Six Months of Growing
"Actor-nim, would you like a hand changing into your outfit?"
"No, I'm fine, thank you."
Today was the day of the poster shoot for Goodbye, My Summer.
I was changing into the school uniform the production crew had handed me when, for some reason, a murmur of commotion began rippling in from outside the dressing room. A voice I hadn't heard in a long while was mixed in with the chatter, and I opened the door and stepped out with a smile on my face.
"Yeonjae!"
Standing beside manager Ahn Jinbae was a very familiar face.
"You came, noona? It's been a while."
"Hasn't it? Six months or so, I think?"
Han Seyeong was wearing the same neat smile as ever — just a touch more mature than she'd looked during the filming of The Butterfly Flower on the Zelkova Tree.
She had been walking closer to me when her brow slowly crinkled.
"You…."
"Hmm?"
"What the heck. When did you get this tall? You've shot up in what, half a year?"
She circled me with an air of sheer disbelief, and I laughed it off lightly. The last time I'd seen her was at the awards ceremony, and Han Seyeong had definitely sunk below my eyeline since then. When you spend all your time around people taller than you, you hardly ever notice — it was only in moments like this that the growth really hit home.
"That's a compliment, right? Thanks."
"Of course it's a compliment. I'm jealous. I wish I were taller too."
"You'll get there. Thank you for coming out on such short notice, noona. Did your agency give you any trouble?"
"They were baffled when they heard it was a web drama — and then the moment they found out my co-star was you, they practically shoved me out the door."
Han Seyeong laughed brightly, her clear, distinct eyes curving into something playful. Then she took a slow look around — the wide-open set, the expensive equipment, the staff milling about everywhere — and lowered her voice to a whisper.
"So it's true web dramas have gotten a lot bigger these days, huh. Feels not so different from a mainstream broadcast drama set?"
"You think so? That's a relief."
Coming from Han Seyeong, who had only ever taken on heavyweight dramas since her debut, apparently the environment didn't fall short at all. That was a good thing. It was only possible because the production had grown far beyond its original investment scale — I remembered the PD practically bowing in gratitude when Team Leader Woo handed over a list of new investors.
"Ooh. They picked a really cute school uniform, huh?"
"It suits you, noona."
Han Seyeong had changed in a flash and come back out — she was wearing the exact same design of uniform I had on.
"Oh, stop it, you flatterer."
The pale sky-blue summer uniform really did look lovely on her, even with her smirking like that.
And me — I had to grow to love this look on myself.
Goodbye, My Summer followed the male and female leads, a new transfer student and his classmate, as misunderstanding after misunderstanding gave way to falling in love. I played the female lead's younger brother, 'Kim Hoyun'. Unlike the high school leads, he was still in middle school, and more importantly, as a supporting character he didn't get many scenes. So the writer had added an episode of romance for me.
Well, calling it romance was generous. It was just me, liking someone one-sidedly.
"You're playing someone with a crush on me again."
"I know, right?"
And so Han Seyeong took the role of the girl Kim Hoyun pined for. It was a bit part — four or five appearances at most — far too small a role for someone of her caliber. That made it all the more touching that she'd agreed without a second's hesitation after a single phone call.
"Aigo, honestly. When is our Yeonjae ever going to play a real couple with your noona, huh?"
"Haha."
I smiled quietly as she heaved an exaggerated sigh. When I didn't bother taking the bait, Han Seyeong went looking for fresher prey — and singer Kang Sehyun, who had just wrapped his solo shots, walked straight into the net.
"Oh! You're actress Han Seyeong, right? So nice to meet you. I'm Kang Sehyun of Space."
"Hello. I only got the casting call a few days ago, so I'm late with the introductions. I'm Han Seyeong. Looking forward to working with you."
The moment another person approached, Han Seyeong flashed a smile that looked painted on. I was watching the two of them carry on a conversation brimming with social graces, thinking nothing of it, when singer Kang Sehyun shot a furtive glance my way. Why was he doing that?
"Hyung. Did you have something to say to me?"
"Huh? Ah… no, nothing really… I was just wondering if you managed to pass that along to your friend the other day."
"…? Oh, the autograph. Yes, I did. He loved it."
It had been a spur-of-the-moment gesture on my part, but Noh Bihyeok had gotten absurdly giddy over it. He hadn't even bothered managing his expression, face contorting with excitement — clearly a genuine fan. When I thanked him once more, singer Kang Sehyun shook his head, looking somehow a little shy about it.
We were just about to start preparing for the shoot when the conversation, on the verge of dying out, kept getting revived — the other party kept dredging up new topics. By the end of it, we'd wandered all the way into personal territory: that singer Kang Sehyun painted as a hobby and was currently preparing a solo exhibition.
Wondering whether I was even supposed to be hearing this, I was reacting a beat too slow — thankfully, a staff member came over to announce it was time for my solo shots.
"Yeonjae-ssi, like we discussed, we'll shoot a range of versions. One with an annoyed, exasperated feel toward your noona, one that feels like confessing to the girl you like — that sort of thing. Do you need any separate guidance?"
"No, I'll manage."
I double-checked the reference board and stepped in front of the camera. I wasn't particularly nervous. A poster shoot wasn't so different from filming a movie or a drama. Granted, there was the matter of packing an intense emotion into a single frame — but that didn't matter. What I did in front of a camera was always the same, after all.
"Alright, going straight in on the count!"
At the camera operator's words, I squeezed my eyes shut. I re-sorted the drifting impressions inside me one more time, and opened them. My foot shifted, and the corner of my mouth lifted.
"Wow. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable."
"The next one came out really pretty too. Keep scrolling."
