"Come on, hurry up and sit down."
When he came out of the bathroom, it was quite a sight. Just having to look at three burly men, drunk and red-faced, wearing only undershirts and underwear with his own eyes was already torture enough. On top of that, there was this musty, stale bachelor smell that irritated his nose in the worst way.
'Why am I stuck here with these guys instead of being in my own fresh, stylish apartment?'
He desperately wanted to get out of there right this instant, but he couldn't just go to Koo Hyun-mo's house either...
'I'm going crazy.'
As it turned out, Shin Hyun-mo was a man with nowhere to go. After going through his phone, he was able to piece together a few things.
First, this guy Shin Hyun-mo was absolutely broke.
No agency, no parents, no home. In short, the owner of this body had nothing at all. And if he strained to find even one thing he did have, there was the fact that his body itself had some issues.
"Hey, how's your head, Hyun-mo? You used to complain about headaches every single day, but now you're not saying a word about it—it's freaking weird."
The burly men kept asking about his head, so he wondered what they meant—turns out Shin Hyun-mo used to have frequent headaches. No wonder he'd found all sorts of painkillers in his coat pockets.
"My head doesn't hurt."
He came to realize that every gruff, blunt remark they threw at him was actually said out of concern for Shin Hyun-mo. Their rough language startled him at first, but as he kept talking with them, they didn't seem like bad people.
After all, these three burly men were the ones who had taken in Shin Hyun-mo when he had no family and nowhere to go.
'Come to think of it, these guys look familiar...'
Hyun-mo casually sat down and slowly studied the men.
'Ah!'
Right, now he remembered.
That man speaking in a Gyeongsang-do dialect—wasn't he from <Dispatch Horse>? When Koo Hyun-mo played the ill-fated crown prince in that drama, this actor, Bae Jung-soo, played a henchman. He was a bit-part actor who, besides playing that henchman in <Dispatch Horse>, mainly took on roles like Tang Dynasty people or errand boys from the Yanbian region. He thought it was called a Yanbian dialect. He spoke it so naturally that he actually thought he was from there...
During <Dispatch Horse>, the PD was really thrilled, commenting that it felt like the henchman from the drama had been reincarnated.
Yeah, with that sturdy build, he swung that big henchman's sword and did an incredible sword dance. He sprayed makgeolli from his mouth, and it was almost like watching a Dubai Fountain show. (Makgeolli - Korean rice wine)
Of course, the makgeolli spraying mercilessly from his mouth landed squarely on Koo Hyun-mo...
It was a cut that had to be done without any NG, so everyone was worried sick, but thankfully they got it in one take. There was a reason he'd felt so uneasy the moment he saw Bae Jung-soo.
"Hey, Hyun-mo. Eat some meat. You like meat, don't you?"
That man was Yu Jeong-gon.
He was someone who mainly appeared as a lackey whose entire dialogue consisted of "Charge!"
With his tall build that looked at least 190 cm and the appearance of a true general, there was no way not to recognize him once seen... but surprisingly, Hyun-mo hadn't noticed right away. In the drama shoots, the man was always covered in a beard.
"..."
And then there was Go Sang-tae, whose voice he hadn't heard even once so far.
That man, silently drinking his liquor, was someone he remembered from the daily drama <Noblesse Oblige>.
'Come to think of it, I never saw him deliver a single line...'
He wasn't sure if the man couldn't speak or just chose not to, but either way, at least he was quiet, which made him the most bearable of the three.
In any case — Bae Jung-soo, Yu Jeong-gon, Go Sang-tae.
These were apparently the so-called family who shared joy and hardship with this Shin Hyun-mo.
Alright, now he had a grasp of the situation.
"Do I really have to offer a drink to that man?"
"Pour it, you bastard."
Crack.
Go Sang-tae's face twisted fiercely, and a sound that didn't seem like it should come from a human body came from his hand.
"Yes, sir."
The message that he shouldn't mess around was instantly registered, and Hyun-mo immediately knelt down neatly and raised his glass.
Now this is a scene Manager Heo would love.
After all the trouble he'd gone through keeping Koo Hyun-mo's rotten personality in check all this time, his stomach must have been churning. As they say, the stick is the cure for those who won't listen.
"Hyung-nim, our Hyun-mo's here too. When you go to a good place, please clear the path for us..."
