The Prodigy Who Cries on Cue
"You don't have to answer. Just forget I asked."
"Oh… okay."
Seeing his bewildered face, I belatedly shook my head.
I turned my gaze back to the script, but undefinable thoughts kept drifting through my mind.
It was the singer Kang Sehyun who finally broke the long silence.
"Something on your mind? Did you have a fight with a friend?"
"No. I was just asking. I was curious whether there was some particular reason you two got that close."
"Hmm… Is 'being in the same group' not explanation enough?"
His face said he still didn't understand my question.
Which was only natural, since I didn't quite know what I was trying to ask either.
The frustration of something I couldn't put into clear words made it strangely hard to breathe.
"What I'm wondering is… a group member is basically a coworker, right? You meet as coworkers, spend years together, and grow close that way. I get that. I was just asking whether there was something else that brought you together."
Kang Sehyun chewed over my question for a long while.
Then he scratched his head with an awkward look on his face.
"Sorry. Honestly, I don't get what you mean."
"That's fine. Honestly, I don't understand it either. Just ignore me."
As I absently smoothed out the crumpled script, a hesitant voice settled by my ear.
"I'm not sure what exactly you're curious about, but… Injun isn't a coworker to me anymore. He's family."
"……."
"A reason, huh… I guess it just kind of happened. But isn't that how it normally works? You spend time with people and get close along the way — you don't approach someone with some specific goal in mind."
I looked at him as he laughed, saying he'd never heard a question like that before.
The word normally struck me with a jarring sense of foreignness.
Looking at someone who seemed to live in an entirely different world, I opened my mouth to thank him for answering.
"The final shoot of our grand journey is here! There's a company dinner after we wrap today, so nobody skips out — everyone's coming~! Let's bring it home, people!"
"Yes, sir~!"
"Fighting!"
The staff raised their voices at the assistant director's cry.
Whoever had invested in this production, the budget for the wrap party was surprisingly generous for a web drama.
A crew member who'd already feasted on beef at several of these dinners hummed a little tune as he set up the equipment.
The moment I spotted someone standing alone amid the chaos of the set, I hurried over.
"Injun, what are you doing over here?"
"Oh! Should I go? Am I in the way? The director said it was fine if I watched the shoot!"
"Haha, no. You were just standing there so blankly, that's all I was asking about. Don't just stand — you can go sit over there."
A staff member flashed him a motherly smile at the sight of his wide, startled eyes, pulled out a chair for him without a word, and disappeared.
The problem was where the chair had been placed…
"Hyung, is something wrong?"
"Oh! No. No, nothing."
It was right beside Lee Yeonjae — the actor Choi Injun had been fangirling over lately.
"You can ignore me, actor-nim… I'll stay quiet."
Feeling like he'd disturbed an actor deep in his script, he folded himself into the chair as demurely as he could manage.
He was fidgeting with his fingers, sneaking glances to the side, when he met a pair of dark eyes looking straight back at him.
Wow. He really does look like Bambi.
He was so absorbed in wondering how anyone could be packed together that adorably that it took the sight of a rather awkward expression to bring him back to his senses.
"Ack, sorry! I wasn't trying to stare, I swear."
"…No, it's fine. Hyung, seriously, feel free to speak casually with me."
"You sure? Okay then. Bam— no, Yeonjae."
Despite the awkward banmal that came out with a slight slip of the tongue, Bambi simply nodded, calm as ever.
Injun lost all track of time sneaking glances at those eyes as they refocused on the script.
When the announcement came that preparations were complete, Bambi stood and looked at Choi Injun.
"Hyung, I'll be going now."
"Yeah! Go kill it! Fighting!"
"……Injun-ah. Does hyung not get any encouragement?"
Oh right, hyung exists too.
Choi Injun, having completely forgotten Kang Sehyun, who'd been sitting beside him from the start, laughed shamelessly.
"Eh, hyung will do fine on his own."
"Haah. They say raising a kid is pointless, and they're right…. I raised you from nothing, and this is the betrayal I get?"
"What are you on about? I was in ninth grade when I debuted."
