The Outer Wrapping
It was a slightly odd thing to call a hobby, but since settling back in Korea, Yoon Jay had taken to people-watching.
Ever since he became famous, however, he'd found it hard to indulge in the way he used to. People were too conscious of him, too busy performing their ordinary selves to act naturally.
"Don't tell me I'm late?"
Kang Pil-hyun found Yoon Jay's gaze striking, the eyes half-veiled by his long fringe. Yesterday it had been sharp, searching, almost predatory. Today it was heavy, weighted with something darker.
Wow, that's good.
If yesterday's "older brother" had been a bird of prey, today's "younger brother" was a starving wolf.
"I deliberately set the meeting for this hour. I wanted to see you arriving from outside, like yesterday."
"What do you think?"
"Hmm."
Kang Ye-jin was quietly pleased with how he looked, but for now she kept her face carefully neutral. She still hadn't forgotten how badly she'd been burned by an actor she once trusted.
"Have you ever been to a place like this, Mr. Jay?"
"No."
This meeting's venue was a street-side pocha—a makeshift tent bar, raucous and free-wheeling, with traffic rolling past mere steps away and even a few passersby raising their phones to snap photos at the sudden appearance of a celebrity.
"Really? If you go to BIFF, your fellow actors will drag you out to places like this all the time."
"No one's ever asked me to."
Kang Pil-hyun and Kang Ye-jin both let out a short "Ah."
He'd made his name at his debut, so they'd somehow assumed he was a seasoned veteran with five or six films under his belt. And it wasn't as if this year wasn't practically Yoon Jay's year, by any measure.
Yoon Jay studied both of their reactions closely.
"Looks like you'll be going this year, then."
"Yes. I've only ever heard about it from people around me, so... I'm looking forward to it."
Kang Pil-hyun thought that the Yoon Jay sitting in front of him exceeded his expectations. Though it was possible the contrast with yesterday was what made it seem so dramatic.
What is he looking at?
Kang Pil-hyun followed Yoon Jay's gaze.
Come to think of it, before Yoon Jay arrived, his own eyes had drifted to a group of men at a nearby table. They'd been shouting at each other far too loudly.
Though they were such fearsome-looking men that he hadn't dared say anything about it. And now Yoon Jay's manner of observing them was... curious.
Could it be...?
Yoon Jay was filling in his neglected people-watching in real time.
He'd almost never crossed paths with that kind of man in his life. So he absorbed what was worth absorbing and discarded the rest.
The man clinked glasses with his friends, drained his cup in one go, and pounded his fist on the table. Even when people nearby frowned, he was utterly unabashed.
It was roughly the image Yoon Jay had of the "younger brother." Yoon Jay mirrored the man—hooking one ankle over the opposite knee, angling his body sideways, and planting his forearm on the table.
"Do you drink at all? Not that I'm pushing."
"Yes, please."
Kang Pil-hyun noticed the shift too. As a test, he filled Yoon Jay's empty glass with soju.
Yoon Jay received it with one hand. It came off looking rather insolent, if you glanced at it sideways.
Word around town was that Yoon Jay was hardly an impolite man. Which meant that even this was part of constructing the character.
So I wasn't imagining it?
Yoon Jay was mimicking the thuggish man across the room.
That reminds me—didn't someone say he picks up musical instruments right away?
He'd dismissed it as absurd at the time, but... their eyes met.
Kang Pil-hyun felt his breath catch slightly, and he dropped his gaze from those dark eyes.
"Is there any advice you could give me about the project?"
Advice—he'd already worked everything out on his own. A chuckle escaped Kang Pil-hyun before he could stop it.
Kang Ye-jin, who had been watching Yoon Jay in silence, finally spoke up.
"Your outfit's exactly the same as yesterday, apart from the added accessories? I half expected you to show up in something flashy..."
Don't tell me he's worried about what people think. That would be a little disappointing...
She swallowed the words with effort. It was only natural to be self-conscious, she supposed—Yoon Jay was, at this very moment, the most in-demand actor in the country. The last thing anyone needed was him taking some offhand remark the wrong way.
I've gotten a bit too sensitive...
Kang Ye-jin sighed.
