“Sound setup is complete! Please do a quick volume check!”
“Please check the kitchen props setup one more time!”
“Director, the weather isn’t very clear today, so the establishing view might not come through as well as we thought.”
A luxury apartment in Mapo-gu, Seoul.
They said they had specially rented a vacant unit for the shoot.
All over the spacious apartment, lights and filming equipment were being set up.
There were more than six scenes to shoot today.
Among them, one scene required a great deal of care, so every staff member had come ready to give the entire day.
“I’m Ji Donguk, and I’ll be serving as Actor Han Siwoo’s manager! Please take good care of us!”
Weaving through the bustle, my uncle kicked off his very first day as a manager.
Today, instead of Mom, he held my hand and bowed as we entered the set.
Because the staff had heard last time that he was my uncle, they were surprised yet greeted him warmly, saying they looked forward to working with us.
Among them were a few staffers he had gotten a bit acquainted with during the previous shoot.
“Siwoo, can you wait here? I’ll pop over to the café out front for a minute.”
“Mmm. Uncle!”
My uncle unfolded a folding chair, watched me sit, and hurried to leave the set.
I called after him.
When he turned back asking what was up, I clenched both fists and showed him.
“Fighting!”
“Oh! Thanks.”
Beaming, my uncle finished greeting the staff, then hustled off to the café out front.
“Have some coffee while you work! Ah, Director! Director, have a cup as well!”
In no time, my uncle returned with a few dozen cups and handed them out one by one to the crew.
He couldn’t possibly have any great manager know-how on his very first day.
On top of that, Moon Heeseong wasn’t on set today, so there wasn’t even Heeseong’s manager-hyung to ask for advice.
Unfamiliar with the manager’s job, my uncle chose to put in legwork and personally distribute coffee.
“It’s hot. Have this while you work. Please take good care of our Siwoo today as well.”
“Oh, thank you. Siwoo’s so well-behaved that it’s easy for us.”
“You’re the uncle, right? You look young, but you’re very polite. Nice.”
“Thank you!”
Without losing his smile, my uncle bowed and greeted each staffer with gusto as he made the rounds.
Watching him, I felt reassured and proud.
Like Mom worried about uncle giving up his dream of acting to become his young nephew’s manager. It must have been a very difficult decision.
But he was doing better than I expected.
I should let him have lots of meat dishes when we get home later.
Oh, and the channel-pick rights, too.
“Actor Kang Sujeong. I’m a fan. Good luck with today’s shoot as well.”
“Ah, thank you.”
My uncle also handed coffee to Kang Sujeong, who would be filming with me today.
Sitting not far from me, she lifted just the corner of her mouth as she accepted the cup, then set it down right beside her.
Hmm, with me right here this close, you’d think she could at least take a sip for my sake?
Maybe she doesn’t like caffeine.
After a brief thanks, Kang Sujeong focused straight back on her script.
Meanwhile, my uncle, having finished handing out the coffee, trudged back to my side.
“Phew.”
“Uncle, you’re cool.”
“Heh heh, Uncle’s cool?”
“Mmm!”
I gave both thumbs up to my uncle, who had finished the coffee run.
His mood brightened immediately; he smiled wide, then dashed off at the sound of someone calling him from behind.
“Excuse me, Manager for Han Siwoo, could we have you for a moment?”
“Yes! Coming!”
I watched his back and quietly sent him my support.
Flip.
Hmm… On set, Moon Heeseong never even looks at the script and just chats with the crew.
Kang Sujeong is the complete opposite.
I do look at the script on set too, but I don’t bury myself in it like I’m about to climb inside.
The more I watched her, the more mysterious she seemed.
She wasn’t someone who behaved rudely, but she felt like a person who lived entirely within her own world.
As I observed her flipping through the pages like a wax figure, Director Cha Il-nam approached the two of us.
“Good morning, actors. In today’s scene, the mother–son bond is extremely important. It’s the moment when the son’s sincerity breaks down the mother’s walls. Keep that in mind as we go.”
