It Was Bearable
It was bearable.
“For now... please, come in.”
Lee Young-chang, forcing himself to pretend Yoon Jay wasn't there, opened the door, and Park Chul-woo directed his men with a series of hand signals.
Jung Seung-woo, Choi Tae-yang, and the rest of the team took up positions in the yard while Yoon Jay followed Park Chul-woo inside.
“And, ah, the gentlemen behind you...”
“Nothing I can do about it. You'll just have to understand.”
What could she do, when the brother she'd so conveniently planted at a subsidiary kept clawing his way back up.
Two men built like door panels stood utterly motionless behind Jo You-kyung, and somehow the little house seemed to shrink around them.
“Just pretend they're not there.”
Lee Young-chang let out a quiet sigh. The only thing on his mind was Yoon Jay.
The moment talk turned to the re-release of The Child, the past would come up with it — and Jo You-kyung couldn't have imagined in her wildest dreams that Yoon Jae-hee himself was listening from a few feet away.
“So. You're in contact with Jae-hee, aren't you?”
“It happened by chance, one thing led to another.”
Lee Young-chang admitted it. Jo You-kyung was relentless and stubborn to a fault — keep hiding it, and she'd only dig deeper.
“His number? Give it to me.”
“I don't have it.”
That was a lie. He'd learned Yoon Jay's number through the re-release business, but since the man clearly didn't want it known, he would keep it sealed.
“You permitted the re-release... could it be he's thinking of coming back?”
God, I hope so. If he was, she intended to support him with everything she had. She owed Yoon Jae-hee a debt of the heart.
He had displayed overwhelming talent from his earliest years — even faded with time, that gift had to still be alive in him.
With the backing of Jo You-kyung, who held the media industry in an iron grip, he could land directly in the work of famous writers and directors in a single stroke. Any other actor hearing about it would probably have thought, God, Yoon Jae-hee is so lucky.
What should the twins and I have for dinner tonight?
The man in question, for his part, was thinking nothing of the sort.
“He'd rather not be known. I couldn't get more than a few words out of him before I left.”
'Couldn't get more than a few words out of him'... so you've already met him, haven't you?
Jo You-kyung felt something didn't add up, but the harder she pried, the deeper he'd bury it — so for now she played dumb.
“Let's just talk about the re-release. How far along are you?”
“The remaster's completely finished, and the edit's been fully polished. There's nothing left to touch.”
“Your work, I can trust...”
She knew he'd do it right without being told. Jo You-kyung's answers were half-hearted; her attention was fixed entirely on Yoon Jae-hee.
If he were truly sick to death of it all, he never would have allowed the re-release in the first place. But he said yes — doesn't that mean there's still a sliver of hope in him?
Lee Young-chang shook his head. He had kept the thread of their connection unbroken since The Child — as colleagues, as old friends — so reading her heart was easy.
“Senior. As I've said time and again...”
“Don't go deciding things according to what suits me?”
“Yes.”
“Then stay out of it. I'll handle this myself.”
Lee Young-chang sighed. Jo You-kyung was an industry-recognized heavyweight, and by all human measures a decent person.
Her flaw was simply that way of thinking peculiar to 'the people at the top.'
“If someone with my standing goes to persuade him, won't he come around?”
“Senior.”
'He's listening from right behind you,' is what I'd like to say. And some people, after all, were the kind power didn't work on.
Truthfully, Lee Young-chang found it agonizing too. The muse he'd found again had, on occasion, grown up even better than he'd imagined.
Perhaps because of that gaze-arresting aura of his — he had caught himself, without realizing, writing his next film with Yoon Jay as the model.
And yet Yoon Jay's expression hadn't shifted by a single degree, even with his own life spread across the table. As if every last thread of attachment had already burned away.
“Doesn't it break your heart, even a little? A child that gifted, wounded until he simply vanished? He has to rise again — visibly, unmistakably — right in front of the people who crushed him back then!”
“I do find it a shame. I do, but...”
Yoon Jay, growing embarrassed by the endless talk of himself, had turned to stare out the window.
'It's just that I need the money.'
He hadn't spared a single shred of thought toward returning to the industry through the re-release... and now he found himself in the awkward position of deciding whether or not to correct her.
“JJ, why are you out already?”
“I've rested plenty. What's all that?”
Stay home, and the children's screams kept ringing in his ears. Lips pressed into a thin line, brow furrowed, Yoon Jay changed into the black uniform that marked a firefighter and headed for the garage.
“Why is the local news station here?”
“Everyone's been in a funk since that incident. They want to do a piece on the heroes of it. Comfort the public, that sort of thing.”
“Heroes. Right...”
