The Last Day of Shooting
“Lee Yeonjae!”
“Oh, Bihyuk.”
“Why do you take forever to text back? I've been dying of boredom this whole time.”
It was the hill on the way to school, the one I hadn't climbed in what felt like ages, and the arm that draped over my shoulder was so familiar that I couldn't help but chuckle.
“Anyone listening would think you were holding back your frustration. You called me the second I replied—you couldn't even wait five minutes.”
“Yeah, I know. You loved hearing my voice every day, didn't you? I get it, I get it.”
Noh Bihyuk's rapid-fire banter was as familiar as ever. The only difference was that this time I could see his face along with his voice, instead of just hearing it through a phone.
Hm. I'd expected to feel a little glad to see him after so long, but since I'd been watching his face through the Fog every day, not a single flicker of sentiment stirred.
“You heading straight to practice after school today too? Opening ceremony ends early, so let's hang out. Huh? There's a new escape room just up ahead—let's go together~.”
“Sure, let's do that.”
“……Wait. You're not the real Lee Yeonjae.”
Noh Bihyuk drifted away with a wounded look on his face, then immediately started wailing about where the real Yeonjae had gone and demanding that I return his friend.
His acting—contorted in anguish, shrieking at the top of his lungs—was so wretched and painful to watch that I wanted to close my eyes.
“Bihyuk. You should really work hard on your singing and dancing.”
“Huh? Where's this coming from?”
“Mm. Acting just doesn't seem like your thing.”
Plenty of idols act well, of course, but I had a feeling Noh Bihyuk wouldn't be one of them. He scrunched up his face at my words, looked like he was about to blow up at me, then meekly admitted that honestly, he wasn't interested in acting anyway.
Good. It's nice when people have a conscience.
I stepped into the classroom and exchanged greetings with Park Haeun, whom I hadn't seen in a while.
After the opening ceremony wrapped up before noon, the three of us headed straight to the escape room.
I'd woken up before dawn and practiced for over two hours on purpose, so my mind was at ease. No—had been at ease.
“Pfft, Lee Yeonjae, what is wrong with you? So THIS is why you never hung out with us? I had no idea you were this bad!”
“Shut it, Noh Bihyuk.”
“How many times have I told you not to use my full na—ack!”
Noh Bihyuk got too cocky and slipped off the ladder. Served him right.
Whether he fell or not, I kept my brow furrowed in deep concentration, focused on picking the lock.
The room we'd entered blindfolded was smaller than I'd expected.
We split the visible space into three sections and each took responsibility for our own.
Park Haeun was fastest, then Noh Bihyuk. The two of them waited forever while I fumbled with mine, eventually just solving it for me—and by the third time this happened, Noh Bihyuk started snickering.
Why won't this thing open?
The hint for the lock was supposedly right in front of me, but all I could actually see was the blurry afterimage of Noh Bihyuk goofing around.
I'd always thought I had almost no competitive streak, but apparently he could make me want to solve something first out of sheer irritation. As I ground my teeth, I felt Park Haeun glance sideways at me.
“Yeonjae. The sticker….”
“Hm?”
“There's a sticker on the lock, see? There's the same sticker on that wall over there.”
She whispered it so quietly I had to strain to catch it, then immediately turned away and pretended she'd said nothing.
I blinked a couple of times, then looked back at the wall she'd pointed out.
Oh, she's right. So that makes 4… 3… 2—no, wait, that's a 5. So 435?
“Huh?”
It opened. The lock that wouldn't budge no matter how hard I pulled gave way with almost no resistance at all.
I just stood there holding the lock like an idiot, until Park Haeun beside me shouted.
“Noh Bi! Yeonjae solved it! You're in last place!”
“What? Seriously? No way! Park Ha, you helped him, didn't you!”
“How is a grown man so weak? Honestly, you're going to debut as the sickly idol at this rate. Get down here!”
She smacked Noh Bihyuk on the back as he kept slipping and failing to climb the ladder, then stomped up it herself. The moment she reached the ceiling and hit the buzzer, the mission-clear jingle blared through the room.
“As promised, the loser buys the tteokbokki.”
“I lost to Lee Yeonjae? That's impossible….”
“Yeonjae, have you ever had rose tteokbokki?”
“No, but I've heard of it.”
“This is so shameful…. I can't believe Bihyuk….”
