Meaningless Texts and a Stage Full of Stars
Ignoring the chaos unfolding in my head, I answered as calmly as I could.
“Aren't you busy? You're about to start a new drama.”
“Yeah! But there's still plenty of time until the crank-in…. Of course, you can say no if you don't need it! Just tell me honestly. I really don't mind.”
I do mind.
What reason could I possibly have to turn down native English lessons?
“Then, when you have time, hyung… could you at least help me with my pronunciation?”
“Of course!”
Seong Ijun beamed at me.
He smiled so brightly that my own quiet scheming suddenly felt embarrassing.
I didn't expect to be the one getting help here.
The agency had assigned me a foreign language tutor.
They'd even run a placement test to set up proper lessons.
The results hadn't been disastrous, exactly. Though they hadn't been good, either.
'Your memorization is excellent. You pick up vocabulary quickly, and your grammar is decent for this level. But your pronunciation…. Have you ever traveled abroad, or studied overseas?'
'No.'
'Ah…. I only asked because a lot of kids these days take short trips to New Zealand or Canada over the holidays.'
I'd never so much as taken a trip abroad, let alone private tutoring.
All the English I knew came from school classes, so of course my pronunciation was going to be rough.
The teacher had looked terribly disappointed, but honestly, it didn't bother me.
'I'm Korean. Being good at Korean is enough.'
Conversations with foreigners would be frustrating, sure—but the other person would be just as frustrated, so there was nothing to feel small about.
Still, that pesky thing called an actor's image.
Team Leader Woo had asked me to practice at least enough not to be laughed at, so I planned to give pronunciation some extra attention for the time I had left.
'What do I owe Seong Ijun, then? What does he want?'
I couldn't take him to a film set to watch, the way I did with Noh Bihyeok.
It looked like I was the one receiving here—no matter how I looked at it, I didn't seem to have anything worth giving.
“Thank you for making time. Is there anything you want? Anything you need?”
“Huh? No, not really.”
Figures. Then what was I supposed to give him? What could possibly be useful to Seong Ijun?
Cash? That would look like a beggar shoving money at a rich man.
As I deliberated in earnest, Seong Ijun grew flustered.
“I'm the one who offered, so you don't have to give me anything. Yeonjae…!”
There was no such thing as a free lunch. I wasn't that naive.
I didn't even pretend to listen, just kept thinking.
It was then that Seong Ijun hesitantly spoke up.
“Then, if it's okay with you… could I text you sometimes? Just, you know, normally?”
“Text you? We already do.”
“Only when there's a reason to, though…. I mean besides that. Little meaningless messages, here and there. Like… really close friends do.”
I don't send meaningless texts.
I wondered what he was getting at, but I agreed for now.
Was that worth as much as fixing my English pronunciation?
Well, at least the face looking back at me had brightened, so I counted it a win.
But wasn't this all a little too meaningless?
Now that's a meaningless text.
I wondered why he'd bring that up, but my confusion was brief. I'd promised, so I had to reply.
'……Is this right?'
Something told me this wasn't the answer he was looking for.
I debated adding even a shred of useful information, then just sent it as it was.
Whatever. If he wanted something, he'd say so. English was the more urgent matter right now.
I studied for a long stretch, and before I knew it, hours had slipped by.
By the time I checked my phone again, a pile of messages had accumulated.
“…….”
Why on earth is he like this?
I let out a long sigh in the middle of reading the messages.
“H-hello?”
“It's Yeonjae. I was studying, so I only just saw your texts. Sorry.”
“No, no. I'm sorry for bothering you. I was just going to send a text and then….”
“Hyung, do you want to come over now?”
An immediate yes came back through the receiver.
When the doorbell rang less than ten minutes later, I flung the door open.
As if he'd stopped by a bread factory on the way, both his hands were loaded down with baked goods.
I hastily shoved a handful of bread at Jinbae hyung and dragged Seong Ijun into my room.
The moment the door closed, the words I'd been holding back burst out.
“Hyung. Something else.”
“Huh?”
“Instead of meaningless texts—isn't there anything else you want? Anything at all.”
“Oh no. I'm sorry. I've been such a nuisance—”
“It's just that calls are easier for me than texts. Honestly, I barely check my phone anyway.”
Noh Bihyeok sometimes left long, pointless messages too, but he never cared whether I replied or not.
Seong Ijun, though, clearly would.
It happened to resemble the way Angae acted when it was feeling small, which needled at me for no good reason.
Look at him. Even the way he hung his head was similar.
“I just… want to be close to you.”
“Aren't we already close?”
“D-do you think so?”
Obviously. For people who'd only filmed together a handful of times, we'd shared lunch seven times already.
“I'm glad you see it that way…. The truth is, I don't have many friends my age. If you're okay with it, I'd really like for us to be close.”
Seong Ijun's eyes sparkled like dew.
So this is how sappy people ask to be friends.
I felt a little grudging about it, but nodding wasn't hard.
“Okay. Then let's be even closer than we are now.”
“…! Thank you!”
I'd wondered why someone more famous than me kept clinging on, but it turned out he just wanted a friend his own age.
Well, it would be hard to make friends while being homeschooled, wouldn't it.
Now it made sense. Feeling considerably lighter, I patted Seong Ijun on the back.
