First Kiss
Moving lodgings had been the right choice after all. I had planned to eat dinner at my usual spot before heading back, but an unexpected rain cloud ruined everything. I burst into the newly rented accommodation, my body drenched from the downpour.
The vivid yellow flower stems, battered by rain, dripped all the way down the wall. By the time Cha Jun-jae located the gate key, my shoes and even my underwear were soaked. The only thing I'd managed to protect was the luggage inside my bag. We had no energy left to even glance around the two-story house and headed straight for the bathroom.
The first floor held the swimming pool, master bedroom, and kitchen. The second floor had two bathrooms and two bedrooms. I decided the master bedroom on the first floor would be mine. That automatically made the second floor Cha Jun-jae's territory.
I had just finished showering in a rush and opened the bathroom door when a damp Cha Jun-jae stepped out from the one across the hall. We stood facing each other in the steamy corridor. If someone had told me this would happen a few days ago, how would I have answered?
Soon you'll be sharing a house with Cha Jun-jae. And right after you finish washing up, you'll run into him right outside the bathroom door.
I probably would have foamed at the mouth and belted out the Cha Jun-jae eradication anthem. I would have booked a therapy appointment, too. But just as the saying goes that the human heart is like a reed, within a few days I had come to accept his presence quite naturally.
With white towels wrapped around our wet hair, we went downstairs together. The front of the first-floor living room was completely open, without windows, connecting directly to the outdoor pool.
It was as if the sky had cracked open; rain hammered down into the rectangular swimming pool. I had no desire to dry my wet hair, so I grabbed a can of beer from the fridge. My body felt heavy and languid as I stretched out on the large sofa in the middle of the living room.
Beautiful scenery, beautiful ocean, beautiful sound of rain. It all seemed like it should inspire good thoughts, yet nothing came to mind. The beautiful things simply stole my thoughts away. They submerged me in the monotonous simplicity of indifferent nature, leaving me unable to worry about anything.
I set the beer can, which I'd barely touched with my lips, down on the floor without thinking. At the same moment, something brushed my hand and picked up that can. With hair plastered from the sudden downpour, Cha Jun-jae took the beer. He placed his lips where mine had been. After one sip of the cold beer, his eyes found mine.
“So this is how Cha Jun-jae felt.”
I had stubbornly eaten his leftovers in hopes of earning praise. Still, there was something oddly intimate about casually drinking from where someone else had put their mouth—especially when that someone was the opposite sex.
I hadn't explained it in detail, but Cha Jun-jae seemed to understand anyway. He set the can down and lay fully prone on the sofa. Droplets rolled from his wet hair like rain. Since it wasn't my sofa, I didn't particularly mind.
“This scenario feels right.”
I was halfway up, heading toward the wide-open window, when the abrupt compliment made me turn. The scenario I'd tucked into my bag was now in his hands.
“When did you grab that?”
“You left it on the kitchen counter.”
I let out a small laugh at the way Cha Jun-jae flipped through the pages so indifferently.
“I realized it after filming with my senior Eun-i. I thought we were a good match, but once we actually worked together on a film, it turned out we were completely different. That's when the dream took root—to shoot the scenes I want to see using a script I wrote myself.”
Cha Jun-jae and the sound of rain. The two together pulled my innermost thoughts out like a sharp sip of strong liquor.
“That's why I spent the whole winter so restless.”
I hadn't taken a single sip of alcohol, yet I leaned against the pillar as if drunk and confessed to Cha Jun-jae. Until now, he had never been simply a person to me. He was the human embodiment of jealousy, a monstrous being who lived life on cheat mode. Even now he existed somewhere between human and monster. Maybe that was why I felt I could whine to him. The moment I spoke the words I'd swallowed alone for months, everything except myself seemed to come into sharper focus.
Things like Cha Jun-jae's expression right now, for instance.
He appeared to be skimming my scenario without much interest, but his eyes sparkled with life. The way he lay there, utterly absorbed, reminded me of Hae-su lying in a tiny room, writing a love letter only to erase it again.
