Time to Say Goodbye

"Yeonjae!"

The moment I opened my eyes, the Fog came running at me, and I caught it in a hug.

"Hi."

"I missed you!"

"Me too."

Except, why were you wearing Seo Jio's face?

I'd seen the Fog take on plenty of shapes by now, but Seo Jio was a first. When I asked, puzzled, the Fog broke into a sheepish little grin.

"You said the script you wrote today was inspired by thinking of me! So I deliberately picked this guy's face. What do you think?"

"Think of what?"

"Don't you have something you want to say to me? The thing you said during the shoot earlier!"

I wondered what it was talking about, then hazarded a guess.

"I missed you…?"

"Not that!"

I ran through a few lines from the script, but the Fog shook its head hard. And with every wrong answer, its eyes grew a shade more sullen.

"…You really have nothing to say? While I'm standing here looking like this??"

What was it? What was I missing?

The Fog's eyes were straining so hard it looked ready to blow up at any second. Without meaning to, I found myself studying its face, and then the words tumbled out before my brain could weigh in.

"Hyung?"

"Correct!"

The Fog's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠expression melted, and it flung itself straight into my arms. For a second I just stood there blankly, until the weight of it brought me back to my senses.

"Honestly… that's what you wanted? For me to call you hyung?"

"Hehe. Yep!"

Then why not wear Lee Euntaek's face, at least.

Seo Jio's the same age as me.

A small lump rose in my throat. Sure, he'd played the older brother because he was taller than me, but he was still my same-age classmate.

It's not like I'm even that short.

It seemed like everyone around me was tall, and I kept getting hung up on height because of it. I resolved to drink two liters of milk the moment I woke up, and gave the Fog's cheek a pull.

"But why are you the hyung?"

"Because I've been alive longer than you! I don't even know when I came into being!"

"Yes, grandpa."

"Don't call me that!"

The Fog snapped back at me in mock outrage as we roughhoused our way onto the bed. It was nothing but trivial chatter, the kind that only happens between people who talk every day — and yet it was strangely, absurdly fun.

"Yeonjae! So you really like me that much?"

How many times had I heard that question this week?

"Yeah. I do."

"Hehe, me too!"

Lately the Fog seized every spare moment to ask whether I liked it that much. Probably because the first script I'd ever written turned out to be a story about it.

The Fog made no effort whatsoever to hide its giddiness. It was a lovely thing to see, though it pricked at my conscience a little. And no wonder…

The script wasn't written thinking only of the Fog.

It was true that I'd written it thinking of the Fog and me together. Minho and the older brother's relationship mirrored ours almost exactly. The fact that the time they could spend talking was limited. The fact that only Minho could see the brother's face and hear his voice. The fact that Minho, in front of him, could finally let himself come undone.

The way I cried in front of someone for the first time — that, too.

I wrote the scene where Minho finds the hyung and breaks down in tears thinking back to when I was in elementary school, when the Fog vanished for three days and then came back.

'Yeonjae…, uh….'

'…….'

'…Why are you — why are you crying?'

I still remembered how the Fog had fumbled helplessly, watching me burst into tears out of nowhere. It was years ago, but the memory was as vivid as ever.

So I wrote it out piece by piece, calling up the Fog that had taken root in my memory like that.

In other words, the drama February 3rd was a script written with the Fog in mind. Written for a Fog that thought of me even during the hours we couldn't talk.

But it hadn't been written for the Fog alone.

Because there was someone who rose to my mind, unbidden, the moment I thought of my 'dead brother.'

Jiheon hyung.

That was how Seo Jio had put it. That, from the position of playing the brother, he'd grown fond of the younger sibling. Would Jiheon hyung have felt the same?

My hyung died in an accident caused by a misfortune factor that had transferred to me.

Would he blame me, even knowing that?

I summoned the face of Jiheon hyung, blurry now after all these years.

Whether he would have blamed me or not — I'd never know, not for the rest of my life. He was already gone. Then what about me? Knowing the truth, was I even allowed to keep loving him?

I don't know.

Even after Seo Jio's words, no certainty had come.

Did I really have that kind of standing?

I closed my eyes and replayed today's shoot.

'You know how our Minho thinks of you, hyung. How could I not know?'

