SDM 36

The ceremony in Phoenix Studio’s backyard ended without taking much time.  As autumn set in, Seong-woon, who started feeling the cold sharply, rubbed his stiffening fingers together.

In the past, weather like this would have been fine with just a long-sleeved t-shirt, but now he felt chilly even wearing a knit sweater, wool pants, and a trench coat on top.

“Are you feeling cold?”

“I’m okay.”

Lee Hyeong-seok, who had been hanging back while livestreaming the ceremony, came up and asked quietly. There was already a hot pack in each coat pocket, but Seong-woon couldn’t put his hands in his pockets at this event where he was junior to Ryu Chae-yoon.

“Should I put a hot pack on your back too?”

“We’re going in to read the script now, so I’ll be fine.”

As the youngest son of a chaebol family and nephew of a co-investor company president, no one would say anything even if Seong-woon lay down here. But as someone who’d been in this business for 30 years, he didn’t want to interfere with the first step of making the movie.

Sending Lee Hyeong-seok back to where the managers were gathered, Seong-woon headed to Phoenix Studio’s conference room.

Why is it so cold here? Even when Seong-woon’s former agency, Eunhaengnamoo Actors, was in this building, he used to shudder at the cold air and chill every time he came and went. If even someone who didn’t feel the cold felt that way, how much worse must it be for Ryu Chae-yoon’s body now?

Suddenly, the door of prop room 4 burst open and someone grabbed Seong-woon’s arm. Startled and about to scream, Seong-woon relaxed when he saw it was Baek Sang-hyun holding his arm.

“Don’t scare me like that…!”

“Ah, sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

Baek Sang-hyun apologized readily, holding something white in his hand.

“Turn around.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll put a hot pack on for you.”

“It’s okay, we’re inside now…”

“This building has no sunlight, so it’s really cold.”

That was… true. In winter, it could sometimes be colder than outside. Habitually rubbing his fingers together from the cold, Seong-woon took off his trench coat and turned around. He remembered that the conference room for the script reading was the coldest place.

As the hem of his sweater was lifted, Seong-wooon shivered as a chill ran down. A warm hot pack was placed on his exposed skin.

“I wrapped it twice so you won’t get burned. Take it off if it’s too hot.”

“Okay. …Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

Putting the trench coat back on, Seong-woon finally felt his body warming up. Kneading the hot packs in his pockets a few times, Seong-woon followed Baek Sang-hyun into the conference room. As expected, the conference room was very chilly.

With Baek Sang-hyun and Seong-woon being the last to arrive, everyone took their seats. The man sitting closest to the white screen stood up abruptly and began the introduction.

“Hello everyone. I’m Kim Han-pyo, CEO of Phoenix Studio. Thank you for attending the script reading for ‘Orbit Collision’. Now, shall we start with a brief greeting from the director next to me and go around?”

Not just the production company manager, even the CEO himself was present, and looking at the lineup of actors, it was clear this was marked as Phoenix Studio’s tentpole film for next year. And judging by the timing, they were obviously aiming for the Baekryong Awards. Their determination to at least get nominations for Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, and Best Director was evident.

“Hello. …I’m Ryu Chae-yoon. Please take care of me.”

Perhaps because he was in a familiar setting, Jin Seong-woon’s persona was trying to take over more than Ryu Chae-yoon’s. Seong-woon barely managed to swallow the name he was about to blurt out without realizing it.

“Ryu Chae-yoon-ssi, we have high expectations!”

“…Yes, thank you.”

Director Lee Jun-ho, who hadn’t said anything to Song Ji-kwang or Baek Sang-hyun, interrupted Seong-woon’s greeting. Was he trying to encourage the rookie actress? But Seong-woon knew well that this director wasn’t that kind of person. Wasn’t he someone who only focused on completing the film and didn’t care about anything else? Ah, maybe he’s acting like this because they received investment from RBS?

Despite these thoughts flitting through his mind, Seong-woon maintained a light smile and calmly brushed off the director’s interference.

The conference room was filled with all the main characters who had significant lines and roles. The script reading began in the predetermined order.

They handed out new scripts, saying they had been changed again. Seong-woon’s script had some markings on it. It was a request to fill in for minor character lines here and there. Even though Seong-woon’s role wasn’t small, they still asked him to do it… Is filling in roles still based on seniority?

