10th Episode) #3. A Bond of Wind and Moon (風月)
‘Ryeong-a!’
The queen of Daehan High School made her way through the crowd and stopped in front of Yeonho.
Judging by the way she stood frozen with her eyes wide open, she seemed every bit as surprised as he was.
“Do Yeonho?”
“Uh….”
“How strange. We’ve met again here.”
Boasting an absolute beauty that would draw an exclamation from anyone with eyes, Ryeong-a walked past him.
‘First Teacher Sin Juwon, and now Ryeong-a too… This movie sure has a lot of coincidences!’
Ryeong-a was already walking the path of a child actress. She was not particularly famous or anything, but judging by the fact that she even had a commercial shoot, it seemed her star potential had already been recognized.
If that was the case, then no matter how he thought about it, wasn’t Ryeong-a playing the heroine’s younger self in this movie?
The moment he reached that conclusion, a chill ran down Yeonho’s spine.
‘There was definitely a scene like that in the script….’
There had been a scene where Ri Jin rested her head on Bak Gyeonghwi’s shoulder. And not only that—Ri Jin, who had somehow pressed herself close to him, actually laid her head on Gyeonghwi’s shoulder?
* * *
A short while later, that very problematic scene was filmed on the set.
“Hi, cue!”
Ryeong-a, transformed into Ri Jin, rested her head on the young Hwarang’s shoulder.
Gyeonghwi was startled out of his wits and pushed her away.
“What are you doing…?”
The young Hwarang’s voice was dry and emotionless.
But Ri Jin stubbornly rested her head on his shoulder again.
Now it was time for this movie’s uniquely cringeworthy dialogue to begin. The kind of cringe that made one’s hands and feet feel like they might disappear—he had better brace himself in advance.
“Just… let me stay….”
He tried to push her away again, but Ri Jin’s face was far too close. The two looked at each other at the same time, then opened their mouths at the same time.
“I have a favor to ask.”
“I have a favor to ask.”
Having said the exact same thing, the two gazed quietly at each other.
Ri Jin tightly clasped Gyeonghwi’s arm.
The young Hwarang’s eyes wavered, and a complicated expression crossed his face. Confusion, surprise, and even a joy whose reason he himself did not understand.
“You are always so willful.”
“Then… is it not allowed…?”
Ri Jin buried her face in his shoulder so he would not see her sorrow.
After hesitating, Gyeonghwi fidgeted with Ri Jin’s hair. Then he pulled her into his arms.
At that moment, Yeonho became Gyeonghwi and swallowed down his emotions. It was the desperate feeling of a man pleading to be allowed to keep the woman named Ri Jin by his side.
* * *
“Cut! Excellent! Ten out of ten!”
With that, the final scene Yeonho had to film came to an end.
Yeonho let out a deep sigh of relief at having safely finished his cringe-king performance.
“Phew.”
“All right, everyone, applause!”
Director Ju clapped for the two actors’ passionate performances, and the staff all cheered and joined in. Of course, Si Hun was the sole exception. Standing with one leg cocked, he glared at Yeonho.
“Wow! This is no joke, is it? You two really looked like you were in love.”
“Director, I got so excited just watching them!”
“Okay, this is a romance movie. If it makes a woman’s heart flutter from a woman’s perspective, then it’s a success. Gyeonghwi, Ri Jin—you both did an amazing job. One more round of applause!”
Clap, clap, clap.
As the applause rang out, Yeonho scratched the back of his neck and repeatedly cried out his thanks.
When the day’s surreal schedule finally came to an end, he felt relieved, yet at the same time as if he were dreaming.
He had acted in a movie—acting he had never even dared hope for. And on top of that, he had received so much praise.
It was enough to make him wonder whether this was truly the kind of luck he deserved. A soft, swelling wish began to grow inside him: that he might continue to have days like this from now on.
“Phew.”
He heard Ryeong-a, who had been sitting right beside him, let out a quiet sigh.
Only then did the reality of having a goddess this close to him truly sink in.
“Lee Ryeong-a, you worked hard too.”
“Ha, it was exhausting. I feel like all my energy’s been sucked out.”
She yawned sleepily, then looked up at the sky.
