A Line That Cannot Be Crossed
So the moment you first spoke to me is the thing you regret most?
'What is that supposed to mean?'
I furrowed my brow at the cryptic remark. What came next made even less sense.
"Honestly, it stings a little too."
"...?"
"I don't particularly like this side of myself either. But the way a person thinks—that's not something you can just switch off because you want to."
What was he going on about?
'I have no idea where this conversation is headed.'
I hesitated for a moment, then raised my hand.
"Seo Jio, sorry to cut you off, but I have no idea what you're trying to say."
"I'm saying that no matter how hard I try, I can never become someone like Seong Ijun or Han Haram, Yeonjae."
His pale eyes met mine head-on.
"Whenever I get close to someone, I start calculating what I stand to gain. The benefits of befriending this person, and what I'll owe them in return because of it."
"......"
"I can't help it. Even when I don't want to, the math runs itself. I told you before, remember? The moment I saw you, I knew you were the same type as me."
Seo Jio gave a bitter smile.
"Except I only recently realized we're not actually all that similar. Turns out you're someone who cares about intentions, and I'm someone who cares about gain."
Gain and intention.
He said he hadn't known at first just how different the two could be.
"I figured even if I hid my reasons for approaching you, you'd see through them anyway... and honestly, I thought you'd like me better if I was upfront about it. That's why I said it like that in the beginning."
"That you wanted to get close to me because I was famous?"
"Yeah. I knew it was a pretty awful thing to say out loud, but like I told you before—I'm just not a great person."
Seo Jio murmured it as if he were talking to himself.
I just quietly watched him.
"There was that whole mess in the middle, but you agreed to it in the end anyway. I got what I wanted, so I figured it didn't matter. I never regretted it."
Until now, that is.
I echoed the trailing words back at him.
"But now you do regret it?"
"Yeah."
"Why all of a sudden?"
A soft voice answered my question.
"I don't know. It just happened, being around you."
"......"
For a moment, I doubted my own ears. He said it so casually that I thought I must have misheard. I hesitated, then asked.
"Seo Jio, just to be sure—"
"Yeah?"
"Are you, um... trying to confess to me or something right now?"
"No prejudice or anything," I added quickly.
"What?"
Seo Jio's eyes went wide for an instant—and then he burst out laughing.
"Haha! No!"
So it wasn't.
'Thank god.'
You were being so cryptic, of course I'd get the wrong idea, you little punk.
Completely oblivious to how relieved I was, Seo Jio was too busy laughing.
"I'm losing my mind. You are unbelievable. Wow. Haha!"
He threw his head back and roared with laughter. It was a sound I'd never heard from him before.
"Where did that thought even come from? No, seriously—what were you planning to do if I actually did like you?"
"I hadn't thought that far."
"Haha! I knew you were a weirdo, but wow. Genuinely impressed."
Where had he sold off that lazy smile he usually wore so well? Seo Jio had started wiping his face with his whole hand. When he was laughing so hard that tears actually spilled over, I said flatly,
"I think it's about time you stopped laughing."
"Sorry, it's not something I can control. Haha!"
"You set the mood so deliberately that I thought I'd better check. This is entirely your fault."
"I know, you're right. My fault. But Yeonjae, do you know your ears are bright red right now?"
"What does that have to do with anything."
Finish what you were saying already, I gritted out through my teeth. Even at the irritation that had escaped me despite my best efforts, Seo Jio just kept laughing.
'Weren't you being dead serious like two minutes ago?'
Somewhere along the way, the air between us had grown considerably lighter.
Meanwhile, my mood was at rock bottom.
'...I really shouldn't have asked.'
At my expression—like I'd just bitten into something rotten—Seo Jio struggled to rein in his laughter.
"Let me pick up where I left off. Ahem. So, um. Where was I?"
I glared at him.
"The part where you suddenly started regretting things."
"Right, that. Haa... hoo! Okay. I'm seriously done laughing now."
Seo Jio took a deep breath, as if trying to pull himself together. After exhaling, he lifted his head.
Our eyes met at the same moment.
"......"
"......"
I said, with a complicated look on my face, "Just laugh."
"Pfft—"
The instant our eyes met, Seo Jio squeezed them shut and broke down all over again.
"I'm sorry, Yeonjae. This is just—ha."
He shook with laughter, his whole body trembling. I only grew more agitated.
"Calmed down yet?"
"Yeah..."
When I handed Seo Jio a water bottle, he took it with an exhausted face.
"I think I just laughed out ten years' worth. Ha."
"...Good for you."
"So this is why your stomach hurts when you laugh too much. Feels like I did a core workout."
Seo Jio kneaded his own stomach, muttering to himself. With him looking half-dazed like that, I didn't want to rush him—but we were short on time.
"So? Will you tell me why your thinking changed?"
"Oh. Yeah."
Seo Jio straightened his posture. Apparently he'd run out of strength to laugh, thankfully. Even meeting my eyes, his expression stayed level.
"I thought long and hard about why I'm only regretting this now, and I think it comes down to the people around you."
"The people around me?"
"Yeah. People like Seong Ijun, you know? Your manager too. Every single one of them is sincere about you."
Seo Jio shrugged.
"At first I thought it was funny. Sincerity doesn't actually do anything useful, after all. But then the expressions you made looking at those people started to change, little by little."
"......"
