“Seems like indigestion?”
After hearing the illness name, a snort came out.
“Geez. He ate so much like a savage. Even animal bastards don’t even look at what they were eating and leave when they’re full, but as a human, what—”
Even the reason for suddenly being sick was so like Im Seungun. After the morning shoot ended, he sat until the end at the local restaurant they all stopped by and completely cleaned his plate. He remembered scolding him that if anyone saw how greedily he ate, they’d think I was starving the staff.
“Don’t be so harsh. He probably took emergency medicine from his bag on his own, so don’t worry too much.”
“Who’s worrying? What do I have to gain by worrying about a manager who’s a tout background?”
“Shh, shh. Be quiet. Everyone will hear.”
Myeongwoo lightly hit Siyoung’s shoulder.
“Siyoung-ssi, your condition is so good today? Come check it out.”
The photographer gestured from behind. Gi Siyoung turned around without hesitation. Inside the large monitor, over thousands of Gi Siyoung’s photos were saved. The staff lined up behind started arguing whether these were too good to just release as season’s greetings, shouldn’t they sell them for more money.
“…….”
Gi Siyoung stared at the screen, lost in thought. No matter how much he thought about it, he couldn’t gauge when Seungun had slipped out of the studio. He was so focused on work that he didn’t even notice he had left.
He lifted his tank top from the waist and pulled it off over his head in one go where people were gathered together. The people around gasped in surprise, but he thought he didn’t know why they were surprised like first-time viewers when they’d seen his upper body undressing to death, and headed to the changing room.
“I have your card key, and if you’re hungry, order room service. Oh, and there’s additional shooting with the sunset background when the sun sets today, so don’t forget to come down if you have time. See you in the lobby, okay?”
“I got it.”
After returning to the hotel, Gi Siyoung got on the elevator, letting Myeongwoo’s nagging go in one ear and out the other. He had no plans whatsoever to bring Myeongwoo, who said he couldn’t spend Bali’s fantastic weather like this and would take a walk around the area with the staff, all the way up to the hotel room.
Beep. He unlocked it and entered. A pleasant breeze was gently coming in through the wide-open terrace door. Gi Siyoung went inside and looked around. He called out, Im Seungun-ssi. The person who would normally appear quickly with an indifferent face was completely silent.
“…….”
Gi Siyoung passed through the living room and opened his room door. There was no one in the second room.
“He said he’s sick but where is he wandering around?”
Gi Siyoung frowned and opened the bathroom door, the next candidate. Since his room had a separate private bathroom attached, this was his first time entering the shared bathroom. The opening door stopped abruptly in the middle. It seemed like something was leaning against it inside. Gi Siyoung opened the door completely with force. Im Seungun was leaning unconscious against the bathroom wall.
“Im Seungun-ssi!”
Gi Siyoung rushed to him. He lifted him with one arm and grabbed and shook his cheek with the other hand. The skin touching his hand was cold—how long had he been sitting on this cold marble floor? He grabbed and shook his cheek, then slapped him with his palm a couple of times. Then the closed eyes opened drowsily.
“Ah…”
“Ha, I’m going crazy. Hey. Did you take medicine? How long have you been like this?”
The person who took medicine for indigestion was strangely half-asleep. Seungun barely raised his hand and shook the pill bottle. Siyoung snatched it and checked it. Sure enough, it wasn’t medicine for indigestion.
It contained sleeping pills that had been divided into smaller portions to reduce luggage volume. It was understandable that Seungun got confused. The sticker about the digestive medicine’s efficacy that he’d already taken remained half on the bottle. It seemed he hadn’t managed to check the medicine name label stuck on the bottom.
Gi Siyoung swallowed back the comment that this was really something else and got up with Seungun. Seungun, dangling limply in his arms, opened his eyes thinly. Through his flickering vision, he saw a sharp jawline. Even looking from this angle, Gi Siyoung had a wonderful face. Soon after, Seungun began falling into sleep like crazy. He absolutely couldn’t keep his eyes open anymore.
***
In a half-dream state, he had an ordinary dream. In the dream, Seungun was holding a familiar steering wheel. It was Gi Siyoung’s van. He was alone in the car, driving on an empty road without speed control. Wind rushed in through the open window. His hair wildly scratched his face.
The ground under the wheels was bumpy. He was clearly driving on an asphalt road. When it was severe, his butt would float up from the driver’s seat as if going over a speed bump. Fog was creeping in from both sides of the road.
Because of the increasingly heavy fog, Seungun turned on the headlights. The lights came on and the road ahead brightened. Wah! Seungun screamed out loud. Human heads were piled on the road like candy balls. The car Seungun was driving was running over them, which was why the vehicle was moving violently up and down.
Seungun’s two hands gripping the steering wheel trembled. Startled, when he roughly turned the handle, the heads rolled all at once toward the driver’s seat as they received force. And he had to scream wah! again. Gi Siyoung’s face with eyes, nose, mouth, all the holes pierced through was rolling around on that road.
“Aah!”