Yeonho, for no particular reason, looked up as well. The sky had grown dark, and countless stars were scattered across it.
“There are so many stars, aren’t there?”
The sleepy look in Ryeong-a’s eyes suddenly brightened.
“Yeah… I guess. You can’t really see them in Seoul.”
“So there really were this many.”
Ryeong-a murmured to herself as though she truly had not known.
Then she turned her gaze to Yeonho.
“By the way, I was surprised. I’d heard that you were good at acting, but you’re really pretty good, aren’t you? You suddenly took on the role and everything. How can you be so good?”
“I think it’s because the assistant director helped me.”
Ryeong-a firmly stated her opinion.
“Can someone help with something like that? You must simply be that talented.”
“Is… that so?”
The praise was enough to fill his stomach even without eating, and Yeonho grew embarrassed, rolling his eyes from side to side.
“I benefited from it too, in a way. I think I was able to concentrate better because of you. You really seemed like Gyeonghwi. Like the person in the script had slipped straight out into reality?”
“You really seemed like Ri Jin too.”
They were trading compliments back and forth.
‘Lee Ryeong-a’s personality is pretty different from what I thought.’
Since they had never been close, he had not known what she was really like at all. He had no information about her whatsoever.
But he had first seen Ryeong-a when he was in the first grade of elementary school, and they had attended the same schools ever since.
‘She probably doesn’t even know that we’ve been in the same school since elementary school.’
They had only been classmates in first grade. After that, they had never once been in the same class.
Lee Ryeong-a had always been surrounded by people, so there was no reason for her to remember someone as quiet as him.
‘She was incredibly dark when she was little, though.’
Yeonho dredged up fragments of a distant memory and looked back on the past.
When she was young, Lee Ryeong-a used to bang her head against trees or walls. She had been a very strange child.
She rarely smiled and was extremely aloof.
Even now, in their first year of high school, some of that aloofness remained. But compared to how she had been as a child, she had become much brighter.
‘Well… everyone’s personality changes as they grow up, right?’
Hadn’t his own personality changed drastically once his eyes started bulging out and his face became covered in acne?
“But Do Yeonho, how did you suddenly end up here? Had you originally applied to be an extra?”
An older gentleman who had approached them at some point—no, Teacher Sin—answered in his place.
“Teacher Lee brought him.”
“Oh, so you came with the teacher. Then Yeonho will be heading back later?”
“Looks that way. Yeonho, Teacher Lee still has more to film.”
“It’s okay. I’ll wait.”
At that moment, he suddenly felt a warm sensation around his arm. The source of that warmth was Ryeong-a’s hand?!
With a cool smile, she tugged at his arm.
“Just come with me in my van.”
“Huh? Together?”
“Yes, it’d be better for Yeonho to go back with Ryeong-a. To be honest, I was worried about sending you back all by yourself. I was going to go with you after I finished filming, but if you’re riding in Ryeong-a’s van, then never mind.”
Ryeong-a looked at him as if her eyes were asking, What will you do?
“Um, then I’ll impose on you a little….”
And so Yeonho ended up boarding Ryeong-a’s white van.
The manager sitting in the driver’s seat kept checking on him through the rearview mirror, and the suspicious look in his eyes left Yeonho sitting on pins and needles. Was he wary of a scandal with a boy, even though they were only high school students?
‘I should’ve just gone with Teacher Sin.’
Perhaps she was tired, because Ryeong-a fell asleep right away.
Before long, Yeonho’s eyes also closed. He did not wake up until he heard the manager’s voice.
“Student Do Yeonho?”
When he opened his eyes, the scenery outside the window had changed into one he knew well. They had arrived in Seoul.
The man in the driver’s seat asked again.
“Your name is Do Yeonho, right?”
“Yes.”
“Could you tell me exactly where you live? I’m planning to drop you off first, then take Ryeong-a home.”
At that moment, a thought suddenly flashed through Yeonho’s mind.
“No! Please let me off around here. I can get home on my own.”
“What? It’s fine, so tell me. It’s already late. I should drive you all the way home.”
It was already ten at night.
But Yeonho absolutely did not want to ride this van all the way to his house. Because if Ryeong-a happened to see the place he lived in…
It was a little… embarrassing?
Perhaps that was the feeling he was experiencing.