“Then let's go eat some today! There's a place that does it really well over that way.”
As I stood between Park Haeun—eyes sparkling as she sang the praises of rose tteokbokki—and Noh Bihyuk sprawled on the floor, the door burst open and a headband-wearing staff member walked in.
I liked the polaroid they took to commemorate our escape. It captured Noh Bihyuk crumpled miserably in the corner perfectly.
After the tteokbokki, we went to a coin karaoke. It was the first time I'd heard Noh Bihyuk actually sing, and he was far better than I'd expected.
I was clapping in a daze when Park Haeun leaned over and murmured quietly.
“See, this is when being friends with him pays off. It's the only moment I'm ever glad about it.”
“……I see.”
Once he debuted, I supposed I'd be able to hear him sing as much as I wanted without even trying to stay close. It made me wonder whether Park Haeun would still be friendly with him by then.
Only after we'd bought chicken skewers side by side on the way back did the day finally end—a day so chaotic I hadn't thought such a thing possible. Nothing about it differed from any ordinary day, except that a polaroid photo now sat on my desk at the orphanage.
***
“What in the world….”
Time flew by, Saturday arrived, and with it, the final day of filming.
Any sentimentality I might have felt was crowded out by nerves—the scene we were shooting today was no pushover, so I arrived wound tight as a drum.
But the moment I spotted something utterly unexpected in front of the set, nerves and everything else evaporated into a blank stare.
“Anything to order?”
“……Hyung. What are you doing here?”
Jeonghyeon hyung was standing in front of a trailer, taking orders.
Three enormous trailers were lined up in a row, and it turned out they'd delivered meals, snacks, and coffee all at once.
Printed right next to my face was a banner bearing a completely unhinged sentence: Angel Yeonjae, who fell from the sky in a tragic accident—please protect him at all costs.
My face was burning hot enough to drive me mad, while Jeonghyeon hyung—dressed unusually handsomely today—just grinned.
“I came to make sure our Yeonjae's spirit doesn't die.”
“It's being crushed in real time as we speak.”
“Haha, come on. Hold your head high. Have you eaten? There's tteokcake too. Make sure you grab some after your meal.”
So I took commemorative photos with Jeonghyeon hyung, who had me in a firm bear hug, and finished greeting the PD and staff, who came running over with beams on their faces.
When the PD cautiously brought up a cameo, Jeonghyeon hyung turned him down so gently that you might not even realize he'd said no. Still, he agreed to do an interview, walking straight up to the camera without a moment's hesitation—he really did look every inch the celebrity.
“Wow, it's really Lee Jeonghyeon sunbaenim?”
“Hey there, Yeonjae…!”
At the tap on my shoulder, I turned to find Han Seyeong and Seong Ijun standing there.
When I asked why they'd shown up with no filming scheduled, they said they'd come to cheer me on for my last day. I squinted at them in disbelief, and Han Seyeong laughed and admitted the truth—she'd heard from a staff member she was close with that Lee Jeonghyeon sunbaenim was coming, so she'd tagged along. At that, Seong Ijun's eyes went round and he flapped his hands, insisting that he really had come purely to support me.
“Thanks, hyung. There's a lot of non-spicy stuff over there, by the way. Order some and eat.”
“Uh… you knew I can't handle spicy food?”
“…? You told me before, remember?”
Seong Ijun still seemed a bit awkward around me, which made it all the more curious that he'd come. Not that the awkwardness showed in how he treated me.
It only flickered across his eyes now and then; his actual manner toward me was so friendly that being around him was never uncomfortable.
Seong Ijun was naturally mild in both expression and speech, and he slipped easily into conversations between me and Han Seyeong.
Maybe that was why, as filming wound toward its end, the staff started smiling their fond-mother smiles more and more often at the three of us—me, Han Seyeong, and Seong Ijun—growing closer by the day. Well, that all ended today.
“Holy—unbelievable! Lee Jeonghyeon! What is this? When I call you, you never show, but the second it's for him—!”
I was eating shrimp drenched in tangy sauce when a familiar voice rang out behind me.
It was actor Kim Seokjun. Seriously, why does everyone keep showing up on their day off?
“Haha, you think you and Yeonjae rank the same?”
“Wow! That stings, and I can't even argue with it!”
