The Fog's Tears
'Whew.'
Swallowing a sigh, I opened my mouth again.
"Angae. Come on, look at me for a second. Hm?"
"……"
No matter how much I coaxed and soothed, Angae stayed hidden under the blanket, refusing to show a hint of that face.
'What do I do here?'
Sighs kept welling up in my helplessness.
"Angae. Are you really not going to show me your face? I can't apologize until you tell me why you're upset."
"I also…"
A muffled voice drifted out from between the thick blanket folds. I meant to wait calmly, but the moment I heard the faint sound of sniffles, I grabbed the blanket and pulled.
"…!"
Perhaps it was an unexpected move, because the blanket Angae had been hiding under slid away without resistance.
Our eyes met at the same instant, and the two of us both froze.
"……"
Angae was wearing Han Haram's face.
And tears were rolling down it, one after another.
"……Why are you wearing Haram's face?"
"Because… you seem to like this human."
Good grief.
I never thought Angae would get jealous over something like this.
It was a little absurd, a little exhilarating, and somehow flustering all at once. Hiding that tangle of feelings, I tried to comfort the sobbing Angae.
"That's no reason to cry. Come here. I'll hold you."
The words were barely out of my mouth before Angae dove into my arms.
The warmth was close to what I'd felt when the real Han Haram had leaned on me, but the sensation was different.
'This is the first time I've seen Angae cry.'
It had already been over three years since I started seeing Angae every day. When we first met, the entity had seemed so devoid of humanity I'd wondered if it was a psychopath, but somewhere along the way, it had begun showing all kinds of emotion.
Like a drizzle soaking through clothes unnoticed, the change had been slow—and vast.
Watching Angae wear a range of expressions was always a quiet pleasure, but crying was another matter entirely.
"Did you hate it that much, me holding Haram?"
"No… that's not it…"
"Then what?"
Getting jealous over an eight-year-old.
It was honestly kind of cute, but I hadn't known it could go as far as tears. I was about to snort at the ridiculousness of it when I caught myself—because of the small whisper I heard next.
"I want… a body too…"
"……"
"So that I could be beside you, just like— I know it's selfish. I know it's impossible…. I just…"
Angae sniffled.
The voice trembled unsteadily, like a candle flame guttering on the edge of going out. The sound gradually dwindled until it vanished altogether, and in its place I felt dampness against my chest.
"……"
Angae was crying without a sound.
Tears spilling in silence soaked into my short-sleeved shirt.
They were only enough to wet a small patch of fabric, and yet to me, those tears felt like a river.
"I'm sorry…"
It felt as if my heart dropped away with a thud.
Ziiing. A long ringing stretched through my ears.
I finally managed to lift my arms and wrap them around that small, shivering body.
"I'm sorry, Angae. I… I didn't know you were carrying thoughts like that…"
"Snf, no, it's fine. I was, snf, being too selfish. I'm sorry. I know you hate this kind of thing."
What on earth was that supposed to mean?
"I love everything you do. Don't say things like that."
Angae tried to say something more, but I simply pulled it into a fierce hug.
It was true that I wanted Angae to exist in the real world, and I'd supposed Angae might harbor similar thoughts of its own. But hearing it directly from the source…
My mind went blank, and I stammered my way through the words.
"Angae. I'm really sorry—truly, I am. But could you do me one favor?"
"Snf, what is it…?"
Listening to that young voice still thick with tears, I made my request.
"Don't cry."
"……"
"Please don't cry. Because when you do…"
There's nothing I can do for you.
It isn't like this with Haram.
There is no way for me to solve Angae's problems. To begin with, I'm not even allowed to be curious about you—about how long you'll stay by my side, about how long this incomplete meeting of ours will last.
There was so much I wanted to know, and all I could do was pretend otherwise and keep smiling.
But if you cry over a problem I can't fix…
'I won't know what to do.'
It felt like my heart was being torn in two.
I had never felt anything like this before. Not when I performed Yu Hyeon's weeping in The Butterfly Flower on the Zelkova Tree, not when I performed Kang Tae-il's wailing grief over his murdered family in Twins.