If they'd truly been heroes, no one should have died. Perhaps because his mind was stretched taut, a bitter laugh escaped him on its own.
Oliver felt a pang of sympathy for Yoon Jay, frayed raw at every edge. Given what the man had been through, he'd earned the right to be.
“Oh, look — someone's just clocking in!”
“Ah, that kid...”
The reporter was not about to simply walk past Yoon Jay, a man who stood out from the crowd in both heritage and looks.
The captain, hurrying after him in open horror, wore an expression of pure disbelief. No. I told him to rest for a while — why on earth is he back at work already?
“Hello there! You don't mind a quick interview, do you?”
At the broadcast camera thrust suddenly into his face, Yoon Jay raised the back of his hand to shield himself. The great black lens was like someone's unblinking eye — or the gaping maw of some beast.
“Get the camera out of my face.”
“I'm sorry?”
“I can't do that kind of thing.”
Not wouldn't — couldn't. Yoon Jay, face hidden behind his hand, head bowed, looked anything but fine.
“Ollie! Get JJ out of here!”
“Yes, Cap.”
The reporter stared blankly at the retreating back, supported under Oliver's arm.
“Did... did I do something wrong?”
“No. He's... one of the men who went in. At the scene.”
“Ah...”
The reporter, who until that moment had worn a flicker of irritation, went stiff with solemnity in an instant.
That incident had plunged not just Los Angeles but the entire nation into mourning.
A tragedy unfolding inside a high school. The SWAT team still not on scene. Bloodied, cornered students dialing 911, their lives hanging on every wasted minute.
After a brief, weighted deliberation, it had been a handful of firefighters — Yoon Jay among them — who slipped inside.
“...So that's him. From the photographs.”
The standoff had been terrifying and suffocating, and it had dragged on. Which was why the press had so many pictures of it.
The Asian firefighter sprinting out with a student slung over his shoulder drew the eye. And so did the image of him afterward — standing before a child covered in a white sheet, tears falling without a sound.
That scene ran as the local papers' headline the very next day.
Of course the incident itself played its part — but Yoon Jay had reacted so sharply because of the raw, animal terror that had crept right up to his doorstep.
Thanks to his father, DSLR cameras were something he could just about endure. But the phobia of the big broadcast cameras hadn't gone anywhere yet.
And right on cue, the dispatch siren came shrieking through the firehouse.
“Let's move.”
“You're cleared to come back already? You should still be resting...”
Ignoring Oliver's protests, Yoon Jay climbed aboard the fire truck.
“...Ah.”
And he woke to the sound of an alarm. Sitting up with a rustle of bedding, Yoon Jay fished painkillers out of the nightstand drawer and swallowed them dry.
'My luck's not looking great today.'
Dreaming of the old days, all of a sudden.
“Brief me on today's schedule.”
“Yes, Madam Vice Chairwoman.”
Perhaps he had this person to thank for the dream.
Yoon Jay stole a glance at Jo You-kyung's back as she received her secretary's briefing.
Since her visit to Lee Young-chang, Jo You-kyung had been traversing the city at a furious pace for the The Child re-release — and Yoon Jay had to shadow her every step of the way.
“It's been a while since I've seen the Vice Chairwoman this excited.”
“Was The Child really this big a deal?”
In truth, the film was only a pretext — the whole thing had the air of a class reunion. Still, a vice chairwoman of the group personally running around for a single movie struck everyone else as something entirely new.
“Senior.”
“Kim Joo-hwan. Getting a little thick around the middle since you made CEO, aren't you?”
The man called Kim Joo-hwan — head of a production company and actor agency both — flashed a wide grin. This one felt familiar too. Almost certainly someone he'd crossed paths with back in his Yoon Jae-hee days.
“So — how about gathering the kids from back then and putting on a GV? A guests-and-viewing event.”
“A GV? I'm all for it. Swap a few old stories... you think it'll end up just me and Young-chang hyung?”
“It would be lovely if the actors came out for it too, if we can manage.”
“Actors? Is Jae-hee coming back? Last I heard, the idea hadn't crossed his mind at all.”
Traveling in Jo You-kyung's orbit, the old name kept surfacing. No wonder he was dreaming of the past.
Yoon Jay swept his surroundings in silence — fire extinguisher, emergency exits, any spot where a potential attacker might lie in wait. It was habit.
The staff were still shuffling equipment this way and that, so the meeting had run slightly late. And why, of all places, did it have to be a film set?
“You heard the news too, I take it?”
“Of course. Young-chang hyung spent all this time waiting on that kid's permission. The re-release gets announced out of nowhere — of course he assumed contact had been made.”
“If I threw some support his way, do you think he'd come back? What's your read?”
