Bonds of the Pop-Up Store (4)
The essence of the mountains unfolded like a vision the instant it touched the tongue, followed by the sweeping vista of an expansive, golden field of wheat.
I thought things like that only happened in comics or novels.
Everyone knew the trope from cooking manga: a character took a single bite of food, an ethereal illusion bloomed all around them, and tears streamed down their cheeks, overwhelmed by pure flavor. Meari: Autumn was every bit as dramatic—if anything, even more intense.
How does anyone even craft a flavor like this?
If her manager, someone with no deep appreciation for alcohol, felt this strongly, what must it have been like for Soobin? After taking a sip, she had stared blankly into the empty air. The moment her senses returned, she had pleaded with him.
"A video! Let's shoot a video and post it!"
"What video, YouTube? Wait, out of nowhere like this? You aren't even wearing makeup—"
"Not posting a review of this would be a sin! Hurry!"
That was how a video produced without any prior approval ended up hastily edited and uploaded within two hours. Unlike her usual content, it was practically a full-blown liquor review. Even so, the response was explosive.
"Hehe. Everyone's loving it."
"Thank goodness. I thought your career was finished."
"How could it flop? With liquor this good, there's no way it could fail!"
"I was talking about your image, Soobin."
Her manager chided her as she clutched the bottle of Meari: Autumn to her chest like a prized treasure. An actress who loved drinking was one thing, but an actress who used to be an idol was another. Until now, she had cultivated a cute, casual image of someone who simply enjoyed a social drink. If she kept this up, she would inevitably get branded as a hardcore boozer.
Still...
"Well, seeing you smile is better than the alternative."
"Hm? Did you say something?"
"Nothing. We're almost there."
The black van turned into a quiet, upscale residential neighborhood. Peering out through the heavily tinted windows, Soobin smoothly pulled on a mask and a bucket hat. Her head was small to begin with, so pulling the brim low concealed more than half her face.
"Hehe. He'll love it, right?"
"Probably. There's no way he could hate something like this."
"Right? The second I tasted it, he popped right into my head!"
Beaming brightly, Soobin cradled Meari: Autumn in her arms. When the van pulled to a halt in the driveway, the two of them stepped out, walked up to the front gate, and pressed the intercom button.
Ding-dooong~
A chime typical of an affluent estate echoed into the quiet air. After a brief wait, a heavy metallic clunk signaled the latch unlocking.
The door swung open, and the man who appeared within...
"Uh... you're here?"
Shabby, or perhaps utterly disheveled. Those were the only words that could describe him. Dried ramen broth splattered his clothes, hinting that he hadn't changed in days, and an overgrown beard framed his jaw. One might stretch the definition and call the beard a fashion choice, and perhaps the mop of tangled hair that nearly covered his eyes could be excused as an eccentric style. Yet the greasy strands and hollow, sunken eyes proved beyond doubt that he was mired in suffocating torment.
"Director Park Wan-gu! Hello!"
"Pardon the sudden intrusion, sir."
"No... well... no need to call it an intrusion..." Wan-gu replied in a sluggish, dragging drawl. Even then, he only peeked through a narrow crack in the door, showing nothing but his weary eyes, as if refusing to take a single step into the outside world. "It's hardly appropriate for a young lady to come visiting an old codger like this..."
"Aw, come on! Don't say that! I watched every single piece you wrote and directed, right to the very end! Besides, I brought something I really wanted to show you!"
"Haaah..." Letting out a deep sigh at last, Wan-gu pulled the door open wider. "Come in, then..."
Wan-gu's residence sat in a neighborhood renowned for wealth, but the detached two-story house with its private yard could hardly be called well-kept.
"Come in... if you can manage..."
"Uh, well..."
"Yes, Director!"
Unlike the hesitating manager, Soobin strode right inside without missing a beat. In truth, between the two of them, the manager was the normal one. The front yard was choked with dead, withered plants, and inside the entryway lay heaps of discarded convenience store bento boxes, instant ramen cups, and crushed beer cans.
"I've been writing, so things are a bit..."
"Still, this is..."
"Because you're a true artist, Director!"
