Moon Village (4)
According to screenwriter Woo Taeyoon, this was the moment Kim Sanghyeon's heart — which had approached her lightly, drawn by her pretty face — changed completely.
Choi Ahra had scraped by tooth and nail her whole life, pressing her tears down deep just to survive. Now, with the crushing despair of believing everything was over, her true feelings burst to the surface.
"Hey. Don't cry."
"Waaah!"
Her face was crumpled, fever-flushed and scarlet. She wept openly, wailing like a child. It was nothing like her usual pretty self — and yet he couldn't take his eyes off her.
The atmosphere around Kim Sanghyeon shifted. Why is she crying? His flustered awkwardness at the situation slowly gave way to something dead serious — pity and aching tenderness for a woman who'd had no choice but to live this way, and the quiet longing to stay by her side.
The director smiled at the subtle shift crossing Yoon Jay's face. At last, Kim Sanghyeon gently pulled Choi Ahra into his arms.
The speed at which posts were flooding community boards and portal reaction feeds in real time was nothing short of frantic.
"I'm sorry. I'm the one who's sorry."
"Sob...!"
"Don't cry."
When she still wouldn't stop, the arms around her tightened, holding her firmly.
The sheer difference in build — tall, broad-shouldered Yoon Jay against small, delicate Han Dayeon — was enough to set viewers' hearts fluttering on its own.
Kim Sanghyeon pulled back slightly and carefully wiped the tears from Choi Ahra's face. A quiet, atmospheric melody swelled beneath the scene.
Their faces were close, certainly — but this was not the scene the audience wanted. Before filming, the director, the screenwriter, and Yoon Jay had had a brief discussion about it.
"What do you think, Jay?"
"Kim Sanghyeon is an opportunistic weasel, and Choi Ahra has a lot of pride. This is the scene where Ahra's pride shatters completely — and Sanghyeon isn't the type to let a chance like that slip by."
"True."
"But his feelings for Ahra have shifted from curiosity to love. So I think he folds that chance back up."
If Sanghyeon simply rode the moment and kissed her, Ahra — proud as she was — would only end up resenting herself later for being so weak. That was Yoon Jay's read on the character.
"Out of consideration for Ahra?"
"Yes. Sanghyeon is only ever weak when it comes to Ahra."
"I like that. Let's keep it teasingly close, then pull back."
The director had originally planned to include a kiss scene. But Yoon Jay's take on Kim Sanghyeon was simply too good to pass up.
"You done crying?"
"...!"
So Kim Sanghyeon lingered for a moment, then drew back. Ahra, coming to her senses too late, swallowed hard at his face so near to hers. Then she shoved him away and fled into her house.
"...Hah."
Kim Sanghyeon didn't follow her. He crouched down, buried his head in his arms, and let out a breath that was brimming over.
Fresh, innocent yearning — the kind that made viewers squirm and soften all on their own.
"Cut! Beautiful!"
"Wow!"
"Great chemistry!"
No need to review the monitor — this was an instant pass. Han Dayeon hid her face out of pure embarrassment, and Yoon Jay patted her shoulder encouragingly. The set's mood had never been brighter.
"What do you think, Writer?"
"It works."
The writer had only added the romance because the network director ordered it, kicking and screaming the whole way — but seeing the result, she couldn't help nodding. The two of them — or more precisely, Yoon Jay, who steered the entire atmosphere — carried a great deal of the credit.
They had only worked together on Along, Along so far, but Prince Muhwi and Jung Yeonhwa had been restrained and understated there too. Even in their brief shared scenes, though, the chemistry between them was uncanny — and many who knew Yoon Jay's work found themselves hoping for a full melodrama from him.
"For now, go to the station and explain the fine — they'll probably cut you some slack. The urgent thing is this: I'll lend you the money."
"N-no! I'll handle it myself!"
"You already sold your poverty once. You still have pride left to hold up against me?"
"That's...!"
"I'm not giving it to you. I'm lending it. And I fully intend to squeeze it out of you."
From then on, the current between Kim Sanghyeon and Choi Ahra grew stranger still, and viewers watched their relationship with bated breath, waiting to see when it would finally move forward.
The short clips climbed the trending charts, and the ratings ticked upward.
But from the sweet storyline of its supporting leads, the drama's mood pivoted hard toward the two protagonists hunting a killer. A fifth body had been found.
