My First Love, My First Night in Italy
“Wh-why?”
Why, she says.
Instead of saying something trite like, We've never even met, I turned to the production crew. The moment my gaze landed on them, they all shook their heads in unison.
“We didn't hire her!”
Yeah, right. Like I'd believe that.
When I kept staring, the PD defended himself with an indignant look on his face.
“I'm serious! She was just a kid eating over there!”
So what he was saying was, they'd simply assigned the role of striking up a conversation with us to a random child who happened to be dining in the restaurant.
I was reproaching the PD with my eyes alone when Seong Ijun cut in.
“Yeonjae….”
At the sound of his voice, thick with trouble, I hastily turned my head. Seong Ijun flicked his eyes toward the side. I followed his gaze and found a little girl standing there, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Why? Why not?”
Haah. She's going to cry at this rate.
I swallowed a sigh and asked as kindly as I could manage.
“Did you come here by yourself?”
The girl shook her head.
“I came with my mom and dad.”
“And where are they?”
“Over there….”
I looked at the table she was pointing to. A woman who appeared to be Korean and a man who appeared to be foreign sat there — the woman smiling to the point of near tears, the man visibly struggling to hold back his laughter. The moment the man's eyes met mine, he shot me an apologetic look.
Only then did I have a rough idea what was going on.
Well, aren't you brave.
Even if the parents were watching the whole time, letting their kid walk up to a total stranger like that. Thinking about how wildly varied people's parenting styles could be, I turned back to the girl.
“We're filming right now. Is that okay with you?”
“Filming? You mean a wedding shoot?”
“…….”
Is marriage the only thing in this kid's head?
Clutching my throbbing forehead, I managed an answer.
“Let's get you back to your seat first.”
The girl's sudden intrusion had interrupted our meal. I could let that slide for myself, but Ijun hyung needed to eat.
“Hyung, keep eating. I'll walk her back and come right back.”
“Oh. Okay.”
Thankfully, the girl's original seat was close enough to reach with your nose even if you tripped. The problem was that the moment I stood up, she grabbed the table and dug in.
“At least answer me! Is it because you don't like me?”
This kid was truly something else.
I deliberated for a moment, then lowered myself down to her eye level.
“What's your name?”
For the record, she'd been the one to drop honorifics first.
“My name? Amy.”
“Amy.”
Repeating her name back to myself, I chose my words carefully.
The cameras are rolling right now.
I had to keep it measured. She was somebody else's kid, after all. Everything from don't use informal speech with strangers to don't make a nuisance of yourself to people you don't know. There was plenty I wanted to say, but that was her parents' job, not mine.
And the longer this drags on, the colder the food gets.
Seong Ijun wasn't the kind of person who could brazenly keep eating through a scene like this. Look at him — he was already glancing over self-consciously.
I spoke calmly.
“Amy. It's not that I don't like you, but I've never seen you before. Normally, people don't marry someone they've just met.”
“But my dad proposed to my mom the first time he met her! He says you should never let your first love slip away! And I think you're my first love!”
So passion ran in the family.
Her love confession, burning like an open flame, made my vision blur.
“Thank you for saying that. But I think it's better to choose your first love carefully. And to marry carefully, too.”
“But—”
“Ask your dad for the details. There, you heard my answer, right? Now let's head back to your seat.”
“Okay.”
Thankfully, Amy took it well. She nodded with a sulky face, then hesitated.
“Then can't we just hold hands on the way back?”
“…….”
What possible meaning was there in holding hands for five seconds, tops?
It was absurd, but I drove the point home: not without her parents' permission.
“Then I'll go ask them right now!!!”
“No—”
Without even hearing me out, Amy bolted off like a bullet.
Please, just don't come back.
Thankfully, Amy did not come back.
The woman who seemed to be her mother intercepted her, and the man who seemed to be her father came over to apologize himself.
“I'm so sorry for interrupting your meal.”
The Korean coming out of his mouth was somewhat clumsy.
He must have learned Korean from her mother. As if to confirm my guess, the man switched straight to English.
(Our daughter is extremely headstrong, you see. Even when we try to stop her, she's not the type to listen right away…. She's never satisfied until she's collided headfirst with something. Anyway, I'm truly sorry. As an apology, please let us cover your meals.)
Unlike his daughter, he was impeccably polite. He apologized over and over, so I told him it was fine and sent him on his way.
“Haah….”
It had been brief, but the intensity of that conversation left my head spinning. Before I knew it, I'd sighed out loud, and Seong Ijun's face filled with worry.
“Yeonjae. You okay?”
No.
I bit back the word just before it leapt off my tongue.
“I'm fine. Hyung, eat up. Good thing it hasn't gone cold.”
“I ate a lot already.”
“Just one more slice of pizza.”
“No, I'm full.”
“Okay.”
I knew Seong Ijun was a light eater, so I didn't push. Then I took a sip of water and said, casually,
“By the way, hyung, you've eaten way too little for how active we've been today. One more slice isn't going to upset your stomach.”
“…….”
“Of course, if you say you're full, you don't have to. But wouldn't it be better for you to eat? It's your call, of course—”
“Fine… I'll eat it.”
“Good.”
I promptly transferred a slice of pizza onto Seong Ijun's plate. What a good boy.
Watching him eat it so obediently, I found him oddly endearing.
Turns out I really do get along better with the mild-mannered type.
And that thought solidified all the more because of what Amy said as she left the restaurant.
“Bye-bye, my first love!”
“…….”
Please don't announce it to the whole room.