“Hey, you! Come out here, I’m telling you. If you sleep here, your mouth will go crooked!”

When Seong-woon first acted in the role of “Shin Kang-woo,” people were surprised, and the director looked very pleased. But that was just the beginning. When he performed minor roles, adjusting only his voice tone without needing to act with facial expressions, the person sitting next to him was startled enough to flinch.

Just now, he played the role of a police officer mistaking a corpse for a drunk person. Next was a waiter taking orders at a pork belly restaurant, then an arrogant young gang member… Each time Seong-woon added a new performance, people’s gazes bore into him.

“I’m, I’m sorry, hyung-nim. This is my first time doing something like this…”

After delivering his line and receiving no response, Seong-woon slowly raised his eyes from the script. He wondered why he hadn’t noticed until now, but many people, no, everyone in the conference room was looking at him.

“…Did I do something wrong?”

“Wow, you did so well I forgot to say my line.”

The middle-aged actor playing the gang’s enforcer laughed and patted Seong-woon’s shoulder. The excited director slapped the production company CEO’s hand repeatedly, speaking in a delighted voice.

“We got all that on camera, right?”

“We did. We should release it all as behind-the-scenes footage.”

“It’s like a full-on acting power show!”

A power… show? Though he had been in charge of filling in minor character lines at every script reading, Seong-woon was quite taken aback by this reaction. He hadn’t done much better than before, had he? He had even been a bit lazy, only doing voice acting…

“Th…thank you…?”

“No, no, you don’t have to thank me. I should be thanking you! It’s like a gourd rolling in whole.”

Now that he thought about it, didn’t Director Lee Jun-ho’s way of speaking resemble Ryu Ho-yoon’s a bit? Listening to words that seemed to have exclamation marks at the end of every sentence, Seong-woon nodded reluctantly.

“Why are you being shy? It’s a compliment. I was really surprised at how well you did.”

“…Thank you.”

When he raised his face, which had turned bright red, all the actors except Sang-hyun treated Seong-woon as if he were a tiny child actor.

“I was worried because you’re a rookie… but looks like next year’s Baekryong New Actor Award might come from here?”

“Looks like I’ll have to do well to hand an award to Ryu Chae-yoon-ssi.”

The director even joked around. The atmosphere at the reading was good… It was good that it went well, but… Being looked at with such fond gazes made Seong-woon feel like he was pulling off a huge scam. On the outside, he was a floundering rookie, but on the inside he had 30 years of experience.

“Let’s continue then. The mood is so good, we might be able to go all the way to the end.”

With the excited director’s conducting gestures as a backdrop, the actors immersed themselves in acting again. The energy was so intense, as if planets were really colliding, that even Seong-woon became quite absorbed, finding it genuinely interesting.

But Baek Sang-hyun didn’t seem to feel the same way. Seong-woon sensitively picked up on a discord that perhaps only he could sense, and for a moment gazed at Baek Sang-hyun’s slightly blurred face.

When the conflict between Shin Jung-woo and Shin Kang-woo reached its climax, Baek Sang-hyun abruptly stopped acting, as if a fragile glass had shattered. Unable to deliver his lines, he opened and closed his mouth for a moment before raising his hand to request a break.

“I’m sorry, but I need to step out for a moment.”

Then, without waiting for permission, Baek Sang-hyun hurriedly left the conference room.

“…We’ll take a short break.”

At the production company CEO’s words, a commotion of murmuring arose.

“Looks like his emotions got pretty intense.”

“It was certainly a part that required delicate acting, being the climax and all.”

Quietly listening to the surrounding voices, Seong-woon was slightly relieved to hear no words of criticism towards Baek Sang-hyun, and stood up from his seat. The hot pack Baek Sang-hyun had given him was still warm, and because of that… he found himself unconsciously walking towards prop room 4.

***

After Jin Seong-woon’s death, Sang-hyun wandered every day between nightmares and hope.

“Huh…”

When he was bullied for not adapting to the sudden change in environment, Baek Sang-hyun could only watch Korean dramas and movies after refusing to go to school. After shutting himself in at home following a major injury that left him with a broken leg and concussion. He didn’t want to hear the language of those who ostracized him.