How could she react with such cheerful reverence after seeing a disaster like this? The manager swallowed a sigh, unable to say another word. After all, the master of this house was Park Wan-gu—the titan who had written and directed three separate ten-million-ticket box office hits. In Chungmuro, merely dropping the three syllables of Park Wan-gu's name had once been enough to draw a flood of eager investors.
No, that needed correcting. It used to draw a flood.
The power carried by the name Park Wan-gu had faded, losing its brilliant luster. At a certain point, he had stopped writing entirely and vanished into seclusion. Many in the industry wondered about his whereabouts, but no one could uncover a thing. Director Park had severed all contact with the outside world.
He's suffering from an illness. An illness called a creative slump...
After the roaring success of his last film, Park Wan-gu had plummeted into a sudden, crippling slump. Words refused to flow, and anything he forced onto the page disgusted him. And so, Park Wan-gu hid himself from everyone. Very few knew the truth behind his isolation.
"Director! How have you been doing all this time?"
"How else... same as always..."
True to his words, atop the only relatively tidy desk sat a solitary laptop. Yet the open document on the screen held not a single sentence. He had likely spent weeks typing and deleting in an endless, agonizing loop. Soobin was well aware of that, so she pointedly avoided mentioning his work.
"So... what brings you here?"
"To see you, of course!"
"Well... never mind... I don't have anything to offer you..." Wan-gu shuffled toward the kitchen, rummaging around for something to serve his guests. But there was nothing to be found. A glimpse into the open cupboard revealed identical instant ramen cups and nothing else. "Care for some cup ramen?"
"No, I'm fine. More importantly, Director, here. Look at this."
Soobin set down the gift she had brought, sliding it toward him. It was the bottle of Meari: Autumn she had waited in line to purchase at the pop-up store. That was the very reason she and her manager had bought a bottle each.
"Ah, this... I saw the news articles."
"Right? Do you know how hard it was to get this?"
"Yeah. Thanks."
"So when are you going to cast me in your next project?"
"You're just bringing that up on your own. I told you, I don't have any plans." Wan-gu shook his head. Truth be told, Soobin coming to see him was an act of relentless, one-sided devotion. What had she said again? After watching his film over and over, she had sworn she would work with him again no matter what. "Besides, I haven't written anything... Right. You came, so I let you in, but if you're done, you should get going."
A blunt dismissal.
Soobin recognized the cue and rose from her seat. Before stepping out through the front door, she called back with a bright smile, "Director! I'll be waiting for you!"
"Just go."
Slam!
With Soobin's parting words, the heavy front door clicked shut. Left alone in the quiet house, Wan-gu let out a weary breath.
"Why does she keep coming back?"
It was true that Wan-gu had scouted the rough diamond that was Soobin, but he had done so without any grand designs. She had simply possessed the exact character presence needed for a supporting role in his film.
"And yet she's been doing this ever since. Good grief..."
Having someone cherish his creative child was flattering, but lately, everything felt like an unbearable weight. Still, what choice did he have? His profession was writing. Even if his mind felt completely hollow and devoid of thought, writing was his duty.
How long had he sat staring at the glowing laptop screen?
"Haaah..."
In the end, even as dusk gave way to total darkness, he had failed to produce a single word. His fingers felt stiffened like petrified wood, and his skull felt packed with solid stone. Defeated once again, Wan-gu rose from his chair and shuffled toward the kitchen. Even without writing a single line, this wretched body of his still demanded sustenance.
"This is..."
His eyes fell upon the bottle Soobin had left behind. Meari: Autumn, crafted by Songhadang, the brewery that had recently made headlines across the country.
"When someone brings a gift with such good intentions, you can't just leave it to gather dust..."
Had it been offered by someone expecting a favor or harboring ulterior motives, he would have rejected it on the spot. But in his eyes, Soobin was simply someone who genuinely loved his work. At the same time, she was a fellow artist. After creating a film together, weren't they colleagues? He couldn't bring himself to dismiss a gift brought with such earnest warmth.
"I should at least say a word or two about how it tasted..."
Instead of reaching for cup ramen, Wan-gu retrieved a small glass. To tell her he had enjoyed it, he had to at least take a sip. Peeling away the packaging revealed an exquisite bottle label. Across its surface, an autumn mountain draped in vibrant foliage was rendered with sweeping elegance.
