the full circumstances.
It was only a few days of tension, but if it was malice between actors, it wasn’t something that never happened.
Muyoung slowly raised his head and leaned his body against the backrest, looking out the window. It was the usual peaceful neighborhood scenery as if there had been no commotion.
“…When I first started acting, there was a similar incident. It was my first reading.”
At that time, even the fact that he could enter the broadcasting station itself was amazing. He’d expected to be able to discuss the work while doing script reading and worry about roles together with prominent seniors. The path from the entrance to the conference room, the process of receiving an ID, somehow made his heart race.
“The seat I sat in was a folding chair near the staff where I couldn’t even see the writer’s face. But it was fun. Because I had a role.”
It was enjoyable to directly see and hear the time when the main roles led the drama, built characters, and built up their acting skills for the work, turning the script page by page. Hope arose that if he worked hard too, he could work in that position someday. He now knew that the excitement he felt then wasn’t an experience one could easily have.
“I think I was alone during the short break. CEO Choi had briefly left his seat, and someone asked me to bring more drinks from outside. I went out without any suspicion and looked for drinks, but they weren’t anywhere. I should have just gone back… I was quite late to the script reading and the scene I was supposed to film had already passed.”
Even without Muyoung explaining what came next, one could know how it went. A small role not in their seat during reading time, even if held, wasn’t held. Once they skip and start reading the main scenes, that role’s actor’s presence has already disappeared. It was common for young actors whose names weren’t known to be replaced after being disliked during a brief moment of being defenseless.
“Fortunately, at the time CEO Choi handled it incredibly well, and thanks to talking it out well before filming started, I didn’t lose the role… But on set too, that person wasn’t much different.”
After that, he tried hard not to make mistakes. The set was a place where people jumped in directly, jostled with their bodies, and created the atmosphere, so being envied or jealous was common, but if he lowered himself to avoid getting entangled like that, he could get by reasonably well. Since he didn’t have much interaction with others, there was nothing to get entangled in, and thanks to CEO Choi working hard for Muyoung, his affiliated actor, he could focus only on acting.
In a way, you could say he was lucky. He didn’t want to do the same thing as someone else either. He just wanted to faithfully fulfill his assigned role and build his career. He liked the profession of actor that much.
“I still don’t understand. Even if I got the role instead of Seo Kyungju sunbae through unjust methods, this…”
He tried to calm his mind by rubbing his face repeatedly, but it didn’t work well. Dowon, who had been sitting next to him, carefully held Muyoung’s hand. He interlaced his fingers and gripped them as if he wouldn’t let go.
“To Seo Kyungju, Muyoung-ssi probably looked threatening. He used me or the company’s support as an excuse, but he did this kind of thing knowing he was lacking.”
You didn’t do anything wrong. The quietly ringing voice pooled in Muyoung’s ears.
Indifferent enough to appropriately hide the wounds created by what was lost while doing what he loved, and also, affectionate enough to lean on.
It was consolation so very like him.
#06
Catalyst
After going through the unexpected chaos, he decided to first leave the house, putting aside his unsettled mind. It was also unsettling, and he couldn’t go back in before properly inspecting the inside of the house for any unforeseen circumstances.
However, following Dowon’s persuasion that the hotel he was currently staying at for filming standby was probably security-weak and already exposed, they immediately moved to a different hotel. Fortunately, Section Manager Kim made an excuse to the directing team.
They did an unexpected mass relocation in the middle of the night with the suitcase he’d brought from home and the luggage that had been at the hotel. After sending the hotel location by text to Section Manager Kim who would be in the provinces, and briefly telling CEO Choi about it, he could finally breathe.
The newly moved hotel was the place he’d first visited together with Dowon, so he somehow laughed. Dowon, who looked puzzled at Muyoung laughing in front of the elevator, soon caught on and laughed together. After safely entering the room, they ordered room service and ate a late dinner.
Of course, even after that, Dowon didn’t immediately return to his own home. Muyoung inwardly hoped he wouldn’t either. He was just grateful that he gave the excuse of not wanting to leave him alone before Muyoung himself brought it up. On the other hand, the more such kindness he received from him accumulated, his stomach felt bloated for no reason. Yet he couldn’t stop. The more he felt his growing greed, the more anxious he became.
When the scent Dowon gave off passing by after finishing his shower was the same as his own, Muyoung felt dizzy. It was a common hotel amenity scent anyway, yet it felt somehow different. He thought it might be pheromones, but when he thought that he hadn’t been the type to make such mistakes until now, he wondered if the fondness he had was being felt in this way too.
His head naturally became heavy, quickly filling up with too many trivial thoughts. The moment he stood in front of the hotel mirror pretending to be fine and gently shook his hair down with a towel, warm skin touched the back of his neck.
“Ah…”
Touch. A wet sound and a back that curled up on its own. The large body that approached from behind conveyed moisture and heat that still hadn’t faded. Fingers slowly entering through the widening gap of the robe wrapped around his chest. When the lips moving from the nape of his neck to the side touched right behind his ear, he heard Dowon’s laughter flowing like a breath.
“Here, the fine hairs are standing up.”
Dowon’s lips, close against the side of Muyoung’s face, were whispering right behind his ear. Of course it was natural to become sensitive when breath was blown so close. But why did he react to the voice reciting as if discovering it for the first time? Dowon’s lips didn’t stop there. The robe’s knot had already come undone and hung down long, and his shoulder was revealed through the cloth that had slipped down along with it. That Dowon’s lips began to cover it was perhaps a predetermined order.