In all that time, I had never once known this feeling—a torment so vicious that even breathing hurt.
"……Yeonjae. You told me not to cry."
"……"
"What if you're the one crying, then?"
He had a point.
Beyond my blurred vision, everything looked impossibly far away. Wanting to hide that flickering sight, I buried my face in Angae's shoulder.
Angae said nothing, only gently patted my back.
"……"
And then a thought came to me, unbidden.
If this were a book, I could have peeked at the last pages first.
I could have known the ending of my own life with a single turn of the hand—while dreaming of some improbable finale where Angae and I stood in the real world, smiling at each other.
But this wasn't a book. It was reality.
And in reality, all you could do was endure feelings that were painfully, mercilessly vivid.
If there was one truly wretched thing about all this—
"……"
It was that even this wasn't the damned real world at all.
And so Angae and I stayed locked in each other's arms until the dream ended.
It was the only thing we could do. We spent the time that way, too afraid to look and confirm what kind of face the other was making.
"—Yeonjae."
"……"
"Lee Yeonjae!"
"Ah—huh? Sorry. What were you saying?"
Noh Bihyeok scrunched up his face.
"You've been weird lately. You zone out every chance you get, and I don't think you're listening to a word I say."
"Sorry. Haven't been sleeping."
Even watching those thick eyebrows twitch, I felt nothing in particular.
More precisely, I didn't have the luxury to.
"……"
"See? Zoning out again."
The fingers poking at my cheek brought me back to myself.
"What's going on? Tell me."
"It's nothing."
"I'll be the judge of whether it's nothing or not. Come on, out with it. Bihyeok is dying of curiosity here."
Aegyo delivered in a voice with zero aegyo in it was somehow scarier than any threat. I snorted at the sight of him glowering at me more fiercely than usual today.
"If I tell you, will you fix it?"
"If it's something I can fix?"
Then it's simple, isn't it.
"It's something you can't fix. So drop it."
That's what I was about to say—let's move past this topic—when Noh Bihyeok shrugged.
"Too bad. Then instead of fixing it, I'll just listen."
"……"
"Who knows? Maybe talking it through will turn up a solution. It's not like moping around by yourself is going to make anything better."
The voice that drifted out so casually was rock solid.
'When did he get like this?'
Trainee life was no walk in the park, I supposed—every time I saw him, he seemed to have shot up another notch.
"You look taller again, you know that?"
"Wow~ look at you, changing the subject that clumsily."
I give you one compliment and you make a scene.
"Ugh, what's going on? You trust Bihyeok that little? If you go and tell only Jinbae-hyung after this, I'm seriously gonna be mad."
He clung on swearing he wouldn't leave the house until I told him, and a laugh slipped out of me.
"Jinbae-hyung doesn't know either. I just… don't know. It's hard to put into words."
I had no intention of being dragged off to a psychiatric ward at this point. So instead, I smiled and gave the best answer I could.
"But if I ever manage to talk about it, you'll be the first to know."
"Hmm~ Fine. I'll let it slide just for today."
Noh Bihyeok gave a magnanimous little sniff and picked up his fork. Seizing my chance, I set a heaping mountain of dumplings down in front of him.
"Eat up. Jinbae-hyung made them all earlier to congratulate you on your debut."
"I'm telling you, nothing's set in stone. Debut doesn't count until you're standing on that showcase stage—you can't let your guard down until then."
"Still, you made the final lineup. That's what matters right now."
"Who knows what happens in the six months left. The whole thing could fall through, or I could be the only one cut—"
"Yeah, yeah, here, eat this."
I shoved a dumpling straight into Noh Bihyeok's mouth.
He glared at me, cheeks stuffed too full to speak, but I ignored him. Just then Han Haram, who had been chatting with Seong Ijun in front of the TV, came trotting over.
"Yeonjae, can I eat these too?"
"Sure. Want me to get you a fork?"
"(No! I'm really good with chopsticks! I always used them at home in America too!)"
"Okay, okay. There's plenty, so eat slowly—don't give yourself a stomachache."