The hyung was, without question, a character born from thinking of the Fog. But some parts of him didn't suit the Fog's way of speaking — every line delivered with its whole body straining with effort — so I'd filled him in, bit by bit, with the image that surfaced whenever I thought of a brother.

And somewhere along the way, against my original intent, a hyung gentler than I'd imagined had taken shape.

So similar it was almost indistinguishable from someone who existed in my memory.

'Jaehee-yah. You hungry? Should we get a snack?'

Jiheon hyung had been an endlessly tender person. Maybe that was why, as I played Minho, he kept rising to the surface.

I miss him….

Right up until I met Lee Euntaek, the past had simply been the past. But unlike before — when I'd had to force memories back down every time one surfaced — these old memories now came without resistance, and they were warmer than I'd remembered.

Which made it all the more wretched. All the more confusing.

Am I allowed to keep missing my hyung?

While I was lost in thought, the Fog began fiddling with my cheek.

"Yeonjae, Yeonjae."

"Hmm?"

"I like you so, so much."

It came out of nowhere, but I'd heard it so often by now that it barely registered. I was about to answer that I liked it too when the Fog pressed both hands firmly against my cheeks.

"Mmph."

"So don't dig a tunnel! I like you, that's all!"

"What?"

Where did tunnel come from all of a sudden? That was a Lee Euntaek line. When I frowned, the Fog jabbed at the spot between my brows next — exactly the way Noh Bihyeok does it.

Maybe because of all these piled-up little gestures, something strange was happening: I was with the Fog, and yet it felt like I was with a whole crowd of people at once.

"I really, really like you!"

And so the Fog's voice came across as if it were being spoken by many different people.

Noh Bihyeok, Lee Euntaek, Jinbae hyung, Junghyun hyung, Han Haram.

And among them — was Jiheon hyung there too?

Somehow, I found myself wondering.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

The shoot moved along at a brisk clip.

The final script came out to four episodes, with each episode built around the Korean Sign Language content matching its title. For instance, Episode 2, titled Like, opens with Minho getting a confession out of nowhere from a classmate.

Thrown into a panic by a situation he never saw coming, Minho flounders helplessly until the hyung steps in with his frantic antics and snaps him out of it, defusing the moment. Guided by the hyung's advice and stories from his own experience, Minho sorts through his feelings, and finally turns the confession down with the words, 'Thank you for liking me.'

By tying the sign language of each title to the story of each episode, the material about Korean Sign Language wove itself naturally into the drama. At the same time, it let me show Minho getting a little better with each passing day.

Aside from the decision to keep Seo Jio, as the hyung, rendered faint and indistinct on camera, the editing demanded no real technique at all — so filming galloped forward, and before I knew it, the day of the final scene had arrived.

"Once we finish today, that's a wrap."

"Yeah."

A full week of talking with Seo Jio from morning to night had brought the guy a lot closer to me. Partly because it was my script, and he'd fired off question after question trying to pin down the character of the hyung.

I was staring blankly at the ceiling when his lazy voice drifted over from beside me.

"Yeonjae. How was filming with me?"

He was probably wondering whether I regretted introducing him to the agency.

I gazed at Seo Jio's loosely smiling face for a moment.

"It was good."

Filming with Seo Jio had been exactly ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠what I'd expected — no, better. As he laughed and called that a relief, I said it once more.

"I'm glad it was you who played the hyung."

"……."

"I hope we act together again."

Seo Jio faltered mid-motion, and then stayed frozen like that for several seconds. His usual lazy, easygoing expression was nowhere to be found. I laughed at the sight of his blank face.

"Seo Jio. Snap out of it."

"Huh? Oh — yeah."

"Need a lemon candy?"

Only when I tossed him that teasing jab did he finally come back to life, screwing up his face and sputtering that I shouldn't even let the letter L of 'lemon' cross my lips. I was still chuckling at him when, somehow, we were already ready to roll.

"Rolling!"

I'd changed into the school uniform I'd worn faithfully every day for the past week, double-checked the blocking the PD walked me through, and ran my lines over one more time in my head.

It's the last one already.

It was the shortest shooting schedule of any drama I'd done, and yet my heart felt strangely hollow. Was it because I'd written the script myself? Because I'd sunk too deep into Minho?

"Ready—"

I had a feeling the aftermath of this shoot would linger a long while.

"Action!"