Returning to the hospital room, I dozed off and when I opened my eyes, the surroundings had grown considerably darker.
As I blinked and turned my head, a silhouette keeping watch by my bedside quietly formed in my vision. The figure leaning against a chair, slowly turning pages, looked just like a scene from an old movie.
“I was about to wake you.”
Seo Nakil’s calm voice continued.
“If you sleep too much, you’ll toss and turn at night.”
Behind him as he spoke, I could see the reddish sunset. I briefly thought it was a scene just like his name.
His low voice suddenly intruded into my peaceful idle thoughts.
“Are you aware you have a wound on your arm?”
“On my arm… Ah.”
It was probably because I removed the IV needle on my own. When I returned to the hospital room after sending Kwon Seonho and Ahn Haesol away, a nurse came in, and I ended up having to get a new needle in my right arm.
Unlike the medical staff who were shocked seeing my blood-covered arm, I was calm. A wound that wouldn’t kill me couldn’t hurt. What really hurt wasn’t something like that…
“Han Ijae-ssi.”
At that voice that sounded stern, I mechanically apologized.
“I’m sorry.”
Whatever I thought, Seo Nakil was my guardian right now. While he was away there had been a commotion, and hearing that I left the hospital room and even got a wound from arbitrarily pulling out the line probably wasn’t pleasant.
“If Seonho hyung caused a commotion there… I thought the people in charge of security would be in trouble.”
“Better than you being in trouble. That’s what I stationed those people for.”
He tapped the paper with his index finger. Looking closely, it was a script. It showed some signs of use, as if he’d read through it several times.
“Still, you did well not letting anyone inside.”
Did the security guards report even that? He was away, so he couldn’t have known exactly.
“I checked the CCTV.”
“…Ah.”
“There won’t be a second time.”
Seo Nakil closed the script with a snap.
“Not just Kwon Seonho-ssi. Not only the ‘Starium’ members but even the manager will be prohibited from visiting. At least rest until the additional test results come out.”
At his words that it would take a few days, I nodded. It seemed better to avoid if I could anyway.
‘I need time to think.’
I need to adapt to this situation and think about what to do going forward. At the very least, I shouldn’t make careless mistakes like when I met Ahn Haesol.
“Didn’t Kwon Seonho-ssi harass you?”
“I was fine… Why do you think Seonho hyung would treat me badly? We’re still members of the same group and we’re close.”
He wasn’t someone who knew me from before, much less had any relationship with Kwon Seonho. So he wouldn’t know the actual atmosphere of our group, the relationship between Kwon Seonho and me, or the feelings I harbored toward him.
“Well. It’s just a hunch.”
Seo Nakil said oddly.
“Even close relationships can hurt you.”
I smiled awkwardly. I didn’t want to talk more about Kwon Seonho. His existence brought fatigue just from thinking about him.
“You said you’re an actor. Is that a script?”
At the somewhat clumsily changed topic, Seo Nakil let it pass.
“It’s one of the candidates for my next work. Not a particularly famous director, but I’m reading it because I like the artistic quality.”
I looked at the movie title neatly written on the cover. <The Swamp Where the Moon Sets>.
It was a familiar and welcome title. Because it was a movie I had appeared in as a supporting role too.
“Are you interested in acting?”
“…Yes.”
After hesitating briefly, I added softly.
“It’s nice, isn’t it? It’s cool that you can briefly live a completely different life. I’ve liked watching movies since I was young. Not just movies, but I also watched behind-the-scenes and interviews and such.”
“Even when they’re not your works?”
“Still. I guess I liked the energy created by the people gathered for that work.”
That’s why I wanted to actually enter into it myself. Perhaps if I hadn’t been an idol, I might have aspired to be an actor. Though that was also a somewhat extravagant dream given our tight circumstances, still.
That small dream actually came true. A few years ago, so about half a year from now in the current timeline, I would appear as a supporting role in this movie.
How my heart pounded at the agency’s explanation that the director specifically picked and named me. The filming of <The Swamp Where the Moon Sets>, even if brief, was one of the few good things that happened in my life where misfortune and bad luck were too common.
“I think you’ll do well.”
And the lead of that movie was Seo Nakil. A ghost-like man who lived deep in the mountains in a mansion so old its years couldn’t be counted. His figure captured on camera was pale and elegant, suspicious, cruel, and equally enchanting.
The director was supposedly so insignificant that I didn’t even know his previous works, but this work was different. It eventually broke the record for the highest number of moviegoers in Korean film history and swept up all sorts of awards at that year’s year-end ceremonies.
The man who stood at the center of that box office success as if it were natural, Seo Nakil.
“I’m worried whether I can digest the role well.”
I barely held back the words that were about to burst out and moved my lips.
So even the great Seo Nakil worries about such things.
‘While you digest any role so perfectly.’
You don’t know yet, but people say you are ‘Sain’ itself. It felt like you went beyond simply performing a role and truly became that person, living and breathing.
“Does the script feel difficult?”
“A little.”
He handed the script to me as I sat up a bit.
“Would you like to read it?”
“…Now? Which part?”
“There, read the lines of the character named ‘Seonui.’ So I can respond.”
So right now, Seo Nakil was asking me to be his script reading practice partner.
The role I played in this movie wasn’t the female lead ‘Seonui’ but her younger brother, ‘Yeojeong.’
“Just think of it as reading a book.”
Seo Nakil said as if encouraging me.
“There are no watching eyes either.”
No watching eyes, no cameras, but there’s you, the person I know who acts the best…
But I didn’t refuse. I just wanted to touch the script like that and roll those neatly written lines on my tongue.
I glanced at him, then flipped through the pages. It was to find suitable lines.
The moment my hand paused on a certain page, Seo Nakil spoke first.
“‘Tell me.'”
It was the third line of the script. Words ‘Sain’ said when he encountered the female lead ‘Seonui’ in the basement of the old mansion.
“‘Is there a reason for me to let you live?'”
There was only one script and it was in my hands. Just from a brief glance from afar, he knew exactly which scene it was, what the exact lines were, and how to say them. Timing-wise, since official filming hadn’t even started yet, he would have just received the script recently.
‘What does he mean he lacks confidence when he’s this perfect?’
I cleared my throat softly, then answered.
“‘I should ask the opposite. Is there a reason you must harm me?'”
It had been too long since I’d done script reading so it was a bit awkward, but even with me as his partner, he was serious. It was as sincere as if he were actually doing it on set.
Seo Nakil was someone who knew how to guide people quietly. Before I knew it, I had been invited into the small world he created and began struggling to find my role within it.
One page turned.
Two pages, three pages, four pages…
How long had it been since I felt this feeling? My chest pleasantly tightened and heat rose to my cheeks. It felt like I could flow together for hours following the scenes unfolding in my head.
My fingertips trembled slightly with the anticipation that had built up before I knew it. Just as I turned one more page of the script and was about to wait for ‘Sain’s’ next line.
“Han Ijae-ssi.”
At his low voice, I was instantly pulled back to reality. When I came to my senses, I had completely turned toward him, even forgetting that I’d been awkward the whole time.
Seo Nakil’s black eyes were gazing at me as if they would swallow me whole.
“When you’re discharged, move your residence.”
“…”
“To my house.”
