The Holiday
"Aigoo, my babies are here! Come on in, come on in."
At the sight of the adults greeting him and his family with such open warmth, a smile bloomed across Yeon-woo's face as well.
According to his little sister, their uncle and aunt had doted on both of them since they were small, cooing over how Yeon-woo ate with such blessed, hearty appetite.
"Oh my, is this really Yeon-woo? Of course I've seen you on the TV, but still."
"Hello. Have you been well?"
Drawn by the commotion, his aunt emerged from the kitchen, clapped her hands at the sight of Yeon-woo and So-hyun, and welcomed them with open delight. Yeon-woo returned the greeting with easy naturalness and stepped into the living room.
"Oh, Unnie. Your shoulder surgery hasn't even fully healed yet, and you're already cooking?"
The moment they arrived, Yeon-woo's mother set down the bags and rolled up her sleeves.
"Aigoo, rest a bit first. You just got here — we've got plenty of time."
"You know how I am. Better to knock it all out at once."
His aunt and mother disappeared into the kitchen. Yeon-woo paid his respects to the elders who had arrived ahead of them, then rolled up his own sleeves and followed.
"So-hyun, come on. Let's help with the food."
"Okay."
At her brother's call, So-hyun trailed after him into the kitchen.
Watching Yeon-woo go, his uncle leaned over and whispered to Cheol-ung.
"How did he change that much? Honestly, the boy grew up well."
"Hyung-nim, kids change and grow in the blink of an eye. Hahaha."
Praised by his eldest brother for raising such a fine son, Ryu Cheol-ung's shoulders swelled with pride, and his mouth stretched from ear to ear.
One by one the rest of the relatives arrived, and without fail the family's conversation circled back to Yeon-woo. The elders of the Ryu clan declared that a real talent had finally come out of the family, pulled out their smartphones, and struck awkward poses for photos with him. Every time Yeon-woo so much as opened his mouth, the relatives pricked up their ears. The warm, lively atmosphere held.
Until the Ryu family's resident villains — Little Uncle and his wife — showed up.
Ryu Jeong-ung was Ryu Cheol-ung's youngest brother. Unlike his older brothers, who had mostly been good students, he had spent his youth running wild as a troublemaker. Only after hitting his forties, by pure chance, did he start a wholesale clothing business in Dongdaemun that took off well enough to put serious money in his hands.
Even so, their late mother had always looked at her civil-servant son first, fretting that he was "working so hard for the country," and made a habit of looking after him ahead of everyone else.
I put up more money for family events than anyone, so why does she always fuss over Cheol-ung? Working for the country, my ass. Is he the president or something? He's just an ordinary public servant — what "country" is he serving?
Even after their mother passed, the resentment only grew with each passing year, and Ryu Jeong-ung took that frustration out on the wrong target.
Cheol-ung's fat son could barely function as a person, skulked around looking gloomy, barely came out of his room during the holidays, and greeted people halfheartedly at best — while Jeong-ung's own daughter was sweet and pretty and monopolized all the adults' affection. Not content with that, every Seollal and Chuseok he would pick at Cheol-ung's son Yeon-woo for no reason — telling him to lose some weight, scolding him for not knowing how to greet his elders properly — and vent the stress he felt toward his brother by needling the boy.
True to form, Jeong-ung and his wife arrived late in the evening, timed with irritating precision for the moment the cooking was nearly finished.
Still, the relatives gathered under the Ryu roof told themselves he had simply been spoiled as the baby of the family, and they welcomed him without showing their dislike. It was a holiday, after all.
"Here, take the gift sets, Hyung-nim. Hey — hey, you! That jeongjong is expensive, so handle it carefully. Do you know how much that costs? Tsk."
The second he walked in, Jeong-ung started in with a nasty tone on Ryu Jin-woo, the eldest uncle's second son, who had rushed over to take the heavy bags so the older man wouldn't have to. Naturally, Jin-woo's expression soured.
Standing off to the side and watching the whole ugly display, So-hyun spoke up, clear and deliberate.
"Little Uncle, jeongjong is the wrong word. Teacher said it's a leftover from the Japanese occupation. We're supposed to say cheongju."
"…What? You little thing. Jeongjong or cheongju, same difference."
Jeong-ung's wife, Yeom Suk-gyeong, glared at So-hyun and backed her husband up. Muttering under her breath, That whole family, I swear…, she stepped into the living room and looked around.
"Where's that Yeon-woo kid? Just because he's been on TV a bit, he can't even come out and greet his little uncle?"
Jeong-ung said it with a sly grin, as if he thought it was a joke, but the relatives gathered around found it thoroughly unpleasant to listen to.
Just then, his aunt came out of the kitchen, rubbing her aching arm and legs after cooking.
"You little brat. Unlike some people, he got here early, helped with the cooking, and right now he's out on the veranda scrubbing the grease off the pans."
She fixed Ryu Jeong-ung and Yeom Suk-gyeong with a hard stare as they tried to look anywhere else.
"Aigoo, Hyung-su-nim. Work kept me busy — what am I supposed to do? Why do you have to put it like that?"
"Ugh, you shameless little whelp. I married into this Ryu family at nineteen and packed your lunch boxes while I raised you."
The warmth that had been in her eyes when she looked at Yeon-woo was gone; she clicked her tongue in pure disgust.
"There she goes with that story again."
Shaking his head, Ryu Jeong-ung headed for the veranda.
