Best Friend X Swap

It took a little time before he understood what it meant.
Seo-eul, who had tilted his head as if he could not tell what was supposed to be “okay,” opened his mouth only after a moment when a look of realization crossed his face.
How old does he think I am right now.
Shaking his head as if he could not understand what era this kid was talking about, Seo-eul gently patted the hand Sa-heon had wrapped around him. There had been a time when he was scared of heights, but it was something long left behind. Even so, that outdated overprotectiveness was not unpleasant, and it made his heart tingle.
“Hun-ah, I film action scenes with wires now.”
“…….”
“I have the best balance.”
As he soothed him without meaning to, the hand finally dropped away. On Sa-heon’s forehead it was openly written, But there are no wires here, yet since the person himself said he was fine, he let go as if begrudgingly. That was funny, and somehow affectionate as well, so Seo-eul reached out and grabbed that retreating hand and gave it one quick shake before letting go. It had been intended to lighten his mood, but it did not seem to have worked.
Still, because he himself felt better, Seo-eul let out a little giggle and stepped onto the mat.
He bowed his head to the instructor, who had been waiting quietly, and the paused class resumed.
“Good, keep your balance like that as you move. Shall we grab the start right away?”
After receiving direct coaching on posture and even the placement of his hands and feet, Seo-eul dusted his hands with chalk and gripped the yellow start hold with both hands. He stretched out his first foot onto the hold as instructed, thinking the texture was rougher than he expected.
One foot, then the other.
The moment he was finally lifted into the air, the back of his neck gave a sudden chill.
Maybe because of what he heard just now. It felt like memories he had forgotten were about to surface, so he shook them off by immediately grabbing the yellow hold slightly above to the right. Every time he found his path and moved, the height jumped in an instant. Luckily, by focusing only on the colors and moving forward, no troublesome thoughts pushed in.
“Wow. You’re good. Switch your foot there, then reach your left hand straight out—right. Grab that. You’re almost there!”
At those words, he jerked his head up and saw the top hold marked with a T right in front of him.
It was not difficult to stretch out his arms and grab it with both hands, and after the countdown—3, 2, 1—clap clap clap! a booming round of applause rang out. Startled, Seo-eul instinctively turned around, and his gaze dropped to the floor. Ye Ju-yeol gave a big thumbs up, Yoon Hyuk held up the camera, and the rest of the production crew and even the nearby members at the gym were all looking up at him with smiles.

And among them, the most familiar face that stood out unmistakably.
Everyone else looked delighted, but that one person was staring holes into him with a slightly crooked expression, the same as when they were children, and he could not help laughing. Normally, Seo-eul only lifted the corners of his mouth politely, but now his cheeks rounded fully as he smiled bright enough to be rare, and now the ones below were the ones confused.
What. Is it that fun? Did he climb one route and suddenly feel a spark like discovering his life’s hobby…? While they each guessed their own things, Yoon Hyuk focused all his effort into pressing the shutter, and Seo Sa-heon’s expression had reached almost savage levels. His eyes said he wanted to throw a comment like, Instead of smiling down here, grab the hold tightly and come down, but he was holding himself back.
The one who conveyed Sa-heon’s thoughts instead was the instructor standing beside him.
“Okay, now you can come down slowly. You can step on any colors, so don’t rush, just come down safely.”
Only then did Seo-eul stop laughing and reach his hand downward this time.
He was never the type to rush, so he calmly felt for the footholds under him and stepped down one by one, and soon he was on the ground.
As he turned his body with a quiet “Ucha,” and stepped off the mat, Ye Ju-yeol immediately raised both hands for a high five. When he slapped it—smack—Yoon Hyuk, standing next to him, sneakily raised his hand as well.
“Ha ha.”
That made him laugh again, and after high-fiving him too, Seo-eul came to stand in front of Sa-heon. Unlike the others, Sa-heon did not say a single word of praise; his lips were pressed in a straight line and only his eyebrows were raised. Anyone would think Seo-eul had run off with his money. Suppressing the upward twitch of his mouth, Seo-eul asked,
“Aren’t you going to give me a high five?”
“Why did you turn your head dangerously up there.”
“I didn’t know they were going to clap so suddenly.”
He shrugged as if claiming it had been an unavoidable force, yet Sa-heon’s expression remained thoroughly displeased, so he burst out laughing again.
It was because he figured out why the kid, who had been fine on the way to the center, suddenly turned out like this.
