My Family Too
The lighting was unusually dim, so all anyone could see of Lee Yeonjae was half of his face.
Calm, placid, expressionless.
And yet somehow, everyone got the feeling that the half hidden in shadow was wearing a completely different expression.
...This is terrifying.
A chill ran through Noah, prickling down to his fingertips.
He wasn't the only one feeling it. Everyone who had been watching the two of them stood frozen in place.
Yeonjae grabbing a knife out of nowhere, pressing the tip to his own stomach, leaning his face in close to Noah's neck — not a single one of his actions had been predictable.
And the most chilling part of all was that he hadn't hesitated for even a moment.
Every movement flowed into the next, bold and unflinching, without a trace of doubt.
Somewhere along the way, the onlookers had all stopped breathing. The situation was so taut that no one knew what might happen in the very next second.
It was Noah's bodyguard who finally broke the suffocating silence.
"(Please calm down and put the knife down first.)"
As the guard approached with wary caution, Yeonjae turned his gaze toward him, unhurried. He stared at the bodyguard for a few seconds before speaking.
"(It's not a knife.)"
"(...I'm sorry?)"
"(I said it's not a knife.)"
The voice was utterly indifferent. When the bodyguard frowned at the incomprehensible reply, Yeonjae raised the hand he'd been holding — Noah's hand.
Only then did people see what Noah had been gripping. Not a knife — a spatula. It had looked like a blade at first glance because of the handle, but the end was far too rounded. It was one of those kitchen tools used for spreading cream on a cake.
Huh?
Mia blinked, dazed.
No. That was definitely a knife, wasn't it?
She had been the one standing closest when Yeonjae pulled it from the knife block. Mia's eyes darted over — and there it was, the knife he'd drawn first, sitting neatly in the corner of the sink.
As she scrambled to make sense of it, her breath caught. Holy crap.
He switched them? In that split second?
How? With everyone watching him? Where did he get the nerve?
Come to think of it... right before Yeonjae walked up to Noah, when his back had been turned, his hands had seemed awfully busy. But at the time he'd just said something skin-crawling, and she hadn't had a spare thought to spare for it.
I think he's actually insane.
Only now fully grasping the situation, Mia's jaw dropped. What is he... FBI? Is he shooting a spy movie? Swapping objects right under everyone's noses, splitting their attention with his words on top of it. Even in hindsight, the sleight of hand had the practiced polish of someone who'd done it a hundred times.
What the hell is he...
Unaware that Mia was staring at him like he'd grown a second head, Yeonjae obediently handed the spatula to the bodyguard. Then he looked at Noah, who was still frozen stiff.
"(Whether that thing was a real knife or not, it wouldn't have made any difference to me.)"
"(...)"
"(You know why, don't you? Because I've got this.)"
Yeonjae clicked his teeth together — clack! — and Noah flinched so hard he stumbled backward without meaning to.
Only when Noah retreated did Yeonjae's face soften into a gentle smile.
"(Let's never run into each other again.)"
"(...)"
"(Don't take that as a request. It's not one.)"
With a faint smile, Yeonjae picked up the jacket he'd shrugged off, then shot Mia a look that said we're leaving.
"(Huh? Me?)"
"(Why? Do you want to stay here longer?)"
Are you insane? Obviously not. Mia shook her head at once, then hesitated and murmured,
"(You go out first. I'll leave separately.)"
Walking out of a party together, just the two of them, was practically handing paparazzi a gift. This whole mess had happened because of her in the first place — she didn't want to burden him with dating rumors on top of it.
But Yeonjae shook his head before she could even finish explaining.
"(Either you leave with me right now, or you stay here. Pick.)"
At the gentle tug on her arm, Mia drifted out of the mansion in a daze.
And the moment they were out the door, a tremendous crash came from inside — loud enough to be furniture splintering. At the same time, Noah's voice rose, laced with every profanity in the book.
"(F—ing hell, that son of a b—!)"
Face crimson with rage, Noah raged and thrashed for a long while. His bodyguards could do nothing but stand by and watch their employer tear the mansion apart, while the party guests whispered among themselves and quietly slipped away.
For a long time afterward, everyone who'd been at the party talked about one thing: how Noah Patterson, of all people, had been utterly owned by an unknown Easterner.
And they couldn't help wondering.
What was that man's name? Who on earth was he?
"(You were way too reckless! You know that?!)"
Mia had been staring blankly since getting into the car, and it took her several minutes to snap out of it.
"(Yeah. I know.)"
"(Know what? You don't know anything! You seriously are—!)"
For my part, Jinbae-hyung was startled that I'd come out earlier than expected, and was watching in real time as Mia clawed at her hair the moment she got in the car. I let out a sigh at the sight of his eyes shaking like an earthquake had hit them.
"(Mia, calm down. You're scaring my manager.)"
"(How am I supposed to calm down?! Your manager needs to know about this too! He's only sitting there so relaxed because he has no idea what just happened!)"
"(Um... is there something I don't know?)"
Hyung cut in hesitantly. I kept my eyes on the window and gave him a flat summary of what had just happened.
"There was a foreigner I met after Cannes last year. Turns out the party was his. We ran into each other, and, well... things went a certain way, and I threatened him with a knife."
"Ah, I see... I'm sorry, what?!"
Hyung was appalled. Mia, who'd been sitting quietly since she couldn't follow the Korean, saw his reaction and applauded. Good, you told him everything!
"A knife? What knife — no, wait, are you hurt anywhere?"
"It wasn't a real knife. Hyung, look ahead. Ahead. Breathe."
"How am I supposed to breathe?! One second."
Jinbae-hyung swerved onto the shoulder, threw the car into park, and twisted around to face me.