"That — that insolent little—! Honestly, why are all the men in this Ryu family so spineless that they just let him run wild like that?"
His aunt fired laser beams from her eyes at the Ryu brothers sitting on the sofa; every one of them pretended not to hear and turned their heads away.
Meanwhile, out on the veranda, Yeon-woo was scrubbing the greasy residue off the pan used for the jeon with a scouring pad when the door opened and someone came in. He looked up.
That must be Little Uncle. The one So-hyun described as a total creep.
Recalling the face from the photos he had studied the day before, Yeon-woo offered a greeting.
"Hello, Little Uncle."
"Oho. You look so different from before I almost didn't recognize you."
Jeong-ung raked his eyes up and down, hunting for something to pick at, but there was nothing useful to find.
"Your mother put your aunt up to badmouthing your little aunt, didn't she? About us being late. You heard it while you were cooking, right?"
"…Excuse me?"
As the saying goes, a thief's own feet itch. No one had so much as mentioned Little Uncle and his wife while they cooked, but Ryu Jeong-ung jumped to conclusions anyway and fixed Yeon-woo with a snake-eyed stare.
"And when an adult walks in, you should come running out to greet them right away. Honestly — no manners at all."
"Ah, I'm sorry. I was focused on the dishes and didn't realize you'd arrived."
"Didn't realize? You pretended not to notice."
Since being reborn in this new body, Yeon-woo had grown used to everyone treating him kindly — perhaps because of his striking looks — so this kind of absurd, baseless hostility, laid out so blatantly, felt almost novel.
"Well, well? The kid's been doing well for himself lately, so now he's staring his little uncle straight in the eye? Should I smack you one like last year so that look goes soft again?"
Faced with the sheer ridiculousness of it, Yeon-woo let out a short laugh. Clearly the relationship between Little Uncle and the original Ryu Yeon-woo had been even more one-sided than So-hyun knew.
Yeon-woo peeled off the rubber gloves and stood.
"What exactly do you mean by that?"
For the first time in a long while, he felt that groundless hostility, and without quite meaning to, he tilted his head and looked at Ryu Jeong-ung with the abyss-deep eyes he had carried through the battlefields of his former life.
This was something else entirely from the expression of rage he had shown Jeong Cheol-min during their first acting test. It was the aura of a man forged by countless experiences — the kind that made even the fiercest dog in the neighborhood wet itself the moment the dogcatcher appeared.
"Uh — uhk!"
Terror crashed over Jeong-ung's whole body. He took an involuntary step back, planted his foot on a flowerpot stand, and toppled over backward.
Crash!
"Hmm. Are you all right, Little Uncle?"
Yeon-woo watched him with a flat, level gaze and asked in a tone without rise or fall.
The racket of Ryu Jeong-ung falling on the veranda brought the household elders pouring in.
"What is it? Why'd you go out on the veranda and fall by yourself? You hurt anywhere?"
Yeon-woo's father, Ryu Cheol-ung, checked over his younger brother.
Then his aunt came flying out onto the veranda, face flushed red, jabbing a finger at him.
"You damned bastard! Of all the things — now you've gone and smashed the flowerpot I care about most?! I've had that pot since I got married — over forty years! You looking to scrap with me today, is that it?"
"N-no. Just now, that Yeon-woo kid—"
Ryu Jeong-ung pointed a trembling finger at Yeon-woo, stammering as if he were the wronged party. Even as the words left his mouth, he had nothing real to say. Yeon-woo had simply stood up and greeted him.
"You rotten, festering little—! I've been watching this whole time because I knew you'd try something with Yeon-woo again, and now you're pinning it on him?"
Furious beyond measure, his aunt gritted through the pain in her arm, snatched up the broom from the veranda, and every adult in the house had to rush in to pull her off him.
Covered in potting soil from the fall, Jeong-ung muttered that he needed to wash up and change clothes, and left with his wife. He only slipped back in silently the next morning in time for the ancestral rites. He didn't so much as glance in Yeon-woo's direction, finished the rites, and fled again as if escaping.
Yeon-woo went around distributing the envelopes of spending money he had prepared for the elder relatives. Watching their son hand out gifts of cash to the family elders, Yeon-woo's parents quietly wiped tears in a corner, wondering when he had grown up so much.
The first day of March.
It was Independence Movement Day — and a personally special day for Yeon-woo as well.
The wrap party for Summer's Closet, which had been airing since January 3rd, was being held today.
He had already been told about attending the wrap party, and since school started again tomorrow and the schedule would be tight, he had given the school advance notice as well.
Around two o'clock, a van pulled up in front of the house to pick him up. Yeon-woo left home for his first official schedule in quite some time.
As he stepped out through the apartment's shared entrance and approached the vehicle, the van's automatic door slid open.
"Hello."
"Ah — hello, Actor Ryu Yeon-woo. I'm Kim Min-su, the manager who'll be working with you starting today."
As Yeon-woo climbed in, the man in the back offered a scrupulously polite greeting.
"Nice to meet you, Min-su hyung. Please speak comfortably."
"Ah — if it's all right with you, I'm actually more comfortable using formal speech…"
Yeon-woo nodded at Min-su's words. Everyone was different.
"Ah, then please do whatever feels natural."
"Yes, understood. We'll head to Seoul first and stop by the shop."
"Yes, sir!"
Kim Min-su drove smoothly onto the Jungbu Expressway, and after a long stretch of highway, turned to ask Yeon-woo a question.