“But we can be nap buddies until today. Let’s continue what we were doing.”

“……What, what were we doing? I, I was?”

“Hehe. Stroking your hair.”

“Ah……”

Hye Yoon awkwardly moved her hand again. Although she knew there was no one around, she glanced around and looked down at Ji Ho’s face.

She was not young enough to not know what he meant. To be precise, she also didn’t want to know.

It was really fortunate that his eyes were covered. The fact that she didn’t need to hide her embarrassment right now. Furthermore, the fact that she could keep the man at the center of her heart also at the center of her gaze. For quite a long time.

Ji Ho, oblivious of the feelings piling up over her face, slowly opened his mouth.

“Anyway, thank you. For thinking of me in the midst of all this.”

“Eh…… it’s nothing.”

“And is there anything else? Is that all?”

Even after spewing his unadorned true feelings, Ji Ho naturally linked back to the previous conversation. Therefore, Hye Yoon followed him without any awkwardness. However, they both knew. The strange sincerity they had shared for the first time.

He had delivered it accurately, and she had received it without a word.

Hye Yoon recalled her conversation with Do Hyuk again.

“Ah, he said he’d come to Busan. That we’d meet again then……”

Before she could finish, Ji Ho hastily removed the handkerchief. His face distorted in the sudden onslaught of light. Hye Yoon, surprised by his action, quickly created a small shade with her hand.

Perhaps due to their recent conversation, his brow, angrily and savagely creased, looked a bit different. Hye Yoon slightly averted her eyes, a strange feeling surging within her.

“When is he coming?”

As his voice, buried as deep underground as the temperature of his feelings, joined in, the masculine scent emanating from him became more intense. Hye Yoon, trying hard to suppress her strange emotions, calmly answered.

“I’m not really sure about that. But whenever he comes, he’ll only stay for a while.”

“I won’t be here next week.”

His eyes had already adjusted to the light, but his brow was still radiating a harsh energy. Hye Yoon felt she shouldn’t continue looking at his face. It seemed her cheeks turned stiff just imagining what he might be thinking.

She tried to put him back to sleep, but it felt a bit disappointing, as if she had only roused him more. Hye Yoon gently pressed his eyelids with both hands.

“Don’t worry. Even when you’re not here, Ji Ho, I can handle things alone.”

“……”

“And Cha Do Hyuk… I don’t know him well, but he seemed like a good person.”

As her gentle words descended onto his eyelids, Ji Ho swept away her hand as though it were a handkerchief. It was more of a careful touch, as if he was setting it aside, but his following words were slightly cold.

“… So.”

“Yes?”

Ji Ho looked straight into Hye Yoon’s eyes.

“Do you think I wouldn’t worry when you see the whole world with those eyes?”

His sharp emotion was doing its part, but his gaze towards her was always gentle.

“Wow, are you mocking me again for being a fairy tale author?”

Seeing his familiar tenderness, Hye Yoon seemed to relax, showing a childlike expression. However, her innocent emotions didn’t last long.

“I’m not mocking you… Do you think you’re only beautiful in my eyes? Everyone sees people the same way.”

Even as he was speaking, Ji Ho’s gaze was sharpening as if visualizing that scene. Due to her increasingly flushing face, Hye Yoon felt she had to create night for him in any possible way.

Not for Ji Ho, but for herself.

“Ah, just close your eyes! I really should only do this nap thing until today!”

She quickly snatched the handkerchief held in his hand and covered Ji Ho’s eyes. That way, he could not know how long her face remained red.

Ji Ho’s lips, visible beyond the handkerchief, were still hardened in displeasure.

“Didn’t they say tickets would go on sale today?”

On the move for the next interview, Do Hyuk suddenly recalled an important memory.

“Yeah. Unfortunately, we’re in second place.”

“Ah……”

And he thought it might have been better to forget it altogether. His film was one of the three big works, but he seemed to know too well which film would take the first place.

‘So, except for being born earlier, there’s nothing I can surpass.’

Do Hyuk knew better than anyone. That he also had an overflowing life. But he wanted to retort, wouldn’t everyone feel the same if they were constantly, exhaustingly compared to one particular person over a long period?

‘I really wanted that role… So, who got it?’

‘An Ji Ho.’

And if he was always pushed back in the competition with that one person. Anywhere, anytime.

‘Well, there’s nothing I can do about not renewing the advertisement contract. I wonder who they’ll replace it with.’

‘They’re going with An Ji Ho. But will they be able to break even? They’re calling him so fiercely.’

‘How much is it anyway. Is there a huge difference from ours? Is it twice as much?’

‘Twice what.’

‘Right? I thought so too.’

‘……It’s probably on the level of twice the twice.’

He had never revealed this anywhere. Always acting confident, pretending there was nothing to regret. Because it looked cool. But when he laid his inflated body on the bed during the day, his thoughts always came down to one thing.

Am I really that bad?

“You know you have to try to know, right? Don’t mind the prebookings.”

His manager, peeping at the rearview mirror, added a remark.

“What’s important is the stamina in anything. It’s about who wins in the end, not the start.”

Do Hyuk scraped his teeth with his tongue to spit out the sour taste resonating in his mouth. Then, his gaze was caught by a new message on his phone. It had just come from Min Woo.

[Do Hyuk, thank you for the snack box today. Oh, make sure to tell Writer Jang that she also appreciated and enjoyed it. Let’s keep in touch. I’ll go see it when the movie is released. (6:35 PM)]

As he read the message, Hye Yoon came to mind as naturally as flowing water.

Her deep brown eyes, which looked deeply into him, flickered on the windowpane. Her focus, pouring onto me to the point of being overwhelming, and the smile at the end of it, as if even the bashful and embarrassing truth was nothing much.

If both the palpitations and the belief that she seemed to know all my feelings were delusions. No, even if they were delusions.

His hand firmly pressed the call button.

“Director Kim, I’m calling after reading your message. But is Senior Ji Ho always there during the Busan shoot? He must be busy promoting too.”

He felt the need to ask at least once.

“Ah… So, you took off from shooting next week.”

Am I really that bad?

Even in your eyes, which looked so deeply into me?

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