The Reward Vacation
Reward vacation.
“...Do-jun.”
“Yes, hyung.”
“Don't tell me all those people over there are reporters?”
“You'd better get used to it by now, hyung.”
He had expected as much, but there were quite a few people camped out at the crosswalk, cameras at the ready. It was just a company reward vacation, and yet they were filming even this. When he stepped out of the car, a smile played at the corner of his mouth.
Still, a few photo ops under his belt had given him a certain polish. Without anyone asking, he flashed a finger heart, a fist heart, then glanced right and left to see if he'd done it right.
The moment his airport footage went up, his fans cooed that he must have been drilled by his younger siblings, that he still had that rookie air about him, that it was adorable — and it lingered as a small, pleasant topic of conversation.
I did tell him to keep his passport hidden, at least.
Hadn't the twins warned him that some people would obsessively photograph nothing but a passport to mine it for information?
Drilled by his younger siblings — well, that part was true. Before his first-ever airport schedule, the twins had, without any prompting from him, taken turns reciting the complete list of precautions a celebrity needed to observe when departing the country.
[You should still play along with the photographers taking your pictures. That's how you end up with flattering shots posted.]
[True. There was this one person who didn't do a single finger heart, and the articles ragging on him were vicious.]
Hm. He had anticipated that much. When he'd won Best Actor at Cannes, some reporter — who knew how they'd found out — had trailed him from his school to his home, sniffing around and demanding to know why he wouldn't give an interview.
He half-remembered, from a passing moment in his birth parents' screaming matches, that the same reporter had later churned out a stream of malicious articles about him and his family.
[Hyung, you might get time off later and want to visit us back home, right?]
[I might.]
[The moment you book a flight, Oppa, consider that information public property.]
[How does that even happen?]
[No idea. Word is some airline employee sells it off for money, stuff like that.]
Yoon Dojun and Yoon Dohwa were successful idols whose popularity hadn't cooled one bit, and they had been suffering through this kind of thing for a long while now.
[You're a celebrity too now, Oppa, so you need to be careful. You could get Gat-bi sasaengs.]
[What's a Gat-bi?]
[Same flight.]
the twins said in perfect unison.
[A fan of mine straight-up told me at a fansign how much she supported me — and then she booked the seat next to mine and filmed me with her camera the whole flight....]
[That happened to you too, Yoon Dojun? Me too.]
Their exchange of grievances went on for a long time. When they mentioned the recent incident of a tracking device being slapped onto one of their cars, Yoon Jay nearly dropped the fruit he was eating.
[...Isn't that stalking?]
[We'd like to know the answer to that ourselves.]
So this stuff is real. Half of it sounded like stories you ought to be eating popcorn while you listened — gripping, almost entertaining, in a horrifying way.
[Must be rough, you two. And so young.]
[Uh....]
They had clearly been saying it to encourage him, but the twins ended up on the receiving end of the sympathy instead, and hurriedly added more.
Actors, they conceded, had it easier than idols — but unhinged people would do insane things regardless of profession, so it was worth knowing.
“Jay!”
“There he is, finally.”
The staff who'd arrived early to wait greeted him warmly.
Ever since the end of filming, and through the wrap party too, the story of how Yoon Jay had saved a staff member and put out the fire had been making the rounds — and with the recent article having just dropped, here they were talking about him all over again.
“So, uh — those idol twins, they're your family?”
“And why didn't you ever mention you used to be a firefighter?”
That would be because....
“Nobody asked me.”
“Ah!”
“Well, if we ask from now on, will you tell us?”
Yoon Jay answered with an enigmatic smile.
“That depends on the question.”
“Isn't that pushing the push-and-pull game a little too far?”
“A veteran. The man's a veteran.”
Laughter rippled out around Yoon Jay. Among the staff, a few had taken to calling him by a particular nickname: the Laughter Vending Machine. It had stuck because, nine times out of ten, anyone — mostly the women on staff — who traded a few words with him ended up cracking up.
“What are you all gossiping about over here?”
“Seo-ah!”
Yoon Jay had nearly missed the trip himself under the crush of his schedule, but Park Seo-ah and Kim Hyun-jun had both managed to rearrange theirs and make the reward vacation too.
“We were just discussing Jay's mysterious past.”
“How about we ply him with drinks until he talks?”
“Now that's an idea.”
“I can hear every word, you know.”
It was a good thing when a lead actor showed up to a gathering like this and livened the mood. Besides, he'd heard that when a drama did this well, a no-show lead invited all manner of ugly whispers.
The drama was this big of a hit, so why isn't he being sent on the reward vacation — all the way to she gets to go and he doesn't? Do the leads not get along? Every speculation under the sun, apparently.
