The moment I heard his voice, my heart fluttered again.
Wiping my stinging nose, I gently tugged down the arm tightly wrapped around my chest.
He didn’t budge.
Instead, he wrapped his arm around me even tighter, as if to choke the air from my lungs.
“Just hold on like this for a moment. Just for a little while.”
He pleaded, rubbing the back of my neck, behind my ears, and his lips.
And then he said,
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For dragging you into this.”
“Don’t say that. It’s not your fault, Hyung.”
“I’ve been careless all along.”
“……”
“Not like me at all.”
“So… what happens now?”
“It’s nothing serious. There’s not even one photo of us kissing. What could they possibly do with that?”
Even during the call and now, Yoon Jooho spoke with forced playfulness.
But regrettably, it did little to ease Song Hyunsoo’s growing anxiety.
“Hyung, I’m not a kid.”
I pulled his arm down again.
This time, he released me without resistance.
Turning around, I faced him.
“Even if there’s no decisive scene… there are just too many photos secured. If a gossip YouTube channel decides to go after you, people will believe it.”
“Hyunsoo.”
“People believe it because they want to. Because it’s entertaining. Hongseo too…!”
I couldn’t say anything more.
Lowering my head, I grabbed both of Yoon Jooho’s arms standing before me to steady myself.
My whole body trembled.
The nightmare of the ‘X-gun Scandal’ resurfaced vividly, like the aching fever I felt right now.
It was sudden, like a dry autumn mountain set ablaze in an instant.
Watching that overwhelming malice spread in real time, I had to shiver with fear.
Their so-called ‘justice and morality’—spreading unverified rumors to mutilate a person—bordered on madness.
From that, I learned bitterly: what people want is never the truth.
They want to see someone fall more disgracefully, to drag someone down in a dirty fight.
They prefer stories about someone hiding unspeakable secrets rather than hearing that someone is truly a good person.
“Hy… Hyung, if you end up like that too…”
I gripped his sweatshirt harder.
His hands came up to cup my cheeks softly, lifting my face.
“Look at me, Song Hyunsoo.”
I moved my terrified eyes to find him.
“That won’t happen. I’m Yoon Jooho. Do you think I’ll just stand by and let it happen?”
“Jooho.”
At that moment, Director Bang’s voice echoed, and we both turned our heads simultaneously.
Standing at the end of the hallway, Director Bang held my phone in his hand and looked at us apologetically.
Like someone carrying difficult news, he opened his mouth after several failed attempts.
“Representatives, Hyunsoo has received a message.”
Yoon Jooho slowly released my cheek and said,
“Read it.”
“‘I am the man who will be Jooho’s father. Please don’t be so guarded, and let’s have a proper talk.’”
Director Bang, who had been staring down at the phone, looked up at us again.
His expression seemed to suggest there was more to come—news even harder to deliver.
“Fa… father?”
I furrowed my brow and stepped forward without realizing it.
Yoon Jooho came closer, awkwardly searching for my hand and holding it.
His eyes were fixed on Director Bang.
He seemed unaware that he was holding my hand himself.
Director Bang continued reading the rest of the message.
“‘We don’t want to trouble you… so we will visit you where you are.’”
After hearing the full message, I turned back to look at Yoon Jooho with disbelief.
“The person threatening you with those photos… is it really your parents?”
Yoon Jooho avoided my gaze and nodded.
Then, with a strained smile, he looked back at me.
“This is going to get messy, isn’t it?”
“No matter what… how could they threaten their own son…”
“I tend to be the kind of guy who makes people obsessed, don’t I?”
He crinkled his nose and kept joking like that.
Gripping his hand tightly, I shook my head repeatedly.
“You don’t have to laugh. You don’t need to. Don’t force yourself.”
Then, suddenly, I raised my head and looked at Director Bang.
“You’re not seriously saying they’re coming here now, are you?”
“Should I tell the Hall to keep outsiders out just in case?”
Director Bang asked Yoon Jooho, who answered firmly.
“No, it’s fine.”
“Hyung.”
“If they’re coming, let them come. I have something to say too.”
Let them come.
As if someone outside the door had heard Yoon Jooho’s words, the doorbell rang the instant he finished speaking.
Director Bang quickly ran to the wall pad.
“Both of them came together? I don’t see any lawyers.”
The sound of dry swallowing and a pounding heartbeat filled my ears.
Sweat beads even formed on my temples.
Yoon Jooho pulled my hand, turning me around.
Then he brushed back the hair that covered my forehead.
It was the kind of skinship I liked.
“Stay next to Sang-ho Hyung.”
I grabbed Yoon Jooho’s sleeve as he tried to head toward the entrance.