"You were threatened? Please tell me you're not hurt anywhere."
"I was the one doing the threatening, though."
"That doesn't matter. Are you really not hurt anywhere?"
How does that not matter?
This hyung is a piece of work too. What's his plan if I get hurt while he's busy coddling me? Still, since I was the one who'd worried him, I didn't have much to say, so I sat still while he combed over every inch of me.
Seeing her opening, Mia raised her voice again.
"(Do you have any idea what a bastard Noah Patterson is? What are you going to do if he uses this to get back at you?)"
"(He won't. I recorded everything.)"
"(What?)"
Only when Mia finally went quiet did I explain, with a sigh threaded through my voice.
"(I'd been recording on my phone since before we even walked into the party. Him picking a fight with me, the racist remarks — all of it's on tape.)"
"(...Why were you recording?)"
"(Habit.)"
I know exactly how things can go wrong in places I've never set foot in before. It was something I did reflexively, just in case — I never imagined I'd end up using it like this.
"(If they try to make trouble over tonight, I just tell them I'll splash the recordings all over the press. That's all.)"
One issue even the white establishment couldn't insulate itself from was race. That was Hollywood for you — even A-listers at the absolute peak of their careers had been buried over a single photo or offhand remark.
Only after confirming there wasn't a scratch on me did Jinbae-hyung finally relax, and I turned to him.
"Hyung, I'll send you the recording files, so could you report everything that happened tonight to the company? They might need to prepare for an article."
"Understood. Don't worry about it."
Hyung nodded immediately. Mia, whose mouth had been hanging open this whole time, pressed a hand to her forehead.
"(I'm getting dizzy. Haah, seriously... who am I even talking to right now? So everything you pulled at the party was deliberate too?)"
At her words, my carefully maintained blank expression cracked.
"(That part wasn't.)"
"(...?)"
When Mia just stared at me, baffled, I gave an awkward smile.
"(I was so angry that... I lost it for a second myself.)"
When I admitted I couldn't even properly remember what I'd said, Mia's mouth fell wide open. Then she looked at me with a gaze that plainly asked, is there anyone on this planet more unhinged than you?
"(You really are out of your mind...)"
"(Better to be out of my mind than to look like a pushover, right?)"
It was embarrassing to say, but it wasn't wrong. Once someone like Noah got their hooks into you, it was hard to shake free. Better to be dismissed as a lunatic than let him think he could walk all over me — plant your foot down first, that was what mattered.
Though I did go way too far.
It was a first, honestly. I'd never been angry enough to lose my grip on myself like that.
Right up until Noah cursed me as a gutter rat and sneered at me, I hadn't thought much of it. But when he gave my shoulder those unpleasant little shoves, I couldn't quite keep smiling.
'A big mouth and nothing else, acting like he owns the place.'
The disdain written all over his eyes, the way he handled me like I was an insect — something in me snapped with a flash of humiliation, and by the time I came to my senses, everything had already happened.
I don't think I've ever been that angry before.
The doctor had told me that expressing negative emotions mattered just as much as expressing positive ones. That feelings pressed down and hidden away didn't disappear — they just went somewhere. From that standpoint, this was arguably a healthy change.
'But that wasn't exactly healthy emotional expression either, was it?'
The more I replayed my own behavior, the more hollow laughs came out of me. There had been eyes everywhere, and I'd acted completely irrationally.
'Exploding all at once like that can't be good for me either.'
When I got back to Korea, I'd have to ask the doctor what I was supposed to do in moments like that.
I was lost in these stray thoughts when we pulled up in front of Mia's place without my noticing.
"Actor-nim, please wait in the car for a moment. I'll walk her to the entrance."
"Yes, thank you."
At my suggestion to meet again, Mia said her goodbye with a face full of unsaid things.
"(You have to see me next time. Whether I come to Korea or you come to LA. Don't you dare pretend you don't know me.)"
"(Why would I pretend that?)"
"(You never know. Contact me at the email I gave you. Got it?)"
Mia said it primly, then got out of the car. The moment her door shut, Jinbae-hyung locked every door with the remote.
Thorough as always, this man.
Is that her mother? A woman was standing at the entrance of the estate — apparently she'd gotten a call from Mia. The woman flinched at the sight of Jinbae-hyung, and only after Mia quickly waved her off did she relax.
Then Jinbae-hyung, who I'd assumed would come straight back to the car, started talking with Mia.
What are they talking about?
The conversation ran longer than I expected. Through the window I could see Mia wearing a mischievous grin, and Jinbae-hyung wearing a blank, dazed look.
He trudged back to the car with his soul seemingly halfway to somewhere else.
"Hyung, what's wrong with your face?"
"......"
Instead of answering, he buried his head against the steering wheel.
What's gotten into him?
"What did Mia say? Why all of a sudden—"
When I shook his shoulder in confusion, he finally lifted his head. And I was so startled that, for a moment, I stopped breathing.
"Are you okay? Are you sick somewhere?"
Those gentle eyes were brimming with tears.
Jinbae-hyung? Crying? I froze at the sight of something I had never once imagined, and hyung gritted his teeth and fought the tears back. Then, in a voice that trembled,
"Actor-nim."
"Yes. Go ahead."
"I feel the same way. I think so too."
What on earth about.
Pressed for an answer, Jinbae-hyung fumbled for a long while before he could finally get the words out. For all his effort to hold them back, his last words came out half-choked with tears anyway.
"I think of you as my family too, Actor-nim."
"...Ah."
"I should have said it first. I'm sorry it took me this long."
Listening to that voice thick with emotion, I squeezed my eyes shut.
Mia, you little—
What am I supposed to do with her, dropping a bomb like that on her way out?