A Cheek Kiss and the Director's First Post
“Kim Ho-yun. Is this one better, or the one under it?”
“I like both.”
“Could you put a little more effort into your answer?”
He meant it, too. It didn't matter what movie they watched.
No—honestly, it didn't matter at all.
Watching your face beats watching any movie.
It was the kind of thing too embarrassing to say out loud, so he swallowed it back down. He'd been sneaking glances at Hanna's profile as she pored over the movie posters.
“……Hey. Just stare openly, at this rate. My face is going to get a hole drilled in it.”
“Ahem.”
He cleared his throat at her muttering.
Infuriating girl.
Her instincts were disgustingly sharp, as always. Then again… that was exactly why he liked her.
“Fine, then let's just watch this one.”
“Okay.”
“We've got… two hours left. Café first?”
“Okay.”
“Is 'okay' the only thing you can say?”
“Yep. I like you, Jung Hanna.”
“……Never mind. Stop talking.”
Hanna averted her eyes awkwardly. Her flustered gaze was so adorable that he barely managed to hold back a laugh.
God… she's seriously so cute.
To think this girl was his girlfriend. Months had passed since they started dating, and it still didn't feel real. It was awkward, even.
Truthfully, even for him, showing affection to his best friend of since kindergarten didn't come easily.
But at moments like this, when Hanna got so clumsy and tongue-tied, he made a conscious effort to be the more expressive one.
“Jung Hanna. Give me your bag. I'll carry it.”
“It's fine. It's not heavy.”
“You lug around that many workbooks and you're telling me it's not heavy? Come on, hand it over.”
“I said I'm fine.”
Hanna stubbornly refused to let go of the bag.
“Ugh, a guy carrying your bag makes us look way too much like a couple.”
“……Huh? We are a couple, though??”
The absurdity of it drew a snort out of him. A flicker of irritation rose too, and his hand tightened on the strap.
Bad timing. The force he'd tugged with brought not just the bag but Hanna along with it.
“…!”
At the sudden closeness of her face, both of them froze. And in that instant, he saw the flush burning on Hanna's cheeks.
His head moved before he could think.
A soft, quick peck.
“…….”
“…….”
Silence hung between them as if time and space itself had stopped. Even after it was done, he couldn't believe it, and no words would come. He had just….
Hanna spoke first.
“Y-you insane bastard.”
“……Sorry. I was too surprised.”
“You were so surprised you kissed me? Does that even make sense?”
No. It didn't make sense. But it had truly been beyond his control.
He apologized sheepishly, staring at her scarlet face.
“Did it upset you? I'm really sorry, I swear it wasn't on purpose.”
Hanna said nothing.
Don't tell me this is it.
Anxiety flared up in an instant. He was biting his lip, about to apologize yet again, when Hanna lifted her head.
“Hey. I like you too, okay?”
“……What?”
“Me too… argh! I told you already. Last time—that I like you. So we're dating. Couples can… kiss sometimes, you know. Why are you apologizing so much?”
She grumbled on—saying that his constant groveling made her feel weird, and to just knock it off already.
He stared blankly at her pouting face, then said it.
“Then can I do it one more time?”
“……Like hell you can.”
“Why not!”
“Because you're insane. We're outside. In public, you know.”
“Then at home―. Ow! Why'd you hit me!”
“Shut up and let's get to the café. Hm?”
Hanna's face, as she smacked him hard on the back, was red enough to burst at any moment. Watching her, a silly grin crept onto his face despite himself.
He slung an arm around her shoulders, half-hugging her from behind as she strode along like some tough businesswoman.
“Your oppa will buy you an iced chocolate. Let's hurry.”
“I was born before you.”
“Where I come from, being handsome automatically makes you the oppa.”
“Hah, and did all the handsome guys freeze to death or something?”
“Yep. Everyone except your boyfriend is dead.”
When he whispered so don't go cheating on me by her ear, Hanna shoved him away in disgust. And so, bickering the whole way, they reached the café.
It was a happy moment. The kind he wished would never end.
“Cut!”
He came to at the PD's voice. Blinking a few times, he immediately raised his hand and wiped Han Seyeong's cheek with his palm. Good—no drool, as expected.
“Yeonjae, so? Your impression of your first kiss?”
As Kim Ho-yun, his mind had been a blur. Now he felt nothing in particular. When he simply shrugged, Han Seyeong grumbled that he was no fun.
After that, they shot the same scene from several different angles. He pressed his lips to Han Seyeong's cheek about four times, but honestly, calling it a kiss was a stretch.
In reality it was barely a brush of contact, and the smacking sound was going to be added in post-production dubbing anyway. Which was probably why he felt absolutely nothing.
Frankly, I think my emotions ran hotter filming the scene in Twins where the hammer touches my hand.
