Chapter 87
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Between the restaurant and the wall. The narrow, dim space where empty boxes of alcohol and drinks were precariously stacked was the smoking area. Even calling it a smoking area, there was only one cylindrical long stainless steel ashtray placed there.
Just a few steps away from the parking lot where the bright lights of the 24-hour restaurant poured out, this place felt like the dark side of life where no light would ever reach. Just a few steps difference, that’s all.
[How could we dislike it when hyung got cast in the work he wanted? Being sad that you can’t come home is separate from that.]
[Oh, yeah, I know.]
Exhaling cigarette smoke briefly, I agreed with Ian’s words on the other end of the phone.
Since my appearance in <Eternal Night> was confirmed, I couldn’t keep my promise to go home if I failed the casting. Sorry for disappointing my siblings, I kept postponing contact, and I also had absolutely no mental space due to the issues with him.
Eventually, Italy contacted me first after seeing the casting article.
[Instead, promise you’ll definitely come home once after this work ends!]
[Alright, I’ll go. This time I’m going even if you tell me not to come.]
[It’s for hyung’s mental health too. People should drop by home sometimes and see family faces.]
[You’re right. I’ve been living too inhumanly. I’ll definitely go after this work ends.]
Ian, having extracted the promise, let out a short sigh. Then he soon changed the mood of his voice.
[Yui and I are planning to visit Chicago once during vacation after the peak season passes.]
[Ah… uh… Chicago.]
The smile that had gently spread across my face while listening to Ian’s nagging hardened stiffly. I carelessly tapped ash into the ashtray that came up to about my thigh level and hurriedly brought the cigarette to my lips.
[Dad’s restaurant management seems tough these days. We want to go spend some time together.]
[I see… he’ll be encouraged seeing you two.]
Yang-bu, who had been appointed as head chef of Knox Hotel’s Italian restaurant, left New York after just two years. It was around the time when Lee Seogyeong, who was then an executive director, moved to Knox Hotel’s Shanghai branch.
Yang-bu had explained to the twins that he was offered a good position at some hotel in Chicago. However, the new workplace was an incomparable 3-star business hotel compared to Knox Hotel. And Yang-bu couldn’t even last two years there either.
This time, the reason was that he would directly open a restaurant under his own name.
Becoming an owner chef had always been Yang-bu’s ultimate goal. But all the circumstances fell short of the conditions he had dreamed of. He would have wanted to accumulate at least five years of experience as head chef at a luxury hotel like Knox Hotel, then open a fine restaurant in Manhattan catering only to the upper class.
Thanks to extensively promoting his career of having worked as kitchen manager and head chef at various hotels, Yang-bu’s new restaurant seemed to perform quite well initially. But before long, news began coming that operations were becoming difficult.
Everything Yang-bu had was riding on that restaurant. Perhaps he had even received investments from some people. If such a business went wrong, it wouldn’t end with just giving up his position like when he worked at hotels.
Stories of people blinded by greed driving themselves to extremes were the most common and simultaneously oldest stories in the world. Being in the entertainment industry, I could see and hear such examples more often.
Yang-bu must have known from some point that his sprint was only heading toward a cliff. Even knowing, he couldn’t stop. If he had been someone who could acknowledge failure and humbly return to the starting point, he wouldn’t have been tainted with pathological levels of greed in the first place.
[I wish he’d remarry… no, even if he doesn’t marry, dating would bring more life to his existence, right? I’m worried because both dad and hyung only know work.]
I couldn’t help but smile silently at Ian’s words grouping Yang-bu and me together.
[Next time you come home, bring a boyfriend too. How is it possible for a man like hyung to not have a boyfriend until now? Do Korean men have strange tastes, or are hyung’s standards too high?]
[I’m not the type to fall in love quickly like you.]
[That’s not true! I’m passionate, not an easy man.]
Ian, who had gotten worked up talking about his dating philosophy, suddenly ended the call saying it was time for today’s last reservation customer.
It was deep into the night, well past midnight in Seoul, but near Naples it was just starting to enter evening.
A bitter smile flowed because of me momentarily thinking of him at Ian’s words about bringing a boyfriend home.
I had imagined him in Paeli before.
This was before I even realized that the current man named Lee Han was the same person as that child from Paeli in the past. Yet it hadn’t been difficult to imagine him lying on a beach chair by the shore or sitting at an outdoor table at the plaza pizzeria.
I had even harbored vague hopes that someday I might be able to visit Paeli together with him. Looking back now, it was fortunate I hadn’t voiced such an embarrassing suggestion. It would have only added one more promise that remained heavier for not being kept.
Before shoving it into my pocket, I habitually checked my phone once more. For four days, there had been no contact from him at all.
Mocking myself for letting attachment flow endlessly, I stubbed out the cigarette that had already burned short in the ashtray.
“Who were you talking so affectionately with?”