The way he snickered and lightly smacked Jeonghyeon hyung on the back looked thoroughly familiar.
Actor Kim Seokjun darted straight to the trailer, came back balancing three plates in his arms, and sat down in front of me.
“Yeonjae, thank you! Thanks to you, I'm feasting like a king today.”
“It's nothing. I didn't even prepare any of it… please, eat plenty.”
Actor Kim Seokjun cleared an entire plate in the time it took me to eat a single shrimp.
He ate with such vigor that I wondered if this was why people watched mukbangs—so much so that midway through, I stopped eating entirely and just stared at him.
“Hyung, you really can put food away. Did you come to watch me film again today?”
“Yeah, and I had some business to take care of too. What you told me last time helped a lot.”
We'd talked so many times, I had no idea which conversation he meant. His booming voice came back before I could ask.
“You know how Yuhyeon hates the Queen? After hearing what you said, I completely reworked my take on the character. I've got more scenes tangled up with her than you do. The practice got way more intense, so it's been rough… but I figured I owed you a thank-you.”
“It was hardly anything.”
“Hardly anything, my foot. My screen time went up because of you. Without you, I wouldn't even have dared to dream it.”
There was nothing manufactured about the expression on actor Kim Seokjun's face as he said it. He kept repeating how grateful he was, so I gave up arguing and just brought him more food, urging him to keep eating.
Jeonghyeon hyung joined us after finishing his interview, and Han Seyeong and Seong Ijun sat down at the same table as well.
The tteokcake that manager Ahn Jinbae brought over tasted almost identical to what you'd get at a restaurant.
I set the matcha one in front of Jeonghyeon hyung and was working on the blueberry one in front of me when actor Kim Seokjun suddenly bellowed.
“Gah, I'm jealous! I want to make more money fast so I can spoil someone in style like this.”
“You already make plenty. Just do it now.”
At Jeonghyeon hyung's words, actor Kim Seokjun shook his head and answered flatly.
“Not enough yet. I'm going to make more. Ha, honestly, I do this job for the money, but human greed really has no end.”
“Act well enough and the money follows. It only stays away because your head's in the wrong place.”
“You really know how to shut a man up with a 'fact check,' huh? What's wrong with acting for money? Fine—I don't act unless there's money in it. Happy now?”
The conversation carried on, teetering right on the edge of going too far. Han Seyeong and Seong Ijun wore expressions of quiet dread, but the two men actually talking couldn't have looked more at ease.
It seemed like this was simply how they always spoke to each other.
I swallowed the tteokcake in my mouth, then turned to actor Kim Seokjun, who was still grumbling away.
“I think you quite like acting, though.”
“Huh?”
“I said it seems like you love acting. Someone who didn't wouldn't show up on his day off and ask questions about everything. Multiple times, no less.”
Actor Kim Seokjun faltered at my words, then stammered out a rebuttal.
“Hey, that's… that was just me trying to do the job well. You act well, you make more money. That's all.”
“People work to make money in the first place. If you didn't get paid, it'd be volunteering.”
“Er… well, sure, but.”
“Working hard to earn a lot, and putting in the effort to do it well—I think that's more than enough. Honestly, I think it's pretty admirable.”
He smacked his lips, eyeing the plate he'd somehow already polished clean.
Should I have one more? Hm… no. Let's stop here for now.
Gathering my fork and the used-up wet wipes, I went on.
“But I do think you love acting, hyung. I can feel it just from watching your eyes when we talk.”
“……My eyes?”
At the flustered note in his voice, I looked up to find actor Kim Seokjun staring back with a strangely dazed expression.
What part of that had thrown him off so much? I studied his eyes, wavering faintly, and gave a small nod.
All this time, whenever we'd talked about Yuhyeon, actor Kim Seokjun's eyes had been brimming with life.
“Would it be all right if I headed out first? I should go over the script. Is there anything I can bring back for everyone?”
I stood, plates and trash in hand, but no answer came.
As I stood there awkwardly beside a table full of silence, a voice full of laughter finally rang out.
“Go on, we're fine. Oh—can I come watch your shoot later?”
“…? Weren't you here to do exactly that?”
The corners of his eyes, already holding a gentle smile, softened even further at my answer.
Seeing Jeonghyeon hyung nod in acknowledgment, I hurried off.
Thirty minutes until filming.