Next is, let’s see. Would you like to try it, Hyuk-ssi? As the instructor called out, Yoon Hyuk tossed his phone to Ye Ju-yeol and stepped onto the mat. Watching the instructor help Yoon Hyuk with his initial posture, Seo-eul stood beside Sa-heon and whispered quietly.
“You have the exact same expression as back then.”
“What expression.”
He answered irritably on purpose, even though he obviously knew.
Leaning in slightly, Seo-eul pressed his shoulder against Sa-heon’s arm and muttered, You understood me. And Sa-heon did not deny that. They were thinking of the same time. Naturally, Seo-eul’s gaze drifted far away.
It had been during his first drama shoot.
Seo-eul’s debut work, the weekend terrestrial drama , which turned him into a star child actor.
Back then, Seo-eul had passed ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) the audition for the role of “Ra-eum,” the son born between the female lead and the male lead. The director had said he liked how those huge eyes looked like they would drop at any moment. Hey, you’ll be great at crying scenes, he had said—and Seo-eul still remembered that voice. Back then, he thought it had been a compliment.
The plot went something like this: after an unexpected accident, the male lead believes the female lead is dead and raises their son alone. Naturally, he enters a marriage of convenience, and the son is abused by the new stepmother, the villainess. Meanwhile, the real mother, who has lost her memory, enters the household as a babysitter… one of those predictable, predictable stories.
Trite to the core, but trite was exactly what viewers of weekend dramas wanted.
Now considered one of Korea’s representative middle-aged heartthrobs, Jung Junghyun played the male lead, and with the addition of a female lead who was a former idol trainee and So Garam, already famous for her method-acting villainess roles, the drama sailed like a ship with full sails.
With heavy anticipation from the start, the first episode reached a rating of 23.6 percent.
Later, it would record an astonishing peak rating of 47.9 percent—of course, Lee Seo-eul played a major part in that.
With cheeks like pink ranunculus petals, a small face, and features arranged prettily within, Seo-eul’s appearance became a sensation not only in living rooms nationwide but also on the internet. His visuals were like a fallen angel with its wings snipped off, but it was his acting—far beyond his young age—that delivered the real shock.
For a child actor, he had quite a lot of lines, yet he enunciated them so crisply. And he cried so well, and acted so pitifully that whenever “Ra-eum,” Seo-eul’s character, suffered humiliation, the entire country’s living rooms drowned in tears. Even though the drama aired on a major terrestrial network, the intensity of the abuse depicted was so borderline with the broadcast regulations that it was almost impossible to watch without crying.
Soaking his body in a bathtub, making him walk the streets barefoot—those were the basic things. Some days he was locked in a trunk, other days abandoned on a rural road without even a streetlamp, left trembling in the dark. When he was pushed off a second-floor railing, even knowing it was acting, viewers’ hearts dropped. When his huge, fear-filled eyes filled the entire screen, news headlines that evening were all “Child Acting Prodigy” and “Lee Seo-eul.”
At this rate, he should have hated the stepmother who treated him like that.
But that child clung to the stepmother’s pinky finger each time and cried Mamaaa, heartbreakingly. He could not forget that first moment she had been nice to him. No matter how cruelly she tormented him, he sniffled and promised to become an even better child.
So at that point, housewives with children had no choice but to fall violently into “Ra-eum-fever.” Without even passing through denial, Seo-eul earned a full “my baby” pass and swept all awards obtainable by a child actor that year, adorning the year-end award shows.
When an interviewer asked how such a young kid could act so well, Seo-eul smiled angelically and answered,
‘I didn’t do it alone, everyone helped me a lot. I was happy to act as ‘Ra-eum’. Thank you for watching kindly.’
Still sounding boyish, Seo-eul delivered his thanks clearly, and then finished the answer by reciting one by one all the names he had memorized in advance. After stepping down from the stage and finally setting down the trophy that felt as heavy as a boulder, he could no longer hold it in and ran to the bathroom. Without even time to loosen the bow tie choking his throat, he rushed into a stall, locked the door, and uech—began to retch.
Why?
Because saying the name “Ra-eum” alone was enough to make his stomach churn.
Because half of what he had just said was true, and the other half was a complete lie.
Only after confirming no one was nearby did Seo-eul finally begin to empty out his overturned stomach. In truth, there had not been a single moment when he was happy to play that child. He had prayed for lightning to strike the set instead.
The reason was simple and grotesque.
All those performances everyone praised—half of them were right, and half were wrong. As the drama gained attention for his strong acting, the director grew greedy for ratings, and under the director’s lead, every scene stopped being an “act” and became a “reenactment.”