“Yes, Cha PD-nim. I’ll be mindful and give it a try.”
With the same dry smile as before, Kang Sujeong answered Cha Il-nam.
Nodding in satisfaction, Cha Il-nam turned to me this time and spoke.
“Well yes, Ms. Sujeong will do great. Siwoo, you can do well too, right?”
“Yes.”
As I nodded vigorously, he looked at me fondly, about to say more—
“Director! Could you check the lighting here? This window’s bigger than we thought.”
“Oh, coming! Then please wait just a moment. We’ll call you shortly.”
“Okay.”
Cha Il-nam looked swamped with prep work.
He rushed off, and I sneaked a glance at Sujeong.
Our first scene today was the most important among today’s scenes.
It might take many, many takes, so we had decided to shoot it first.
If necessary, Director Cha was prepared to push the other scenes’ schedules in order to capture a satisfying take.
As he said, for this important scene, the breathing between our mother–son pair was crucial.
With other actors, they would have said to a kid like me, “Let’s do it this way,” or “Let’s try that,” but Sujeong didn’t have any of that.
Tilting my head, I spoke up first.
“Um, noona.”
…What?
At my call, Sujeong flinched for a split second.
But she quickly returned to her usual expression and spoke softly.
“Instead of ‘noona,’ how about calling me sunbaenim or ‘actor,’ Siwoo?”
“…Yes. I’m sorry. Senior Kang Sujeong.”
“No need to be sorry. It’s just because we’re on set. So, why did you call me?”
Though she wore a light smile, it didn’t feel gentle.
Not that she was being unpleasant either.
How to put it… it felt like there was a thin but impassable wall between us.
“Before we start filming, shouldn’t we talk through anything?”
After blinking a few times at my words, Sujeong glanced down at her script and answered.
“I saw you at the script reading. You did well. Wouldn’t it be fine if you just do it like that? Let’s each be faithful to our roles and do them well.”
“Okay, sure.”
With her putting it that way, there wasn’t much to add.
Her tone was dry, but it didn’t feel like she was dismissing me for being a child.
It really was: “Let’s each do our part well.”
If anything, seeing that cool attitude, it felt like she was treating me as an actor, not a kid, more than most.
But that’s the problem.
If she keeps on like that, it’ll make things difficult on my end.
I’d felt it over several prior meetings: she doesn’t try to communicate with her co-actors.
No helping it.
Once we start shooting, a solution might present itself.
I opened my script and started mulling over various ideas.
“Okay, in Wooju’s room, he’s fiddling with his toys… Stand by—cue!”
Kang Wooju (Han Siwoo) is in the master bedroom, fiddling with toys.
He’s surrounded by countless toys, but the child’s expression isn’t very bright.
“Pack this… and this… …Haah.”
In the living room, Wooju’s mom, Han Ji-hye (Kang Sujeong), is packing.
She’s just been suddenly reassigned to a local hospital, so she needs to pack only the essentials and spend the weekend in a flurry.
Not long ago, at the hospital where she works, her husband’s mistress spoke to Wooju.
Catching sight of that, anger surged up to the top of Han Ji-hye’s head, and she grabbed that woman by the hair.
It happened in the second-floor waiting area, crowded with patients and staff.
Frightened by his mother’s fierce behavior, Wooju burst into tears, and the mistress did not back down, grabbing Ji-hye’s hair in return.
After the commotion, Ji-hye brought Wooju home and washed her son over and over again.
“Dirty, so dirty. Wooju, let’s wash one more time, okay?”
“Waaah, Mom, my back stings. Stop already. H-huuh…”
Not understanding why, Wooju wrapped his arms around Ji-hye’s neck and wailed.
They turned on the shower and stood beneath it, the two of them under the pounding stream.
As if her husband weren’t enough, even her one and only son had been touched by that woman.
Ji-hye could not bear it.
A hotshot doctor at Seoul National University Hospital.
She’d thought she was living happily, having given birth to a picture-perfect son.
One day, her husband confessed to his affair and asked for a divorce.
