By Zephyria 
Inside the rattling car, Song Hyun-soo stretched his body forward and squinted.
“I can’t see anything.”
The navigation indicated they were almost at their destination, but the headlights illuminated only darkness ahead.
“Are we really going the right way?”
“You can hear it.”
Yoon Joo-ho replied, carefully driving to avoid smashing the car’s large body against the narrow alley walls.
Song Hyun-soo paused the music.
It was as he said.
Shhh, shhh. It was a gentle, but distinct, sound of waves. It was getting closer.
As they went further down the winding alley, a clearing appeared. It was the destination.
“Wow… it took over two hours.”
Song Hyun-soo exclaimed in surprise, checking his watch, which showed past midnight.
“Even with navigation, first-time trips always take longer. And it was nighttime, too.”
Yoon Joo-ho parked the car in a suitable spot and turned off the headlights.
It was a complete night, unlike anything found in the city. Accompanied by the gentle sound of waves.
For a moment, it felt as if all the lights in the world had been turned off, leaving only the two of them in the universe.
Gazing at the endless darkness before him, Song Hyun-soo turned his head to find Yoon Joo-ho. He was also looking at Song Hyun-soo. In the deep darkness, the only clear things were each other’s faces and eyes.
This atmosphere is definitely…
Song Hyun-soo swallowed hard and licked his lower lip with his tongue.
And as he unconsciously leaned his upper body toward Yoon Joo-ho, Yoon Joo-ho’s lips moved.
“We came all this way, we should get out.”
Yoon Joo-ho reached for the back seat. Picking up his outer jacket, he also handed Song Hyun-soo’s jumper to him, holding it against his chest.
“What are you doing? Put it on.”
“Yes…”
It was my fault for expecting romance from that guy.
Grumbling inwardly, Song Hyun-soo loosely threw on the jumper and followed him out of the car.
“Whoa, it’s damn cold!”
As soon as the door opened, the midwinter night sea’s chill immediately attacked. Song Hyun-soo stood with his back to the wind and quickly zipped up his jumper.
Yoon Joo-ho, walking around the front of the car and putting on gloves, shook his head and chuckled.
“You’re still sexy.”
Even though he’s just as good at ruining the mood.
Song Hyun-soo glared at Yoon Joo-ho’s retreating back and followed him.
The place they parked the car was a clearing right by the sea. It was a steep, low mound with a narrow beach right next to it.
Yoon Joo-ho, shining his phone’s flashlight around, found stepping stones leading to the beach. Someone had placed stones like stairs on the slope of the mound.
“I guess this is why there are no tourists. It’s not a beach for swimming and playing.”
The tide was high, which made it worse, but the beach seemed to be no more than 2-3 meters wide. Moreover, it was quite rocky, so it wasn’t a place where tourists would flock with their parasols.
According to the script, ‘Myung Hae-ri’ had two main conditions:
The West Sea, where one could watch the sunset.
A quiet village not frequented by tourists.
He had expected the location shoot to be far from Seoul, of course. Most beaches within a 2-3 hour drive from Seoul were crowded with pensions and seafood restaurants.
“That’s probably why it could be Myung Hae-ri,” Yoon Joo-ho said, looking out at the sea in front of him, his hands in his jumper pockets after turning off his phone’s flashlight.
“This is Myung Hae-ri…”
Song Hyun-soo also quietly listened to the sound of the waves and gazed at the sea.
“I can’t see anything.”
He couldn’t tell if what was in front of him was the sea or just an endless, overwhelming darkness. But the sound of the waves proved the existence of the unseen sea. That there was definitely a sea there.
He had thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if we kept the car lights on, even though it’s this dark?’
But now, he felt strangely at peace with the darkness as it was.
The place where Sori, Sani, and Kang-i were born and grew up together.
Like three puppies. Or like the kittens at ‘Honey’s place.’
They grew up huddled close together, relying on each other, learning affection among themselves, learning how to protect… and learning how to let go of each other.
“I feel strange.”
He turned his head to look at Yoon Joo-ho standing beside him.
His hair was blowing wildly in the sea breeze. His hair had grown longer.
Looking at his complex profile, he felt like he understood that Yoon Joo-ho was feeling the same emotion.
The presence of Lee Sol, Lee San, and Baek Kang was becoming even clearer.
Yoon Joo-ho turned to look at him, exhaling a puff of breath.
“Want to walk around the village a bit?”
Song Hyun-soo let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh and nodded.
“Why?”
“It’s nothing.”
“Why are you laughing?”
He had suddenly felt like holding hands and walking. He couldn’t say that.
