By Zephyria 
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“Where did the measuring tape go? I’m sure I bought one when I moved in.”
Song Hyun-soo rummaged busily through various parts of the room. He couldn’t find the measuring tape anywhere.
“Try looking in drawers, like in the shoe cabinet. Don’t just search in the room.”
Jung-ho said.
He sat leaning against the mattress, looking at his phone.
Song Hyun-soo had called him over, wanting to put up the heating bubble wrap today before it got any later.
“I only keep tools in there.”
“You shouldn’t trust your past self too much.”
He opened the desk drawer he had looked through earlier and examined it carefully, but the measuring tape was nowhere to be found.
“It’s distracting when you walk around wearing those fur balls.”
Jung-ho chided, looking at Song Hyun-soo’s feet. Rabbit slippers with long ears dangling. They were a gift from Chae-young, who said the floor was too cold.
“Hey, these might look like this, but they’re really warm.”
“When Chae-young first gave them to you, you complained about how you could possibly wear something like this. Ah, you should look for them outside too.”
It seemed he had no choice but to accept Jung-ho’s advice now.
“They really wouldn’t be in there…”
Song Hyun-soo ran his hands through his hair and went to the kitchen. Although it was a rooftop room in a 40-year-old house, the spacious 8-pyeong room had a separate kitchen, so there was plenty of space. Song Hyun-soo always emphasized that this was a “separate studio apartment.”
“…”
As if by magic, the measuring tape was in the shoe cabinet drawer. And right in the most visible spot.
“Why is this here? It’s like a ghost put it there.”
He felt deflated, having searched for it for over ten minutes only to find it here. Jung-ho, seeing Song Hyun-soo return to the room with the measuring tape in hand, grinned at him knowingly.
“See? I told you you can’t trust your past self.”
“Just open that up.”
Song Hyun-soo pointed to a box in the corner of the room. It was the box the heating bubble wrap had arrived in. The package had arrived a few days ago, but he hadn’t had the time to deal with it.
“You bought so much. What are we going to do with all this?”
“I’m going to put it on every single window. The room, the bathroom, the boiler room, the front door.”
“What’s so difficult about putting up bubble wrap that you had to call me too? I can do this by myself.”
Song Hyun-soo also plopped down opposite Jung-ho and started opening the bubble wrap packaging. Jung-ho was meticulous with the finishing touches but slow with his hands.
“Guaranteed heating cost savings!”
As expected, he veered off track before even finishing opening one package. He started reading the promotional text on the bubble wrap packaging aloud.
“Convenient installation without water!”
Meanwhile, Song Hyun-soo had already unwrapped several pieces and spread the bubble wrap on the floor.
“I get this part, but what’s this about interior effects? What kind of interior effect does insulation bubble wrap have? If anything, it ruins the interior. They’re just slapping anything on.”
Song Hyun-soo listened to Jung-ho’s giggling over trivial matters with one ear and let it pass through the other, while he roughly estimated the amount of bubble wrap spread on the floor. This should be enough for the windows in the room. The room’s windows were quite large. It was good that light came in brightly, but the problem was that cold air also leaked in just as much.
“Hey, come over here and hold the end of this.”
Jung-ho put down the bubble wrap packaging and stood up, taking the end of the measuring tape Song Hyun-soo offered.
“Wow, it’s freezing. Is this window open, hyung?”
Standing by the window, he hunched his shoulders and pretended to be bothered.
“Stop exaggerating.”
“Look, my hair is blowing, isn’t it? Is this still an exaggeration?”
The wind blowing through the gap between the window frame and the window actually made Jung-ho’s wavy hair flutter. His long hair, almost touching his shoulders, was like his lifeline. They said a man’s appearance depended on his hair.
“Stop doing useless things and just hold the tape measure properly. If you let go, you’re dead.”
Song Hyun-soo held the body of the tape measure and pulled it taut, moving it to the other end of the window. Two hundred… twenty? Thirty? It was bigger than he thought.
“Ah, hyung. It’s tilted over there.”
“What does it matter if it’s a little crooked? We’re putting it up for heating anyway.”
“Doesn’t it bother you if something like this is crooked?”
