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My mind went light, as if a fuse had blown somewhere inside my skull.
My heart was pounding like mad against the hot breath Lee Ha-eun drew through the space between our joined lips.
The touch of soft skin, the sweet scent, the saliva tangled between us like a spiderweb.
I could see my own face reflected in her black eyes.
It was the face of twenty-eight-year-old Kwon Chan, melting helplessly in love.
My reason, which had briefly run off on its own, came stumbling back.
"Lee Ha-eun."
I gently pushed away the woman clinging to me.
"What are you doing?"
My voice came out rough and unsteady.
Now that the sweetness of the moment had passed, the weight of reality pressed down on my shoulders.
"You know this isn't right."
A manager and an actress. A Christmas kiss between the two of us.
For a stupid little fling sparked by mutual attraction, it was far too big a flame.
Even if it weren't me, she would...
There was no question she would lose a great deal because of this.
I didn't have the confidence to watch Lee Ha-eun lose everything and collapse.
"Pull yourself together. Huh? Why are you doing this?"
At my rebuke, Lee Ha-eun reached up and touched her own lips.
Her mouth, glossy with a faint sheen, moved slowly.
"I've thought about this dozens of times."
Her bright red lips curved into a line of perfect grace.
"I've thought about this situation dozens, maybe hundreds of times... and I still can't stand it."
With that, Lee Ha-eun came toward me.
I backed away just as fast.
But she closed the distance even faster.
Before long, she was right in front of my face, tugging slowly at my collar and whispering, "You come at me with your whole body, begging to be taken."
"!"
"And you want me to endure it?"
My eyes widened.
In the meantime, an unreadable smile played at the corner of Lee Ha-eun's mouth.
"You know, Kwon Chan. I'm not a patient woman."
I stammered, "I-I was... begging to be taken?"
"You always show up when I need you."
Lee Ha-eun slowly brushed my face with her hand.
From my brow to my nose, then along my jaw.
Her hand moved over my face like a snake, gliding and grazing.
A strange touch like that sent a sensation I couldn't name, both pleasure and tension, rippling down my spine.
"You only look at me, only protect me... and yet you don't even take care of yourself. If that's not courting me, then what is it?"
She laughed after asking the question.
Looking at that smile, a line suddenly surfaced in my head.
The most beautiful jewel in the world is the expression of a woman in love.
And right now, that jewel stood before me.
Eyes fixed only on me.
A honey-sweet smile steeped in happiness.
At Lee Ha-eun's expression, more dazzling than any jewel, my reason began to slip again.
Her scent, so close in this sealed space between us, stirred up a heat I couldn't hold back.
The pure white skin and collarbone visible through the loosened drape of her dress made indecent thoughts rise unbidden.
All I have to do is reach out.
Then I can have this woman.
I can answer those eyes that look only at me.
The rough desire boiling in my chest was about to surge past reason when my mouth moved on its own.
"Lee Ha-eun."
Nothing else would come.
At the name I managed to call out with effort, Lee Ha-eun suddenly rested her face against my chest.
"I know. That's why I'm holding back too."
She took one step away from me.
Like a lie, the heat that had been burning between us ebbed away, and a ragged breath spilled from my mouth.
Thankfully, it seemed she hadn't noticed the state I was in.
Then Lee Ha-eun lifted the dress that had been hanging precariously on her shoulders and said, "I'll keep holding back. But, Kwon Chan... don't make me wait too long."
The first snow of the year.
Christmas, and carols.
On a holiday meant to honor adults, an angel wasn't standing before me. It was a devil.
"If I cross the line again like this..."
My pupils shook once more at the devil's seduction.
In that instant, the relationship between Lee Ha-eun and me changed yet again.
"This time, it won't end with a kiss."
I like this woman.
No, I love her.
***
Year-end passed, and the new year dawned.
I drove with Seok-du hyung to the East Sea to watch the first sunrise of the year.
We grilled samgyeopsal at a glamping site, and when I woke in the early dawn, the cold winter wind had me shivering all over.
"Damn, why is it so cold?"
"Seriously, who goes glamping in winter?"
"This is romance, idiot."
Complaining the whole time, Seok-du hyung and I headed for the beach.
People who had already arrived were milling around in front of the shore.
After buying coffee from a nearby 24-hour convenience store, Seok-du hyung and I turned toward the smoking area.
"Cheers."
"Saying cheers while drinking canned coffee..."