The problem was that Kim Sanghyeon had been the one to discover the very first body.
Worried about Choi Ahra, he'd kept coming and going through that neighborhood like it was his own dining room even after his shift ended — that was how he'd stumbled onto it. But Detective Park Yoonseong and his team, desperate for even the smallest thread, pinned the murders on him.
"Ah — it wasn't me!"
"Then why were you up there at that hour? Your shift ended long before that."
"Well, that's...!"
"Look at this. He can't talk."
The body had been found in a spot no one could have stumbled upon unless they were the killer themselves.
Kim Sanghyeon protested his innocence, but he kept his mouth shut and let himself be locked in a holding cell. When the news finally reached her, Choi Ahra came charging into the police station.
"Huh? Ahra. What are you doing here...?"
"Kim Sanghyeon — he was... he was with me."
"Ahra, with you?"
"Yes."
The detectives let out sighs and eased off. They'd already suspected they'd grabbed the wrong man — Sanghyeon had never matched the profile of the serial killer they'd been tracking.
"Hey, why didn't you say so in the first place?"
"Because — if I told them I was with a man that late, who knows what rumors would spread... Anyway, once the autopsy results come out, the time of death will clear everything up, won't it?"
"Oooh."
"This kid's got guts."
Not one of the detectives apologized for dragging in an innocent man. Only Park Yoonseong murmured a small apology as he let Kim Sanghyeon out.
"Sorry about that. We were in a hurry."
"No, it's... it's fine."
As the tension dissolved, Kim Sanghyeon noticed a young officer and an old woman walking up behind Choi Ahra.
"Um, Detective?"
"Yeah?"
"This person was near the scene."
The sole eyewitness was...
"Oh my, where am I?"
...an old woman with dementia.
"The killer's pattern has changed."
The old woman had folded a paper crane and handed it to Choi Ahra. A paper crane — the killer's signature. They'd detained her and pressed her with questions, but of course she'd offered nothing usable.
"Did something change in his head? What if he just vanishes on us out of nowhere?"
"No. The killer has learned the taste of murder. A changed pattern means... he's bound to spiral even further out of control."
Park Yoonseong stared at the roadmap studded with markers for each crime scene.
Until now, the killer had followed his own self-imposed rules: a fixed killing cycle, strangulation, a paper crane placed in the victim's mouth.
But the fifth body broke all of it. The cycle had slipped, and there was no paper crane in the mouth. Worse, the victim hadn't been strangled at all — she'd been slashed to death with a blade.
"A detective's gut feeling?"
"That, and the evidence speaks for itself."
Stabbing with a knife is an act of raw emotional expression — rage, resentment, bitterness. Negative emotion, bleeding through the blade. Something had shifted in the killer's mind. Had he lost someone close to him? Or was there another reason?
The precision had shattered, leaving a random murderer tossed about by his own emotions. And that was far more dangerous — because no one could say when, or where, the next person would die.
"Subin. You've been around this neighborhood a lot, right? Give me a hand."
"Hmm... we'll need one more person."
Kang Subin called in Kim Sanghyeon. As it happened, he knew every alley and every resident of the neighborhood by heart, all in his effort to win points with Choi Ahra. He might even know more than Subin did.
"Ah, the old lady in that house reconciled with the son she'd been estranged from and moved away. It's empty now."
"How do you know all that?"
"Oh, come on. Sleuths gotta sleuth."
At the sight of Kim Sanghyeon winking, both Kang Subin and Park Yoonseong couldn't help but chuckle.
"This house belongs to Mrs. Park Sunhee, originally from Gyeongsang Province — her husband's off working an apartment construction site. She's the one who often brings Ahra side dishes."
"Skip the useless details. Just give me people who live alone."
"A-yes sir."
All they could do was narrow down the likely targets and set up stakeouts. Park Yoonseong typed the information Kim Sanghyeon fed him into his phone.
"...Hold on a second."
"What?"
"Why is that door open?"
"Oh — did she just step out for a sec?"
"No. I told her to lock up every single time, even to step out for a moment — it's dangerous..."
Kim Sanghyeon, who'd been cheerfully guiding them through the neighborhood, spotted the sliding door of Choi Ahra's house standing open. A dark premonition seized him as he scanned the house —
"A-Ahra!"
Choi Ahra lay collapsed on the floor, a blade buried in her abdomen.
"Cut!"
"Moving on!"