Of course, Ryeong-a would not care in the slightest what kind of house he lived in. Still, he cared.
In the end, after stubbornly insisting, he got out near Jamsil Station.
“Are you sure you can get home safely?”
“Of course.”
Before getting out of the van, he looked toward the seat beside him one last time. Ryeong-a was still sleeping soundly.
‘Good night.’
He said goodbye only in his heart, then got out of the van.
By the time he took the subway and then the bus and arrived in his neighborhood, it was eleven at night.
Yeonho stood blankly, looking up at the villa where he lived.
An old, five-story villa.
The exterior walls had turned yellow with age and were cracked all over.
He lived here with his mother and younger sibling.
Other people had mothers and fathers as though it were only natural. They did not suffer the inconvenience of worrying because they had run out of rice. Some even believed that terrible poverty existed only on television.
But for him, it was not a fictional story. It was reality.
And at this exact moment, that incident overlapped with his thoughts. The sight of his mother’s back as she was thrown out of the restaurant.
For some reason… his heart felt sorrowful.
He hated poverty.
“Son! What are you doing here?”
“You startled me!”
Yeonho was startled by his mother’s sudden appearance. They said that if you spoke of a tiger, it would appear!
“Mom, are you just coming home now?”
“There was a lot of work today.”
It was eleven at night, and the sky was pitch-black.
“You worked… until this late?”
“Yes, that’s how it turned out. Just for today.”
As his mother came closer and took his hand, an acrid smell stung his nose.
‘What is this smell?’
The smell of strong chemicals.
For a moment, Yeonho tried to ask what her new job was, but the words caught in his throat. His mother had suddenly made a suggestion.
“Yeonho, shall we go to Hoon’s family’s supermarket?”
Before he knew it, he was following his mother to the supermarket run by Hoon’s family.
“Oh my! Who is this? Is this Yeonho?”
The moment Hoon’s mother saw Yeonho, her mouth fell open.
“My goodness… Yeonho’s mother, you won’t have to worry about anything anymore.”
“Why?”
“If your son grows up with a face like that. Just looking at him would make every worry in the world disappear.”
“Aren’t you laying it on a little thick?”
“Oh, why are you saying that? What do you mean, laying it on thick? Do you see looks like these every day? Hoon was saying that Yeonho had suddenly become incredibly handsome. So it was true—really true.”
His mother’s face instantly brightened at the older woman’s praise. The signs of fatigue vanished in an instant.
* * *
On the way home after buying a few ice creams at the supermarket, his mother patted Yeonho’s back with a radiant smile.
“Hoon’s mother praised our son so much that I feel full without eating a thing.”
“I hear things like that a lot at school these days too. Since I suddenly look different.”
“Really? Then our son must be popular now.”
“I don’t know about popular. I just get praised a lot these days.”
“I see. That’s wonderful. I’m so glad.”
Suddenly, his mother stopped walking, forcing Yeonho to stop as well.
“Mom, what’s wrong?”
When he looked at her, her eyes had grown moist before he knew it.
Her expression looked as though she might burst into tears at any moment, and Yeonho’s heart ached in one corner of his chest.
“I just thought it was such a relief. I’m so happy.”
“What, what are you talking about…? Are you about to cry over something like that?”
“I’m not crying because I’m sad. I’m crying because I’m so happy. I realized that our son has already grown so much that he’s starting to look like his father. You’ve grown up so well. I’m just so grateful.”
Yeonho could not say anything for a moment. It felt as if a dam inside his heart had collapsed, and he was afraid that the moment he opened his mouth, he would burst into tears. If he cried, his mother would surely cry even harder. So he steeled his heart and tried to hold it in.
Instead, he made an enthusiastic vow.
“Mom! When I grow up, I’ll definitely become successful!”
“What? All of a sudden… successful?”
“Yes!”
For his precious family, and for the sake of his own dream as well.
‘Let’s succeed as an actor! Definitely! That’s the path I have to take!’
Since he had decided to become an actor, he would reach the very top. And then he would make sure that neither his mother nor Yeona would ever have to remain in this poverty again.
There was no way this wish would come true just because he sat still, set out a bowl of water, and prayed.
‘Then should I start going to auditions tomorrow?’