Park Hyeonju, who had bought the sandwich and pastries Haeseong ordered, had to listen to Haeseong’s sharp words as soon as she arrived at the site, all because of Euiju, who uncharacteristically liked bread, which in turn made Haeseong frequently seek out bread these days as well.
“Don’t talk nonsense. There’s no way that ahjussi would leave without saying anything to me.”
“Euiju-ssi was originally scheduled to go up this evening. Something came up so he said he’d leave three hours earlier, and I rushed over here. Didn’t Euiju-ssi say goodbye to you?”
“Goodbye my ass, fuck…”
Haeseong muttered discontentedly while kicking a pebble at his feet. His actions were quite rough for someone with the beautiful evening sea painting an orange sunset behind him.
“He left without saying goodbye to you? That’s strange. Euiju-ssi wouldn’t do that…”
Park Hyeonju, who muttered as if puzzled, neatly placed the things she’d bought in front of Haeseong.
After filming the beach scene that would be shot shortly and the flashback scene at dawn tomorrow, the <Basalt> filming schedule would be over.
Haeseong buried himself deep in the backrest and fell into thought. He was angry that Euiju left without saying anything. However.
‘Maybe it’s for the best.’
Because Haeseong was, literally, going through a turbulent upheaval.
When he went to Seoul tomorrow morning, Haeseong couldn’t tell whether this damned fever would end, or whether he felt like he was going crazy due to the peculiarity of being trapped on an island.
—Haeseong-ah. Sorry. Are you very upset?
The affectionate words delivered while knocking on the door from outside were what he had always wished for and pursued, but at that time, they didn’t reach Haeseong’s ears at all.
Euiju’s naked body. That is, the moment he faced his complete nudity right before his eyes, Haeseong received a shock as if an invisible lightning bolt had struck inside his head. For a moment, an illusion occurred as if all the blood in his body was draining out, and he could only tremble with his hands.
Water droplets that dripped from his hair flowed down and wet his firm back. Beautiful lean muscles that moved like individual entities were attached without gaps. It was a well-built body without excess fat.
The smooth forehead that he hadn’t known about because he had been wearing his hair down was revealed, and the sight of his nice chest rising and falling with his breath appeared slowly in Haeseong’s field of vision. Below the curved spine, a towel precariously covered his buttocks, and then even the towel slipped down, showing everything.
Rounded and perky, not much flesh but looking soft…
Haeseong was so terrified of Euiju approaching him wearing only a towel when he couldn’t do anything. It was strange. It was an unknown fear, as if he would be devoured by something incomprehensible.
He vividly felt the pulse of his heart bouncing inside his palm. He felt the hairs on his skin standing on end. Pain arose in his heart, which was constricting so tightly he could hardly breathe.
—Are you okay?
He wasn’t okay. His face heated up hotly, and he stomped his feet wanting to get away from the spot right away, but it wasn’t as easy as he wished.
Only when Euiju really came right up close did Haeseong come to his senses and could urgently escape.
After that, whenever he saw him, heat rose throughout his body as if someone had set it on fire. Every time he saw him, he felt embarrassed, shy, and wanted to escape. He couldn’t treat him normally as he approached affectionately as usual.
His manager must have already noticed his strangeness, so he should explain why he was acting this way, but since he himself didn’t know why he was acting like this, Haeseong was going crazy. He just kept remembering that naked body, those round, perky buttocks.
Normally, he should have been unable to accept Euiju leaving first without saying anything and should have gone on a rampage like crazy, but now, somehow, he was glad about that fact.
He needed time alone. Right now, he didn’t want to see him.
He was strangely too embarrassed. When he saw him, he kept remembering those small, pretty buttocks…
It was the body of the same sex, yet he didn’t understand why he was reacting like this. His body kept tensing up strangely, and he had to experience peculiar and strange feelings he’d never experienced in his life.
“Shit…”
Haeseong’s face, remembering Euiju’s naked body, flushed red. When Haeseong messed up his hair into a mess, the coordinator opened her eyes wide in surprise.
Park Hyeonju said while tearing open and eating the croissant she’d bought.
“Haeseong-ah. Should I tell you some surprising news?”
Haeseong, who had been irritably tormenting only the pebble at his feet, just slightly turned his head and indifferently gave her his gaze.
“What is it.”
“About Lee Siwoo. The senior two years older than you.”
When his story came up, deep wrinkles were carved into Haeseong’s brow.
Lee Siwoo. A 19-year-old and the protagonist of a film that achieved ten million viewers. He was one of the former child actors who was always bundled together wholesale whenever Haeseong was mentioned. Unlike Haeseong, his height stopped at 171 cm, but he was an actor who had walked a smooth path until now without severe image consumption thanks to his beautiful face and androgynous charm.
Uncharacteristically, Haeseong had many friends, but he only had unpleasant memories of Lee Siwoo because every time they met, he tended to look at him strangely.
“Why him.”
“Well, there’s a rumor spreading widely that that young friend is gay. I just got a call and it’s quite a commotion.”
“What? Really?!”
