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Whether it was an intention to solidify their popularity when the reaction was quite good, it was agreed among the officials to film and release another version of the music video. Since this hadn’t happened before his regression, Bunhong couldn’t shake off his nervous feelings.
It was his first outdoor filming since returning. He woke up at dawn and spent several boring hours in the car before finally arriving at the destination.
It was a remote place that looked like countryside, away from the city center. While receiving makeup in the prepared space, he read through the contents of the arranged storyboard.
‘……Unlike the choreography-focused music video we filmed before, it seems to flow centered around a story.’
Bunhong, who had been thinking carefully, asked the assistant director beside him.
“Is it a lucid dreaming story?”
“Yeah. If you read the fairy tale, Peter Pan takes Wendy to Neverland, right? Instead, wouldn’t it be good if we expressed going from the real world to Neverland as a lucid dream?”
“Hmm. But what’s this part?”
“This is……”
The assistant director didn’t find the successive questions bothersome and kindly explained even the parts that weren’t well understood by pointing on the board with his finger.
Like member Lucy who had to do underwater filming in a water tank, it would be easy to understand that the remaining members would also film scenes of going to Neverland through some kind of trigger, which was honestly interesting.
As a result of role distribution, one member had to drive directly.
But since Chayeon didn’t have a driver’s license, the scenes that the two were supposed to film were switched with each other, so Bunhong came here alone.
Everyone at the scene looked at him with surprised expressions.
“Bunhong already had a driver’s license? That’s totally unexpected. Amazing.”
Bunhong, embarrassed by the pouring attention, touched his heated nape and answered.
“Right. I didn’t know I’d end up using this either.”
He had gotten it before his regression thinking he might need it if he urgently had to find a part-time job or something.
Thinking about Chayeon for a moment, Bunhong thought.
‘That hyung has lived knowing only dancing……’
According to the storyboard, ‘Kim Bunhong’ in the music video goes to Neverland through a car accident.
“An accident……”
Bunhong, who got goosebumps, muttered unconsciously. The trigger for his regression had also been a ‘traffic accident.’ So if he were to film this scene, he wondered if it could even be called acting.
The filming location was between grassy fields. No matter how long it had been neglected, grass had grown so thick that no one could imagine that place had originally been a road.
Even a tow truck was mobilized for filming, which was exciting. The car they had brought looked so messed up it seemed almost ready for scrapping.
First, Bunhong got in the car to set up his movement lines. Even the car color being black was exactly the same, making him wonder if this was some kind of fate’s joke. The feeling of sitting in the driver’s seat again like that was strange.
He had worried that he might have a panic attack like when he went on stage, but fortunately, unlike what he had worried about before getting in, no particular symptoms appeared outwardly. According to Bunhong’s conclusion reached alone without a doctor’s prescription, it seemed he had no trauma related to car accidents.
However, one thing to keep in mind was that they had actually lit fires in various places around the car to make it more realistic. Since they would later process it with CG and overlay it, it wasn’t a fierce fire so it wasn’t dangerous at all. Still, the director firmly warned him to immediately say something if it got too hot.
“Alright, then prepare. Kim Bunhong-kun, please standby for now. We’ll start filming soon.”
Small cameras were attached throughout the car. Bunhong, who was watching the director who had been giving him advice through the window move away, began to move as instructed in advance. Like that, he carefully gripped the steering wheel and gradually moved forward while checking behind through the rearview mirror.
So, according to the director’s explanation, the Neverland they wanted to express in this music video seemed to be the afterlife. Bunhong pondered.
‘Then rather than going to Neverland too suddenly, shouldn’t there be justification for the accident that will happen?’
Repeated thoughts opened the floodgates and he found the answer. The answer was too easy.
He just had to recall the past. Lee Hanbit’s birthday, the day he had gripped the steering wheel.
Even after his regression, time had flowed and that painful memory had gradually become blurry like a dream and was being forgotten.
However, Bunhong’s head, trying to maintain composure while recalling the past, began to throb.
The loneliness that had been in a precarious state like glass about to shatter into pieces came back to life. Even though he hadn’t turned on the air conditioning, chills rushed over him and his body shivered.
‘What should I do…… I’m cold.’
He raised both arms and briefly hugged his trembling upper body.
Then naturally, indescribable emotions hotly welled up around his eyes. The heavy eye makeup done to match the fantasy-mixed concept mixed with tears, and soon black water dripped down his cheeks.
“Huh……”
Bunhong smiled while lightly sobbing. It was a bitter laugh.
That day, rather than being miserably distorted like his afterimage he had seen through the rearview mirror, he had made that smile hoping to look pretty.
He stretched out his fist to wipe away tears while roughly rubbing his lips. The lip gloss applied to his lips glittered on the back of his hand.
After that, Bunhong, who had finished driving the car to the prepared movement line, briefly lowered his head over the steering wheel and thought.
‘What was I thinking on the day the accident happened?’
Countless emotions and memories that had slipped away from his grasp came to mind. Familiar solitude came to his side as if it had been waiting, and he had thought it was all over like that.
‘If I’m given another chance……’
Really like a lie, Bunhong had gained a second chance at life.
“……”
After finishing filming, while leaving that place in the manager’s car who was waiting for the next scheduled event, Bunhong couldn’t stop continuously looking back alone. It seemed like there was still someone left in that car that was about to be scrapped. Shadows of the past kept flickering.
‘Is it okay to leave you alone?’
Perhaps he wanted to escape from the wounds a little now……, Bunhong thought. So he chose to leave the past him who had fallen into despair and made an extreme choice there, and take a step forward, escaping from that nightmare-like memory.
Bunhong quietly bid farewell to his lonely self from that day in his heart and muttered softly.
“……Goodbye.”
He waved his hand lowered so no one could see, greeting.
You are me, and I am you. Though everyone in the world would point fingers at you, to you whom only I could understand, Bunhong wanted to say he was truly sorry.
For being selfish, it was none other than his present self who had made his past self alone.
* * *
Activities continued busily after that too. They had to go around music shows without rest, and reality filming also had to continue.
Being chased by busy schedules, he now fell asleep without particularly taking medicine, and as daily life rolled like a wheel without rest, distracting thoughts also disappeared from his head. Kim Bunhong felt that exactly this state of his was peaceful.
While sprawled on a chair in the waiting room during break time, Chayeon held out his phone and suggested to Bunhong.
“The interview we did came out as an article. Let’s read it now!”
Lucy, who had been humming songs alone because he was bored, also joined.
“It already came out? I’ll look too!”
After reading the article together for a while, Chayeon turned his head toward Bunhong and said.
“Bunhong speaks well like someone who’s prepared. I should learn from you.”
“……Haha.”
Bunhong laughed awkwardly. Actually, since he had answered after carefully considering how to be more loved, it might look that way.
In fact, there was something else that bothered Bunhong. Even while reading the article now, he felt it, and when he later looked at the contents of interviews in magazines or articles, he was sometimes horrified at himself for imitating answers that were so much like Lee Hanbit.
He hadn’t particularly intended it. So it was also surprising that such a process had occurred unconsciously.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
