After finishing the call, I took a brief nap curled up in a ball.
I had a dream while sleeping like that. Even though it was an absurd dream, it was strangely vivid and gave me a strange feeling.
In the dream I was very tiny. Or perhaps I was the same but Seo Nakil had arbitrarily grown bigger. Enough that he could grasp me with just one hand.
Seo Nakil’s large palm supported my back. Four fingers gently wrapped around my shoulders and chest, stomach and thighs. Firm and stable, yet warm. For a moment I had the foolish thought that a person could even have handsome hands up to the fingertips.
“Ijae.”
Why did that softly whispering voice sound so familiar? I couldn’t understand. The times he’d called me like that were truly countable on one hand.
“Tell me, Ijae.”
Is it because it’s a dream? He now spouts words I don’t even remember at all. As if he’d once said this, it was arbitrarily plausible.
“Are my eyes still beautiful?”
Yes, Seo Nakil-ssi. Your eyes are beautiful. I answered quietly inside.
You’re like an ink painting drawn after grinding ink a hundred times and refining the brush a thousand times. Deep, dark, and cool yet soft. Not even a single strand of hair, a single line drawing the contours of your eyelids and cheeks, even a single dot of shadow formed at the tip of your lips isn’t beautiful, so how much more so your eyes?
Your eyes resemble your name. As if thinly applying the moment the sun falls, and again thinly applying on top of that, and applying again, and baking it in a kiln hot as hellfire after applying until it blackens.
So I admire splendid you to the point of arbitrarily feeling longing. I want to freely delude myself that perhaps the me of long ago, when I was young, might have met you once. Even though someone like you couldn’t possibly descend to the world I live in.
“But, Seo Nakil-ssi.”
Your eyes are more beautiful than anything I’ve seen while living.
But why do you look so sad?
“…Ah.”
I exhaled deeply and fumbled at my bedside. The back of my hand was tinged red by the sunset pouring through the window. The phone was half-buried under the pillow.
There were more missed calls while I slept briefly. Still, perhaps because the CEO had quieted down, there weren’t that many piled up. Kwon Seonho, manager, Ahn Haesol, Min Seungwoo, Min Seungwoo, and…
Seo Nakil, Seo Nakil, Seo Nakil again.
I stared for a long time at Seo Nakil’s traces left at exactly one-hour intervals like knocks.
“Even though you have everything.”
Whether TV or movie theaters, department store outdoor signs and even public service posters—your face could be found everywhere. Some say you’re exemplary, others say you’re aristocratic, and some say you’re the embodiment of romance.
A person who has popularity and admiration, opportunities, talent and ability, a praised personality, and even wealth.
So why do you keep hovering around me?
What is there to see in a life like this? What am I, really? Why do you come down to this shabby and insignificant place and knock?
As I traced Seo Nakil’s name with my fingertips, I pressed it firmly. The moment I lifted my hand, the dial tone rang, and the call connected before that dial tone could ring three times.
He answered my call gladly, like someone who chose to wait after three knocks.
—Han Ijae-ssi.
“…I will.”
I said as if making a vow.
“I won’t be indebted.”
—…
“It’s probably impossible. But I’ll try to owe the smallest debt possible.”
With that one sentence, Seo Nakil realized I’d talked to the CEO.
—You didn’t answer my calls, but you answered that son of a bitch’s call.
“It’s not that I wanted to, but…”
Ahem, I cleared my throat and said as if making an excuse. Because his voice sounded strangely disappointed and it bothered me.
“So please take back the penalty fee. I’ll do activities only until this year and mutually terminate. I think that’s best. The fans will accept it safely too.”
—You’re insisting on entering a house with a similar bastard?
It was quite amusing how he spoke nastily with an elegant voice. I lifted the corners of my mouth slightly.
“Well, could Seonho hyung be scarier than 500 million won?”
Seo Nakil clicked his tongue briefly.
—Whether it’s 500 million or 5 billion, I don’t regret it. I was confident I’d get it back. Of course what I wanted was…
“You wanted to make Cosmos Entertainment public in that process. How absurd the things that CEO did regarding Han Ijae were, and thus how far he wanted to push around this body.”
—You don’t know that bastard. Even divine punishment isn’t enough for that son of a bitch.
As if you know it all, as if you’ve seen it sickeningly, as if you’ve regretted it bitterly.
“You don’t need to bear that process for me.”
—Even if you and I are close hyung-dongsaeng?
“It’s meaningless since it’s a lie.”
—What if I said I’m a sponsor for whom stuffing five checks in your pocket is easier than drinking alcohol?
“I hate sponsorship, Actor-nim.”
I hesitated briefly then opened my mouth.
“But you’ve helped me… Ah.”
The moment I said those words, a small realization burst out from within me.
I received help. Regardless of my intention not to be indebted. Whether our relationship hid behind the lie of being close hyung-dongsaeng, or lay flat under the provocative guise of sponsor.
‘These were things that wouldn’t have worked if you hadn’t stepped forward.’
If not for Seo Nakil, I might have been beaten bloody in that CEO’s office. Though it was rare to hit visible places since idols’ faces and bodies were assets, from the moment I declared I wouldn’t appear on TV, that restriction became as good as nothing.
Without Seo Nakil, could I have deflected that glass ashtray alone? Even if I’d dodged by chance, next would come the pencil holder, then the ceramic paperweight, computer speakers, and golf clubs.
When he intruded into my world where things had to break somewhere somehow to see the end, change began. It was something I couldn’t do even if I died, and a flow you easily changed with just a bit of goodwill.
What Han Ijae couldn’t do and Seo Nakil accomplished.
The 500 million won that didn’t exist even after Han Ijae died, that very 500 million won Seo Nakil ordered people around with his tongue and threw down in one day.
Seo Nakil was right. How great was my pride to refuse him? The moment he stepped forward saying he’d let me use him, such things had no meaning at all.
The 500 million won hadn’t disappeared. It just seemed that way. In that it was an amount that couldn’t be forgiven without Seo Nakil, the debt given to me remained.
So I was still a debtor of 500 million won. Only the target I had to repay had changed; the essence remained in place.
“Seo Nakil-ssi. Should we meet briefly?”
I was going to ask where he was. Because it was right for the debtor to go to the creditor.
But Seo Nakil’s question was faster.
—Where are you now?
“Well… I don’t know the exact address. It’s called Green Motel.”
—Motel?
He asked back as if dumbfounded.
—Is it the motel I’m thinking of? What did you go to a place like that for?
“Well, because I have nowhere to sleep…”
I didn’t want to go to the dorm but I had no home. I needed to stay somewhere and see how things went, and since I didn’t know how long that would be, I had no choice but to head to the cheapest place nearby.
—You seem calm but you’re strangely reckless, you know.
“…”
—It won’t be a proper place to talk, so first pack your things well. I’ll come pick you up.
“I can just take a taxi.”
—My car is better than that. That’s what I got it for.
Again. That subtle sense of incongruity came again, poking at my insides.
—30 minutes.
“You were closer than I thought.”
—That’s including rushing. I have no idea what you might do in the moment I take my eyes off you.
“…”
—So promise me you’ll stay put and do nothing.
To the voice mixed with worry and exasperation, I answered with a small smile.
“You can’t run red lights.”
