By Zephyria Song Hyun-soo met Yoon Joo-ho’s seemingly serious gaze. He couldn’t tell if he was acting seriously or if he was genuinely serious.
“Are you serious or not? Don’t waste your acting skills on weird things.”
As Song Hyun-soo tried to brush it off with a laugh, Yoon Joo-ho pulled his hand firmly.
“Neither you nor I are actually gay.”
“…”
“Our professions are also special.”
“…”
“I’m saying this wasn’t started with a casual ‘let’s just try dating.’”
That’s probably it. He’s someone whose life is his acting. He wouldn’t have asked me out without calculating the immense risk he’d have to bear if our relationship were revealed.
The fact that Yoon Joo-ho had reached out to him, despite considering all that, struck him deeply.
“Ah, I understand. I’m… not casual either.”
He rubbed under his nose, feeling a ticklish shyness, and avoided his gaze. The fact that he was the co-star to a prince, as it were, suddenly felt real, and sweat beaded on his palms, which were tightly clasped.
“Still, isn’t it okay to tell just one person, Ji-in hyung?”
“No. That one person is the beginning. There can be no exceptions.”
“Sunbae, I need at least one person to talk to when I’m pissed off at you, for relationship advice.”
“You have Seohae hyung.”
“Seohae hyung is your acquaintance.”
“But he’s on your side.”
“He’s on the side of justice, I suppose.”
“If you are justice, then who am I?”
“Do you have to ask? Obviously, the villain.”
“Then why are you dating such a villainous bastard?”
Yoon Joo-ho nudged Song Hyun-soo’s shoulder with his own. The playful force made Song Hyun-soo lean to the right. Yoon Joo-ho pulled his hand and straightened Song Hyun-soo up.
“Maybe I have a type that’s drawn to bad guys.”
Even as he retorted curtly, Song Hyun-soo’s lips twitched. Whenever the words “boyfriend” or “dating” came up, he found himself struggling to suppress a smile.
Yoon Joo-ho released Song Hyun-soo’s hand, which was damp with sweat, and rested his forehead on Song Hyun-soo’s shoulder.
“In a way, I think I’ve been weak for you from the start.”
“Are you upset because I called you a bad guy?”
“Does anyone want to be a bad guy to someone they like?”
“…”
Yoon Joo-ho dropped heavy words with a casual tone. Song Hyun-soo, who had no tolerance for such things, rubbed his palms on his pants and changed the subject.
“It’s not just that we’re dating… we’re going to live together now. So, where do I tell Ji-in hyung we live? Whatever I say will be a lie.”
“…”
Yoon Joo-ho, who had been leaning on Song Hyun-soo’s shoulder, lifted his head and met his eyes. When he looked at him like this, his heart was satisfied by the sheer aesthetic perfection of his face. It felt like he understood why rich people bought and hung paintings worth billions or tens of billions in their homes.
“You.”
“…”
“If I…”
“What is it? What’s with the ominous tone?”
Yoon Joo-ho, who had been uncharacteristically hesitant, suddenly shook his head and stood up. He walked over to the audio system on the dresser and said,
“I think you mentioned Jung-ho? Tell him then.”
“Jung-ho?”
“You said you wanted to tell at least one person. Is he a trustworthy friend?”
“He’s trustworthy… but still, isn’t Ji-in hyung a much more reliable person than Jung-ho?”
Yoon Joo-ho said, unplugging the audio system that Choi Hong-seo had left behind.
“Not for me.”
Song Hyun-soo’s heart sank at the voice, which was as indifferent as if nothing had happened.
For the first time, he thought that the two of them might have drifted apart for a more serious reason than he had imagined. He had thought Yoon Joo-ho, who had gotten upset over something trivial, was just stubbornly holding his ground out of pride.
Yoon Joo-ho, holding a small audio player tucked into the side of his coat, turned to look at him.
“Did you pack all your things?”
“Well… I think this is enough for what I need right now.”
Yoon Joo-ho approached Song Hyun-soo, who was sitting blankly on the mattress, and extended his hand.
“Get up. We need to go home.”
It reminded him of what Yoon Joo-ho had whispered while holding Monroe that night they brought him back.
“Let’s go, let’s go home.”
That night, he had envied Monroe. The words ‘going home’ or ‘go home’ carried a warm resonance that couldn’t be contained within the simple phrase.
He had spent the past year, the most earnest year of his life, pouring honest sweat into this place. He had made memories with Jung-ho and Chae-young here. Not long ago, it was a historic location where he and Yoon Joo-ho had finally had their first penetrative sex.
Yet, hearing Yoon Joo-ho say “let’s go home,” it was not this place, but that other place, Yoon Joo-ho’s home, that felt like the real home.
It wasn’t because it was a super-luxury mansion in Cheongdam-dong with a duplex structure and Han River views.
Instead of setting his phone on a stand and eating ramen while watching YouTube alone, they had argued over trivial matters while preparing meals together, taking care of Monroe’s food and treats, and changing the litter box…
That was life with Yoon Joo-ho as his boyfriend. No longer just a ‘sleeping partner’ undefined by anything else.