“Whoa, a celebrity's coming this way.”
“Who?”
At someone's shout, Park Seo-ah and Yoon Jay turned — and both let out a short, involuntary gasp.
Swept-back hair that looked fresh from a salon, sunglasses, a leather jacket — Kim Hyun-jun, styled to the nines in a way no one could miss, was strutting toward them, working every angle he had.
After the long flight, the destination was hot and humid. But nobody was worn down by it. It was a vacation on someone else's dime, and spirits were that much higher for it.
“Feels like a school field trip.”
“First time for you too, unnie?”
“Yep. Getting my schedule cleared wasn't exactly easy.”
Yoon Jay watched people sprinting around the beach like overgrown children. Everyone's so full of life. Nice.
Writer Im Hyun-hee sat down beside him.
“How about you, Jay? Having fun?”
“I am. It's my first time traveling abroad.”
It wasn't a pleasantry — he genuinely meant it. He'd been in the sea for training or on the job, sure, but never like this, never just at ease. It was here, on this beach, that he saw a tropical fish in all its dazzling color for the first time in his life.
“Oh my, really? So you've never been overseas at all?”
“Not for tourism.”
“Then you have been abroad — for other reasons?”
“Yes. I was deployed fairly often, so....”
At those words, the people within earshot began quietly sidling closer.
“That's right, you were a bodyguard, weren't you? So are we talking special forces? Something along those lines?”
“Yes.”
“Ooooh....”
The hunt for Yoon Jay's mysterious past, which had begun back in Incheon, showed no sign of letting up here either.
“Well, safety's the last thing we need to worry about, then. Right?”
“Our production director's had a phobia of safety issues ever since the fire, remember.”
Suddenly put on the spot, the production director seemed to relive the fire right there on the spot, the color draining from his face.
“If you hadn't been there, Jay, honestly....”
“Oh come on, it all worked out. That's what matters.”
“Just this morning someone was going on about what if somebody drifts out to sea and starts drowning.”
“What do you think, Jay?”
Hm. This is the part where I put people at ease, isn't it?
“I was in the Navy.”
“Ooooh!”
“I've also worked as a safety officer.”
“There it is. We're set!”
Yoon Jay simply smiled at their over-the-top delight. He was a rookie, and he'd told most of them it was his first time doing any of this, so plenty of people did look out for him. They didn't need to build him up quite this much, though.
Turns out rest is a necessity too.
Still — it wasn't bad. The weather was beautiful, and opportunities for a break like this didn't come around often.
And so the Arong Arong drama team worked Bali over thoroughly, squeezing every drop out of it. On the eve of their flight home, the team took over an entire restaurant and ate and drank with a deafening din.
“Listen to me for a second.”
Kim Hyun-jun had sensed that his buddy-up-with-Yoon-Jay campaign wasn't landing, but he refused to give up. He appointed himself the role of the experienced senior, face flushed with a light buzz.
Yoon Jay, having failed to escape his orbit, figured listening beat pretending not to hear, so listen he did.
“You started ahead of the pack, sure, but you're still a rookie, aren't you?”
“I am.”
“You have to choose your next project carefully. Getting into something with a star writer or a star actor in the lead — that's the ideal.”
“Hmm....”
Is that so? Yoon Jay nodded along for now.
“Whether you end up a one-hit wonder or keep the streak going full throttle — obviously the second one's better, right?”
“Who do you think you are, lecturing him?”
“Ah, unnie.”
Kim Hyun-jun's most formidable adversary was Park Seo-ah.
“Don't take too much of what he says to heart.”
“Understood.”
No need to say it — he was already filtering accordingly.
The speed of Yoon Jay's reply gave Kim Hyun-jun a small jolt. And Park Seo-ah, seated beside him, folded her arms and set them on the table.
“What made you become an actor?”
If it were something as simple as wanting to get famous, like Kim Hyun-jun, she'd be a little disappointed — but Yoon Jay, she suspected, wasn't that type.
“Because acting is fun.”
“Then do what you want. Just because a popular writer or actor attaches to a project doesn't mean it'll be a good one.”
“That's fair, too.”
Yoon Jay nodded seriously.
True, signing onto a project with a star writer or actor might guarantee ratings and box office. But Park Seo-ah had said a good work.
He wanted to be famous, yes — but he had no desire to claw his way up a career ladder out of sheer desperation. Even if the numbers ran a little lower, playing a good character in a well-crafted work that people called a gem sounded appealing in its own right.
“Unnie. Am I imagining it, or is he getting different treatment from me?”
“You feel too much like a little brother, and Jay feels like a man — like a person, you know?”
