Intermission Opens

After the preview screening, Director Shin Ji-won departed with his production team while the actors scattered to spend time with their families. There would be plenty of stage greetings and GV events to share with them soon enough anyway.

Yoon Jae-i, keeping his promise to Lee Young-chang, sent Jung Seung-woo home and headed for the restaurant he frequented.

"What the—?"

"What's wrong?"

"There's a car tailing us. It keeps closing in."

Han Jin-woo wrenched the wheel through a series of flashy turns, trying to shake the vehicle off. But the car slipped right back onto their tail within moments.

"Hm... should we loop back around? I think we need to lose that one first."

"It's fine. We can't keep the director waiting. I'll handle it."

Han Jin-woo, who had been about to ask if he was really sure about that, simply shut his mouth. Who was worrying about whom here? This was a man who could shake off a tail like that without breaking a sweat.

"Oppa. You have to watch out for reporters. If you sense anyone following you..."

"Right. Big Brother is prime prey now."

It wasn't as though he was carrying on a secret romance with anyone — at worst, a breathless speculative article about 'his next project with Lee Young-chang?' would hit the wires. Still, Yoon Jae-i took no chances. He followed, to the letter, the boot-camp-style entertainment-industry training his younger siblings had drilled into him. Stepping out of the car, he deliberately walked slowly, drawing the reporter along like a lure.

'This place is famous as one of Cho Youkyeong's regular haunts...'

Reporter Kang Chang-hun pulled a camera out of his bag. When Lee Young-chang had spoken with him after the film ended, he'd assumed he was here to meet the director — but either way, it worked for him.

'Yoon Jay already lining up a next film with a master director?' — sure, that would sell. But 'Yoon Jay in a secret rendezvous with a powerful female sponsor?' That's the one that'll really set the internet on fire.

Kang Chang-hun, trailing Yoon Jae-i with his heart pounding in anticipation, rounded a corner — and froze at the sight of the empty street.

"Wh-where did he go?"

Yoon Jae-i was already tucked behind a wall on the other side, watching him.

'I should remember that face.'

There was no harm in being careful.

Having lightly shaken off the reporter, Yoon Jae-i arrived at the meeting place at an unhurried pace. Lee Young-chang was already seated inside the restaurant.

"I'm not late, am I?"

"No."

"How was the film?"

"It was good. But those performances in it — did you really play them yourself?"

"Yes."

"Drums, bass, violin... And your singing wasn't exactly amateur, either."

Lee Young-chang studied him as if marveling at a curiosity.

"The truth is..."

He had already come clean about it while shooting Intermission. There was no reason to hide anything from this man.

When Lee Young-chang heard about the peculiar gifts Yoon Jae-i possessed, he did not appear particularly surprised.

"No wonder. You were different from everyone else even as a child."

And he was not disappointed, either. The performance Yoon Jae-i had given in The Child was not the kind of acting that comes from merely imitating someone.

It said a great deal that so many people were still talking about The Child to this day — enough to earn themselves the nickname 'Child Ghosts.'

"That scene, where you look at the violin."

"Yes."

"What was in your heart when you played it?"

Lee Young-chang went straight to the point. He wanted to know what Yoon Jae-i had truly been feeling when they shot that scene.

"Before that, I think I need to tell you about myself. You know about the uproar over my old unit a while back?"

"I know as much as the press reported."

"You weren't curious?"

"I was waiting for you to tell me first."

The two of them were no longer bound by the simple relationship of director and actor. It was something closer to family — people who could bare their hearts to one another — and perhaps, at the same time, something like a counselor and a patient.

'He said he's making a dedication film for me.'

Could he make use of that? Having thought so, Yoon Jae-i gave a brief account of what he had been through. How his footing had felt as if it had crumbled out from under him, and so he had enlisted early. How he had weathered one trial after another.

But when he came to the part about being kidnapped by Asad and put through unspeakable things, Lee Young-chang raised a hand and cut him off.

"...So that's what happened to you."

The articles that had surfaced were plausible enough speculation that many people believed them.

But hearing it confirmed from the man's own mouth was another matter entirely. Lee Young-chang covered his mouth with his hand, hiding the expression of desolation that had crept across his face.

'So that's why he insisted on long sleeves, even in summer.'

It had been more than two years since Lee Young-chang and Yoon Jae-i found each other again.

They had met and talked like this whenever time allowed, and in all that time Yoon Jae-i had always been bundled up so heavily it was almost suffocating to look at. Today, a slightly rolled-up sleeve had revealed the scars beneath it. Lee Young-chang let out a long breath.

Just like Yoo Tae-hyuk in the early stretch of Intermission — unable to let go of his violin to the very end, yet torn over whether to abandon it...

"Honestly, since my discharge, it's been hard to keep my mind together."

"The past still torments you, then?"

"...Yes."

He couldn't bring himself to mention that it had recently lashed out at Yoon Do-jun, too. Yoon Jae-i simply shrugged.

