The Day the Filming Begins
Ahn Jinbae was thinking.
This is strange.
His actor, Lee Yeonjae, was chatting with the hair salon's director. His face looked as calm as ever, and the longer Jinbae watched him, the deeper his questions grew.
Who on earth is Fog?
Ahn Jinbae prided himself on knowing nearly everything there was to know about his actor. Even the things that had happened before the two of them had ever met. Of course, he felt guilty for digging into the boy's past without his consent, but there had been no other way. He'd been born into a family steeped in exactly that kind of investigation, and he'd been raised in it. He had only ever vowed that the information he uncovered would never be used against his actor—only to protect him.
And yet, among all those mountains of documents, there had been nothing about "Fog."
"It's a friend I knew briefly before I entered the orphanage."
"That was so long ago. You remember that?"
"Of course not. I only mentioned it because I think their birthday was around this time of year."
The actor had brushed it off with an easy, unbothered face. Taken at face value, it was a simple, tidy explanation. You couldn't uncover every passing acquaintance with a few background checks, and above all, it wasn't information he needed to protect the boy.
But Ahn Jinbae couldn't shake his doubt.
Given his personality, if he brought it up at an awards ceremony, that person must have left quite an impression on him.
More than anything, Jinbae had heard the name Fog once before. Last year, on the way home after a photoshoot.
"Fog, I told you to come down…"
He still remembered, clearly, the sleep-talk his actor had murmured while Jinbae carried the unusually exhausted boy to the car. His voice had been so much softer than usual that Jinbae himself had faltered for a moment.
"Yeonjae. How is it? Bearable?"
"It feels like my head is on fire."
"Haha!"
Lee Yeonjae answered the salon director's remark with a perfectly flat expression. The gap between his words and his face set the people around them giggling. The actor trailed along with the laughter, the corners of his mouth lifting gently—exactly like his usual self.
But at the awards ceremony, he hadn't been his usual self at all.
…Happy birthday.
The trembling eyes. The quivering corners of his mouth. The voice that seemed slightly choked.
It was far too wistful for someone offering birthday wishes, and at the same time, it had looked like grief.
As if he were speaking to someone he'd never see again…
Was that how much he missed that friend? Jinbae was just beginning to wonder whether he ought to track down this "Fog" person by any means necessary when a staff member sidled up to him with a joke.
"Manager-nim, you worried yourself sick over Yeonjae's first bleaching, but I bet you can relax now. The reaction's better than you expected, right?"
It was said in pure jest, but Ahn Jinbae swallowed a bitter smile.
"I suppose…"
The boy had always been frighteningly good at enduring. He wasn't the type to admit when something hurt, either. At Jinbae's ambiguous response, the staff member only came back with, "Honestly, nobody can stop Manager-nim's overprotectiveness."
I know that much.
He really was being "excessively" protective of his actor. He'd known for a long time that as a manager, he'd crossed the line of acceptable interference ages ago. He simply didn't care.
I'm the one who has to pay attention.
Even if it looked like too much to everyone else, he had to keep watching the boy, keep involving himself. Otherwise…
Remembering what the psychiatrist had said about his actor a few years back, Ahn Jinbae smoothed his expression. Merely recalling those words was enough to turn his stomach.
…But he's improved so much.
Lately, the actor showed himself openly relaxed in a way he never used to. He leaned on Jinbae and complained of being tired, showed his irritation when something annoyed him, and occasionally even stuck out his lower lip in a pout. It was proof that the long years of effort hadn't been wasted. For that, at least, he was grateful.
"Actor-nim. Your head must hurt a lot."
"No, I'm fine."
The moment Jinbae approached and spoke, the answer came back like an automated response. When he said nothing and simply looked at him, the actor averted his gaze and mumbled.
"…It's bearable."
"Wouldn't it be better to use a wig for now?"
"Hyung, that's all decided already. The company approved it, too."
Right, right. He was just grumbling for grumbling's sake.
And here I am acting like a fussy old mother hen.
Ahn Jinbae wore a wounded look as he fiddled with the actor's now-brittle hair. Half of it was genuine, and half was deliberate. The boy was the type who grew tenderer the weaker the person in front of him became.
And sure enough, within seconds the actor began rolling his eyes.
"Hyung, it doesn't hurt that much."
"Yes, I'm relieved…"
"…Still, my hair held up better than expected, don't you think? It's my first time dyeing it, so I thought it'd feel strange, but it's actually not bad. What do you think, hyung?"
At the deliberately cheerful attempt to lift the mood, Ahn Jinbae had to fight down a laugh.
Does he think I'm a five-year-old sweetheart?
Even as the thought crossed his mind, Jinbae naturally began to whine. And the actor just as naturally indulged him, patting him on the back. Only the staff watching this bizarre little scene muttered in exasperation.
"…The two of them really are something."
"Right? They're perfectly in sync like that. Leave them be—let's get back to work."
"Yeah. Ms. Hyeonyoung will handle the finishing touches."
Leaving the two to their hushed little conversation, sealed off as if no one else existed, the workers returned to their tasks.
Finally.
The day he'd been counting down to had arrived.
"Actor-nim. Seatbelt—"
"Done."
At his hurried answer, Jinbae-hyung held back a laugh and said they were setting off. Whether the man laughed or not, I was barely restraining myself from bouncing my foot against the floor.
I want to get to the shoot already.
Today was the first day of filming for Killing Horn. Since most of my scenes involved large-scale shoots, I'd heard the smaller ones had started last week. Our very first shoot was a battle scene, so I was half nervous, half thrilled.
"Actor-nim, I know it's embarrassing to say this after how hard I argued against it… but the hair really suits you."
