At daybreak, Yoon Do-yeong turned his back on the car and began walking. He looked like someone out for a peaceful early morning stroll, the cool breeze brushing past him. His fingers kept tapping the back of his smartphone. While taking in the tranquil rural scenery, he calmly sorted through his thoughts. The moment the clock struck 9 a.m., he called Chief Choi.
“I’ll take on a new project. Bring me all the scripts.”
After giving that short instruction, he returned to the car and started the engine—only then noticing the mini rose pot rolling on the passenger-side floor. The florist had wrapped it nicely with ribbons and decorative paper, shaping it beautifully—but now it was a mess. He stared at the overturned pot for a while, then picked it up. Dirt spilled everywhere. The petals had already scattered and fallen apart, and now, with soil mixed into the mess, it looked even worse.
As Do-yeong stared in silence at the pitiful state of the mini rose he had once prepared with such excitement, his eyes reddened. He let out a bitter smile as the flower’s meaning came to mind.
A vow of love, wasn’t it?
And yet the heart he hadn’t even been able to offer was now a crumpled wreck in his hands. Taking a deep breath to collect himself, Do-yeong checked for any further damage. He plucked off a broken stem, filled the pot with soil again, and tidied it up. There was a little water left in the ice cup Baek Ga-yeong had given him, so he poured it in, then secured the pot in the passenger seat so it wouldn’t fall over again. This time, unlike when he came here, he started the car with a clear destination: his office.
***
As soon as they finished breakfast and cleared the table, Kang Hyeon headed out with his grandfather to the greenhouse—where the village elders had already gathered. The greenhouse, fitted with modern agricultural tech, was filled with zucchini vines climbing support rods and crisscrossing from the ceiling, forming a tunnel of stems. In between them, inch-long zucchinis wrapped in incubation sleeves hung like pendants. The ones wrapped just three days ago had already grown large enough to be harvested.
On one side, the elders were busy putting new incubation sleeves on freshly sprouted zucchinis, while on the far end, others were harvesting the matured ones and placing them in plastic crates atop carts. Kang Hyeon began hauling the full crates out of the greenhouse.
While working, he spotted a large zucchini behind a leaf twice the size of his palm—one that hadn’t been sleeved. He plucked it off and tossed it into the crate for “ugly” produce. Despite the early hour, the greenhouse was already sweltering, and sweat poured down like rain. After loading the crates onto a waiting truck, they headed to the sorting center.
As soon as they began unloading, Grandma Eun-young came over from inside the facility where she was sorting produce.
“You’re here.”
Even before finishing her greeting, she started talking.
“Eun-young uploaded some hanbok pictures to a foreign website, y’know? Looks like that stuff sells well overseas these days.”
While listening, Kang Hyeon sorted the sleeved zucchinis from the crates. Watching him, Grandma Eun-young asked carefully.
“She wants to take pictures to upload. How much do you pay a hanbok model?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure.”
“Give her a discount. Eun-young doesn’t have much money.”
“Ah… you mean, me as the model?”
“Didn’t you say a movie’s coming out in a few months? Then your face’ll be all over the internet, right?”
“Ah… but I barely appear in that.”
“But you were on TV in a drama, right? Better than using a total stranger.”
“Wouldn’t a female model be more appropriate, though?”
“Exactly. Don’t you know any actresses? Bring one in cheap.”
She subtly pushed, already pulling out her phone as if to call her daughter. Kang Hyeon, smiling awkwardly, had a sudden idea and quickly searched for senior actress Lee Hyun-sook on her phone, showing a photo.
“This is Actress Lee Hyun-sook. Even though she’s middle-aged, she looks like she’s in her 30s. She’s done historical dramas before—here. Elegant, right?”
As soon as she saw the hanbok photo, Grandma Eun-young dialed someone.
“Search Lee Hyun-sook.”
Then, without warning, she handed him the phone. The contact said “eldest daughter.”
“Hello, ma’am.”
—“Oh my, Hyeon! How have you been?”
“You’re looking for a hanbok model?”
—“Yes~! But… isn’t this actress inactive now?”
“She’s filming a drama right now. It’s scheduled to air this fall. There should be a press conference soon.”
—“Really?”
Her cheerful voice made Kang Hyeon smile too.
“I can connect you. But I don’t know what her modeling fee would be.”