The next scene followed shortly after: Kim Sanghyeon carrying the still-breathing Ahra on his back, sprinting downhill.
The alley was steep and narrow, so the staff had earnestly cautioned Yoon Jay beforehand.
"Jay, if it gets too hard you can stop partway. We can always reshoot..."
"Safety comes first. Watch your step so you don't fall."
"Okay."
Yoon Jay nodded simply and hoisted Han Dayeon onto his back. The ease of it — no sense of weight at all — drew admiring murmurs from a few of the staff.
"Well, he was a firefighter. His stamina's a given."
There had been another scene, too — one where residents, mistaking the tax collectors for loan sharks, bolted and led them on a clumsy chase through the hills. He'd carried her then as well.
No matter how many takes they ran, Yoon Jay never once complained, and he never looked all that strained. It was why he had such a good reputation among the crew.
"I'm not heavy, am I, oppa? You can rest your feet on that step for a second if you need."
"You're not heavy."
When Han Dayeon kept asking, anxious, Yoon Jay spun lightly in a full circle. Up to this point, everything was fine. The mood on set was good, and he'd barely posted any NGs.
"Alright, ready... go!"
The director's sign rang out, and Kim Sanghyeon — Yoon Jay — ran.
"No, no, hold on!"
No ambulance could reach this alley. Even if someone called, it would take too long. So he carried her himself.
Up the steep stairway of a path, careful that Ahra wouldn't come to harm, and yet his feet never stopped. Ahra. Ahra. Don't die.
"Please...!"
A drone camera tracked him from above. Cameras waiting in the alley caught him too.
He gasped for breath and let out a short, ragged cry. Desperate, aching, utterly pleading.
...Ahra.
Kim Sanghyeon — no, Yoon Jay — felt the place he was running through begin to shift. The narrow alley became a tension-thick school corridor, and then a battlefield where guns and shells rained down.
Don't die.
He'd carried him on his back then, too. A school that should have been ringing with laughter had become the site of tragedy, and the muzzle of the killer's gun had swung toward us. And I stood in the middle of a warzone, shells screaming past me and — huh?
Who am I carrying right now? Choi Ahra? Or Han Dayeon, playing Choi Ahra? Or is it Benjamin — the one I couldn't save? Or...
Don't die. Ben.
From the frantic, unhinged Kim Sanghyeon, back to Yoon Jay, and further still — to the firefighter JJ Jenkins. The mask he'd worked so hard to hold in place began to crack.
"Cut! Just a moment!"
Yoon Jay was running so fast he overtook the camera, and the director, who'd been on his radio, sprang up waving his arms. But he didn't stop.
"Oppa. Oppa. Stop, please."
"...Huh?"
Only when Han Dayeon lightly tapped his shoulder did Yoon Jay come back to himself. He staggered to a halt, and she slid down from his back.
"Are you okay?"
"...I'm sorry."
"No, I was the one being carried the whole time — it's not tiring for me at all, so..."
Han Dayeon, standing close to him, caught sight of water streaming down his face — and fell silent.
What is this...?
Something about the grief in him felt desolate, raw — like it wasn't simply immersion in Kim Sanghyeon at all.
Even in the script, Kim Sanghyeon cries as he runs with Ahra on his back. But that was the sobbing of a frightened child terrified of losing her — nothing in the stage directions called for tears this mournful.
"...I'm sorry."
"No, it's fine. Let's rest a bit before we go again. Where's your manager, Jay?"
The director, too, sensed something seriously off in his condition and called a temporary halt to filming.
Yoon Jay almost never made mistakes, and he was unfailingly courteous and kind to everyone — the whole crew adored him. His fellow actors shot him worried looks at this uncharacteristic display, and Han Jin-woo came sprinting, breathless, draping a blanket over Yoon Jay's shoulders and pressing warm water into his hands.
"Hyung, drink this first."
"Right."
His ragged breathing slowly settled back to normal. But the look in his eyes was anything but, so Han Jin-woo asked carefully,
"You're not feeling unwell somewhere, are you?"
"Benjamin."
"Sorry?"
"Someone came to mind, that's all..."
Having roughly gathered himself, Yoon Jay swept the tears from his eyes with the back of his hand.
Don't keep it all stuffed down like that. A wall you build as a stopgap will blow one day — and it won't be a small one.
Somewhere, faintly, he could almost hear Captain's voice.