Side Story: Christmas Eve
Side Story: Christmas Eve
Even though tomorrow was Christmas, here I was doing a photoshoot.
Thinking about it that way only made me feel more melancholy than ever.
I was putting up with it because the Director had been accommodating in various ways — if they'd treated me as harshly as they did the others, I definitely wouldn't have done it.
But was it just my imagination, or were the clothes getting thinner and lighter the more we shot?
I was a little worried that if we pushed it just a bit further, they'd have me take off my top entirely.
Of course, they weren't crossing the line.
The very fact that a married man was doing a photoshoot was absurd enough, but in keeping with that, they were being extremely meticulous about things like the level of exposure.
Making absolutely certain no one could find any fault...
Wasn't that one of our Director's talents, after all?
That aside, with this shoot alone, it felt like I'd already done about twenty photobooks...
Was it really okay for someone who wasn't even a model to be doing this many photoshoots?
"Who says it's not okay? Bring them to me. I'll beat them to death."
Maybe I'd said something I shouldn't have.
Maybe because the photoshoots I'd already done had raked in money hand over fist, any talk about my photoshoots had become something of a taboo subject.
And for good reason — you could tell just by looking at her.
I'd uttered just that single sentence, and our Director had transformed into a complete goblin.
It was lucky that I was the person in question who'd said it — if not, I would have been sentenced to mandatory overtime until dawn today.
"No, I mean, I'm not even a proper model, am I?"
"So what? You're more popular than the other models."
"Is that really how it works...?"
"And Seong-hwan-ssi, you don't actually hate it either, right? If you hated it, you would have just ignored all those inquiries from overseas luxury brands asking you to model."
"Ahem..."
Just as the Director said, I had succumbed to the temptation of big capital.
And for good reason — it was a situation impossible to resist.
It had started when a famous overseas luxury brand announced they were launching a Korea-exclusive line and designated me as the male model.
At first, I debated whether to do it or not, but they said if I worked as a model, they would pay a high contract fee and give us five genuine models of whatever we wanted.
"So? What on earth did you want so badly that you accepted?"
"Tomorrow's Christmas Eve, right? So I thought I'd give them as a gift to A-ra Noona..."
"You thought?"
"I asked for one model that was released almost a hundred years ago and several limited edition models."
"............"
The Director looked at me blankly for a good while, as if she were dumbfounded.
Well, it was a natural reaction.
A model released a hundred years ago by a luxury brand would be a treasure worthy of being displayed in the brand museum.
But I asked them to make that for me, brand new.
And the limited editions, too.
Limited editions existed for a reason.
Normally, limited edition items were created through collaborations between designers and other companies.
And once that contract expired, they stopped selling them, or more commonly, they released a limited quantity from the very start.
"So? Did you get them?"
"Of course I did. They're in the car right now."
"You'd better manage those well..."
"Hey, don't worry. They were sealed in a state you could practically call a vacuum."
In particular, the model released a hundred years ago had been vacuum-packed and placed inside a wooden case.
The model itself was old, of course, but the production had been done recently, so they probably didn't need to go that far.
Still, there was no reissue stamp or anything like that on it.
I hadn't expected that famous luxury brand to go this far for me.
To put how incredible this was into perspective — in terms of collectible cards, it would be like re-releasing a card from the First Generation era without any reissue marking.
Normally, for the sake of preserving the value of remaining items, they'd never do such a thing, or they'd stamp it with a replica marking or some kind of reissue label.
But the luxury item I received this time had none of that.
That meant the luxury brand had acknowledged that this bag was identical to the one released a hundred years ago.
"I'm so jealous of A-ra. Even in poor condition, that bag is a collector's item that trades at an incredibly high price."
"Hey, I gave you two of them too, didn't I, Director?"
"I mean, sure~"
The grass is always greener on the other side...
No, actually, in this case, the rice cake really was enormous.
*
"Uuuuuhhhuuuhh..."
"Seong-hwan-ssi, you worked hard too!"
Even when I staggered around and let out incomprehensible sounds, the shooting staff and employees now understood me well — I was so grateful for that.
Well, they were the ones who'd worked me this hard, so they ought to do at least that much!
Would I be able to drive in this state?
I wished someone could just take me home.
"Should I call you a taxi?"
The Director wore a bitter smile as she looked at me like that.
"I have presents in the car trunk, so I can't..."
"...That's why I'm asking: why did you put them there? Haah... I feel like something bad will happen if I send you off like this."
"I drive well..."
"That's not what I mean. In the first place, a man shouldn't be going home alone at night."
"...And yet you're the one making a man work until late at night..."
It wasn't like I was saying, men are fragile so please treat them more delicately... or anything like that.
I just wished they'd finish the work a little faster, that was all.
Ah... should I just leave the car and take a taxi?