The reason I'd decided I had to make my own film also had a lot to do with the weight actors carried. We called it a collaborative project, yet even the smallest supporting role required consultation, opinions clashed, and it became a case of that's my character, not yours. The stress of not getting the image I wanted had even given me mouth ulcers. The added fact that I couldn't complain because the director was senior Eun-i was just the cherry on top.
“Cha Jun-jae. If I asked you to appear in my movie, you'd turn me down, right?”
At that, Cha Jun-jae quietly lifted his head. He set down the scenario and smiled softly.
“You know I wouldn't.”
“Wouldn't what?”
Cha Jun-jae rested his head on his hand and rolled fully onto his side.
“You won't give me the role of Hae-su. So I wouldn't do it.”
Cha Jun-jae's acting was excellent, but he could never become the Hae-su I dreamed of. The boy Hae-su I longed for.
Just as Cha Jun-jae immersed himself in the scenario again and I was about to lose myself in watching the rain, a tapping sound came from the table. My phone was vibrating.
I walked over slowly, picked up the phone from the dining table, and answered with some reluctance.
“Hello.”
Did you move to a new place?
Let's meet tomorrow, Eun-dam.
We haven't actually talked, have we? Do you know how disappointed your dad and I are? We got on a plane, took a boat, and even dragged your aunt all the way here just to see you......
It seemed my parents had finally combed the entire island to find me. For the first time since I was a child, I felt grateful I'd listened to Cha Jun-jae's advice.
“Yes.”
I gave a half-hearted reply and turned off my phone. I let out the breath that had been stuck in my throat, walked to the sofa, and sank down.
Cha Jun-jae, who had set the scenario aside, gave me a searching look. Exhausted from dealing with my mother, I drank the rest of the beer he had left behind.
“Did you fight with your mother?”
“I always am.”
“Why?”
“Mom and Dad don't try to find happiness outside of me. And I couldn't find any happiness outside of myself. That's where the tragedy began.”
After I finished speaking, I shook the last drops of beer into my throat. The sigh that followed carried a heavy scent of alcohol. I wiped the residue from my lips with the back of my hand and stretched both legs out. If I turned my head, I could meet the eyes of Cha Jun-jae lying prone on the sofa.
Cha Jun-jae rested his cheek on his outstretched arm and studied me. Instead of watching the rain, I watched the silent Cha Jun-jae.
“Eun-dam. Something occurred to me.”
“What?”
“It's about Hae-su's first kiss scene.”
SCENARIO — FIRST KISS SCENE
As their lips met, Soo-hee's expression hardened. Watching her, Hae-su grew anxious. When Soo-hee, her gaze fixed somewhere in the distance, accepted the kiss, Hae-su carefully observed her and matched her breathing.
Cha Jun-jae had deliberately shown me that direction and now asked with the innocent eyes of a rookie actor.
“I don't know how I should perform this.”
“It's not even your part. And I didn't ask you to demonstrate it.”
I answered rather coolly, but his question lingered in my mind. I turned my whole body to face him and sat down. From this angle I could see his face clearly as he lay there.
“Why don't you know? Is the emotion difficult?”
“A first kiss. I've never had one.”
I had been listening to him with genuine seriousness, but the words instantly knocked the wind out of me.
“Liar.”
“It's true.”
“No way. That's definitely a lie.”
It wasn't as if he'd never appeared in a romance film. And didn't he have a perfectly real girlfriend for real-life romance?
“Your girlfriends just let that slide? That makes no sense......”
“Have you done it before?”
“Of course I have.”
At those words, Cha Jun-jae slowly let the scenario slip from his fingers. This time his gaze, stripped of all pretense, drifted over and settled on my lips. The claim that he'd never had a first kiss sounded like temptation. If this continued much longer, it felt like dangerous thoughts would surface. Impulsive ones. Moth-to-flame ones.
“Guide me.”
“What do you mean, guide......”
“I want to act it out. The first kiss scene.”
He whispered it low, as if concealing it within the sound of rain. I sat frozen, not knowing where to look. The approaching red lips, the hand that had seemed limp, reached out and caught me.