Keeping my expression under control as best I could, I waved.
“You really are popular….”
Seong Ijun murmured beside me. It was an uncharacteristically teasing remark, so I shot him a sidelong glance.
“Don't you start too, hyung.”
“I mean it. That was just like a scene from Under the Orange Tree just now. Genders swapped, but still.”
“In that movie, the male lead had a whole reason to fall for the female lead. Their first meeting was practically fated. What just happened had zero plausibility.”
Which meant Amy had to be a hired actor. At my words, Seong Ijun puffed out his chest.
“Some people don't need a reason to fall for someone.”
“Oh? Is that hyung sharing personal experience?”
“…! It's not like that!”
The composed, grown-up smile crumbled instantly. Seong Ijun, his face flushing red, scrambled to change the subject.
Yeah, this is definitely the face that suits him best.
I stifled a laugh watching him desperately redirect the conversation. And with that, our rather eventful dinner came to an end.
The accommodation we arrived at after dinner was quite spacious. Part of me wanted nothing more than to flop onto the bed right away, but there was still work to be done.
“Ijun-ssi, Yeonjae-ssi. Please introduce us to the house!”
“Yes.”
I answered the PD awkwardly. True to the show's title, Starting Today, My House Is, we were supposed to play the role of homeowners. In other words, even though we'd never set foot in the place before, we had to introduce it as if we knew it inside and out.
Having no clue what to say about a single thing in the house was daunting, but thankfully, partway through, I found a method.
“Hyung, where was our bathroom again?”
I just had to ask Seong Ijun.
Seong Ijun fumbled, gesturing at the door beside him.
“The bathroom? Ah, probably this one…?”
“Ahh. So hyung uses the closet as a bathroom.”
“……You're unbelievable.”
Watching Seong Ijun turn red, I barely held back my laughter.
Poking him really is fun.
His reactions came back instantly with the slightest prod. From then on, I kept firing off questions without a moment's rest, all with a perfectly deadpan face. All he had to do was mirror my questions back, but Seong Ijun focused single-mindedly on answering them earnestly.
Tsk. He's sweet to a fault.
Maybe he should have someone vetting the people around him, too.
Why did everyone near me have to be so gullible? I should check out who's around him when I get the chance. If there were any weirdos, I'd clear them out in advance.
“We'll change the tape and be off!”
Thankfully, the house tour wrapped up without incident. Since it happened to be break time, I went straight to find the PD.
“PD-nim.”
“Hm? Oh— yes?”
“Just talk to me comfortably.”
“Really? Thanks.”
The PD looked somewhat frazzled from organizing the equipment. It felt bad pestering a busy man, but my curiosity won out.
“There's something I want to ask you.”
When I crouched down beside him, the PD's face filled with question marks.
“About what?”
I stared steadily at his guileless face.
“We're not filming right now, so tell me honestly.”
“…? About what?”
“Amy, earlier. She was a hired actor, wasn't she?”
Before the words had even fully left my mouth, the PD shuddered.
“I swear I'm dying of injustice here. How many times do I have to say it? She wasn't.”
“Really, really not?”
“Casting people for stunts these days is so obvious it gets you torn apart online. Do I look like someone who runs a sloppy production??”
That wasn't what I meant.
“Your face doesn't say dishonest, so why are you being so relentless about this? Just believe me. If her dad hadn't given permission, we'd have had to blur her face. Would we blur the face of a cast member we hired?”
That was a fair point.
The PD's complaint of injustice sounded genuinely sincere — which only made me more confused.
So there really were kids out there who'd confess to a complete stranger on the spot.
People really do come in all varieties.
The more I learned about people, the less I seemed to understand them. After apologizing to the PD for the misunderstanding, I headed back to my room.
“Yeonjae. There are two beds — which do you want?”
“I'm fine with anything. You pick first, hyung.”
Two beds sat side by side in the room Seong Ijun and I would be sharing. I poked my head into the other room, where the crew was unpacking, then looked around.
Hmm.
I guess I'll just have to practice acting in the bathroom.
There was nowhere else suitable for tomorrow morning's practice. I was surveying the small en-suite bathroom when Seong Ijun spoke up.
“Yeonjae.”
“Yeah?”
“For your acting practice tomorrow morning, just use the room on the right.”
“Huh?”
What was he talking about?
When I turned my head, Seong Ijun's eyes met mine.
“I heard it from Jio. That you practice acting the second you wake up.”
“Ah….”
“As soon as he heard you were doing a variety show, he told the PD-nim separately. Asked him to book us one more room for it.”
As I stared at him, dumbfounded, Seong Ijun smiled. At that strangely grown-up smile, I scratched the back of my neck.
“Thank you, hyung.”
I hadn't expected to be the one looked after by Seong Ijun. It made me oddly sheepish. Seeing my expression, Seong Ijun's smile deepened.
“There's plenty of space for everyone else to sleep, so don't worry about it.”
“Yeah. Got it.”
“Make sure you use that room. Not the bathroom. Understood?”
“…….”
Seo Jio, you little punk. How much did you tell him?
I swallowed a sigh and said I understood.
Well, at least I won't have to agonize over where to practice for the whole trip.
Something that had weighed on me the entire time had been solved in one stroke. When I thanked him once more, Seong Ijun beamed.
“I told you, didn't I? That I'd take care of everything.”
I chuckled at the pride in his voice.
That text was actually sincere?
I really am popular, huh.
From Amy's burning confession to Seong Ijun's thoughtful care — it had been a full, rich day, and an unforgettable one. My first night in Italy.