Worried about Baek Sang-hyun, his parents allowed him to watch whatever he wanted as much as he wanted. As he immersed himself in fiction, Baek Sang-hyun discovered a star. Jin Seong-woon, a small boy only 2 years older than him, acted like a star that burned its entire body to emit light.

From then on, Baek Sang-hyun became completely obsessed with all of Jin Seong-woon’s works. He was happy to trace back his past, realizing that Seong-woon had appeared on screen even before he was a year old, but within a few months, he had watched all of his appearances.

Watching and rewatching, Baek Sang-hyun gradually began to leave his room as he followed along in real-time with a school-based drama that Seong-woon was starring in at the time. In that drama, Seong-woon played the role of a kind class president, and there was an episode where he persuaded a student who had shut themselves in their room, like SBaek ang-hyun, to come back to school.

The day after watching that episode, Baek Sang-hyun joined his family for breakfast. His parents’ tears wet the table as they held his hands, still bearing scars. Just when it seemed that nightmare was ending on a good note, he now had to enter another nightmare in progress—Jin Seong-woon’s death. The cruel verdict that he died instantly in a traffic accident, with nothing that could be done. It continued even now. Every night, that memory repeated itself.

The sponsorship offer from Ryu Shin’s secretariat wasn’t even worth considering. Even with the threats against his family. He had already heard such threats disguised as proposals several times before.

He just felt nauseated. At Ryu Shin, who persistently contacted him to remind him not to forget the appointment date while he was staying at the funeral home, skipping meals because someone had died, and at the youngest son of the chaebol family who cowardly hid behind him, lacking the courage to speak directly.

Baek Sang-hyun naturally didn’t show up at the appointment, and afterwards, he just worked mechanically. Even without sleep or proper food, people don’t die easily. And then, before his eyes appeared Ryu Chae-yoon, shining like Jin Seong-woon.

“Sunbae-nim?”

Just like the present. Baek Sang-hyun grabbed Ryu Chae-yoon’s arm as he opened the prop room door and entered. Bang, he pushed the prop room door closed and pulled his body, causing the staggering Ryu Chae-yoon to bump his face against Baek Sang-hyun’s shoulder.

“How do you know to come here?”

“…Pardon?”

“You were here last time too. Now too, how did you find this place?”

As if he knew something. Phoenix Studio’s prop room 4 was especially good for resting because there were no people around. Jin Seong-woon had told him that.

“You were here earlier too, sunbae-nim….”

“Then what about that time?”

“…That time I just wandered in without knowing much. If it’s a problem that I wander around without knowing better….”

“…..”

Ryu Chae-yoon’s expression darkened as he looked at Baek Sang-hyun. Wondering if he looked such a mess that he would look at him like that, Baek Sang-hyun released Ryu Chae-yoon’s arm he was holding and slid down the wall to sit.

“…You’re sweating a lot. Are you not feeling well?”

A soft voice filled with concern. If he closed his eyes and listened, he could really believe that person had come back to life.

Ryu Chae-yoon crouched in front of Baek Sang-hyun and took out a handkerchief from his pocket to offer him. Unlike the warm handkerchief that seemed to have been with a hot pack, Ryu Chae-yoon’s fingers holding it were only cold.

Baek Sang-hyun didn’t know Ryu Chae-yoon very well. But he could explain for hours how similar the current Ryu Chae-yoon is to Jin Seong-woon. Everything from the movement of the eyebrow muscles to the habits when walking. Everything.

“I… can’t sleep well.”

“Then you should go to the hospital…”

“I already know why.”

“…”

“I already know the person who can solve it.”

Baek Sang-hyun quietly looked into Ryu Chae-yoon’s eyes. Ryu Chae-yoon should be even more flustered here. If this person is Ryu Chae-yoon, if this is really Ryu Shin’s youngest son and Ryu Chae-yoon who had offered him a sponsorship, he shouldn’t look so pitiful and understand everything.

Baek Sang-hyun grabbed Ryu Chae-yoon’s arm and pulled him in a little. Ryu Chae-yoon’s upper body, which had been crouching awkwardly, collapsed, and Baek Sang-hyun wrapped his arms around his back and kissed him.

Soft, squishy lips like soft ice cream, tasting like cherries, just like that ridiculous nickname.