Kim Joo-hwan stroked his chin. As assistant director back then, he had grown close to Yoon Jae-hee over the course of the shoot.
“Hmm... it won't happen. The boy cut his ties with the industry long ago.”
“Still?”
“Childhood trauma runs deep and long, you know? The second the press got hold of the story, they tore into him without mercy. And I hear he was bullied on top of it... If it were me, I'd be too disgusted to so much as glance at this world again.”
My situation was never quite that dire. Yoon Jay filed away the brief mental note.
“But! You simply must look after my kids.”
“I'm sorry — what?”
Kim Joo-hwan beckoned over a handful of actors who had been waiting to shoot.
“Now, everyone, say hello. This is Vice Chairwoman Jo You-kyung of KE Group.”
“Hello! I'm Lim Si-woo, an actor!”
“I'm three years into my debut...”
Some had a measure of name recognition; others were fresh rookies. Jo You-kyung shot Kim Joo-hwan a sidelong glance.
“So that's why you booked this place of all places...”
“Come on, senior, help us out. My kids are genuinely talented — they just don't have the connections.”
“You really will sell anything, won't you.”
Jo You-kyung's brow creased faintly. She had never cared for this brand of favor-trading — and Kim Joo-hwan knew that perfectly well. Which meant he had to be truly desperate.
“Though I'd say the gentleman standing behind me is the better catch?”
Still, a thread of disappointment ran through her, and she couldn't resist a little mischief.
Kim Joo-hwan's gaze and the actors' gazes all swiveled to Yoon Jay, and a gleam of pure mischief lit Park Chul-woo's eyes beside him.
'You're being far too obvious, Chairman.'
This was how a man got needlessly dragged into things. Yoon Jay strangled the sigh that rose of its own accord.
“The gentleman behind you, then...”
“He's my bodyguard. Why? Does it bother you?”
“N-no, not at all. He's rather famous on the internet these days.”
“Famous, you say?”
“You haven't heard, senior?”
Kim Joo-hwan pulled up the community threads about the devastatingly handsome bodyguard and showed them to Jo You-kyung, explaining as he went.
The actors who had been awkwardly squeezed into the middle quietly melted away. One or two even turned resentful eyes on Yoon Jay, for no reason at all.
Jo You-kyung and Kim Joo-hwan were soon watching a MyTube fancam, no less.
“Look at him gripping that fence. Like a proper action star, no?”
“Oh.”
“Even better in person, honestly.”
Kim Joo-hwan's eyes were shining. Your CEO's kids are staring at me like they're about to set me on fire, sir.
“Is that so? Hmm... President Park.”
At the call, Park Chul-woo stepped forward.
“Yes, ma'am.”
“How about we run a quick camera test on your Mr. Yoon Jay here?”
“I'd say the man's own wishes come first.”
Jo You-kyung and Park Chul-woo both turned to look at him. Kim Joo-hwan, the actors, even the staff idling nearby — every last one of them was staring.
'This is awkward...'
Yoon Jay swallowed. He couldn't be certain a camera like that would be all right.
“I'm afraid it would interfere with my duties.”
“It's fine. The director of this picture is a drinking buddy of mine.”
He had deflected once, but Jo You-kyung was pushing harder than he'd expected. Wearing a deliberately noncommittal expression, Yoon Jay looked to Park Chul-woo.
“...Do it for me, son.”
Jo You-kyung was a networking queen and a titan of the industry besides. Stay in her good graces, and the work would keep flowing into Wings Company — with fat bonuses for every employee on the payroll.
'Hmm...'
Park Chul-woo was a good man. He had taken Yoon Jay on as a freelancer when he refused a permanent contract; he'd raised no complaint when Yoon Jay suddenly burned leave to spend time with the twins; and whenever Yoon Jay's recognizable face drew questions in one place or another, he had always guarded his identity without fail.
'I can put up with a little of this.'
Yoon Jay exhaled softly and followed a staff member to stand before the camera.
“Oh...”
“Takes direction beautifully, too.”
The people watching the monitor let out short exclamations of admiration. Among them were the head of this production and even the director himself.
“You there — try looking into this camera for me.”
The director, it seemed, had mistaken Yoon Jay for some rookie actor. Yoon Jay went along with their requests in loose measure, doing his utmost not to think about the lens at all.
“That's enough.”
Just as the churning in his stomach became impossible to ignore, Jo You-kyung's word to withdraw finally came down.
Yoon Jay stepped out of the camera's reach at a quicker pace than usual. Park Chul-woo thumped him on the shoulder in wordless thanks.
“You're looking a little pale. You coming down with something?”
“...No.”
Yoon Jay turned and stole one last glance at the filming camera.
'More than I thought...'
It was bearable.