The words came only after he'd been gripping the wheel for a while, and I burst out laughing before I could help it.
"Thank you. I can't wait to show the fans."
"Spoiler rules apply, so you'll have to hold off for a while. Even if it drives you crazy, wear that wig and hat properly when you go out."
Tsk, what a shame.
The silver hair I'd feared would look like too much had turned out surprisingly good. Even in the mirror, it didn't clash with my features, didn't stick out in any jarring way.
The fans are going to love it too…
Maybe it only looked fine to me—but everyone else's reactions had been positive as well, which made me think of Biyeon all over again. And at the same time, of Noh Bihyeok.
How do idols manage to bleach their hair over and over like that?
My hair was now white to the point of translucence. It had taken a grueling process to get to this color, and it was definitely more brittle than before the dye job.
Of course, it'll only get worse from here.
I'd been told I'd have to bleach it again every week from now on. Having to go through all of that again wasn't exactly a cheerful prospect, but it was fine. It suited the story better that way.
Horn, with his bright, mischievous personality, was fated to grow darker as the drama neared its end. If his hair roughened along with him, the atmosphere would sharpen to match.
As long as the work turns out well, anything else is fine.
Hair grows back, after all. But there would only ever be one chance to film Killing Horn.
"Actor-nim. We'll be arriving at the set shortly."
At Jinbae-hyung's words, my already-pounding heart raced faster. I wanted to leap out of the moving car and sprint straight to the set.
Calm down. Seriously.
I took a slow, deep breath. Naturally, it didn't work. Swallowing the urge to bolt, I stepped out of the car like a well-behaved person.
The moment I lifted my head, an enormous set filled my vision.
"Whoa…"
A building big enough to host a concert sprawled across my entire field of view.
"I think this is the biggest set you've ever filmed on, Actor-nim."
"You're right."
I turned my head and looked around. Rising abruptly in the middle of flat farmland, the set looked absolutely massive.
And then I thought of the boy who had spent his whole life inside a building that size.
Did it feel suffocating to him?
Horn was an experiment created through the H Project. A child carrying human genes—and also genes no human could possess. In other words, a non-human being raised among humans.
A few days of practice could never fully let me understand the lifetime of emotions he'd endured. But looking at that colossal building, I felt something stir, faint and certain.
…No, it probably wasn't suffocating at all.
That kid had never cared about the world beyond those walls in the first place. Knowing that space exists beyond the Earth doesn't mean every human being wants to wear a spacesuit. The Horn I knew wasn't that kind of person.
At least until he stepped outside the building… every single day had been a joy to him.
I stared at the vast set in silence. In a few hours, I would become Horn, taking his first step into society. For the first time in his life, he would leave the facility—and face a brand-new world.
For a moment, my chest ached.
"Actor-nim. Shall we head in?"
"Yes."
At some point, the excitement of playing a new character had settled, and my heart was now pounding with a different feeling altogether. The cause wasn't hard to find.
This was guilt.
I'm sorry.
I know how your story ends. I know everything that's coming for you.
But I have to film your smile today.
Just before stepping into the building, I closed my eyes for a long moment. Sorting through the tangle of conflicting emotions, I straightened out the mess in my head.
I'm sorry.
But I'll give this everything I have.
Whatever ending is waiting for you—this moment right now will never come back. And I'm going to play a you who still knows nothing at all.
"Yeonjae, looking forward to the shoot."
At the PD's words, I smiled and said the honor was all mine. Styling was already finished, and I stood up in the form-fitting outfit. Actor Kim Seokjun, dressed nearly identically to me, came over.
"What is it?"
"Huh?"
"We're wearing the exact same clothes, so why is it that only I look like garbage?"
I answered flatly to his genuinely bewildered question.
"You should bleach your hair too, hyung."
"Ugh, don't say such terrifying things. Bad luck. I am never bleaching my hair. Tried it once before and nearly died."
Actor Kim Seokjun recoiled in horror as if I were playing a prank on him.
It wasn't meant as a joke, though.
The outfits he and I were wearing were special agent combat suits. The heavy, muted palette unique to bulletproof tactical wear tended to drain the color from anyone's face. Mine had been styled to match the silver hair—so of course it looked comparatively less dreary.
When I explained this calmly, Kim Seokjun grumbled that he never should have bothered talking to me in the first place.
He's unusually fidgety today.
The man who'd wandered the set of A Butterfly Flower Burning on a Zelkova Tree like a carefree idler was now muttering to himself, circling the same spot over and over. The pattern was transparent, and after a moment of deliberation, I sighed.
"Seokjun-hyung."
"What."
"Your eyes are sparkling like crazy right now."
"…Huh?"
The face that had been answering me half-heartedly went blank in an instant. I looked back at him—who are you calling sparkling?—and continued, matter-of-fact.
"I told you during the Zelkova Tree shoot, remember? That all I have to do is look at your eyes to know you love acting."
"…"
"They're even brighter now than they were then."
He had grown more serious in one way, and more alive in another. Actor Kim Seokjun stood dazed for a moment, then scratched the back of his neck.
"What even…. So embarrassing."
"That's exactly why you should stop being nervous. When you're like that right beside me, it makes me nervous too. You're going to do great anyway—what's the problem?"
"Hey, you brat! When was I ever nervous?!"
Actor Kim Seokjun exploded. And with perfect timing, a staff member called out.
"Rolling cameras!"
Muttering under his breath three times fast that he had never been nervous, Kim Seokjun returned to his mark. Regardless, I took my place as well.
"Since it's our first take, let's start by finding our rhythm together. Alright, ready—"
I stood on the tape-marked position and closed my eyes. And I thought of you.
"Action!"
The corners of my mouth lifted into a grin, wide and unhesitating.