“I came because you needed something. Now go inside. It’s cold.”
Moon Heesung answered as if it were nothing, letting a quiet, matter-of-fact concern slip through. Whenever Yoo Sinju caught him looking out for him without even seeming to think about it, something felt off inside him. It had started at the shoot, actually — the moment Moon Heesung had come running over to wipe his face like it was the most natural thing in the world. From that moment on, something had been so unsettled in him it was driving him mad.
He had wanted to step outside alone and clear his head, and the agitation must have been getting to him — the room had started to feel suffocating, his breathing slowly tightening, and he’d had no choice but to leave. Even though his manager had arranged the biggest room available for him.
“…Don’t pretend to worry about me. You turned around and took some other guy as your manager — don’t act like you care.”
Yoo Sinju let the petulance spill out, his words coming out sharper than he meant.
“You fired me.”
“…Yeah. Good luck with him, then.”
Yoo Sinju, with nothing he could properly shoot back, answered curtly and turned back to press his keycard to the door. A small mechanical beep, and the door swung open.
“But since you are his manager — I’m telling you.”
“…….”
“Get him in line. The nerve of him, acting like he owns the place without knowing his limits.”
“Sure. I’ll talk to him.”
“Arrogant little — his debut is way later than mine, and he’s a supporting role at that. He dies halfway through and doesn’t even make it to the end.”
“…….”
“And someone like that has the audacity. The audacity to push back at me. Honestly, if I were acting on pure impulse, I’d have ended his career.”
Yoo Sinju poured out a torrent of words, twisted up with spite, saying things he didn’t entirely mean.
“Tell him to put emotion into his acting again.”
“…….”
“I’ll give it right back to him.”
“…Park Ian was in the wrong.”
“Obviously——”
“But if you hadn’t done anything in that moment. It would have been entirely his fault.”
“…What?”
“Does everything have to be so extreme.”
“……Are you lecturing me right now?”
“I heard the losses from missing today’s shoot were significant.”
“So it’s my fault?”
“Sometimes enduring something is how you win.”
“Hey.”
“I learned that too late.”
Moon Heesung added that last part with a quiet bitterness, then pulled off his damp cap and shook it out into the air. He pushed his wet hair back from his eyes absently, and turned to Yoo Sinju — who had gone speechless — and said it again.
“Wash up with warm water and go straight to sleep.”
An entirely ordinary thing to say.
And yet something Yoo Sinju had never once heard said to him with any real sincerity. Moon Heesung repeated it, with the emphasis of someone who meant it. Exactly like a hyung would.
**
The moment Moon Heesung stepped into Park Ian’s room, a glass came flying at him. The crystal tumbler sailed past his face and shattered against the wall, sending fragments in every direction. It was only natural that a few of them grazed Moon Heesung’s face and left cuts — that had likely been Park Ian’s intention when he threw it.
Moon Heesung, despite the sharp sting, didn’t so much as blink. He set down what he was carrying on the table. Park Ian, looking completely out of it — it was unclear how long he’d been drinking — screamed at him. Thoroughly drunk, he’d dropped every last shred of minimum courtesy. He’d kept up formal speech earlier, but with no one watching, he was letting loose however he pleased.
“What took you so long!”
He’d apparently been unable to bear the humiliation in front of all those staff members and the director while sober — empty bottles of strong liquor were rolling across the table and floor.
“Did you drink all of this?”
Moon Heesung asked quietly and began tidying the space around him. Park Ian. He hadn’t chosen this assignment willingly, but Moon Heesung had no real ill feelings toward him. This kind of lashing out — the words, the behavior — honestly had no impact on him. The fellow inmate who had taught him the ropes of being a manager had stressed it more than once, and besides, having lived half his life inside, this sort of tantrum was closer to sulking in comparison.
To his eyes, Park Ian was just a much younger kid. Early twenties. He could understand it — that kind of reaction, at that age. And this situation wasn’t particularly difficult for Moon Heesung to navigate. He had anticipated it. Someone who had rolled through worse gutters and rock bottoms than this — right now, this was practically a garden by comparison. Just being free on the outside, not having to claw tooth and nail to survive at the bottom of a filthy hierarchy — that alone felt like heaven.
“If I drank it all, so what.”
Park Ian grumbled, still clutching a bottle. The cut from the crystal shards had already left a visible mark on his cheek. Park Ian stared at that mark and bit hard on his lip.
“Who told you to take so long?”
“I’m sorry.”
Moon Heesung answered evenly and went on quietly tidying the mess. At the sight of him, Park Ian’s heaving breaths began to slow.
“So what did you do about it?”
Park Ian bit his lip and glanced at Moon Heesung carefully. When Moon Heesung looked back blankly at the question, he shouted again.