As he giggled and dodged Kang Sehyun's attempts to mess up his hair, Injun felt a gaze on him.
Sharp to attention as any working celebrity should be, he turned his head with practiced subtlety — and there was Bambi, looking at him.
It was a strangely odd expression.
Why is he looking at me like that?
He didn't know the reason, but that lost-in-thought look reminded him of a graceful deer. As expected, our Bambi is the best…
"We'll start with scene 57-2!"
At the staff member's call, Choi Injun jolted awake and lifted his head — and by then, Lee Yeonjae had already disappeared into the set.
"Yeonjae-ssi's makeup needs another pass, don't you think? The lighting's washing out all the red."
The director checked the monitor and hastily called a staffer over.
Even as the makeup artist leaned in to layer red around his eyes, Bambi looked faintly dazed.
"Something's off with him today."
"Hm? What do you mean, with Bambi?"
"He's not the type to space out on set like that. You think he's coming down with something?"
Between that strange question earlier and now this, Kang Sehyun shot Lee Yeonjae a look brimming with puzzlement.
Lee Yeonjae, oblivious to it all, stayed lost in thought for a while longer, only lifting his head when the commotion grew loud enough.
"What's the matter?"
"Ah — you're supposed to look like you've been crying all night, but if we layer on more red it's going to read as too much."
A debate broke out over whether they should just turn the lights off instead, until Lee Yeonjae raised a hand to settle it.
"So the issue is that there's no sign I've been crying just now?"
"Yes, exactly."
"Then I'll just cry. Give me ten minutes."
"…Sorry, what?"
And before the words had even finished leaving his mouth, tears came pouring out of Lee Yeonjae's eyes.
Everyone was struck speechless at the sight of him staring at his own reflection in the mirror, stone-faced, tears simply streaming down.
When he grabbed the tissue his manager handed over and scrubbed roughly at his eyes, a staffer shrieked and rushed to stop him.
"If you keep that up, the makeup's going to get in your—"
"It's fine. Oh, but I'll need my makeup redone. Sorry."
That part hadn't occurred to him, apparently — his face scrunched in embarrassment, the tears still flowing all the while.
Had he been weeping with a wistful expression, it might have made sense. But crying with eyes that looked bored to death while the tears kept coming was somehow even stranger.
So, as promised, Lee Yeonjae cried for ten minutes, then glanced calmly at the clock and stopped.
One more aggressive scrub with the tissue, and there it was: red, puffy rims around his eyes that no makeup artist could have painted on.
The director, swallowing his sheer disbelief, snapped the dazed staff back to attention with a round of vigorous applause.
"Yeonjae-ssi, get that makeup touched up quick — and everyone, back to your marks!"
Choi Injun, having watched the entire spectacle, simply stood there with his mouth hanging open.
Our Bambi…. I knew he could act, but he's a genuine genius.
And just when he thought nothing could surprise him anymore, the moment Lee Yeonjae launched into the actual performance, Injun's jaw nearly dropped clean off his face.
"Kim Hoyun! Aren't you eating? Stop crying and come out and eat!"
"Wh-who's crying?!"
Bambi — no, Kim Hoyun — face buried in his bed, shouted back furiously at his mother's voice from outside the room.
With those vividly reddened eyes and that faintly stuffed-up voice, anyone could see he'd been crying all night.
Is that really a face a person could make — one who was standing there perfectly fine ten minutes ago?
Every time Injun came back to his senses, he gave up on consciously closing his mouth.
His jaw had been open so long it had started to ache, but he couldn't tear his eyes away.
Neither the actor Lee Yeonjae, who'd carried that air of subtle mystery, nor Bambi, who'd smiled so brightly from his phone screen, was anywhere to be found.
There was only a boy whose first love had ended in rejection — a boy full of nothing but raw, aching emotion.
The shoot wrapped without a hitch, all the way through the scene where Kim Hoyun's mother threw open his door and dragged him out to the living room.
The dinner table, laid out more lavishly than usual, was set with five spoons and chopsticks.