The phrasing came out wrong halfway through and she rushed to patch it up, but these were not the sort of people to let a slip like that slide.
“Huh? She said he feels like a man!”
“Excuse me?! Are you two dating?!”
“Are we making real-life couples happen on this drama too?”
“Oh, come ON! Do you really have to block the road for someone who's just getting started?!”
The staff fell over themselves to tease, and Park Seo-ah let out a shriek. So this was the high school field trip they kept talking about. So this was why.
Whether it was the vacation atmosphere or the fact that he'd worked with these people for months, Yoon Jay found it genuinely fun.
He was laughing along in the thick of the crowd when a familiar voice came from behind him.
“Sergeant Jenkins?”
“....Lieutenant Colonel, sir?”
“No more Lieutenant Colonel. What on earth brings you here?”
“I'm no longer a sergeant myself, sir.”
A connection from the past he could never have predicted, waiting in a place he could never have predicted. At the appearance of a middle-aged man radiating intimidation to anyone with eyes, the surrounding staff clamped their mouths shut.
Park Seo-ah ventured carefully,
“Someone you know?”
“Ah — yes.”
“Then go catch up for a bit.”
“Thank you.”
The moment Yoon Jay rose and headed for the bar with the middle-aged man, everyone left at the table put their heads together at once.
“Did you hear that?”
“His English accent is lethal.”
“He called him Commander.”
To the people around him, Yoon Jay was an enigma.
The half-brother of famous idol twins who'd appeared out of nowhere. Some kind of connections, clearly — he'd been slotted straight into a major supporting role. Acting skills so good they bordered on suspicious. And now a rather glamorous past to boot.
Ask, and he'd answer — but only if you asked exactly the right question. Talking to him felt like a game of twenty questions. Nobody let it show, but more than one of them had caught sight of the scars carved into his body.
“Wait, didn't someone say he was ex–special forces?”
“Who's going to go check?”
“Deploying!”
One busybody of a staffer tailed the two men.
Yoon Jay studied the man across from him. His first commanding officer — the one who had recognized his extraordinary abilities. The one who had worked him to the bone, but who had also, in equal measure, seen to his promotions.
“So. Life treating you well?”
“Yes, sir. And you?”
“'Lieutenant Colonel' is far too stiff. Call me Phil.”
“I'd assumed you were still in the service.”
“Circumstances arose.”
“Family matters, sir.”
If it was that, Yoon Jay understood better than most. He'd given his own family plenty of grief while he was in uniform, after all. Phil laughed heartily and clapped Yoon Jay hard on the shoulder.
“And what are you doing these days? It's been quite a while since you mustered out, last I knew.”
“I've started acting. In Korea.”
“Ohhh....”
Yoon Jay smirked at the theatrically surprised expression.
“I'd assumed you'd run the full background workup before sending me to that unit, sir.”
“Caught again. There's no fooling you, is there.”
Phil shook his head slightly. Procedure was procedure — the dossier had been thorough.
When it came out that the subordinate he'd cherished was, of all things, the youngest Best Actor winner in the history of international awards ceremonies — and the lead of a film Phil himself had seen years ago — he'd been floored.
“Cannes, of all places. You may be the most improbable soldier I've ever had.”
“That's an honor, sir.”
“I always figured you'd stay in for good.”
“My being here now should answer that. I didn't stay long.”
Phil's eyes alone tracked over Yoon Jay's frame. Mustering out had softened some of the kill-sharp edge, but the old form hadn't gone anywhere.
The isolated situation. The operation everyone had agreed would take a miracle for any of them to walk away from.
And the miracle had come. Manufactured by the man sitting in front of him.
“Knowing the JJ I remember, you probably racked up commendations over there too.”
“You know I can't discuss that, sir.”
“Tsk. Tight-lipped as ever.”
In truth, he'd regretted letting him go. Talent like that, he could have kept under his thumb and mined for years. But the greater good had demanded it.
“Getting out was no small feat, sir.”
“Haha! I don't doubt it. So — back full circle to where you started. How does it feel?”
“Good. Like I've finally found my place.”
Yoon Jay bore no grudges toward Phil. The man had recognized his talent — that was true. He'd looked after his promotions and his leave — that was true as well.
Phil smiled, satisfied with the answer.
“You'll do fine. With you, who knows — you might just work another miracle.”
“Thank you for the encouragement, sir.”
“If ever the threads cross again, I'll see you then.”
Sensing the conversation was winding down, the staffer scurried back to his seat.
“How'd it go?”
“He was shooting a film noir, I swear.”
“What?”
“I mean, the atmosphere was just so untouchable, like—”
At those words, everyone turned as one toward the spot where Yoon Jay had disappeared.
“What is he, seriously.”