The coordinator beside them asked in surprise.
“Somehow, that friend’s gaze when looking at you, Haeseong, has never been ordinary. Tsk, if I had been a bit more perceptive, I would have noticed it earlier.”
“That’s really amazing. What’s the reason the rumor spread?”
“Apparently Lee Siwoo confessed almost publicly to some actor. That spread and now reporters are following him around like crazy trying to catch him on site. I heard the male actor who received the confession is also going to be involved now. It’s quite a commotion.”
In fact, rumors about homosexuality in this world weren’t common, but they weren’t rare either. Just when you’d forget, such rumors would circulate, so Park Hyeonju and the coordinator, who had caught a jackpot issue, talked as if it were interesting while being mindful of their surroundings.
What about that was supposed to be surprising news. His appetite had just dropped, that’s all. Haeseong, who had no particular interest in others, indifferently put down his sandwich and leaned comfortably against the backrest. He closed his eyes as is.
‘Ha, gay.’
A man liking a man—just thinking about it was utterly ridiculous. There was a reason for the saying that you had to follow the mainstream. If you become a minority, you get ostracized. No one acknowledges you even if you suffer pain. Why would a famous celebrity try to walk that difficult path?
Honestly, it was a bit pathetic.
“Anyway, that bastard has been making me feel unpleasant from before…”
Haeseong stopped talking and closed his mouth. Somehow, with an expression as if he’d been hit hard on the back of the head.
“Hm? What did you say, Haeseong-ah?”
Manager Park, who had been chattering excitedly, asked back because she didn’t hear Haeseong’s words properly. Haeseong’s expression was unusual. Somehow, he was strange.
“What’s wrong? Are you sick somewhere?”
Haeseong gave no answer. No, he seemed not to hear anything and was busy glaring into space.
Gay. As he repeated that word, there was one thing that flashed through Haeseong’s mind.
Perhaps, something big enough to end this chaos.
—When you look at that friend, you feel excited emotions. Ah, I want to walk beside that girl too. I want to hold hands with that girl too. You feel like you’re dizzy because your heart is pounding so much. You keep thinking about them, so whenever you have a chance, you want to call and hear their voice, and when you can’t see them, you miss them, and when you can’t see them, you feel like you’ll go crazy—emotions like these. Simply put, that’s what love is. Do you still not understand at all?
Gu Seungjin, who taught him acting, desperately tried every time to explain the emotions of love to Haeseong in an easy-to-understand way. Sometimes he just boringly recited the definition of love, and sometimes he told stories based on his own experiences.
But Haeseong was always the same. Either lukewarm or dissatisfied.
However, what if he substituted someone else for the woman Gu Seungjin talked about?
After thinking deeply about something alone for a while, one corner of Haeseong’s mouth gradually rose toward the sky. It looked like a sneer, and on the other hand, it also looked like he was feeling liberation.
“Right… so that’s how it was.”
Haeseong let out an empty laugh like someone who had lost their mind.
There was a reason why it was all maddeningly unpleasant—a woman approaching Lee Euiju and expressing her feelings, Seo Jiyul liking him, him prioritizing and taking care of his family more.
“Haha.”
Haeseong burst into a refreshing laugh with the corners of his mouth raised high. At that action, Manager Park and the coordinator looked at Haeseong in surprise.
He had taken too long to realize this because he had never experienced it before. Moreover, Lee Euiju was a man. It wasn’t the typical love between a man and a woman, but the same gender, so he dared not overlay such emotions. The subject Gu Seungjin talked about was always, naturally, a woman, and Haeseong, who grew up in South Korea which is conservative about homosexuality, naturally couldn’t think of Euiju, who was a man, in that way at all.
A scream-like exclamation burst out from Haeseong, who had buried his face in both hands. At that sound, even staff members in the distance looked at Haeseong.
Haeseong thought, when even an actor of the same age likes men, what was there that he couldn’t do? The more he directly realized and looked into his emotions, the more he felt a crazy sense of liberation. It felt like breaking through a wall that had been blocking his way.
The emotions that had been confusing for several days began to sort themselves out a bit.
—Prince hyung. Do you like our hyung? Then you should marry our hyung.
That’s right. To spend a lifetime with him, they had no choice but to become family. But they were already born into the world, and he and Euiju weren’t connected by blood. As his younger sibling said, there was only one way.
An excited voice burst out from Haeseong, who had a refreshing smile on his lips.
“Manager-nim. You know Lee Siwoo’s contact info, right?”
“Huh? I do know it… but why?”
Haeseong, who crossed his legs the other way, smiled broadly. At his strange attitude, Park Hyeonju’s eyes narrowed.
“You know I have many friends. I thought it would be fun to have one gay friend.”
If you don’t know the method properly, you should use someone who knows well. The only thing he learned from his aunt since childhood was that, so the time had come to use it beneficially.
Park Hyeonju looked at him with suspicious eyes, wondering if Haeseong was going to cause some accident. However, when Haeseong stared at her coldly as if asking for the number, she ended up handing over the number inadvertently.