Bae Jung-soo said with a hollow expression, looking at Oh Jung-seop's photo.
"What are you waiting for, Hyun-mo? Just pour him a drink."
"...Ah, yes."
Hyun-mo placed the glass in front of the photo on the phone.
Oh Jung-seop in the screen was smiling brightly. It wasn't the profile photo used in articles, but a candid shot he'd never seen before — probably a picture they had taken themselves.
He looked quite happy.
What on earth had made Oh Jung-seop...
"But why did he commit suicide?"
Hyun-mo's question, asked because he simply couldn't hold back his curiosity, made the three burly men's eyes go wide. Their faces said it all: You really don't know?
"This bastard, why is he so fucking clueless today? It's creepy. Hey, are you sure there isn't some other bastard inhabiting Shin Hyun-mo's body?"
Ouch.
Yu Jeong-gon looked like a slow, lumbering bear, but he'd struck the nail on the head rather sharply.
Still, there was no way to explain this absurd situation, so Hyun-mo averted his gaze and let his words trail off.
"Come on, a guy can ask. Don't look at me like that..."
"Enough, stop making a fuss and let's have a drink."
"Come on, Hyun-mo — have some cider."
Did the owner of this body, Shin Hyun-mo, not drink alcohol?
"Is there any zero-calorie cider?"
"Just drink it, you bastard."
"Yes..."
Just then, Bae Jung-soo, who had been sitting quietly, raised his glass and tipped it back in one go.
'Damn... he really knows how to enjoy his soju.'
Watching him, Hyun-mo felt thirsty himself.
Maybe it was because he hadn't been drinking lately due to his diet for the film shoot, but watching the burly men knock back their drinks in one shot was making him restless.
"Hey, give me a glass too."
"What? You don't drink because you say your head hurts. See? I told you — there's definitely some other bastard in there."
"Today..."
Yeah, today it should be fine to have a drink.
"Just give me one glass."
"Well, I suppose your heart must be in a bad place too. Jung-seop hyung-nim really doted on you."
Yu Jeong-gon brought over another glass and handed it to Hyun-mo.
Hyun-mo received it with both hands in a disciplined manner and stared blankly at the soju filling the glass with a trickling sound.
"Thank you."
It was his first drink in almost a hundred days.
He turned his head and downed the soju in one go — the sharp alcohol aroma and the sweet taste swirled around his mouth.
This was bad.
Today... the soju tasted sweet.
"Well, well, you drink well, don't you? Our Hyun-mo. Finally wetting your throat after so long?"
Yu Jeong-gon smiled as he refilled Hyun-mo's glass.
"I suppose so... it's been a while."
Even from Koo Hyun-mo's perspective, it had been a long time since he'd been at such an informal, unpretentious drinking session.
He'd been to plenty of drinking gatherings, but most of top star Koo Hyun-mo's drinking sessions were business-related. Even when drinking with other actors, there were always subtle jabs and people testing the waters — and yes, even that bastard Mo Ji-gyeong had once leaked conversations from a private gathering to reporters.
That incident had blown up pretty big, so he'd ended up preferring to drink alone at home. It was the safest and most comfortable option.
'Come to think of it, it was lonely, wasn't it...'
Oh Jung-seop used to say that once you sit in the top star's seat, you're bound to be lonely. And he hadn't even gotten to sit in that seat himself...
Like he was being gaslit, Oh Jung-seop's words kept popping into his head unbidden.
At this rate, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that Oh Jung-seop had practically taken Hyun-mo's life as collateral.
"Give me one more glass."
"What? This is a first."
Suddenly, he recalled that day when he'd been drinking with Oh Jung-seop at a grilled eel restaurant in Daehak-ro — Seoul's famous theater district.
It was back when Koo Hyun-mo was still dazed after the drama he'd shot following his military discharge suddenly blew up. His bank account kept receiving sums he'd never held in his hands before, and around that same time, his mother Choi Seong-ae had started taking that money like crazy, saying she was starting a business.
Oh Jung-seop had called Koo Hyun-mo to Daehak-ro to come watch his play, and there he'd advised him to be careful of Choi Seong-ae — even if he was his own mother — and to keep a firm grip on his finances himself. Having watched what kind of person Choi Seong-ae was and how greedy she could be, he'd been deeply worried.
'Right, if it hadn't been for Oh Jung-seop's advice back then, I'd be completely ruined by now...'