He smiled and shook my hand off, saying it was okay.
I couldn’t even guess what was about to happen.
Covering my mouth with my palm, I only watched Yoon Jooho’s back.
Without hesitation, Yoon Jooho walked up and opened the door himself.
Leaning diagonally against the doorframe, he smiled.
“You’re here?”
Two people visible through the crack in the door seemed briefly surprised at his appearance but soon hardened their expressions, as if expecting this somewhat.
His father clicked his tongue and said in a displeased voice,
“I heard you even left the set. Is this all you’ve got—just standing here?”
“Looks like you planted a lot of spies around.”
“Spies? Watch your mouth.”
“Considering you’re barely educated—too busy making money—you should have learned something by now.”
Yoon Jooho retorted and stepped aside.
“Come in. Though this isn’t my house.”
His father took off his shoes and asked,
“I haven’t heard a report that you came in here. How did you get here?”
“Looks like you really did plant spies.”
Yoon Jooho scoffed and pulled the door shut behind him.
“I took a helicopter. Called it without reservation, and they hit me with a steep price.”
His mother, changing into guest slippers and climbing the hallway stairs, scowled.
“A helicopter? He’s really lost it.”
“But seeing both of you here, it’s not a waste of money. If I had driven, we might’ve missed the timing.”
She grabbed Yoon Jooho as he ascended the hallway and turned him around.
After scanning his outfit a few times, she looked shocked.
“You… do you really go to the set dressed like this?”
“Even dressed like this, nothing earth-shattering happens. It’s comfortable changing clothes and waiting.”
She looked perfect, like she had just come from a hair and makeup session at the salon, but the expression on her face showed a pounding headache as she shook her head and walked down the hallway.
Should I greet her?
Standing with Director Bang at the end of the hallway, I hesitated for a moment and awkwardly nodded.
Their cold, almost indifferent gazes landed on me, then passed by as if I were invisible.
Following behind them, Yoon Jooho caught my eye as he walked past.
“What exactly did you come here for? You’re not here to throw a bribe envelope or something, are you? In this day and age.”
“Shut up.”
Yoon Jooho’s father, sitting on the sofa, looked up at his son and spoke sternly.
Yoon Jooho, standing opposite him, smirked and put his hands in his pants pockets, looking down on his father.
“You need to make me shut up first.”
“That’s what we’re here for.”
Yoon Jooho’s mother sat next to his father, setting her handbag on the coffee table, and continued in a cold voice.
“You’re ruining the value of ‘Actor Yoon Jooho’ that we’ve built over decades. How can we just watch?”
While Director Bang went to the kitchen to get some drinks, I stood alone in the corner, unable to believe my ears.
They were openly measuring Yoon Jooho’s worth, and my face twisted in disgust.
“Leaving our care, what good is it for you to be doing well now?”
His father took his turn.
“Wandering around like a local thug, caught up in SNS scandals, now even ditching shoots… Why are you doing things you never used to?!”
His father pointed to me, standing quietly on the edge of the living room.
“What’s your relationship with this actor?”
Yoon Jooho, still standing without sitting down, looked at me.
Our eyes met.
He calmly answered exactly as I was looking at him.
“We’re nothing to each other.”
His father shouted with anger.
“You expect us to believe that…!”
“I’m the only one who loves him.”
“……”
For some reason, at that moment, a groan escaped my lips.
It was a groan as if trying to suppress pain.
Director Bang, bringing the drinks, paused.
Even Yoon Jooho’s parents quieted down for a moment.
“What…?”
They seemed caught off guard, not expecting Yoon Jooho to admit it so plainly.
Yoon Jooho hesitated, then looked at me with the cautious expression of a man courting someone.
“I want to do well.”
Then he turned his gaze toward his parents and continued.
“So I need to look good. Please cooperate.”
My stiff lips twitched.
I didn’t fully understand how things were unfolding, but I knew he was about to do something dangerous.
Those people—his parents—could easily use what he just said as leverage.
There was no way I would let them hold that kind of weakness over Yoon Jooho.
Taking a few steps forward, I shook my head firmly.
“Hyung, don’t say such unpleasant jokes! It’s not true! I don’t know what happened between you and your parents, but if you use me like that…”
“Shut up! Who asked you?”
Yoon Jooho’s father cast a scornful look at me as I desperately protested.
Yoon Jooho clutched his head with both hands and shouted, sounding utterly fed up.
“Will you please shut your mouth!”
Then he grabbed the Photo Album from the coffee table and threw it between his father and mother.
“If you want to release these photos, go ahead.”
“……”
“But I’ll expose what I have too.”
Premium Chapter
Login to buy access to this Chapter.