Chapter 33: What changed overnight?

While Eunseong habitually repeated his familiar excuses, Jaewoo remained silent as if in thought, but soon opened his mouth.

“Just go for now. Head home.”

“Yes.”

One couldn’t easily grasp the emotions contained in Jaewoo’s voice.
Eunseong, feeling anxious, sat up straight, fastened his seatbelt, started the engine, and drove the car with practiced movements.

He didn’t expect the conversation to end like this. His partner was a persistent person.

“So what did he say?”

As expected, not long after the car started, Jaewoo asked again. His mouth went dry, so Eunseong licked his lips several times.

‘Eunseong-ssi, you also know that those words are unjust.’

Sayoung’s voice wouldn’t disappear and kept hovering in Eunseong’s ears.
Honestly speaking, Eunseong thought it was Sayoung’s words that were unjust.

‘What sin did I commit?’

He had only done as told and didn’t have the power or ability to refuse. It was unavoidable.

Whether what Han Jaewoo did was unjust or not, Eunseong had neither reason nor qualification to judge such things.

‘But why does he speak as if I am the same person as Han Jaewoo?’

Caught between fiercely clashing guilt and resistance, Eunseong opened his mouth.

“He asked if hyung-nim… had no right to say such things to him….”

Eunseong spoke exactly as he heard without properly concealing Sayoung’s words.
Goosebumps rose along his spine at Jaewoo’s sharp counter-question,

“What?”

It was hard to distinguish whether it was from fear or gratification.

“He said my conveying those words was also unjust….”

“…….”

“He said his answer wouldn’t be important anyway, so I should go and give the answer hyung-nim wants… saying that, he refused further conversation.”

He deliberately didn’t choose his words carefully or adjust them to upset Jaewoo less. It wasn’t clear if it was for personal gratification or if there was another reason.
Either way, it wasn’t an important fact.

Eunseong glanced at the rearview mirror to check Jaewoo’s expression. He looked literally as if he had been hit on the back of the head.

“I have no right? He said that?”

“Yes. And he said they were unjust words.”

Jaewoo asked, raising his voice.

Although he knew it was a question like talking to himself that didn’t need an answer, Eunseong answered deliberately.

Then he saw Jaewoo glaring at him with fierce eyes through the rearview mirror. Eunseong realized it was time to shut his mouth.

“Did he really go crazy or something?”

Jaewoo, who gave a silent warning to Eunseong whose words had been grating on him for a while, muttered while looking out the window.
It wasn’t simply a level of being angry or offended; he just couldn’t understand.

Yoon Sayoung, no matter that he didn’t say it directly to Jaewoo, mentioning qualifications regarding Han Jaewoo was nonsense.
Yet, there was no way Eunseong would fabricate words that didn’t exist.

“It was strange….”

Jaewoo’s eyes became wet with deep thought. This was crossing the line too much.

People can change.

But if that change is excessively dramatic like the current Sayoung, anyone would have to be suspicious at least once.

There was no special trigger, nor was there a big incident. Yoon Sayoung changed literally overnight.

The person who had been servilely clinging while enduring all kinds of humiliation until just the day before suddenly demanded a divorce with a calm face the next day.

But now, as if that wasn’t enough, he said Jaewoo had no right.

Even if Sayoung’s intention was truly to shake Jaewoo’s heart by giving him an unexpected shock, he couldn’t believe he had said and done such things.

Doubts he had lightly passed over, thinking they wouldn’t be involved again, returned and poked at Jaewoo’s chin.

He was curious about what kind of change of heart he had undergone, to the point he wanted to go find Sayoung immediately and ask.

And Han Jaewoo realized one fact only now.
That even while divorcing Sayoung, he hadn’t thought he would truly leave him completely.

Although he demanded divorce momentarily after being driven into a corner, Jaewoo had vaguely thought without realizing it that once time passed and Sayoung came to his senses, he would regret breaking up and cling to him again.

Jaewoo bit his lip like an anxious person.

Pieces that didn’t fit somewhere messed up his head as they pleased. Something was misaligned, but he couldn’t quite find out what it was.

Jaewoo opened his mouth with feelings as uncomfortable as chewing sand.

“Find out when Yoon Sayoung goes to the hospital again.”

Han Jaewoo hated variables.

He had a temperament where he was satisfied only when everything was under his control.
At this time when he was trying to move on to a new point in life, he didn’t want Sayoung to become an ambiguous obstacle again.

So Jaewoo decided to check if Sayoung could say the same thing as he did to Eunseong even after seeing his face.

If he met him in person, he would be able to properly grasp what state Sayoung was currently in.

“…Yes.”

Hearing Eunseong’s answer, Jaewoo closed his eyes.

It was certain that if Sayoung saw his face directly, he would tremble and not know what to do.
Imagining that sight, his sunken mood seemed to improve a little.

****

Yoojun was anxious. But he didn’t want to admit it. Because there was no reason to be anxious.

The previous movie filming had finished well without issues.