"Watching that, it suddenly hit me. Here I am an actor anyway—maybe I should've tried just acting it for once."
Even if I got caught later.
Seo Jio murmured the words low.
"I can't change the fact that I went after you for what I'd gain. But I could have hidden it—pretended it wasn't like that."
"Doubt it. I would've caught on eventually."
At my flat reply, Seo Jio smiled lazily.
"Like Noh Bihyuk?"
"......"
"He's a lot like me and still completely different. If I'd acted like Noh Bihyuk does, what would've changed? I'd say our relationship would look pretty different from what it is now."
"Are you unhappy with what it is now?"
He deliberated for a moment, then nodded.
"Yeah. I'm not satisfied."
"...Why?"
Didn't you get everything you wanted, in the end?
He'd landed a drama role through my introduction, taken the Wooyeon Entertainment audition on my recommendation. Sure, it was his own skill that turned those chances into good results—but I knew it too. Without me, it would have taken him far longer to reach where he was standing now.
"Craving better roles? Better projects?"
Seo Jio shook his head.
"No, I'm fine there. It's only a matter of time anyway. But our relationship isn't something waiting can fix. No matter how well I treat you from now on, there's a line I can never cross."
"......"
"At first I figured all I had to do was prove my worth to you. And honestly, I still think that. You're satisfied talking movies with me, and I cash in the opportunities you hand over. We both come out ahead—more than enough benefit for both of us."
So then why?
He murmured to himself, as if he couldn't understand it either.
"Why can't I just be satisfied with this?"
He sounded genuinely at a loss. I deliberated, then spoke.
"Could it be because you've gone sincere?"
"......"
He nodded slowly.
"I think so too. Doesn't seem like there's any other explanation, does there?"
"Probably."
"Yeah. That must be it."
Seo Jio turned his gaze slowly toward the window. I followed it.
A quiet silence settled around us.
"......"
We were in a classroom far removed from the film set. Glittering sunlight pooled along the windowsill. Watching the light shift and scatter into tiny fragments, I spoke first.
"Seo Jio."
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry about what I said earlier—about Haram. I crossed a line."
Seo Jio's gaze landed on my profile. I kept my eyes forward as I went on.
"It's not that you just want to be famous. I know why you want it."
Because you told me yourself.
He had opened up about wanting to make the mother who abandoned him regret it—and that was why he wanted fame. And I was the one who'd said this to him:
'Thanks for asking first, Yeonjae. Nobody else knows I'm waiting for my mom to contact me.'
'Not even your father?'
'We never bring her up at all. My stepmom might get hurt.'
'Then call me whenever you want to talk about your mother.'
'......'
The look on his face as he'd stared at me then was still vivid. So was the blank, baffled way he'd asked why I would go that far for him.
Turning that moment over slowly in my mind, I said, "And yet just now, I treated you like the kind of person who'd sacrifice a child for fame. I'm really sorry."
"It's fine, Yeonjae."
Seo Jio smiled lazily.
"I've known for ages how much you care about Haram."
"That's not the point. No matter how precious Haram is to me, I shouldn't have said that to you."
"And I gave you the excuse to misunderstand. If I hadn't said what I said at the start, you never would have."
The voice pointing out that, when it came down to it, his own fault was the bigger one was perfectly calm. That easygoing tone only made my guilt climb higher.
"Seo Jio."
"Yeah?"
"I wish you wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?"
I turned my head to find his eyes full of bewilderment.
"You don't need to be sincere with me."
"......"
"You saw enough of me just now to know I'm not that good a person."
I continued evenly.
"What you're really longing for probably isn't me. Even I can't quite make sense of it, but the people around me are inexplicably kind—unfailingly good. What you want is probably one of them."
"Hmm..."
Seo Jio sank into thought. Just as I was about to give him some space to sort it out alone, his eyes snapped open.
"Nope? That part I'm not jealous of at all."
"......"
It was crystal clear, without a flicker of hesitation.
"Those people are way too much. Seong Ijun is sickeningly kind, and Han Haram is just a baby. Not a single one of them is my type. Ugh, Noh Bihyuk most of all."
Seo Jio scrunched up his face like someone fighting off motion sickness.
"The thought of Noh Bihyuk being genuinely sincere with me? I wouldn't be wistful about it—I'd be nauseous."
"......"
The words had gone through no filter whatsoever, and for a moment my expression slipped out of my control. When I gave him a dubious look, Seo Jio shrugged.
"I get what you're trying to say. You're sorry you jumped to conclusions, right? I still think the responsibility's mine, but you've apologized enough—I'll take it."
"Okay."
"But you don't need to reach a conclusion on my behalf about what I want. That's the thing I'd hate most."
"...Okay."
I answered meekly. Seo Jio looked at me for a moment, then let out a laugh like air escaping a balloon.
"Yeonjae, remember what I said to you once before?"
"What?"
"'I'm not the soft type who'd cry or fall apart just because you're not gentle with me.'"
His voice carried an echo of that past conversation. Seeing my expression, Seo Jio smiled.
"You do remember. Then you'll remember what I said right after that, too."
"......"
I nodded slowly. His smile went loose and easy.
"Right. Keep doing that."
It's enough for now, he seemed to say. Sitting there beside him, I quietly recalled the words Seo Jio had spoken next, back then.
'So from now on, just be at ease with me.'
And I answered in my heart.
'I will.'
Somehow, I had the feeling that from now on, I really could.