With that thought, he wrapped the shoot without incident. He was greeting the staff, thanking them for their hard work, when Han Seyeong—now changed out of her costume—came over.
“I'm going to see Twins tonight.”
“Oh yeah? Thank you.”
“The reactions right now are no joke. I turned it off right away because I hate being spoiled, but every time you do anything, it trends again—I couldn't avoid it if I tried.”
She threw in a lighthearted, if belated, congratulations on the Best Actor award, then puffed up her chest, declaring that her eye for talent had never once been wrong. He smiled quietly at the sight.
“I had fun on set today, noona.”
“Me too. Call me sometimes~.”
Han Seyeong walked off without a backward glance. That unattached, unburdened silhouette was so unlike Jung Hanna's that a laugh slipped out of him for no reason.
Films built on Yoon Kang-yeon's screenplays have always been hazy works, as though wrapped in fog. Like cud to be chewed over, each scene had to be examined slowly and patiently before its true meaning could be savored. His films always arrived like poetry.
But his new film Twins is closer to a novel than a poem. Unfolding through the perspectives of its two protagonists, it follows a comparatively clear storyline and moves with smooth, unbroken momentum. The perpetually ambiguous messaging is nowhere to be found; the film is composed entirely of scenes no viewer could possibly misread.
The change announces itself in the very title. Twins—could any message be delivered more blatantly? There is not a single scene that toys with whether Kang Tae-il and Lee Jin-woo really are twins, no ambiguous dialogue, no hidden twist.
And yet there are moments where the clarified dialogue carries an even heavier weight of implication. Kim Jin-ho's (played by Seong Ijun) line—“Well, whatever, you live at an orphanage. Honestly, that's not a normal environment.”—is exactly that kind of scene.
Kang Tae-il and Lee Jin-woo share faces so identical they could be mistaken for doppelgängers. Yet not one person around them ever suspects the two of being twins. No—to put it precisely, no one even bothers to try.
At first, I thought it was a failure of plausibility. I mean, they look that alike and nobody wonders if they're twins? One of them was raised in an orphanage, for crying out loud—isn't that a stark contrast to the reality-obsessed direction that marked every one of Director Yoon's films to date? I lamented at length before the realization finally came, far too late.
Kim Jin-ho is not some idiot incapable of even logical inference. It is a conclusion anyone could reach with a moment's thought—and yet he chooses, all the way to the end, not to doubt. He simply makes the choice to say, “Your environment isn't normal.”
There lies the director's intent: expressed plainly and unambiguously, that to Kang Tae-il, even the effort of such an inference holds no value whatsoever.
However identical their faces, so long as Kang Tae-il sits idly by the riverbank in worn-out clothes, the two of them can never be twins. That is the modern gaze with which we look upon twin brothers—two lives treated differently on the strength of their circumstances, despite wearing the same face. It is a bitterly bitter thing.
And yet, in another sense, I was relieved. Those who have seen this film can now make the choice. To live seeing only what is on the surface, like Kim Jin-ho—or to face the meaning hidden beneath it.
Go rewatch the Taste Point episode RIGHT NOW. I'm crying so hard
Kang Tae-il…. wishing on his birthday candle that he could stay with his hyungs for the rest of his life—wasn't that just too cruel??
How dare you do this to an otaku…. Don't hand me material to over-invest like this
I'm twenty-seven years old…. and our Bambi is now a fifteen-year-old in the flower of youth….
To be clear: zero romance feelings (not even as a joke—I genuinely think that would be a crime). I really, truly like Yeonjae ONLY! as an actor!
But… when I heard he filmed a kiss scene, why do I feel so weird… lol
Is this what it feels like when your son tells you he has a girlfriend?
Not that I was any calmer—my hands were shaking an hour ago… ha.
But Bambi's post just now snapped me right out of it.
Journalist jerks, if it's a cheek kiss, write "cheek kiss" clearly -_-. I nearly had a heart attack thinking they were making a fifteen-year-old do actual skinship.
Anyway. First wave of calm: it was a cheek kiss. Second wave of calm: Yeonjae posted about it himself right away.
Everyone, power down now. Okay?
Lee Yeonjae's fans were kept busy scavenging the cascade of crumbs being thrown their way.
Of course, that applied only to Lee Yeonjae's fans. People with no interest in him or in film were, naturally, indifferent.
But then an issue erupted that would have made even those bystanders' eyes pop out of their heads.
Director Yoon of Twins, for the first time in his life, had written a post with his own hands.
For a man who had never once touched social media in his entire existence, the act of posting at all was astonishing enough—but the content was more astonishing still.
The first sentence began like this:
“When I first met Yeonjae, I gave him a test—the following question.”
And with that, the internet went up in flames.