Yet Wan-gu felt no particular stir of emotion. His only intention was to knock back a quick glass so he could send her a perfunctory reply.
"Not that I'd know fine liquor even if it bit me."
Pop.
He uncorked the bottle and tipped it, letting the amber liquid trickle into the glass. Instantly, an ethereal fragrance drifted upward, tickling the tip of his nose.
"Ah..."
It was autumn.
The autumn mountains he had climbed with his parents as a young boy. The crisp leaves he had watched swirl across the pavement as a struggling student, running breathlessly between production offices to submit his manuscripts. The tender warmth of his first love's hand beneath a blazing maple tree. The cold, breathtaking autumn sky he had looked up at the day his film crossed the ten-million-ticket milestone. And this year's autumn, which he had endured in hollow, bitter solitude.
"This is..."
Before he realized what he was doing, he lifted the glass and wet his throat. He did not know what variety of liquor this was, nor did he know the proper etiquette for drinking it. He could only feel it.
It washed over his palate, exhaled its fragrance through his nose, slid gently down his throat, and bloomed from deep within his chest with quiet, magnificent pride—an autumn painted in crimson maple.
"Remembering our autumn..."
As if possessed, Wan-gu rose and returned to his desk. When he finally stood up from his chair, an entire day had passed.
The once-blank document was now densely packed with black characters, page after page.
"Where on earth did she find such liquor...?"
He had never been one to enjoy alcohol. While some writers claimed brilliant prose only flowed when wine loosened the mind, to his sensibilities, alcohol had always been a nuisance that degraded the sharp precision of a sentence. Yet in this very moment, he could not deny the truth. The one who had penned this script was not him—it was the liquor he had tasted, the living soul harbored within that bottle.
"Songhadang..."
And on the bottle that had brought a master director's long, suffocating slump to an end, the name Songhadang stood clearly inscribed.
"Are the preparations coming along well?"
Time flew with staggering speed. The tail end of winter vanished in the blink of an eye, ushering in the blooming warmth of spring. Though a chill still lingered in the air, once the late spring frost and seasonal rains passed, the time would come for lush, vibrant greenery to assert its full vigor.
Even so, Songhadang's routine remained relentless. We were entirely consumed by filling the endless rush of orders for Meari. Yet there was one notable shift.
"Of course. All that's left now is the official release."
Nodding at Se-jun's reply, I reflected on the whirlwind of recent days. We had sprinted without a moment's rest. Naturally, our current timeline was relatively generous compared to what it could have been; under our original schedule, meeting the deadline would have been completely impossible.
"It's all thanks to you, Se-jun."
"Come on, I was just doing my job."
According to Se-jun's research, entering the Korean Traditional Liquor Competition required more than just having a finished product ready on submission day. The entry had to have been in active commercial distribution for at least three months prior to the competition date.
"I'm just glad everything fell into place so neatly."
"Seriously. Though honestly, I had no idea the aging process would wrap up so quickly." Scratching the back of his head, Se-jun couldn't hide his bewilderment.
This was all thanks to Old Man Moktong, who had understood our predicament and lent a supernatural hand. Of course, the dokkaebi's thirst had taken a noticeable toll on our total volume, but we had met the deadline nonetheless. And he wasn't the only one who had worked wonders.
"Thank you for pushing through, Ha-jeong."
"Hehe! It was nothing! It was so delicious that inspiration struck me like a bolt of lightning!"
Despite her humble words, Ha-jeong beamed brightly, clearly delighted by the praise. And it was true. The moment Ha-jeong had taken a single sip of the aged brew, her eyes had widened as if they might pop out of her head, and she had dashed off to start sketching. When I followed her to take a look, the illustrations flowing from her brush were nothing short of breathtaking.
"Ah, but it was only easy to draw because of the brilliant concept you gave me, Boss!"
"I appreciate you saying that."
Once the packaging was finalized, everything progressed smoothly, like a ship sailing before a favorable wind. The paperwork required for the competition was completely in order as well.
"Then we're really all set."
"Yeah. Only the launch remains."
Songhadang's brand-new lineup.
The release of our barrel-aged yakju was just around the corner.