But then what about the presents?
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve, and if I left the car at the company, how was I supposed to give the presents?
I'd end up in a situation where I couldn't do either.
"Guess I have no choice... I'll take a taxi and come out early tomorrow to pick them up."
"Now that I think about it, a taxi is out of the question."
"Huh..."
Then how was I supposed to get home?
My whole body was so wrecked right now, I didn't think I could even grip the steering wheel.
"Why...?"
"There was that case not long ago where a taxi driver dragged off a male college student and raped him, remember?"
That had indeed happened.
They said the victim was a male college student who'd been out partying at a nightclub around Gangnam and was trying to get home, wasn't it?
"As if that sort of thing is common."
"No. It makes me uneasy."
"Then Director, you drive my car and take me home."
"Shall I? Honestly, that's a thousand times, ten thousand times safer."
No.
Was she really going to do it?
I'd just tossed that out there without thinking.
"Really?"
"In the first place, if A-ra found out I made you work until this hour and then sent you off in a taxi... ugh, terrifying..."
Of course, that made sense.
I too would be scared to say I'd taken a taxi home past 11 at night.
***
"Seong-hwan-a. What time did you get in last night?"
"When I got home, it was around 11:50, I think?"
As I was preparing breakfast, A-ra sat down at the table and began her investigation.
She hadn't known what time I'd come in because she and Arini had been asleep in bed when I got home.
"Did you come by car?"
"Yes. The Director drove me."
"Oh really? I'll give her a call."
"Hey, Noona must be tired from working too, how could I call her out?"
I wasn't the only one working.
If I called Noona every time I was tired, when would Noona ever get to rest?
Living with mutual consideration — that was what being a married couple was about.
"Yaaawn..."
"Did you sleep well, our daughter?"
"Good morning..."
Maybe she'd heard our voices, because Arini came into the kitchen while letting out a yawn.
And as she sat down next to her mom, A-ra, finding her utterly adorable, stroked our daughter's hair.
"Our daughter, is there anything you want for a Christmas present?"
"A car!"
The world's first five-year-old Tiny behind the wheel...
After playing a few games on the 4-axis Besaro simulation that A-ra loved so much, she seemed to have discovered the true joy of driving.
Of course, no matter how much our daughter wanted one, a car was absolutely out of the question.
That was something I could buy her after she turned twenty — it wouldn't be too late then.
"Now now, you little tiny thing, what's this about a car."
"Then a toy car!"
"Alright. Let's go shopping today and buy one together, okay?"
"Okay!"
Nothing beats toys for winning a daughter's favor.
Just seeing her bright smile was already enough to fill me up.
But I'd completely forgotten.
That there was one more person besides our daughter who needed a present.
"Seong-hwan-a... what about Noona?"
"N-Noona's is all properly prepared, so don't worry."
"Hehe, what's there to worry about? I'm just kidding, just kidding."
...Was she really just kidding?
It didn't seem like it.
*
"By the way, where would be a good place to go on Christmas Eve?"
"That's the question... up until last year, Arini was so little that we just stayed home."
"I wasn't little."
Not little, sure.
Even though in the span of a single year, she'd shot up in height and gained a lot of weight too.
Last year she'd been so tiny that it was honestly scary to take her outside.
So I'd just stayed home all day taking care of her while doing my CueTube filming.
"Arin-a, is there anywhere you want to go?"
"Hmm......"
Since we normally took her anywhere she wanted to go, she started thinking about it without much greed.
And for good reason — we'd gone all over the place, from amusement parks onward.
"Fishing!"
"Not 'fis-sing,' it's 'fi-shing.'"
"Yeah! Fiss-ing place!"
The pronunciation was still a bit hard for her, it seemed.
"Oh my, does our daughter know her mom's heart well or what?"
Whether she did or not, our daughter had said to go fishing thinking of her mom, and now her mom was about to die from how cute she found her.
Look at this.
Wasn't she already packing up the fishing bag and bringing it to the front door?
For reference, when we went fishing, Arini liked catching baby mackerel in the shallow water with a short whip rod.
People commonly called them 'godori,' but shouldn't baby mackerel just be called baby mackerel — why did they call them 'godori'?
"That's just the fishermen insisting on calling them godori, that's all."
"Is that so?"
"Baby mackerel taste good, and there's a lot of demand for them, right? But under the fisheries law, if they haven't reached a certain size, you have to release them, don't you?"
"Right?"
"But that's a waste, you see. So even when they catch baby mackerel, they insist they caught 'godori.'"
"Ah-ha...."
Well, there wasn't much to say about that.
These days, the seas were warming up, so things like jellyfish were rising in greater numbers.
That meant fewer fish were being caught, so wouldn't they have to scoop up whatever could bring in money and sell it?
How ironic....