Chapter 18: Stepping Into the Light

The word mom came out of Lee Jae-hoon’s mouth, and the rage I had barely been holding down shot up to the top of my head as if it would explode any second.

I clenched and unclenched my fist over and over. I sincerely wanted to tear the Lee Jae-hoon in front of me to shreds.

It was still a painful wound to me, a horrible past that still tormented me in my dreams. How, how…!

My body, covered in heat, trembled. My brain went numb, and I couldn’t make rational judgments.

“Jae-hoon, let’s go. That’s enough.”

His manager must have decided he couldn’t stand the increasingly severe abuse, because he came over to my side while watching my expression. Lee Jae-hoon seemed to enjoy my face turning red and blue; he passed by with a full sneer, shoving my shoulder hard.

“Lee Jae-hoon.”

At my cold voice, Lee Jae-hoon frowned and turned back. He looked at me with arrogant eyes, as if asking how someone like me dared to call his name. I forced my trembling lips upward. I made the calmest, most obnoxious expression I could so that Lee Jae-hoon would get as angry as possible.

“I changed my mind.”

“What?”

“You said you wanted the role of Lauren, didn’t you? Sorry, but I’m going to take it.”

Lee Jae-hoon’s face twisted viciously and turned bright red. He looked furious. Seeing that, a little thrill rose inside me. Even when I was at the agency in Korea, everyone had no choice but to watch Lee Jae-hoon’s mood. No matter what I wanted to do, opportunities went to Lee Jae-hoon first, and the work he threw away was divided nicely among me and the other members.

He had never once failed to get or have what he wanted. It was just natural. So I wanted to make Lauren, the role that had brought Lee Jae-hoon all the way to America, the first role he could not have. I didn’t care if it was childish. In this situation, this was the only thing I could take from him.

“You think I’ll just sit still?”

“Do whatever you want. I told you, didn’t I? This time I won’t stay still.”

What I had just said was bluff. I already knew there was nothing I could do right now. I had hit the wall of reality too quickly not to know. But I didn’t want to show weakness anymore. Even if it was like this, I wanted Lee Jae-hoon, who had taken so much from me, to feel what I felt. Of course, compared to what I had lost, this was a very small thing.

Lee Jae-hoon trembled all over and glared at me as if he would kill me. He walked slowly toward me. It felt like he was about to hit me. His manager looked uneasy, but he couldn’t bring himself to stop Lee Jae-hoon and only watched nervously.

“Come here. Let’s go.”

Raymond called out to me. I don’t know when he had come out. When I heard his voice, my chest, full of rage, grew tight. My fogged head cleared, and reason returned. I didn’t know what I might have done if I had stayed there longer. I forced my twisting face into a blank expression and followed Raymond.

Behind me, I heard Lee Jae-hoon swear, “Hey, you bastard!” But it didn’t matter. I just wanted to get out of there as fast as possible, even a moment sooner.

I didn’t know since when Raymond had been standing behind me, but he must have noticed the general atmosphere. Even if he couldn’t understand the meaning because it was Korean, he would have known enough that the relationship between him and me was not normal. Fortunately, he didn’t ask about it even in the car. I closed my eyes quietly. Horrible old memories I didn’t want to recall kept stirring up my mind.

At the time the incident broke, I had a girlfriend I had been dating for about six months. I wouldn’t say we loved each other deeply, but I thought we liked each other in our own way. But maybe she didn’t. I don’t know how Lee Jae-hoon found out about my girlfriend or how he got in contact with her. Well, if he spent a little money, finding out that much would have been easy.

He bought her with money. In exchange for the money, she reported that I had sexually assaulted her, just as Lee Jae-hoon ordered. The case caused a huge social uproar. Reporters swarmed like bees. A famous idol, and sexual assault of a minor on top of that. They couldn’t have had a more delicious piece of prey.

The girlfriend who had whispered love to me the day before turned me into a s*x offender in an instant. The criminal record, so opposite to my innocent image, threw much of the public into panic. Soon that feeling turned into betrayal, and they turned their backs on me without even trying to learn the truth.

Maybe the truth was never that important to them from the beginning. Maybe they just needed something to talk about.

Needless to say, I was cleared of the charges and declared innocent. But the public criticism didn’t stop. No, it got worse. At some point, baseless rumors began to spread: that I got away with it because I was a celebrity, that I buried it with money. That was probably what Lee Jae-hoon was aiming for.

Back then, all sorts of rumors really did circulate online. There were claims that I was a school bully, posts saying I had beaten someone nearly to death, posts saying I had forced cigarettes on someone, and absurd posts saying I had two-timed, then four-timed, five-timed, octopus-legged. Dozens of fake posts went up every day under the guise of people who knew me, claiming they had been truly betrayed.

At that time, my mind was too weak to bear their contempt. It was so hard. The people talking about me, the people looking at me. And I was just afraid of people. For a while I shut myself in my room and lived suffocated by the fear of people.

On top of that, I said cruel things to my worried mother. I had nowhere to pour out the anger piled up inside me, the rage swelling as if it would burst, so I took it out on my mother, who had done nothing wrong. My mind was pushed to its limit, and I thought there could be no greater pain than this, that I was the unhappiest person in the world. It was a foolish and arrogant thought.

Then, as if punishing me, an even greater misfortune and pain came. Not long after the incident broke, my mother died in a traffic accident. It happened in an instant, truly like a lie. I couldn’t even feel it was real. As if determined not to leave me even a sliver of hope, it took away the only person on my side, so cruelly. The sudden empty space was so large that every day I lived was like hell.