“Him hitting me!”
“…Ah.”
“Ah? Ah—? You said you’d handle it!”
“I spoke to him.”
“And?”
“I also reached out to Director Cha separately.”
Director Cha had already been briefed by someone else and had actually contacted Moon Heesung first. All he’d repeated was to please soothe Park Ian. There was likely nothing to be done about the violence Yoo Sinju had dealt out — and knowing that, Park Ian’s only available outlet was drinking himself into a stupor and taking it out on his manager.
“That’s it?”
“Director Cha is very concerned.”
“What?”
“He said to make sure you’re properly calmed down.”
“And?”
An expectant look — clearly waiting for more.
“He said it was mutual, and both parties should let it go.”
“I said it was an accident!”
“Most people don’t see it that way.”
“Ha……. You acted like you’d actually do something.”
Park Ian glared at Moon Heesung with a swollen face. It was a look that said he hated Moon Heesung to death — no emotional comfort, no meaningful action, just this shameless composure. In another light, it looked almost wretched, brimming with grievance and grief. Moon Heesung didn’t fail to understand Park Ian’s feelings. Accident or not, he’d been slapped openly in front of all those people. And on top of the violence itself, not a single person had shown any concern for him — he’d only been reproached and scolded by the director. At his age, feeling wronged was only natural.
A dirty, ruthless world. The inmate who’d taught him this job had always called the industry that. No matter what injustice someone suffered, if the person’s market value had fallen, they’d receive no consideration at all. Even if you had power, if the person who wronged you had more popularity, more market value — your power meant nothing. A world evaluated purely on the scarcity and value of a commodity, and the emotional deprivation, the deficiency, the grievance, the rage that came from that — all of it would rot the commodity through. That’s how the entertainment industry decays, he had said, more than once.
Park Ian was probably one of them.
“…I don’t know much about acting.”
Moon Heesung continued as he finished cleaning up, his tone unchanged. He felt Park Ian’s gaze on him. He didn’t look over, and spoke again.
“But you’re good at it.”
He genuinely didn’t know much about acting. All he’d done was watch Yoo Sinju. Nothing more than the eye of an ordinary viewer.
“…What?”
Park Ian’s brow twitched at the sudden remark. Moon Heesung set aside the empty bottles and trash he’d cleared away, then took out the hangover medicine and warm tea he’d brought.
“I said you’re good at acting.”
“Are you evaluating me right now?”
“I’m sorry if it came across that way.”
“…What are you trying to say?”
Moon Heesung opened the cap of the hangover medicine himself and handed it to Park Ian, who looked up at him with half-bloodshot eyes. The look in them was full of venom, but grief and desolation seeped through beneath it.
“Take this.”
“What are you trying to say?”
“You’re good at acting.”
“…….”
“Do you really need to be so conscious of Actor Yoo Sinju?”
“…Are you seriously saying that?”
“I know it’s not my place.”
“…….”
“But if you can just prove it.”
“…….”
“Who knows — you might become even more famous, a better actor than Yoo Sinju.”
Moon Heesung reached out and lifted Park Ian’s hand himself, pressing the hangover medicine into it.
“Just keep doing what you’re good at.”
“…….”
“No matter how unfair the world is — that simple truth doesn’t change.”
He knew. That the world wasn’t that fair. But he also knew this — letting other people’s words push you around and wear you down left you with nothing in the end. Doing what you could do was what was best for yourself. Because that was the only thing he himself was living by.
“Take that and rest.”
Moon Heesung gave a small nod and turned to leave. Park Ian, who had been silent the whole time, sat there with a blank, dazed expression — and then suddenly reached out and grabbed Moon Heesung’s hand. The urgency in his grip was palpable. Moon Heesung slowly looked back at him.
“…Who said you could go.”
Park Ian’s voice had come down considerably. Moon Heesung said nothing, just looked down at him. One moment raging and storming, the next acting like a drenched puppy — Moon Heesung let out a silent sigh.
“…Don’t go.”
Park Ian muttered it, lips slightly puckered. Seemingly aware of how ridiculous it was to be holding onto Moon Heesung after all that, whether out of embarrassment or something else, he added it without looking up properly.
“I can’t sleep alone.”
“…….”
“Stay with me until I fall asleep. …Please.”
Some small scrap of propriety returning through the alcohol — Park Ian finally tacked on a please at the end. Moon Heesung realized something about himself he hadn’t noticed before. That whenever he saw someone much younger than him, a thought of his brother surfaced, and he found he couldn’t easily push them away. He couldn’t shake off the hand holding his. Moon Heesung nodded. After all, doing what the person in his charge asked of him — that was a manager’s role.