"Hey now, that's romance."
I had no idea what drama this guy had watched to get him so obsessed with romance.
I popped the tab on the canned coffee and drank it down in long gulps.
As my half-asleep mind slowly woke up, I turned my head.
"Chan, the first sun of the new year is rising!"
Just as Seok-du hyung said, the sun was climbing over the horizon.
A new year had begun.
The roads had been congested and the trip had been rough, so I hadn't understood why people bothered coming out to watch the sunrise. Now I thought I understood a little.
Watching the first sunrise of the year rise above the horizon, I saw last year's good memories and bad memories flash by like a panorama. And at the end of it all, anticipation for the new year welled up in my chest.
"Kwon Chan."
"Yes?"
"What'd you wish for?"
At Seok-du hyung's question, I tilted my head.
"Why are you asking about wishes all of a sudden?"
"Of course you have to make one! What's the point of coming here to watch the sunrise if you aren't going to wish for anything?"
"..."
At his scolding, I was at a loss for words.
But thinking about it, like Seok-du hyung said, it would be strange to come all the way to the East Sea to watch the first sunrise of the year and leave without making a wish.
I thought about it for a moment.
Do I even have anything to wish for?
If the things I was already doing just went well, I wouldn't want for anything...
Ah.
"I made a wish."
I clasped my hands together in earnest and prayed.
Seok-du hyung, standing beside me, tilted his head.
"What? What kind of wish did you make that you're praying so seriously?"
"...I wished that someone I know would, please, start hating me."
"What the hell are you talking about on New Year's morning?"
Yeah.
What kind of nonsense was that?
I let out a deep sigh and lifted my head.
Through the sunrise, which was now fully risen above the horizon, Lee Ha-eun's face floated up in my mind.
Damn it.
...I was really losing my mind.
Ever since the Eclat d'Or launch party, her face kept popping into my head whenever I looked at anything.
But after what had happened, it was stranger that I could still look at her and not think of it.
The kiss.
Christmas.
The first snow.
Yeah. What happened that day was the most electric day of my life.
Maybe even more than the day I first crossed the line with Lee Ha-eun.
Before I knew it, I called out to Seok-du hyung.
"...Seok-du hyung, you've been a manager a long time, right?"
"I have."
My throat bobbed.
"During all that time, did you ever have, you know, anything like that with an actress you handled?"
Seok-du hyung stared at me, startled.
"You really are out of your mind on New Year's Day."
"I'm kidding."
"There are limits to joking around. What kind of ridiculous nonsense is that?"
Watching his reaction, I kept the conversation going.
"Is it really that ridiculous?"
"Of course it is, idiot. I mean, sure, there are cases where a manager and an actor end up dating, but how do you think that usually ends?"
Seok-du hyung made a slashing motion across his throat.
"Disaster. Total disaster. Both sides get ruined."
At his brutally realistic advice, I slowly muttered to myself.
Yeah. He's right.
I remembered something an older manager had once told me years ago.
An entertainer is a product.
The more popular they are, the more complaints pile up over even the tiniest flaw.
And Lee Ha-eun was a top-tier actress.
For someone like her, a dating scandal...
Wouldn't just be fatal. It could smash the acting career she'd built up until now.
In that cold reality, Lee Ha-eun's face, which had risen with the sunrise, gradually faded away.
That doesn't mean I can hide my feelings.
I was drawn to Lee Ha-eun.
Not as an entertainer and manager, but as a man and a woman.
I was drawn to her.
The absurdity of that change in my feelings made me laugh under my breath.
Since when did this happen?
I had no idea.
My first meeting with Lee Ha-eun had not been good, after all.
An arrogant, self-centered, selfish woman was exactly the type I hated most.
And yet, somewhere along the way, my feelings toward her had changed.
Was it because of that drunken accident with Lee Ha-eun?
Maybe.
Sometimes physical closeness can convey more emotion than words ever could.
One thing was certain: after that day, the way Lee Ha-eun and I looked at each other had changed.
And once the way we looked at each other changed, the things that happened between us changed naturally, too.
We went from days of fighting and blaming each other to days of feeling drawn and stirred by one another.
Whenever she met me, she looked only at me, acted for me, and comforted me.
And how was I supposed to...
Not be drawn to her?
But once you confirmed a feeling, nothing magically changed.
Rather, because I had confirmed it, I now had a choice to make.
As her manager, I have to put Lee Ha-eun out of my mind.