"So I picked acting back up as a means of surviving."

As a child, he had hated acting — the bullying, the way it had dragged him into the situation he was in now.

But acting as a mask layered over his face in order to live — that had become the means by which his present self held together.

And Lee Young-chang had probably already noticed how much Yoon Jae-i resembled Yoo Tae-hyuk.

"Anyway... that scene gave me a great deal to think about. I'm still someone who lives in the past, you see."

"..."

"I've realized the past can neither be thrown away nor changed. But Tae-hyuk accepted that truth and shook it off."

"So you haven't managed it yet."

"No. Honestly, I hoped to recapture ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what I felt on the Daldongne set, but whether the fault lies with me, I couldn't reach any further than that."

Still, it wasn't as though there had been no progress at all.

"But I've found a direction now, so I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think I'll be all right."

How he chose to face his own life was a decision that belonged to him alone. He only hoped that Lee Young-chang might play that role for him — just as Shin Ji-won had worked through his own emotions through his film.

"So that's why you looked at Director Shin and your teacher the way you did."

"You saw that?"

"It showed."

"Well — I do hope to become like that myself someday."

A life with the weight of the past set down, eyes fixed only forward.

When Cho Youkyeong joined them, the heavy atmosphere lifted in an instant. They marveled at how well Intermission had turned out, happily arguing back and forth over how many admissions it would pull in.

Once the enjoyable meal drew to a close, they parted early. Lee Young-chang watched Yoon Jae-i's receding figure.

'Come to think of it — Jay never once said he wanted to stand on the awards stage with me.'

The truth was, Lee Young-chang had approached his scenario work with calculated intent: to walk the red carpet beside Yoon Jae-i.

He already had a long history of wins at countless award ceremonies. He knew exactly what judging committees wanted. And the narrative of returning ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the red carpet at Cannes, where they had never been able to stand together as a child and a director — it was hardly a bad story.

But.

'The method was wrong.'

Yoon Jae-i had no greed for trophies. He had already set youngest-ever records; he delighted in the act of performance itself, and never staked his life on the results.

If the red carpet they stood on together didn't have to be some glittering awards show — if standing side by side at a small preview, like today, was enough...

Lee Young-chang headed not for home but for his workshop, and deleted the scenario he had been laboring over, without a flicker of hesitation. This would not do.

Yoon Jae-i had said that when his character was placed in circumstances mirroring his own past, he had been able to release the emotions that had hardened inside him.

'That boy's beginning, then, is...'

And he knew there was still much left unresolved between Yoon Jae-i and The Child.

'And he seems to treasure his family more specially than anyone.'

Well — family was family, of course. But Yoon Jae-i had not grown up in an ordinary household.

He had heard of the birth mother who chose America for the sake of her child's emotional well-being, and of the stepmother who gave her all despite sharing no blood with him.

But the two greatest influences on Yoon Jae-i's life had been his two fathers.

'Yoon Su-heon. Greedy, that man — but...'

The birth father had played an enormous role in the blossoming of Yoon Jae-hee's talent. He had been the first to recognize it, the one who led him down the road of acting. For the Yoon Jay of today, acting was the means that temporarily covered his PTSD and let him endure each day as it came.

And the stepfather he had never met face to face — whose mere voice, even over a recording, radiated tenderness — had been his mentor and his steadfast supporter.

Exposure therapy — the method of retracing the past, step by deliberate step.

Lee Young-chang uncapped his fountain pen. A dedication film meant solely to heal Yoon Jae-i — discarding box office appeal, artistic prestige, and award considerations alike. Its name was...

The Father

'That's the one.'

Only then did Lee Young-chang feel the knot that had been jamming his work finally come loose.

Some sneered that the reviews were too good to be true — surely they'd hired an army of shills. Others muttered that since this was a film Cho Youkyeong was aggressively pushing, it was all too transparent.

Yoon Jae-i had rocketed to stardom in an impossibly short span of time. Which meant there were just as many people seething with envy. Those who found the glowing preview reviews galling picked fights wherever they could, and the movie board boiled over into an all-out flame war. Some simply sneered that everyone should wait and see how the box office actually shook out.

And so Intermission officially opened in theaters.

If you were a Yoon Jay fan, you went to the cinema as a matter of course. And people drawn to a wholly original work of musical cinema — not some biopic of a real-life figure — found their way there too.

But the whispers of shills and viral-marketing schemes gradually died away once the film actually hit theaters. The people who came back from the cinema left glowing reviews one after another, and before long a whole crowd had sprung up stanning Agitato itself.

The original tickets given out with each screening sold out in a flash, and fans kept refreshing the homepage, waiting for each week's batch of special merchandise and stage-greeting schedules to drop.

"It's a monster hit..."

In the production office of Intermission, Cho Sujin covered her mouth the moment she confirmed the opening-weekend admissions figures.