NOVEL NEXT chapter 54
The screen, once the playback ended, turned pitch black. It felt exactly like his insides, so Sa-heon had to force down a dry swallow. Even though he had watched with both eyes wide open, he still could not believe it. He had no idea what had happened in the year he was gone from Korea.
Above all, he could not understand the reactions of people saying they felt the “realism” while watching this video.
Are your eyes holes in a log?
The kid [N O V E L I G H T] is falling in sheer terror—how could that possibly be acting.
Seo Sa-heon, who could guess anything about Lee Seo-eul with his eyes closed, felt certain. Someone had deliberately pushed him.
Once he reached that conclusion, his insides flipped in an instant. Sparks practically shot before his eyes as he wondered what lunatic thought it reasonable to shove that tiny kid off the second floor.
Now that he knew the situation, he understood one by one why Seo-eul had cried like a newborn earlier. How much must he have held it down, held it and held it, that it all burst the moment he saw his face. Sa-heon swallowed the sigh rising up. He should not have gone to Australia. He should not have let go—not for a second. If he had known, he would not have fallen for that bright smile telling him, Go and take lots of pictures for me.
He regretted it, but it did not last even five seconds.
What was the point of dredging up what was already past. It was meaningless, and he could not go back anyway. Thinking that, slowly holding his breath, Sa-heon turned his head. He knew exactly what he had to do now.
His gaze met Seo Su-ran’s, who had been watching him cautiously.
From here on, the one who got anxious would be Seo Su-ran, who knew nothing.
It would be better if he lost his temper as usual or snapped rudely; if his expression vanished in an instant like this, anyone would be forced to recognize that their younger brother was nowhere near normal. How could that pitch-black, unreadable brat possibly be the same age as Seo-eul.
Seo Su-ran raked her hand through her hair and opened her mouth. Since there had always been only one thing he cared about since childhood, the topic was obvious.
So what happened?
When Seo-eul woke up after crying himself to sleep, an entire day had already passed and most of the situation was settled. Overnight, the Seo family had grown so haggard they looked ten years older. Because he could not blow up Seo-eul’s house, this still-young madman had uprooted his own household instead. His “unfilial child” stat had hit the maximum long ago, but he himself felt nothing.
Completely unaware of what kind of typhoon had passed overnight—and asleep right in the eye of it—Seo-eul woke and immediately panicked, checking his phone. His shoot was supposed to start that morning. With trembling hands he powered it on, but strangely, there were no messages.
He flung off the blanket in a hurry and was about to rush out when the door opened and Sa-heon walked in, asking casually,
‘Where are you going?’
‘I have filming… it was supposed to start this morning, but I overslept.’
‘…Huh?’
At the puzzled look—How do you know that?—Sa-heon stood still for a moment with a blank expression, then shifted into his usual one and asked instead, What are you staring at? Don’t you have something to say to me? Why didn’t you tell me you were filming a drama? There was nothing about that in your emails. Thanks to you I looked like an idiot and nearly lost my mind.
Pinned by criticism he truly had no excuse for, Seo-eul hesitated for a long while before whispering so softly it barely crawled out.
‘I just thought you’d worry… and you wouldn’t be able to watch it there anyway, and you never cared about dramas.’
‘Me? Why wouldn’t I care?’
‘…….’
‘You weren’t planning to quit, right? That’s why you didn’t tell me. If I’d known, I would’ve gone crazy telling you to stop. Right?’
‘…….’
‘…Fine. Do it. The acting thing or whatever. But starting tomorrow, I’m coming with you. Keep that in mind.’
Seo-eul, who had been staring at the floor because he had no words left, jerked his head up. Had he heard correctly? Frozen in confusion, he looked at Sa-heon, who frowned as if there was nothing else to discuss and dragged half-fallen-out Seo-eul off the bed toward the first-floor kitchen.
He muttered dramatically that Seo-eul’s wrists were skin-and-bone from how much he had suffered alone, and only after watching him finish an entire bowl of rice did he finally let him go.
And the next morning, when they headed to the set, Sa-heon was already sitting in the back seat of the car.
With a slightly blunt expression, he thumped the spot next to him and grabbed Seo-eul’s wrist, What are you doing, get in. Their mother, in the driver’s seat, said nothing at all for some reason, and when they arrived at the set parking lot, Sa-heon said,
‘I’ll stay right here until you're done. It’s vacation so I have nothing to do anyway. If anyone bothers you, come tell me.’
Originally, Seo-eul had planned to say, You can go now.
But when Sa-heon was that stubborn, no one could stop him, so he only let out a long sigh and closed the door. He wished he would just leave. He never wanted anyone to see him soaked, or ruined, or anything like that.
Feeling the nausea rise again, he covered his mouth and stepped inside the set. Looking around to greet the staff, he spotted a familiar figure in the distance. Dragging unwilling feet, he approached and said, Hello, bowing. Normally, the director would have answered absently and waved him toward the set, but today he stiffened and stared at Seo-eul.
He looked like he had something to say, but could not bring himself to open his mouth and scratched at his head and hands. Then, with a dark expression, he told him the script had been rewritten and to collect it from the assistant director. Terrified about what new scenes might appear, Seo-eul braced himself—but the situation began shifting in a direction completely different from what he assumed.
‘Hun-ah!’
Tap-tap, his footsteps toward the parking lot were hurried. He yanked open the familiar backseat door and called his name. Sa-heon, sleeping in an uncomfortable position, slowly opened his eyes and looked at him. Even without speaking, his quiet gaze seemed to say he already knew everything Seo-eul wanted to say.
And young Seo-eul’s heart dropped with a thud.
You know everything.
You know, so that’s why you’re here.
‘What. If you called me, say something. Did something good happen?’
How could he not like that—like that face.
Pretending not to know while knowing everything, Sa-heon waited in that parking lot every day until shooting ended. A little sulky, as if he did not like it very much, but still worriedly checking whether there were any new marks on his face.
***
“…I’m telling you, that’s really what happened. Every time the cut ended and I came back to the car and opened the back door, you were always sitting there with exactly that expression. Annoyed, but unable to say anything… but still checking my face.”
Unlike back then, when he looked like he might burst into tears any second, now Seo-eul was smiling brightly as he chattered at Sa-heon. They were not even good memories, yet he seemed so entertained that Sa-heon looked down at those excitedly bouncing cheeks and asked in mild disbelief,
“You think it’s funny that I was annoyed?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“It’s really funny. You never get annoyed at other people. You’d ignore them rather than do that.”
It was true, so he had nothing to say. Sa-heon, robbed of even the chance to defend himself, glanced down, and naturally met the gaze of Seo-eul, who had been looking up at him all along.
“I know. Back then, you were holding it in for me. You wanted to tell me to quit, but you didn’t, because you knew I couldn’t.”
A director who had suddenly become wary of him, and a script where the meeting between his character and his birth mother was abruptly moved forward. At the time he had not understood, but now he did. The boredom he had swallowed, the nausea he had forced down—what that kid had been holding back.
Because of that, that period was not all bad for Seo-eul.
If he had been alone, he would not have been able to look back on it at all, but in the end, he had not been alone. That was why he was not afraid of climbing to high places now. Even if someone pushed his back like then, he felt like someone would catch him.
Keeping his gaze locked with Sa-heon’s, Seo-eul spoke in a slightly steadier voice.
“I’m okay now. I’m not scared.”
“…….”
“You were always with me.”
That’s why I’m okay.
Whenever I wanted to run away, I knew you would be there waiting.