I wasn't a child.
There was too much both of us were responsible for to act on emotion alone.
Emotion lasts a moment; the reality weighing on us lasts forever.
Because I was emotionally drawn to Lee Ha-eun, the right thing was to push her away.
And yet the brand burned into my chest whispered back:
You're already addicted to that woman.
You can't forget her.
Forcing the whisper aside, I changed the subject and asked Seok-du hyung, "Hyung, what did you wish for?"
At my question, Seok-du hyung kept watching the first sunrise of the year and muttered in a somber voice, "To get me married off."
Ah.
That one seemed a little hard.
***
After clearing out my backlog of leave days, I returned to the company.
Maybe because the new year had begun, the faces of my coworkers on their way to work were bright with smiles.
"Team Leader Kwon, did you have a good holiday?"
"I did. What about you, Chief Manager Lee?"
"Ah, I went back to my hometown and did nothing but work. It was the end of the year, but I never got any real rest."
As I exchanged greetings with the other employees, I found myself smiling at the naturally slipping address of "Team Leader Kwon."
Huh. It still feels new every time I hear it.
Team Leader Kwon, not Chief Manager Kwon... Damn.
If I thought about it, I hadn't even been formally appointed. I was only an acting team leader, so why did hearing the word team leader make my chest tingle like this?
Maybe it's because team leader was the goal I set for myself when I first joined the company.
That was probably it.
In my early days at the company, when I was still the youngest, my realistic goal had been to become team leader.
I thought that if I could just climb to that position, my life would have been a success.
I endured the harsh life of a manager with that resolve, and now that I had reached the goal, even if only temporarily, there was no way I wouldn't feel good.
Of course, that didn't mean I intended to rest on my laurels.
"Did you hear? Team 2's Chief Manager Choi has been working himself to death lately."
"Choi Jun-su from Team 1 apparently landed a Star Road schedule at a Japanese dome stadium."
"No way. How did he manage to book a Japanese dome?"
After Kim Hae-chan was kicked out over the SAG incident, Baek Ji-won had thrown the fire of the team leader position onto the heads of Baekhak's managers.
With the vacant Team 3 leader seat still open, every manager at Baekhak was working nonstop from the very start of the year.
One moment of carelessness, and I'd be pushed back in that competition, leaving my acting team leader position as nothing more than temporary in the truest sense.
Obviously, I had no intention of being satisfied with temporary.
I wanted to succeed as a real team leader, or even beyond that.
To do that, I needed to post better results than anyone else in this race.
I went straight into the meeting room, prepared my materials, and waited for someone.
A moment later, the door opened and a familiar voice rang out.
"Chief Manager!"
At the start of the year, Choi Go-eun and her manager Park Ho appeared together.
The corners of my mouth lifted slightly.
"Choi Go-eun."
"Yes?"
"Team Leader, not Chief Manager."
"...What are you talking about? You're only an acting team leader."
"Starting the year off that snappish already?"
While I bickered with Choi Go-eun as usual, I greeted Manager Park Ho with my eyes.
"Did you have a good New Year's break?"
"Yes, I went to the hot springs with my grandmother."
"Oh, that must have been nice. Where did you go?"
"Look at these photos here. I posted them on Instagram..."
As I browsed Choi Go-eun's Instagram account, I casually made a suggestion.
"Choi Go-eun, let's set your Instagram to private."
"Huh? Why all of a sudden?"
"Once your career starts in earnest, fans are going to find your account and start coming and going through it. Are you okay with that?"
At my question, Choi Go-eun's face went pale.
"T-that'd be an invasion of privacy!"
"Come on now. Fans are allowed a peek at the Instagram account of an actress they like."
"..."
"For now, set the account you're using to private and let the company manage a public one for you. Park Ho?"
Manager Park Ho answered in a booming voice.
"Yes, Team Leader!"
"Choi Go-eun, make a public Instagram account and upload a few good photos."
"Yes, got it!"
After hearing Park Ho's answer, I slowly stood up.
Choi Go-eun, who had been watching me with a blank look, tilted her head.
"Huh? Where are we going?"
"We're going to eat."
"Huh? I already ate lunch."
"Then just sit there."
The corners of my mouth curved a little higher.
"I have a meeting with Director Na Jun-hu today. Choi Go-eun's next project meeting."
Na Jun-hu, the director whose films had broken the twenty-million-audience mark twice.
At last, his next project was complete.