“Thanks for the bread. I'll enjoy it. Since you're here anyway, can you help me with my pronunciation? I keep getting stuck in the same spots.”
“Yeah! I've got plenty of time!”
Of all the faces I'd seen from him so far, this brightest one of Seong Ijun's was quite a pleasant sight.
Angae smiles nicely like that too. I miss Angae.
“Yeonjae, repeat after me slowly. Exactly.”
“Ig-jaek-tli.”
“……You're doing really well, but shall we try to bring out the 'z' sound a little more?”
And how exactly am I supposed to do that?
“No, wait—I mean, you need to let the 't' sound flow a bit more as you say it.”
Again—how am I supposed to do that?
Unfortunately, Seong Ijun was not as fine a teacher as he was a person of conviction.
Then again, being good at something and being good at teaching it were two different problems.
We repeated the pointless exercise for about thirty minutes before giving up.
“Hyung. Could you just read this list of words straight through? I think it'd be better to practice from a recording.”
“Huh?”
“I can't keep holding you up like this.”
With an uncertain look on his face, Seong Ijun slowly read the words aloud for me.
That evening, I looped the video file endlessly for hours.
Exactly two days later, Seong Ijun's jaw hit the floor.
“Wow! How did you do that?”
“I just copied you. Like doing an impression.”
“…? That's something you can do just by copying?”
“That's literally all I did.”
Just as I'd once mimicked Park Haeun's way of speaking, I'd simply copied Seong Ijun's pronunciation as it was.
Nothing more than an imitation, plain and simple.
Still, correcting two hundred words in two days wasn't a bad result.
'If I do this a few more times, maybe it'll start to click.'
Call it crude—I had no defense.
Either way, I'd be learning properly from a tutor after the fan meeting, so until then I'd just fix whatever I could fix on my own.
By the time I'd shared three more lunches with Seong Ijun, the fan meeting had crept up right in front of me.
“Where do you even find an emoji like that?”
“Sorry?”
“Nothing. That wasn't for you, hyung.”
I gave Noh Bihyeok a half-hearted reply and pocketed my phone.
On the forehead of Jinbae hyung, who looked even more frazzled than I was, beads of sweat had gathered.
They looked ready to trickle down to his ear, so I hurriedly wiped them away.
“Hyung, take it slow. We're not even late.”
“Why are you so calm today, sir? You were a nervous wreck before the fan signing.”
That was because of the experiment with Angae—I didn't know what I might lose.
The day of the fan signing had been nothing short of a surprise gift.
Maybe it was because I couldn't believe I'd get to receive such a precious gift again.
The unreality of it left me strangely unbothered.
“I'll probably freeze up once I'm out there, though.”
“Even if you make a mistake, it's fine. Everyone out there loves you. There's absolutely no need to be nervous.”
Shouldn't you wipe your own sweat before saying things like that?
But I couldn't be harsh with someone who was nervous on my behalf, so I just wiped his brow one more time.
“I'll be standing at the bottom right of the stage, so if anything's difficult or you want a break, just look for me. Understood?”
“Yes. I will.”
Murmuring drifted over from beyond the curtain. Little by little, the nerves set in.
'Those people took time out of their lives to come all this way. I owe them at least that much.'
I still didn't understand why they liked me, but those sparkling eyes turned toward me were a lovely thing. Lovely enough to make me greedy.
Once this curtain lifted, I'd see those eyes again.
With that thought, I slowly drew the curtain open.
And what I faced was a sea of countless starlight.
The eyes that lit up the moment they saw me were like a universe unto themselves.
Gazing at that starlight, ready to come pouring down at any moment, my head drifted into a dreamlike haze.
But only for a moment—the thunderous cheering switched my mind back on like a light.
“Kyaaaaa!! Bambi!!”
“Yeonjae!! Your noona is here!!!”
The instant I heard those ear-splitting screams, I raised the microphone.
“You'll hurt your throats like that. Be careful.”
Ah, I was supposed to greet them first. I tripped right out of the gate. Now what?
“Hello. I'm Lee Yeonjae.”
Standing before so many people, my mind went stark white.
Consciously, I lifted the corners of my mouth.
Good grief, I think my hands are shaking.
'What am I even saying right now?'
The words leaving my own mouth sounded like a foreign language I'd never heard before.
Today's fan meeting was to be run entirely by me, with no separate MC.
The fan cafe staff had sent over their suggestions for content in advance, so writing the script hadn't been difficult.
I'd repeated each sentence hundreds of times and memorized them, so everything coming out of my mouth now should have been exactly what was written in that script. No problem at all.
No—stop that line of thinking. Focus, please.
To untangle the mess in my head, I paused for a moment.
It was then that, cutting through the hushed hall, a voice lodged itself in my ear like an arrow.
“Crazy, his ears went red. So freaking cute.”
It was far too loud to pass for a mutter to oneself.
For a moment, I froze with the microphone in hand, not knowing how to respond.
Laughter erupted from the crowd immediately.
I laughed along awkwardly and tried to read the next line from the script. I truly tried.
“…….”
My mouth opened, and nothing came out.
I didn't need a mirror to know my ears had gone scarlet. The heat had climbed all the way up my neck.
After a few stammering attempts, I gave up and buried my face in both hands.
Everybody, please, look somewhere else.