"There's more, and it's better than this? Whoa. Wow, it really is."
Jung Hyun-hyung and manager Ahn Jinbae were huddled over a phone, groaning and fussing over it. Their bulk made the phone look comically undersized — it was funny, and a little embarrassing too.
"Ah, this is too cute. I shouldn't be allowed to keep this one."
Watching Jung Hyun-hyung gasp in admiration at the tiny screen over and over made my ears itch for no good reason. I tried to just ignore it, but there was no sign of it ending even as time wore on, so I finally sighed.
"Hyung. That's enough."
"Why are you embarrassed? You looked this incredible, you might as well own it. The internet is going to explode when these posters drop."
On the screen Jung Hyun-hyung kept waving around was me, grinning cheek to cheek. The shot of me staring dead into the camera, eyes crinkled mischievously, looked pretty natural. Seen like this, I really had gotten taller than last year.
Still, it wasn't worth THIS much of a fuss. I stared silently at Jung Hyun-hyung, who was carrying on like this deliberately.
"Keep this up and I'll start talking about YOUR posters, hyung."
"Huh? What posters? Haha, look, I've been in this business for years now — nothing you say could embarra—."
"The poster for Midnight. The one you shot three years ago."
"Right. Let's eat. Oh, do you want more of this? Here you go."
He whipped the phone off and set it down in record time, and I quietly accepted the fried shrimp he offered me. Midnight, the only R-rated romance Jung Hyun-hyung had ever filmed, was intense from the poster onward — true to its title. I watched the back of his neck turn red and swallowed down a smirk.
He really should have quit while he was ahead.
"Anything on your mind lately?"
He was clearly fishing for a new topic, and I smiled watching him grasp at whatever came to mind before shrugging.
"Nope. Oh, actually — there was something I wanted to ask you, hyung."
"Sure. Go ahead."
Facing those kind eyes, I hesitated a moment. It was an awfully personal subject… but ultimately it related to acting, so surely it was fine.
"Hyung. How many girlfriends have you had?"
"……Out of nowhere?"
"I've been wondering how different it really is — liking someone, versus acting like you like someone."
Glancing slyly at the girl Kim Hoyun has a crush on, stealing a quick hello and then blushing — honestly, that wasn't all that hard to imitate. I didn't even need to go hunting for reference films; I'd seen plenty of it at school over the past two months. Just picturing how Baek Seojin treated me was enough to memorize every move a lovestruck kid makes.
Immersion, however, was another matter entirely.
"It's so strange hearing you ask that. Is it because of the new project?"
"Yes. I have to play someone in unrequited love. I can copy the surface of it well enough, but I just can't sink into it."
"Hm? But you already did romance acting for The Butterfly Flower on the Zelkova Tree, didn't you?"
"That was different."
Yu Hyeon's feelings for the butterfly couldn't be reduced to the simple word affection. They were more tangled than that, heavier. Desperate, too. If anything, those complicated emotions had been easier to sink into. The fresh, innocent fondness Kim Hoyun carried only grew more distant the more I rehearsed it.
Jung Hyun-hyung, who had been listening seriously, raised a hand.
"What are we going to do with our Yeonjae. I guess hyung's love wasn't enough. I'll have to reflect on myself."
His hand stroked my head slowly, and it was warm. But in spite of the sly tone, his expression looked faintly bitter.
"You struggle with the everyday emotions anyone can come across, yet the trickier ones you slip into more easily. It's usually the other way around."
Was that really something to look so rueful about? I was puzzled, but the air didn't invite me to open my mouth carelessly, so I stayed quietly silent. Jung Hyun-hyung patted my head a few more times, then shrugged.
"First of all, my dating history is classified. I'd like to protect your illusions about me."
"…? I don't have any illusions to protect."
"Shh. Quiet. Anyway, going by my meager experience — Yeonjae."
The mischief in his eyes drained away at once, replaced by something else. Say what you would — he was an actor.
"Feelings change every single time. Some days you like someone so much you think you'll go mad. Some days practical thoughts arrive first, before the feeling does."
"Okay."
"Who you're with, and where you are in your life at that moment — those things reshape what it means to like someone. Just as the emotions you feel in a real relationship come in all different varieties, the emotions an actor feels while performing can't help but vary just as much."
I turned the vague, shifting words over in my mind and boiled them down to a clean conclusion.
"So there's no need to obsess over how closely it matches real emotion."
"Exactly. How many different ways do you think kids our age — your age — like the people they like? It's different for everyone, so there's no right answer. Whatever you feel and interpret IS that character's emotion."
It almost clicked, but the whole of it was still too much for me to fully grasp. Even so, the thing that had been nagging at me ever since I'd heard about Baek Seojin finally sorted itself out into shape. Namely: when playing Kim Hoyun's crush, I didn't need to worry much about 'how identical it is to the real thing'.
"Thank you. I'll keep practicing."
"You need to practice a little less, if you ask me. I'm free these days — how about the three of us take a trip somewhere?"
"I'm practicing with Seyeong-noona starting tomorrow, actually."
"Ah… then what about Jinbae?"
"I have to escort the actor-nim as well."
"……There's something hauntingly familiar about this conversation."
Jung Hyun-hyung's face fell, as if stricken by a strange sense of déjà vu. Watching him sulk, I laughed — and somewhere along the way, forgot all about the tangle of acting thoughts that had been knotting up my head.
A week later, the main poster and character posters for Goodbye, My Summer were released online.
The community — already white-hot at the mere news that Lee Yeonjae and Han Seyeong would be appearing together in a web drama — flipped entirely upside down. Just how violent the reaction was could be guessed from the title of the top post alone.