“……”
A voice came from behind, overlapping with laughter spilling from the restaurant’s second floor. Yoon Juho was walking over, taking out a cigarette from his pack.
“My younger sibling.”
I answered indifferently and was about to take a step when Yoon Juho gestured with his chin while holding a cigarette in his mouth.
“Want to smoke one together?”
Yoon Juho, who had come deep into the shadows where the ashtray was placed, offered me his cigarette pack too. Finding it ridiculous to avoid, I picked up one of the few remaining cigarettes.
Yoon Juho, who first brought his lighter to the tip of my cigarette, skillfully lit his own cigarette too. Lifting his chin and blowing out smoke long, he spoke in a tired voice.
“Ah… this year has been breathlessly busy.”
“Bragging in front of someone who rested the entire first half?”
“It’s actually less busy when I’m working on projects.”
“Tell them to reduce your work. It’s your company anyway.”
Yoon Juho snorted and took a short drag on the filter.
“It’s my parents’ company, I’m just a director in name.”
Yoon Juho’s father was someone who had held executive positions at public broadcasting stations, and his mother was his manager who could be said to have created the actor Yoon Juho.
Look Planning, Yoon Juho’s agency, had his parents as co-representatives. Yoon Juho held the position of honorary director and signed artist.
Look Planning currently had about thirty actors including Yoon Juho. Among them, only four or five were heavyweight actors receiving tens of millions of won per drama episode.
Through the position and connections the two representatives had built in the industry over a long time, and contracts with top actors including Yoon Juho, Look Planning was a group with tremendous power in the entertainment industry, especially regarding actors.
In this <Eternal Night> too, besides Yoon Juho, there were about five or six Look Planning actors playing supporting and minor roles. It was so-called “bundling,” but it was a practice the industry didn’t even consider problematic.
“Did I tour 13 cities for Asian fan meetings over 6 months…? The city seemed to change almost every two weeks. Later I didn’t even know which country or city I was in. Just get on when they tell me to get on, get off when they tell me to get off… smile when they tell me to smile…”
Even though <Tomorrow’s Diary> failed at the box office, Yoon Juho’s position as a Hallyu star wasn’t shaken. I remembered seeing an article about Look Planning earning billions in revenue from Yoon Juho’s fan meeting tour.
“What can you do? You’ll be even busier after this work does well.”
“Still, while I’m filming something, I don’t feel like I’m being sold around like a monkey, so that’s better.”
Kicking the edge of an empty box with the toe of his sneakers, Yoon Juho spoke emotionlessly.
Even though we didn’t exchange romantic feelings, besides Hongseo, Yoon Juho was almost the only entertainment industry connection I could have drinks with and talk about work. The only difference was that most of those drinking sessions ended with us having sex.
Yoon Juho, with one hand shoved in his pocket, looked at me sideways while smoking. His face, clean and sophisticated according to the public image of actor Yoon Juho, sighed while looking at me.
“I couldn’t stay in Korea because of fan meetings… I’m saying I wasn’t deliberately neglecting you.”
“……”
Yoon Juho took his foot off the box and approached this way, toward the darker side. I turned away from him and tapped my cigarette into the ashtray.
“We ended up doing two consecutive works together?”
“……”
“Remember from <Tomorrow’s Diary>? The timing worked well. What we did in my car was really good.”
The approaching guy gave off the strong scent of his favorite cologne. Faintly mixed in was the sharp smell of soju. And according to not-so-old memories, he was the type whose libido became vigorous when drunk.
“……”
Yoon Juho came right up behind me as I stood facing the ashtray. Two arms embraced my chest. Rubbing his lips and nose against my hair, he lowered his voice.
“Your hair got a lot longer?”
“……”
Yoon Juho pressed his lower body close against my buttocks and ground against me dully. While embracing me from behind, he put his hand over my shoulder and took another drag of his cigarette. Then he tried to put his cigarette to my lips.
“The staff sitting next to me went crazy seeing you. They said when you drink beer you look like a beer commercial, and when you’re drinking beverages from a paper cup you look like a coffee commercial.”
“Let go.”
I turned my head, refusing the cigarette. Even at my words telling him to let go, Yoon Juho only laughed quietly. Resistance and refusal between us had been like a series of procedures until now.
Hot lips touched my earlobe. Strong revulsion arose at the caress of nibbling the soft cartilage with his lips.
“I can’t imagine how such a blunt guy changes in bed…”
I grabbed the arm across my chest and pulled it down. After breaking my cigarette in the ashtray and turning to face Yoon Juho, he was looking at me with a hardened expression.
“What.”
“What are you doing? Didn’t you hear what I said about not sleeping with you anymore?”
Looking at his profile as he sighed with his mouth tightly shut, he hadn’t forgotten my words. He was probably trying to gloss over it.
Yoon Juho, who had inhaled his cigarette deep enough to hollow his cheeks, tapped ash onto the bare ground and sneered.
“Did you really get a lover or something?”
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