With Hyun-mo's parents being anything but parental, Oh Jung-seop had been like a father to him — that much he admitted.
'There was even a time when I'd just call him up out of the blue whenever I was stuck on a performance...'
Even aside from that, the truth was that it would have been hard to have lasted this long in the acting world without Oh Jung-seop.
[Do not be afraid of greatness. Some are born great...]
That day, evidently happy to meet Hyun-mo after so long and share a drink, Oh Jung-seop had recited lines from a play. Some people dance when they're drunk, others sing — but Oh Jung-seop always recited plays.
[Some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.]
It was a line from Shakespeare's <Twelfth Night>.
Probably, he'd chosen it to comfort Hyun-mo, who was confused by all the sudden changes in his life.
'But... it's Malvolio's line.'
A pompous character who gets fooled by a fake love letter written as a prank, ends up being treated like a madman, and gets locked away in the end.
Come to think of it, it was almost like a prophecy of Hyun-mo's future. Because right now, he felt like he'd become Malvolio himself.
"Anyway, that man was really good at being sarcastic."
Hyun-mo said casually, glancing at Oh Jung-seop's photo.
"Jung-seop hyung-nim?"
"...Yes."
"Come on! That can't be. Where would you find someone as good as him for you? Our Hyun-mo, our Hyun-mo."
Right, Shin Hyun-mo must have been really close with Oh Jung-seop.
Unlike himself.
"No, he was pretty cold. Annoyingly so..."
And that cold man had left on his own, without even giving Koo Hyun-mo a chance to apologize.
"Hmhm..."
The drink had gone down, and as he looked at Oh Jung-seop's bright smile and reminisced, his emotions swelled up and threatened to spill over.
"By the way, they say Koo Hyun-mo is unconscious?"
At Yu Jeong-gon's sudden remark, Hyun-mo's mind snapped back to attention, and his tears went cold.
"Koo Hyun-mo?"
Having been so dazed by the fact that he'd entered Shin Hyun-mo's body, he hadn't had the chance to check on his own body's condition.
"Yeah, I took him to the ER, and all the doctors and nurses came swarming in — it was complete chaos. That means his condition must be serious."
While Bae Jung-soo was recounting what happened at the ER, Hyun-mo's face gradually turned pale.
"That's just how life is, you know. It's all so fleeting, isn't it? Even with that handsome face, all that money, everything one could want... health comes first."
What if he ended up in a state where he could never go back?
"No!"
Hyun-mo shot up, pulled out his phone, and frantically scrolled through articles about Koo Hyun-mo.
[Top star Koo Hyun-mo collapses while paying tribute to the late Oh Jung-seop... transferred to hospital, unconscious]
[Koo Hyun-mo faints during mourning visit after Oh Jung-seop's death... currently unconscious]
"Fuck..."
No matter how many articles he looked through, there wasn't a single one saying he'd regained consciousness. According to the script's information, Koo Hyun-mo would be lying there unconscious for a long period of 36 months.
"What's up with this bastard? Why does he seem more upset about Koo Hyun-mo collapsing than about Jung-seop hyung-nim passing away?"
If that happened, he'd lose muscle mass, and his skin would dry up like tree bark... he'd need constant care.
'My precious body... what do I do? Should I just call Manager Heo...?'
But even if he did call, he had no idea how to even broach the subject...
'What do I do...'
This was so frustrating.
"Hyun-mo, stop making a scene in front of the drinking table and sit down."
Bae Jung-soo pressed down firmly on a spot on Hyun-mo's thigh.
"Ow!"
His knees buckled automatically, and Hyun-mo found himself sitting obediently in front of the table.
It hurt, but somehow, thanks to Bae Jung-soo, he felt a little more grounded.
Right — in this situation, acting recklessly wasn't going to make anything better.
"Alright, let's wrap it up here. We've got a shoot in four hours."
"Excuse me? A shoot?"
He couldn't even grasp this situation yet, and now he had to go to a shoot just like that?
"But we've been drinking. Who's going to drive..."
"I didn't drink any alcohol. That's water, so don't worry about it."
"Ha... no, I mean. What are we shooting?"
He should at least know what he was filming. Hyun-mo pulled himself together despite his bewilderment and asked.
"Don't know? You'll find out when you get there."
An even more bewildering answer came back.
***
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