Song Hyun-soo tightly grasped Yoon Joo-ho’s hand, which he had only been gazing at. With the force of the pull, Song Hyun-soo easily got to his feet.
■■■
Around the time Song Hyun-soo first met Jung Ji-in, he was filled with venom for everything in the world. Looking back now, it was no different from a timid dog barking ferociously. The only person Song Hyun-soo confided in was Choi Hong-seo.
Even though Choi Hong-seo was in a far worse situation than Song Hyun-soo could compare to, he never complained. And he held onto the hope that if he worked hard enough, he could one day escape from President Myung Do-hoon.
Sometimes, watching that hope was agonizing, and Song Hyun-soo would lash out at the innocent Choi Hong-seo. He felt that the day Choi Hong-seo dreamed of would never come, and it was painful to see him work himself to exhaustion praying for a heaven that would never arrive.
Then, an actor trainee named Jung Ji-in joined their shared living situation.
Of course, Song Hyun-soo was wary of him too.
He tried to act tough and territorial, saying, “You know that seniority in the entertainment industry takes precedence over age, right?” Despite being four years older than Song Hyun-soo and Choi Hong-seo, Jung Ji-in didn’t try to engage in a power struggle.
Choi Hong-seo was the first to open up to Jung Ji-in, not Song Hyun-soo. Choi Hong-seo was also not someone who saw the world through rose-tinted glasses, yet he seemed to get along with Jung Ji-in from the start. And Song Hyun-soo didn’t like that.
“Hey, your problem is that you trust people too easily. Don’t you know your judgment of people is total shit?”
“It’s better than yours, isn’t it? Ji-in hyung is a good person. You should talk to him too.”
“Good person, my ass. All those fucking con artists start out as good people.”
Just like President Myung Do-hoon. ― Even without adding those words, Choi Hong-seo understood what Song Hyun-soo was trying to say. The two of them had no choice but to understand each other, and Song Hyun-soo worried that Choi Hong-seo might get hurt by trusting Jung Ji-in.
Jung Ji-in had the face of a handsome man from a European painter’s canvas, yet his demeanor was modest. Unlike typical aspiring actors, he didn’t dress flamboyantly, and he seemed uninterested in dressing up in the first place. However, most of his belongings were individually quite expensive.
Song Hyun-soo, who shared a room with Jung Ji-in, soon realized this fact.
Pretending not to care, he would lie on his bed on the second floor, fiddling with his phone, and then quickly go downstairs to look at Jung Ji-in’s belongings when he heard the front door close.
He would try on his jackets and spray himself with expensive-looking perfume that had unreadable, difficult words written on it. Now he knew that was ill-bred behavior, but at the time, he was indeed ill-bred.
Then one day, Jung Ji-in returned to the room, having forgotten his wallet. Song Hyun-soo, who was wearing Jung Ji-in’s jacket and standing in front of the mirror, suddenly flushed bright red. Flustered, he spoke curtly, without doing anything right.
“Why, why did you come in without making a sound.”
“I thought you were napping, so I came in quietly on purpose.”
Jung Ji-in said nothing about him wearing his clothes. He simply took his wallet and left. A few days later, as Song Hyun-soo was trying on various outfits to go out, Jung Ji-in approached him and handed him the jacket.
“This will go well with what you’re wearing now.”
From that day on, Song Hyun-soo stopped his one-sided posturing towards Jung Ji-in. It seemed pointless to be fighting alone against someone who had no intention of fighting back.
After that, Song Hyun-soo became more interested in Jung Ji-in than Choi Hong-seo.
“That hyung can’t drink Americano. He was drinking some really small coffee.”
“Espresso?”
“Something like that.”
“He said he grew up in Italy and has barely ever had Americano. Apparently, people there don’t drink it?”
“Wow, that hyung grew up in Italy??”
Even the fact that he grew up abroad seemed amazing to Song Hyun-soo. A foreign country he had never even visited for travel. A very distant foreign country at that.
“But why did he come to Korea? Was he super rich and his family went bankrupt?”
“Why does it always have to be a story of bankruptcy?”
“You idiot, think about it. If he’s still rich, would you live in a place like this?”
Hyung, who never yelled or got annoyed, and never used curses or vulgar language. Jung Ji-in was a fundamentally different kind of person from the hyungs and seniors Song Hyun-soo and Choi Hong-seo had known.
Beyond his expensive watch and refined taste, even a common pair of Nike sneakers or a worn-out Polo pique shirt looked different when Jung Ji-in owned them.
He would lend me, who walked around looking like a punk, a watch worth tens of millions of won without making a fuss. Without a single warning not to lose it.
When Jung Ji-in, following Choi Hong-seo, also left the dorm, Song Hyun-soo actually felt a sense of emptiness and loneliness. Not just in the dorm, but a feeling of being left alone in the world.
However, he was accustomed to accepting such situations. Complaining about being sad or lonely wouldn’t change anything. He would pretend to be okay. He was used to pretending to be okay.