—“Then you have to model too! I heard your movie’s coming out this summer~! And I saw you in that recent drama—you were adorable!”
She went on, excitedly talking about her hanbok business and the global website where the products were posted. In the end, she asked him to model too—for a discounted price. Embarrassed, Kang Hyeon’s face flushed red. He’d never modeled before, so he couldn’t give a clear answer right away.
“I actually left my phone at home. Once I get back, I’ll reach out to Actress Lee Hyun-sook’s agency CEO for you.”
He wrapped up the conversation and texted the website URL to himself. As Grandma Eun-young put away her phone, she patted his cheek.
“Aigoo, so handsome.”
Clearly satisfied, she even patted him on the back while repeatedly calling him pretty. Then she returned to her sorting station. They wrapped up work around lunchtime after loading the produce onto a vendor’s truck.
After half a day of labor, Kang Hyeon and his grandfather headed home. Summer hadn’t fully kicked in yet, but the sun was already scorching. After arriving, he stepped into the bathroom and quickly rinsed off his sweat-drenched body. With a towel draped around his neck, he came out to find his grandfather rinsing noodles in cold water. Hyeon grabbed some kimchi from the fridge, and his grandfather mixed gochujang, kimchi, and soy sauce together, stirring vigorously.
Hyeon wolfed down the noodles in no time, then did the dishes and brewed two iced coffees—bringing one to his grandfather. The old man gulped it down in one shot, then started pacing the yard, slowly edging toward the gate. It looked like he was about to head to Grandma Eun-young’s house.
“Grandpa, there’s red bean ice cream in the freezer.”
Hurrying to pull it out, Hyeon packed one in a bag. His grandfather took it without batting an eye and strode off down the path. Watching him go, Hyeon walked into his room and picked up the smartphone sitting on his desk. He checked it three or four times a day, just in case CEO Goo Seong-do or the film production company tried to reach him.
He had already checked that morning, but now there were three unread messages. He saved the one he’d sent earlier for last and opened the top message—from a <Intersection Murder> staff member.
[This is Lee Min-woo, the sound director for Intersection Murder. Are you available for ADR on the morning of June 25th?]
He replied that he was available and moved to the next message—from Baek Ga-yeong.
[Looking for a temp! June 27th to 31st, to cover an early summer vacation shift. If you can work your bones to dust with passionate slave-like dedication, you’ll get hourly wage + meal stipend + overtime pay + a bonus in the form of your boss’s undying love, which we’ll generously convert into cash value.]
Reading it made him smile. The thought of seeing Noona again brightened his mood—but then Yoon Do-yeong came to mind, and he hesitated to reply. No doubt, Do-yeong had gone to see her and mentioned something about them, even if not in detail. Just imagining her asking what had happened was already exhausting. He considered turning it down, but since he always filled in when staff went on vacation, refusing now felt awkward.
He glanced toward the calendar on the wall, hesitating, then opened a message he’d received a few weeks ago. He hadn’t saved the number, but the digits were etched into memory. The brief text stared back at him.
[I’ll wait.]
It had arrived the day after he’d drawn the line over the phone. Since then, there had been no missed calls, no follow-up texts. A bitter taste spread in his mouth, and he took a sip of the iced coffee. An emptiness gnawed at his chest, and he raised the cup again.
Still staring at the message, he reminded himself he had something to take care of first—Grandma Eun-young’s modeling request. He opened his contact list and called CEO Goo Seong-do. The phone rang a dozen times, making his anxiety spike. He wondered if the man was ignoring him because of the scandal.
—“Oh, Hyeon!”
Hearing his cheerful voice, Hyeon’s own voice lifted in relief.
“Have you been well?”
—“Eh, I’m just constantly busy with nothing to show for it.”
“Ah, well… this is about something else.”
Keeping it brief, Hyeon explained the situation and sent over the contact info for Grandma Eun-young’s daughter.
“I don’t mind doing it for free—”
—“No! Absolutely not. You have to be compensated, even if it’s minimal. You know how risky private requests can be.”
“……”
—“No matter how close you are, work is work. You’d be surprised how many people lose major ad gigs because they did something for free. And if things go south, you could be blacklisted from every related ad agency. It’s not something to take lightly.”
“Ah…”
—“If you ever get approached like this, always go through your agency. I’ll handle the contract from there.”
“…Even though I’m not one of your signed talents, you’d handle a contract for me?”