She understood, but she couldn't help feeling a little let down. Unless it was a period drama with a dedicated costume department, actors typically prepared their own wardrobe.
And since this meeting was an audition in disguise, she'd expected him to put even more thought into it. Yesterday's look had been striking in all the right ways.
"No, it's nothing like that."
"Then what is it?"
"People say your appearance reveals who you are. But really, it's only the outer wrapping."
The shell would thin with more work over time, but the undeniable truth, right now, was that Yoon Jay was still encased in the packaging of Yoo Tae-hyuk.
These two, of all people, were the ones he hoped would peel past that wrapping quickly and see him as one of the twins inside String of Memory.
"I'd like you to see the kernel first."
The two of them nodded, understanding his intent. It was a flawless answer.
Incredible. This man is incredible.
Kang Pil-hyun couldn't take his eyes off him.
As their conversation flowed back and forth, Yoon Jay's small postures and gestures kept shifting. He absorbed the gangster-like qualities of the man at the other table, made them his own, and forged them into movements entirely new.
Just like the "younger brother" inside String of Memory.
Kang Pil-hyun excused himself, saying an important work message had come in, and picked up his phone.
The director had noticed, and so had the writer. Yoon Jay was transforming in real time.
It no longer mattered whether he'd shown up in a flower-print T-shirt or wrapped in a ragged blanket from who knows where. The man himself had become fitted to the role.
A man who could change like that, after all, would show up to the actual set in a perfectly assembled outfit.
Are they texting each other right now?
Yoon Jay knew perfectly well what the two of them were up to, but he played oblivious and turned his head toward the street.
"Shall we get going?"
"Yes."
So it went—a few more rounds of conversation, and just as they were about to part ways, a shadow suddenly fell across their table.
That's the gang from the other table, isn't it?
Kang Pil-hyun was terrified, but he leaned sideways to shield Kang Ye-jin.
"Oh? Hey, I know this guy!"
"Whoaaa! It's the celebrity hyung-nim!"
The men's target was Yoon Jay, seated across from them.
"Damn, you're stupidly handsome."
"Come on, hyung-nim, look over here. Gotta get this up on the 'gram."
The men threw their arms over Yoon Jay's shoulders and tried to angle in for selfies. Yoon Jay sighed and covered his face with one hand.
"M-Mr. Jay..."
"It was a pleasure, both of you. Go on ahead."
"How are we supposed to leave in a situation like this?"
I shouldn't have picked a place like this for no reason. I knew better—next time we go somewhere else...
Kang Pil-hyun tore at his own hair.
"It's all right."
The atmosphere was turning uglier by the second, and the two of them had already backed well away. As it happened, Jung Seung-woo and Choi Tae-yang were on standby nearby.
They'd been ordered to keep their distance so the writer and director wouldn't sense anything off—but they were probably sprinting over right now, having spotted the situation from somewhere.
"Our hyung-nim here is colder than he looks, huh? Give us a little fan service."
"You've had a lot to drink. Just go home."
Yoon Jay said it with a faint smile. He wasn't annoyed, if anything it was refreshing—he was so tall and broad that people had rarely picked fights with him in his life.
Either the other party was too drunk to see straight, or the celebrity looked like easy prey. Or both, most likely.
Even in the middle of this, Yoon Jay was studying the men's behavior intently. Could this be useful reference for the "younger brother" role?
"Hyung-nim, I think this guy's a little tense over here?"
"Aw, come on, did we start something? Huh? We just wanna be friendly."
"Could you at least punch in your number for us?"
It was blatant provocation to anyone watching. People around them muttered—what do we do, shouldn't someone call the police?
The one being provoked didn't so much as twitch. Instead, it was the men doing the provoking who gradually fell silent.
What is with his eyes...
The longer they held Yoon Jay's gaze, the more the men felt themselves shrinking.
It was as if some instinctive warning was blaring from somewhere deep inside: you've touched someone you should never have touched.
"Get lost."
Yoon Jay drove the wedge home. That single sentence sobered the man up instantly, and he stumbled backward without meaning to.
Then his face flushed crimson. His pride stung at having flinched before nothing more than an actor. The man squared his shoulders and stepped forward again.
He had nothing to lose, after all. If an article went up about a drunk thug brawling at a cheap pocha, it was Yoon Jay who'd have the problem.