“Yeah, it doesn’t bother me. Bring me a chair so I can measure the height vertically.”
As he reeled in the end of the tape measure, Song Hyun-soo pointed to the chair behind Jung-ho. It was the only chair in the house. He grumbled as he brought the chair over.
“It feels colder because the Han River wind is blowing directly at us.”
“It was nice and cool when we grilled samgyeopsal on the rooftop, wasn’t it?”
“Call me again when the weather warms up in spring.”
Jung-ho tucked his stray hair behind his ear and gave a sly smile.
Song Hyun-soo, standing on the wobbly chair with one screw missing from its leg, extended the tape measure to measure the window’s height.
“But, no matter when I look at it, it’s a rather… bleak room.”
“Compared to your SNS-copy-paste kind of room, I suppose.”
“At least change your comforter. There are so many cheap and pretty ones these days.”
“If the comforter is clean, isn’t that enough? Does it have to be pretty too?”
Jung-ho shook his head with a look of exasperation.
“When I first met you, hyung, you were so handsome, I wondered why you didn’t have a girlfriend. Now I see why.”
“What’s wrong with this place? The romance of a rooftop room. Don’t you know?”
“What’s romantic about this room?”
Jung-ho frowned, glancing around at the mattress placed directly on the floor without a frame, the shabby furniture bought second-hand or received for free, and the open clothes rack.
Jung-ho also lived alone, like Song Hyun-soo. Although his place was smaller than Song Hyun-soo’s rooftop room, it was a more proper studio apartment. Song Hyun-soo had been amazed by the piloti parking on the first floor, the common entrance requiring a password, and the elevator, but he had been horrified when he heard the monthly rent.
Unlike Song Hyun-soo, who could only work three days a week due to his theater activities, Jung-ho was a full-time employee at ‘Jessica,’ working five days a week as a server. Therefore, he had more financial leeway than Song Hyun-soo.
He had decorated his small room quite well. Although the cheap items he found after extensive internet searches looked flimsy up close, they appeared quite presentable in photos.
“I’m going to be a star soon, you know? I’ll be on talk shows and variety programs later. I’ll need a story about living in a rooftop room during my struggling days, right?”
Song Hyun-soo said, stepping down from the chair with a triumphant expression.
“What are you talking about? Are you really twenty-eight, hyung?”
“Why?”
“These days, people prefer celebrities from wealthy families.”
“…Really?”
Rubbing the back of his neck, Song Hyun-soo’s gaze drifted diagonally to the floor. Jung-ho quickly changed his tune.
“I mean, that’s what the younger kids like. Elementary schoolers, teenagers. But stories of self-made success are popular across all eras.”
“Right?”
“Of course!”
The two crouched in front of the bubble wrap to cut it to size.
“Hyung, you said this place was a one-year contract, right?”
“Uh-huh.”
“The public transportation is a bit inconvenient, and the building is very old, but the room is big and it’s okay.”
“Most importantly, it’s cheap. I walked 30,000 steps a day for a week looking for this place.”
“You’re going to renew the contract, right?”
“Of course, I have to. It’s hard to find better conditions than this.”
After the “big incident” at the end of last year, the legal entity of UB, his then-agency, was effectively dissolved around February of this year. Naturally, Song Hyun-soo had to move out of the company dorm.
Compared to the cost of living in Seoul, the money Song Hyun-soo had as an unknown actor was woefully insufficient. He couldn’t bring himself to ask his grandparents, who were managing to get by in Seoul, for help. Even if he did, there wouldn’t be anything to get.
He had found this place after walking so much his feet blistered.
A 10 million won deposit and 400,000 won monthly rent.
This was possible because there was no wallpapering, no repairs, and no options like a refrigerator or washing machine. The lack of options was a critical blow to Song Hyun-soo. However, he was able to move in because he was allowed to take the appliances and furniture he had used in the dorm.
The mattress placed on the floor without a frame, the gas stove whose flame died whenever he turned it to low heat, and the refrigerator that had become very noisy from prolonged use. All were items from the dorm. The dorm where Choi Hong-seo and Jung Ji-in… everyone had lived together.