Perhaps he had a shred of decency; he didn’t do it at home with their child there but came to the hospital where Ji-hye worked to make the demand.
At first, Ji-hye couldn’t accept it.
But she couldn’t make a scene at her workplace, so she quietly sent him away.
That very day, her husband left home.
It seemed he was commuting from the other woman’s house.
At first, Wooju couldn’t grasp his father’s absence.
After nights of crying and wailing for several days…
Once he called his father and learned the whole truth, Wooju sat in the darkened living room, tears dripping as he waited for Ji-hye.
That night, mother and son cried and fell asleep together.
Barely, just barely, having resolved to live properly by looking at Wooju’s face, the woman brazenly came to the hospital where Ji-hye worked and approached Wooju.
She should have endured it, but the moment she saw that woman’s face…
The moment she saw that hand reaching toward Wooju, she simply could not bear it.
For causing a scene at the hospital, Ji-hye was reassigned to a provincial hospital.
It was an obvious demotion.
The moment she heard the reassignment, Ji-hye went home and, fuming, began to pack.
“Haa… I think I’ve packed all the clothes. What else do I need to pack?”
She glanced around the living room, then suddenly realized her son was awfully quiet.
Wondering what he was doing, she peeked into the master bedroom and saw the child playing with toys alone in the dark room.
Watching him, she felt something well up inside again.
Her son’s gloomy expression felt like looking into a mirror.
Ji-hye strides into the room.
“What are you doing, Wooju. I told you we have to pack. How can you leave everything scattered like this?”
“…”
She takes the toy from Wooju’s hands and puts it back in the box.
As she gathers each toy he’d been playing with and packs them into the box, a small voice comes from the child.
“Mom… I don’t want to go. We’re not going far away, are we?”
At her child’s words—I don’t want to go—Ji-hye finally chokes up.
Who would want to go?
She was in a situation with no choice.
Inside, Ji-hye was bursting.
Before a mother, she is a woman, and before a woman, she is a person.
How could such a thing have happened to her? Her insides flipped a dozen times a day.
Barely tamping down the storm within and packing, she found herself thinking even her son wasn’t helping.
In that moment, Ji-hye snapped at Wooju.
“Kang Wooju, how old are you? You’re seven. Is a child who’s only seven going to stay in Seoul alone? If Mom goes, you have to follow. What kind of whining is this. Hurry and pack. We’re taking all of this, right?”
Speaking firmly, she dumped all the toys scattered on the floor into one box.
But something was off.
Ordinarily, if you snatch a toy away, a child would say something back, yet he was too quiet.
Turning her head toward her son, Ji-hye’s eyes widened.
Drip, drip.
Big teardrops were falling from the child’s eyes.
With a trembling voice, he managed a single sentence.
“Hic… In Seoul… hic… Dad’s there.”
“Wooju… no. Dad’s not coming back.”
Softened by the sight of her child in tears, Ji-hye’s words gentled a little.
But the words that slipped out were still cold.
At his mother’s reply, the child, sniffling, clutched her pant leg.
“M-Mom. I told that lady earlier. I told her to give our dad back.”
“What…?”
At her son’s words, Ji-hye felt the world go dark before her eyes.
Give Dad back—that’s what he said.
At those words, something that had been barely holding on inside her felt like it snapped—crack.
“If Dad comes back, we won’t have to move way over there, right? We have to move because that lady took Dad, right. Isn’t that right?”
At her child’s pitiful words, Ji-hye finally broke and grabbed him in a tight embrace.
“Wooju, Wooju… I’m sorry. Mom is so, so sorry.”
“Why-why are you sorry, Mom. Dad will come back now, okay?”
“…Dad isn’t coming back. He isn’t coming back, Wooju.”
Hearing his mother repeat only that Dad wouldn’t come back, Wooju finally burst into loud, unrestrained sobs.
He hugged the back of his mother tightly… his only family left by his side.
There is no sinner here.
And yet, to Wooju, Han Ji-hye could only be a boundless sinner.
The two clung to each other and cried their hearts out.
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