Im Seungun sat up abruptly, groaning. His hands and feet were numb and very cold. He felt someone’s gaze from the side. When he turned his head at the strange sensation he’d felt on the dark asphalt in the dream, a person who looked exactly like that face was looking this way. He almost screamed wah! again and rolled off the bed.
The reason for the unsettling dream must surely be because of guilt. Seungun, who confirmed that Gi Siyoung’s features were parked intact from where he sat, clutched his startled chest.
“Why, why am I…”
And he quickly assessed the situation. He suddenly got indigestion. At first, he couldn’t breathe well—how much lunch had he eaten? He thought it would just digest after some time passed. But as time passed, his stomach seemed to expand, and he felt like what he’d devoured was flowing back up.
It seemed like he’d cause trouble if he stayed longer, so he honestly confessed to Myeongwoo and returned to the accommodation early. He found emergency medicine in Myeongwoo’s bag and took it, but after that, he rapidly lost consciousness. He vaguely seemed to remember seeing Gi Siyoung’s face in his dim memory.
“You took sleeping pills, not digestive medicine.”
“I did?”
“It seems Myeongwoo hyung divided all the medicines to reduce luggage, and of all things, you picked sleeping pills to take?”
He suddenly noticed that it was pitch black behind Siyoung, who was looking this way with his chin propped up.
“Huk, but what time is it now? Don’t we have an evening shoot?”
“The shoot was canceled.”
“…….”
“We canceled the rest of the schedule because of you and I’ve been here until this time the whole time. Do you know how much loss there is from the next schedule being delayed? Tomorrow even has a rain forecast. The hotel contracts extended by a day as everyone working together had their schedules delayed, business trip expenses, their time—all of it is because of Im Seungun-ssi. And what about after returning home? The schedule after returning home was also disrupted.”
“That’s because of me? And Gi Siyoung-ssi has been nursing me until now?”
“…….”
Gi Siyoung, who had suddenly become quiet, slowly stood up from the chair.
“Managing your own condition is also one of a manager’s duties.”
“…….”
He didn’t know because he had just woken up, but there was a thin wet towel lying on the blanket. It was a small square-shaped towel used for wiping hands in hotels. If Gi Siyoung gets sick, everything stops. Many people’s livelihoods depend on his condition.
However, Seungun wasn’t an influential figure whose being sick alone would disrupt any work. For such a person, Gi Siyoung had nursed him by his side. Even giving up his schedule.
Though he was arrogant most of the time, Gi Siyoung wasn’t someone who would just pass by a sick person. It was like that before too. Even when the van’s tire got a flat, he showed all kinds of annoyance on the outside, but in the end, he said it was fortunate no one got hurt.
He’s a person with unexpected sides. Perhaps he’s someone kind by nature. Yesterday too, Seungun had been determined to secretly take and sell such a person’s private photos. Somehow, his insides felt more blocked up than when the indigestion went down.
“Why are you looking at me with those eyes?”
Gi Siyoung made an uncomfortable face. Yellow lighting fell softly on his face as he stood from the chair. Siyoung holding a script with an unguarded face and comfortable outfit was completely different from the person who had been immersed in shooting as if falling into dawn just this morning.
At the filming site, Gi Siyoung felt like a very distant person shrouded in a veil as if he shouldn’t be touched… but sometimes he also seemed like an ordinary human.
When an existence unreachable like a star in the sky actually came close enough to touch, one would develop impossible greed.
“If you have something to say, say it. Don’t irritate people.”
“I don’t want other people to suffer because of me. I’ll be careful so there won’t be a next time, but if something like this happens again, just leave me then.”
“…….”
“I’m saying you can pretend not to know.”
He didn’t have the right to receive nursing from Gi Siyoung. He wasn’t a person worthy of receiving someone’s concern and goodwill. He had to draw a line in advance. Before Gi Siyoung shook him up in any way, he had to draw a clear line so he wouldn’t cross over or so he himself wouldn’t fall over. That was all he could say instead of thanks.
“How can I pretend not to know when you’re whimpering like a dog caught in the rain right in front of my eyes? Am I a psychopath? When someone living in the same space collapses right in front of me? You call that talking?”
He had committed a sin against Gi Siyoung. He would commit sins in the future too. If he came out like this, it would disrupt his work. Everything Gi Siyoung provided was too much for Seungun.
“My meaning is just that you don’t need to care so much about me…”
“Fuck, did everyone conspire? Why is everyone like this to me today?”
“What?”
“I’ve never cared, I’ve never been concerned.”
There are so many things irritating his mood today. Myeongwoo said not to care about Seungun. Im Seungun says not to be concerned about him.
He was always very curious. When he was young, he watched ants passing by carrying food bigger than their bodies, staying by their side to find out their destination, and he even secretly lurked in what was presumed to be stray cats’ hideout, wondering what they ate to live, watching motionlessly until his mom found him.
“But why I stayed by Im Seungun-ssi’s side even canceling my schedule, I don’t really know that either. So now I kind of want to know.”
“…….”
“To do that.”
So this time too, he was just curious.
“I think there’s only this method.”
“What method?”
Seungun looked puzzled.
“Having sex with Im Seungun-ssi.”