Mom, Dad, Kim Hyeyoon, and me. That's it… so why five settings instead of four?
Kim Hoyun looked up in bewilderment — and then, upon seeing Han Yeoreum, froze in horror.
"Hyung, what are you doing here?"
"Ah, well, Hyeyoon—"
"Our little girl got her first boyfriend ever, so of course I had to feed the boy a meal. I told him to come along — is that a problem?"
At the mother's unstoppable commentary, Han Yeoreum bowed his head bashfully.
"A boyfriend…," Kim Hoyun muttered, glaring at him.
If only I'd confessed properly back then, I could've brought Hanna here too.
The thought of Hanna surfaced yet again, and the corners of Kim Hoyun's mouth drooped.
Kim Hyeyoon, beaming goofily at her adorable new boyfriend, flinched at a gloomy aura suddenly emanating from somewhere nearby.
Spotting her younger brother standing there looking like the world was about to end over his first rejection, she smacked him on the back.
"Ow! Why'd you hit me?!"
"You'll pass out from dehydration. If you're going to cry, at least stuff your face first."
"You've got your boyfriend sitting right next to you — can't you speak a little nicer?!"
"Eh, he knew everything about me before we even started dating."
"Ugh, will you two quit it~! Come on, dig in already! Yeoreum's a guest, so sit still."
The sterile quiet of the set filled up with the actors' rapid-fire banter.
They'd rehearsed the timing before the cameras rolled, and the lines landed one after another with the precision of falling Tetris blocks.
How do they all act like that….
Choi Injun was genuinely moved at the thought of watching professional actors work up close with his own eyes.
The scene where everyone took their seats at the table finished in one fluid take — not a single NG.
Once the camera setup was done, the shoot began again with the entire cast already seated at the table.
"Well now, would you look at that healthy appetite."
The boyfriend their daughter had brought home for the first time was a wholesome boy with handsome features and good manners baked into his very posture.
The mother, unable to hide her fond smile, heaped side dish after side dish onto Han Yeoreum's plate.
"Ah, Mom. Stop trying to steal my boyfriend."
"Sorry, but I already have a claim on someone."
"Haha."
Even the father's easy laughter picked up on the audio, and the mood turned so warm it was impossible to hide.
That is, everywhere except for one person in the corner radiating a dark cloud.
Watching her son hunched over, shoveling plain rice into his mouth, the mother clicked her tongue.
"Son, eat some side dishes with your rice."
"That's right, you'll give yourself indigestion eating like a caveman."
"Kim Hyeyoon, you go look after your own boyfriend. My son is mine to look after."
The mother glared at her grumbling daughter, then grabbed Kim Hoyun's cheek and tugged it up.
Forcing his head up revealed eyes brimming with unshed tears.
The pitiful sight drew a sigh out of her without her meaning it to.
"Son, it's okay to be sad. That's just how it is. You don't have to stuff it all down or hold it in. A real man cries when he's sad. Just eat first, then cry."
"She's right. Skipping meals won't do — but you won't have much of an appetite, so just eat a little."
The mother's bracing advice was followed by the father's gentle words.
Looking down at the braised lotus root his father had placed on his spoon, Kim Hoyun's lips wobbled.
This was Hoyun — the boy who'd gritted his teeth and fought back tears even when Hanna turned down his confession — suddenly going soft-faced and starting to sob.
Of course he was. This wasn't some street walked by strangers, or the alley where the person he loved had rejected him. These people were…
"If it ever gets too hard, talk to us anytime. If it's hard to tell your mom and dad, you can talk to your sister instead."
"Hey? I never agreed to that."
"Do you really want to be family that badly?"
The camera passed over Kim Hyeyoon laughing and claiming it was all a joke, over Han Yeoreum smiling as he watched her — and settled on Kim Hoyun, head bowed low.
All that remained was for Hoyun to lift those tear-glossed eyes and bravely belt out his final line — "Well, I don't need a sister anyway? Mom and Dad are all I need!" — and the shoot would be over.
"……."
The problem was that Kim Hoyun didn't lift his head.