When I ruffled Han Haram's hair, the boy beamed a hehehe smile. Once Han Haram settled in beside me, Seong Ijun drifted over to the sofa as well, joining me and Noh Bihyeok.
'Is there any reason for us to be huddled together like this in a living room this big?'
I didn't get it, but both Seong Ijun and Han Haram looked so happy that I let it go.
"Haram…! Are the dumplings good?"
"So good! Ijun-hyung, you should have some too. Oh, Yeonjae, can I give one to Ijun-hyung?"
"Of course. Do whatever you like."
Barely before I'd finished speaking, Han Haram was grinning and handing a dumpling over to Seong Ijun. I watched the two of them gobbling them down, chirping about how delicious they were, with deep satisfaction.
'Really, the more friends the better.'
Today's Operation: Make Seong Ijun Friends was cruising along smoothly as well.
I was basking in the glow of a job well done when Noh Bihyeok murmured under his breath.
"Hey, but why is he here all the time now? Every time I come over, he's just… here."
"I'm teaching him acting."
"Acting?"
The voice dripped skepticism; I gave a vague nod. About two weeks had passed since the day I first met Han Haram.
He had no more scenes to shoot, so we had no reason to run into each other—but I'd contacted his side myself and asked to meet.
Han Haram's mother had brought the boy out wearing an expression of well, what a windfall!, and I'd told her, "I'd like to see Haram often—we can talk acting together as well."
And so for two weeks, I'd taken Han Haram along everywhere—to the set, to my place, wherever I went.
'Not that I've actually taught him any acting.'
Unless Han Haram himself said he wanted to learn, I had no intention of forcing anything on the kid.
'But cutting down the time he spends with his mother will help him for now, at least.'
It was the only thing I could do.
Just being beside Han Haram until he could break free of his mother's influence on his own. There was no clear evidence of abuse to ground a lawsuit stripping her of parental rights, and I had no blood relation to him in the first place.
When I'd sketched out the whole situation for him, Noh Bihyeok stared at me with piercing intensity.
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"It's all starting to make sense now."
"What is?"
"You've always been a pushover for Seong Ijun-hyung, right? But seeing you act the same way with that kid, I finally get it. You're weak to faces like that."
What's that supposed to mean?
Even in the face of my blatant disregard, Noh Bihyeok refused to give up, muttering on to himself.
"I mean, no. Shouldn't you at least be that gentle with yourself? Your face is exactly that type too. Do you just never look in a mirror or something?"
"Bihyeok. Get a grip."
"I am serious."
Serious or not, get a grip.
I couldn't exactly knuckle-flick a full-grown kid on the head, so I let it go. Instead, I asked this:
"You think Ijun-hyung and Haram look like me?"
Noh Bihyeok answered with the face of a man wondering why anyone would even ask.
"You've got three of you sitting right there, don't you? Like brothers. Eldest, middle child, and the baby."
"Huh. So it's like that."
Granted, in The Butterfly Flower on the Zelkova Tree, there had been an in-story device where Seong Ijun's character, Hyowon, and my Yu Hyeon had near-identical faces—it was the only way the swap made sense. And Han Haram had played the childhood version of Hon, the character I played, in Killing Horn.
Having evidently overheard us, Seong Ijun spoke up, face flushing with emotion.
"That's the first time anyone's called that a compliment. Thank you…!"
"(Me too, thank you!)"
When Han Haram chimed in with his thanks in English, Noh Bihyeok fussed at him to speak Korean.
'How peaceful.'
The last two weeks had been a relentless blur of Killing Horn shoots, so this calm felt all the more drowsy and sweet. Even when Noh Bihyeok hollered, pointing back and forth between me and Han Haram—"White Lee Yeonjae, black Lee Yeonjae!"—I just laughed quietly.
And that was when it happened.
"Whoa—Yeonjae!"
Seong Ijun, who had been staring intently at his phone for a while now, looked up.
"What?" I said—and Seong Ijun shrieked with excitement.
"Your commercial is out…!"
"Commercial?"
Ah. Right. That.
'So it's finally here.'
The bed commercial I'd filmed with Myeong-u Group had finally been released.