Exploration
The kiss with Cha Jun-jae brought back the memory of my clumsy yet underwhelming first kiss. Had it felt this good back then, this thrilling? The one from moments ago could be dismissed as a mistake, but the kiss I initiated afterward was deliberate.
Lying on the sofa, accepting his lips, I was drunk on a sensation I had never known before. To call it love would be too dark, too ugly. Yet it didn't feel like I was deceiving him or toying with him; instead, I was fluttering like a teenage girl.
Lost in the kiss, I unconsciously traced his neckline and lips with my thumb. Each time I did, Cha Jun-jae swallowed a heavy breath, which slowly brought me back to my senses. Neither of us said it aloud, but we both knew this was no ordinary acting lesson. I let out a sigh and pushed against his shoulder. The moment his lips pulled away, the saliva glistening on them suddenly filled me with fresh shame.
Pushing off his clinging shoulders met fierce resistance. His body weight bore down on my wrists like a sulking child. Only after his darkened eyes read my rejection did he lift his head. His face, submerged in excitement, passion, and desire, was almost refreshingly honest. I knew whether this was him immersed in the role of Haesu or simply bewitched by the kiss. Even now, Cha Jun-jae bit his lip in painful regret that the kiss had ended. If I gave permission, he looked ready to pounce at any second. I liked seeing that desperate expression on his face. I wondered what kind of scene might unfold if I stimulated him lower, or elsewhere. But I decided to pull back there. Slowly, I moved his body aside and rolled off the sofa.
“I want to. More.”
I had been heading toward the first-floor bedroom when I paused. His desire had sunk low, yet it burned so hot and clear. Cha Jun-jae lay sideways on the sofa I had vacated. With listless eyes, he gazed at me in helpless longing. I savored the subtle nuance he had left at the end of his words, licked it with my tongue, and asked again.
“You’re talking about the acting practice, right?”
Cha Jun-jae looked at me with vacant eyes that held a trace of sadness.
“Yeah. Acting.”
And just like that, the light that had burned so fiercely, so intensely, so desperately in him was extinguished. He returned to the calm, melancholy young man I knew. I felt a slight pang of regret. Recognizing that this was nothing more than acting practice brought it to an end. Crossing the line drawn by time was no easy thing.
I couldn’t predict what would happen beyond that line. Nor could I tolerate being the one to suggest crossing it. From the position I had claimed—all the things taken from me, all I had endured—it would wound my pride. The one who should cross the line and try to change our relationship was Cha Jun-jae, not me.
The way he had clung to me when we kissed, that sense of him wanting me. The way he treated me in that moment had whipped away long-held feelings of inferiority and jealousy. But on the face of Cha Jun-jae, who had been rejected repeatedly, there lingered the deflating emotion of “Just let me stay by your side.”
“I’m going to bed.”
The two of us, who had created the most irrational situation imaginable, were masters of acting. Even though we had crossed the line long ago, neither wanted to point out that the other had done so. In the midst of all this, I wanted to step back and observe him. Just how sincere was Cha Jun-jae about crossing that line? Or was he simply toying with me again?
I opened the door, closed it, and collapsed onto the bed. Alone, I touched my lips as if reviewing a memory. I couldn’t accept his change so easily, so casually. As expectation and desire met, the image of him that I wanted grew clearer by the day. I wanted perfect submission, Cha Jun-jae prostrate at my feet. At the very least, I wanted to see his honest heart and feelings. I had no interest in tearing him open with desperate hands. I wanted him to raise the white flag and offer himself to me.
If it came to that, if it really came to that, perhaps I could see him differently. We might discover something about each other that we had never known.
As if that single kiss had stolen years from my life, I fell into a deep sleep. For the first time in a long while, I drifted off with a pleasant smile on my lips.
It was an old, chronic affliction of mine. Perhaps because I had revived a scenario I wrote in the past, there were few images that came to mind when I imagined filming it. Only the overall plot was written in my head like text. What kind of scenes to draw, what kind of characters to create—everything about that remained unclear.
Yet with Cha Jun-jae’s help, those blurry fragments were slowly being filled in. I hadn’t felt this way during the previous shoot. It was the urge to pull scenes straight from my mind and capture them on camera.
The old lodging, where people came and went constantly, where it was cramped and somehow dark, had not been a good place to summon inspiration.
Here, I could hear the sound of rain right before my eyes. The swimming pool was clean, the spacious and quiet villa neat in a way that didn’t disturb the mind. Cha Jun-jae’s tremendous effort had gone into it. Every morning he communicated with the homeowner, always striving to maintain the best conditions. The regret I had felt when I first arrived here was gone without a trace. Now I was at the point of being grateful for Cha Jun-jae’s unilateral decision.
All day I stayed in the living room, watching the rain fall on Dalos Island or picking up my dusty camera to film Cha Jun-jae. In the space he had prepared for me, I was shooting footage and polishing the script at the same time.
I avoided going out for exercise as much as possible. Like a cockroach clinging to the lodging, I filled in the empty spaces of the scenario. In the meantime, Cha Jun-jae, who went jogging early in the morning, announced his presence with the sound of the shower. He either made breakfast or sometimes brought back packaged food, helping me in every possible way.
“Hey, Jun-jae.”
“Yeah?”
At my remark that I was missing Korean flavors, Cha Jun-jae was in the middle of boiling ramen. It was a daily pattern I had grown used to in less than three days. It was too embarrassing to point out, so I had let it slide, but I could no longer endure not commenting on the fact that he had been wearing the same outfit for days.
Cha Jun-jae, who had been boiling water, lifted his head and looked at me. I had closed my laptop lid and was staring at him blankly. Perhaps he hadn’t realized it, but after showering, Cha Jun-jae walked around without a shirt. Silently, without a sound, he moved around me while I worked. I hoped he would notice on his own why I was frowning. Cha Jun-jae, who had been opening the ramen soup packet, asked why with gentle eyes.
“Why are you walking around half-naked?”
“Ah.”
As if only now becoming aware of his state, he stuck his tongue out and smiled shyly. To be honest, it was impossible not to feast my eyes. When I was deeply absorbed in my work, I had no room to feel tempted by the sight of him like that.
I had wondered whether it was intentional or not. But that expression told me it was intentional a thousand times over. While stealing glances at the beautiful lines of muscle running down his chest, I unconsciously bit my tongue.
Cha Jun-jae was doing this to get what he wanted from me. I couldn’t let my guard down just because he appeared to be calmly boiling ramen with lowered eyes. This was a territorial battle between him and me. I was testing him, and he was testing me, each of us trying to hear the words we wanted from the other.
“You should at least wear a tank top. You’ll catch a cold.”
Wanting to win this struggle, I fixed my gaze on the laptop screen. The spicy aroma of the ramen scattered my concentration. I typed on the keyboard with a steady rhythm while skimming over the worm-like letters. The lines of his still-damp chest kept flickering across the laptop screen.
“Eun-dam.”
The scent of shampoo poured from Cha Jun-jae. He casually set the bowl of ramen on the table. His place was beside the sofa. A hand that showed no interest in picking up chopsticks slipped around my waist. Carefully embracing my waist, he leaned his head on my shoulder as if watching the screen. He was deliberately pressing his bare body against me. Gritting my teeth, I closed the heated laptop.
So this is how you’re coming at me.