"But what the hell is with those ey—"
"Take your hands off him."
"Can we help you gentlemen?"
Jung Seung-woo and Choi Tae-yang had arrived, not a moment too soon. All around, the onlookers let out visible sighs of relief.
Already rattled by Yoon Jay, the men took one look at the two burly figures in black suits blocking their path and turned to leave.
"Tch, damn it!"
"Watch yourselves, now."
They kicked an innocent empty table on their way out of the pocha.
Did I know that man somewhere?
Yoon Jay watched the back of the man leading the group. Something about it felt inexplicably familiar.
"Hyung-nim, we're sorry. We should've been here faster."
"It's fine. You came just in time."
When it came to Jung Seung-woo and Choi Tae-yang, their first priority was never guarding Yoon Jay himself—it was protecting other people from Yoon Jay.
"Haa, no wonder I had a bad feeling. This isn't going to turn into some trashy article, is it?"
"Plenty of people nearby were filming. It's fine."
Among those filming had been Kang Pil-hyun and Kang Ye-jin. Their eyes met Yoon Jay's, and the two of them gave him a thumbs-up. Evidence secured in abundance—don't worry.
In the days that followed, the three of them—Kang Pil-hyun, Kang Ye-jin, and Yoon Jay—met several more times, sharing meals and conversation.
Since String of Memory told the story of twin brothers, the subject that came up most often among the three was family.
"Was it hard on you—your parents, your younger siblings?"
"It was hard."
In the course of that conversation, Yoon Jay opened up about his own storybook-sized family history.
It wasn't particularly difficult to talk about. He'd mentioned it a few times in interviews, and it wasn't a history he was ashamed of.
"After my birth mother passed, I felt like I'd been left alone in the world."
"What about your mother's side of the family?"
Yoon Jay shook his head without a word. He didn't know what circumstances lay between his maternal relatives and his mother. But a family that hadn't so much as shown its face at the funeral was a family he had no use for.
"It was my father who pulled me out of my room."
"He sounds like a truly remarkable man."
Their reactions were much like Lee Youngchang's.
Lee Youngchang knew Yoon Jay's past better than anyone. Lately, for some reason, it had been hard to reach him—but the one person Yoon Jay could open his deepest self to was still Lee Youngchang.
"That's why I was genuinely happy when my father remarried."
He remembered how his father had grieved after losing his mother. So he had wanted his father to be happy.
But when he learned the woman his father married came with two children of her own, something in him had felt strange.
"The way I was kind to my younger siblings in America—at first, well... my motives were a little impure, I'll admit."
It was out of a faint anxiety. He'd worked so hard not to be cast out that, somewhere along the way, real affection had grown. Because he'd been lonely.
"Not exactly a noble story, is it?"
"Why not? I like it. Does a person have to live nobly? And what about those twins of yours, then?"
"Dojun and Dohwa? Those two are... well, they're still such kids."
Kang Ye-jin pressed the question again.
"Mr. Jay, what if you'd been a twin? Or say you suddenly had to pretend you had a twin brother—how would that feel?"
"Hmm..."
He'd never imagined anything like it. Yoon Jay thought for a moment but couldn't quite come up with an answer.
Probably not so different from any ordinary brothers, really. Better to ask actual twins about what it felt like.
"You and Dojun are twins."
"Is this about the next project?"
"Yeah."
By now, the twins could roughly follow what Yoon Jay was talking about even without the details.
"Have you two ever felt like you were connected to each other?"
"You mean like something out of a drama or a movie?"
"Oh, come on, that's just twin prejudice."
Yoon Dojun and Yoon Dohwa, who'd been chattering away merrily, scrunched up their faces at the very thought of being truly connected.
"Ugh, even just imagining that is..."
"Creepy."
"I'm the one who's creeped out here!"
Yoon Jay watched the two of them bicker in silence.
Yoon Dojun had sulked for a while, but now he'd returned as if nothing had ever happened. Yoon Jay couldn't tell whether that was simple-mindedness or whether the boy was still keeping it tucked away.
"Then what about those twins?"
And then he understood one thing.
Ah. So that's how it was.
The one who hadn't managed to shed the outer wrapping—had been me.