Although the box office success of a film is unknown until it opens, there is no way it would flop when he passionately played the protagonist with a scenario of this caliber.

Even if it flops, at Yoojun’s current position, that level wouldn’t become even a speck of a blemish.
The next project was an anticipated work that was even harder to flop.

There might be those who receive greater pressure the more it is so, but Yoojun was not that type. Yoojun was a person who enjoyed pressure, and had always proved himself by overcoming it and obtaining greater results.

So to say again, Yoojun currently had really, really not a single reason to be anxious. Therefore, feeling anxiety was nonsensical.

So Yoojun exercised pretending to be calm. He sweated more excessively than usual and took a refreshing shower. Yet it wasn’t enough to relieve his anxious mind.

He held a book in his hand. Usually, Yoojun tended to concentrate easily on books too, but strangely, the letters didn’t catch his eye.

Eventually, he closed the book without turning many pages.

Next, grasping at straws, he turned on the TV. As he opened the OTT service app he habitually used, the thumbnail of Yoon Sayoung’s drama he had stopped watching last time was visible on the main screen.

Only then did Yoojun realize where this persistent anxiety he couldn’t understand, didn’t want to admit, and whose identity was unknown to him originated from.

“It’s driving me crazy, really….” Yoojun ruffled his own hair roughly as if annoyed.

As soon as he recognized Sayoung, the blocked walls all unfolded as if expanding, and his mind became clear.

Yoojun’s gaze headed toward the mobile phone placed on the sofa table. That was it.

Yoojun was currently curious about Sayoung. He was curious to the point of going crazy.
And he was feeling anxious because he couldn’t resolve that curiosity.

Only then did Yoojun realize that he hadn’t stopped thinking about him for a single moment since parting with Sayoung today.

The image of Sayoung scratching the back of his hand and harming himself with a precarious expression remained like an imprint in his head and wouldn’t be erased easily.

It was the first time he had seen a person in such an unstable-looking state directly with his own eyes in reality, not in a work.

It would be hard to find a person who could remain calm after seeing such a sight.
So, himself currently floundering in thoughts of Yoon Sayoung like this belongs to the category of extremely normal humans.

Yoojun glared at his phone and began to convince himself step by step.

A person in such an unstable state is alone at home.
‘How sound could the mind of a person who dreams of revenge after experiencing death once and turning back time be?’

Whether all those words are true or false, Sayoung’s state is extremely abnormal anyway.

That means no one can predict what situation the solitary Sayoung is currently in, and the extreme choices an abnormal person could make would be countless.

If he didn’t know at all, it might be different, but Yoojun wasn’t such human trash as to pretend not to know even after guessing someone might experience a tragic event.

Ultimately, Yoojun grabbing his phone and finding his number means it was an extremely basic and natural action that anyone must perform if they are human.

Yoojun convinced himself like that, chewed his lip, and pressed the call button.

****

Contrary to Kim Yoojun’s worry, Sayoung was eating salad sitting at the dining table after finishing the audition practice he had concentrated on for a long time.

It wasn’t a sufficient meal, but it was better than starving.

On the tablet placed on the dining table, a movie was playing. It was the most recent work filmed by the director of the movie <Summer Solstice>.

Although it was a thriller set in modern times completely different from <Summer Solstice> and a work he had already seen, Sayoung was rewatching all of the director’s works because he wanted to grasp in what way the director directed acting.

It was at that moment the mobile phone vibrated loudly.
Sayoung, who had pushed a piece of tomato into his mouth, was surprised, stopped the playback, and checked the phone.

[Mr. Kim Yoojun]

The name that appeared honestly on the screen was a completely unexpected figure. He momentarily wondered if something had happened.

He recalled that Jaewoo’s manager Eunseong had visited him today.

The thought occurred only now that perhaps Han Jaewoo hadn’t reacted only to him. Sayoung roughly swallowed the food remaining in his mouth, drank a sip of water to clear his throat, and answered the call.

“This is Yoon Sayoung.”

“This is Kim Yoojun.”

There was a short pause in Yoojun’s answer. Of course, Sayoung had no way of knowing that it was because Yoojun was a little flustered by Sayoung’s voice being excessively calm.

However, because Yoojun’s voice sounded a little unstable, Sayoung rather worried about Yoojun and asked.

“Yes, Yoojun. Is something wrong?”

“Th, that is….” Yoojun remained flustered.

He called because he was worried something might have happened to Sayoung, but since Sayoung asked if something was wrong with Yoojun instead, there was no way he had words to answer.

Yoojun had called literally without preparing any particular excuse because he worried excessively about Sayoung, and because of that, Yoojun stuttered at Sayoung’s question.

But Sayoung, who still had no way of knowing those circumstances, became convinced his guess was right at Yoojun’s trembling voice and asked.

“Did Han Jaewoo contact you too, Yoojun?”

“That bastard contacted you?”

As a result, Yoojun learned the information he wanted—‘some matter that might have happened to Yoon Sayoung’.

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