Yoon Joo-ho stood his ground, his expression conveying that he wouldn’t move until Song Hyun-soo told him. Song Hyun-soo reluctantly pushed his back.
“It’s nothing. Let’s go.”
Behind the clearing where they parked the car were about five or six houses. Beyond the single-lane road, a small rice paddy stretched out, and about thirty houses were arranged in a circle around the paddy, down the hill.
Keeping the empty winter paddy to their right, they slowly began to walk along the fan-shaped road.
“There seem to be some empty houses.”
“Probably one of them will be renovated into Sori and Sani’s house.”
“Then Kang-i’s house should be closer to the beach, so it would be near the clearing.”
The more they talked, the more excited Song Hyun-soo felt.
“Baek Kang’s house might even have a different location shoot.”
“But our director doesn’t like shooting things like that.”
“You know that too?”
Yoon Joo-ho chuckled, as if surprised, and turned to look at him.
“What do you take me for?”
After staring intently for a moment longer than usual, Yoon Joo-ho closed the distance between them. Then his hand reached toward Song Hyun-soo’s face.
“Why, why?”
“Am I hitting you?”
Seeing Song Hyun-soo flinch, Yoon Joo-ho clicked his tongue. His hand moved toward the collar of the jumper. He pulled out the hood that was tucked inside. Song Hyun-soo looked over his shoulder in surprise.
“Was the hood in there?”
“You didn’t know until now?”
“There was no zipper.”
“It’s folded inside.”
Yoon Joo-ho put the hood on Song Hyun-soo and then personally tightened the string to adjust it. Song Hyun-soo glanced at his focused face nearby and said hesitantly,
“Why are you being so nice?”
“Right now, I’m Baek Kang.”
“Can’t you be nice when you’re just Yoon Joo-ho too?”
“What is it that I can’t do?”
That was true.
Even if he didn’t understand my feelings, there was nothing he couldn’t do. Honestly, he was being incredibly nice.
Song Hyun-soo alternated looking at Yoon Joo-ho’s face, who was tying the string, and his leather-gloved hands.
If Baek Kang had always treated San like this, then San’s twisted obsession with Baek Kang wasn’t entirely San’s fault.
“What about San?”
“…”
“He must have peeked at Kang and Sori’s intimacy.”
“He’s the type to do that.”
Yoon Joo-ho shrugged and chuckled. Then, looking at Song Hyun-soo’s face, now wearing the hood with the tightened string, he laughed again. The two started walking again.
“It wasn’t intentional, he probably saw it by chance. Since the three of them were always together.”
He had to fill in the histories of characters not present in the script himself. It was a task he hadn’t needed to do when he took on minor roles with only a line or two of dialogue. But on nights when sleep wouldn’t come, Song Hyun-soo found pleasure in imagining Lee San, Baek Kang, and Lee Sol.
Like secrets he could tell no one, they accumulated within Song Hyun-soo, and Yoon Joo-ho listened to those secrets without a word.
“At first, you must have felt angry, hurt, and left out the moment you saw it. But strangely, you couldn’t look away.”
“…”
“And Sani masturbates.”
“Sani wouldn’t have gotten excited seeing his sister. That kid must have gotten excited seeing Baek Kang.”
“Who knows. He might have been excited by the very act of physical intimacy between a man and a woman he witnessed for the first time.”
Lost in the story, Song Hyun-soo had somehow gotten five or six steps ahead of Yoon Joo-ho.
“Sani has a twisted obsession with the two of them. To the point where he wishes he were their child.”
He stopped walking, as if he couldn’t hear the sound of Yoon Joo-ho’s footsteps following behind. At the same moment, Yoon Joo-ho asked from behind him, “Scene number 93. Are you memorizing your lines?”
S#93. Alley in front of Myung Hae-ri and Jeon Yu-jeong’s lodging (Late night)
He had thoroughly memorized all the lines. Every single word, down to the smallest detail of the other actors’ dialogue and props.
Yoon Joo-ho knew this well, as they were practicing together.
“Lee San. Hey, where are you going, you punk?”
Song Hyun-soo turned around.
Within the space where they would be filming the movie, Yoon Joo-ho, or rather, Baek Kang, stood in Myung Hae-ri’s alley. It was Baek Kang, a large figure with his hands shoved into his pant pockets, his shoulders hunched high.
The person who had been with me since birth.
The one who taught me how to whistle, how to blow bubbles with gum, how to flip a ‘ttakji’ just right, how to ride a bike, and how to show those who looked down on me a thing or two.
The one who was destined to be my sister’s husband as naturally as I was born. The one who would become the father of my nephews as naturally as I am myself.
Thus, the one who could never be separated from me.
He felt Lee San’s warped obsession with Baek Kang stirring within him.