What did I do so wrong? Why are you doing this to me? I was wrong. Everything was my fault, so just give my mother back. Hundreds of times a day, like a madman, I begged at the wall. If I had known that was the last time, if I had known I would never see my mother again, I wouldn’t have acted so badly. I knew that no matter how many thousand or ten thousand times I regretted it, the past could not be undone, but all day long I blamed myself and regretted it again.

News of my mother’s death spread quickly to the public. For a moment, some public opinion pitied me, but most people sneered that my mother had been punished and died in place of her trash son. They criticized and mocked her, saying she died well for the sin of raising her son badly.

I didn’t do anything wrong…

Why does my mother have to hear that kind of criticism even in death? Why was the last thing she saw her son being despised by the whole country?

Everyone said my mother died because of me. Did my mother really die because of me? I was afraid. It seemed true. Everyone said I was trash, so I felt like I was. I had to spend each day gnawing at myself, wandering through guilt and fear. And when I could no longer hold on, I ran away from that place. I ran to a place with no one, a place where no one knew me.

I left Korea, where my ex-girlfriend who betrayed me, Lee Jae-hoon who framed me, and the fans who said they would love me forever but in the end did not believe me all were. I ran away from Korea, a place full of memories of my mother.

“What?”

Lisa shouted so loudly that people in the restaurant turned to look at us. But she didn’t care; she frowned deeply.

“You met Lee Jae-hoon? That bastard?”

Lee Jae-hoon is a year older than Lisa and the same age as me, but Lisa had disliked him since Korea, so I was used to hearing her talk about him without honorifics.

“Yeah. I went along with Raymond’s schedule.”

“How did that happen!”

Honestly, even I, who had met Lee Jae-hoon in person, couldn’t quite believe yesterday had happened. Lisa, who only heard about it secondhand, must feel it even more. To reunite with Lee Jae-hoon in America, of all places.

“Lee Jae-hoon is after a role in The Day of the End, the drama Raymond is starring in. Yesterday was the meeting schedule for that drama.”

“Wow, how does it all connect like that? More importantly, Lee Jae-hoon was living very well, eating well. That pisses me off. Yeah, so?”

She looked at me seriously, silently telling me to hurry and say more. I had no reason to hide it, so I told her everything: that Lee Jae-hoon had auditioned that day, and that I had received a casting offer from Director Peter Williams.

“Casting? Wow, oppa, that’s amazing. Anyway, doesn’t Lee Jae-hoon feel any guilt when he sees you?”

“Since when does he have a conscience?”

“That son of a b*tch Lee Jae-hoon… Ah, just thinking about it makes me angry again. He always had a huge inferiority complex about you. That’s why he framed you to drive you out of the group.”

Most people at the company secretly knew that Lee Jae-hoon had framed me as a s*x offender. But Lee Jae-hoon was as confident as ever. There was no one to point out that what he did was wrong, and with backing behind him, he had nothing to fear.

While talking to Lisa, I remembered that yesterday I had lost my reason and declared to Lee Jae-hoon that I would play Lauren. Why did I do that? Actually, thinking about the things he said yesterday still made rage surge up. And if I, who hated Lauren so much, played the role Lee Jae-hoon wanted so badly, just imagining how angry he would be felt satisfying.

But the problem was that Lee Jae-hoon had brought up Lisa. If Lisa suffered because of me, I don’t think I could face her. I knew that even in Korea, malicious comments had made things hard for her. When my expression darkened, Lisa noticed and asked again with a serious face.

“What? So what happened?”

I hesitated for a long time, then told her exactly what Lee Jae-hoon had said yesterday. Including that I had said out of spite that I would play Lauren. Lisa listened with a blank face, then couldn’t hold back; her face turned red and she slammed down the spoon she was holding. She was so angry she huffed.

“Is that a person? He’s trash wearing a human mask! I can’t stand it. Oppa, you have to play Lauren! For Lee Jae-hoon, who has such a deep inferiority complex about you, there’s no better revenge than that!”

“Lisa, but this isn’t a simple matter. Lee Jae-hoon is the kind of person who would spread really strange rumors and still come out fine.”

“It doesn’t matter. Even if he says that, he won’t be able to touch me easily. And the truth always comes out. I’m not as weak-minded as I used to be. Plus, it’s nonsense to miss a good opportunity like this because I’m afraid of a few rumors.”

“…”

“Are you going to run away again this time?”

“I don’t want to run away anymore.”

At my answer, Lisa smiled brightly as if satisfied.

“Now you’re starting to look like Park Seung-won from the old days.”

So from lunchtime I was caught up in a big worry. I had boldly said I wouldn’t run away like a fool anymore, but to do that, I first had to secure the role of Lauren. Then I would have to tell Sophia first, and eventually reveal that I had worked in the Korean entertainment industry and had come to America because of a certain incident.

Telling them about my past would take considerable courage. I would have to dig up wounds I had been pretending not to see. This was also the first step in changing my way of thinking, that avoiding it had been the best method until now.

Even now, the thought of talking about the past I had hidden felt overwhelming, but for Lisa, who had cheered me on, I had to gather courage. Still, before telling Sophia, it would be better to tell Raymond first, right? I glanced at him as he drove.

“Raymond.”

“Yeah.”

“Um… I have something to tell you.”

I stopped talking and closed my mouth again, organizing my thoughts for a moment about where to begin. Maybe it was better to start by telling him I had been a singer.

“Actually, when I was in Korea, I worked as a singer.”

Maybe he was surprised by the sudden remark, or maybe the fact that I had been a singer was unexpected. Raymond glanced at me once and turned his eyes back to the road.

“You don’t believe I was a singer?”

“I saw your skill at the festival, so I had some idea.”

“Skill? You said you didn’t come that day.”

“The video.”

“Ah, you saw the video.”

Since so many people had filmed the festival, it made sense he had seen it at least once. I nodded and continued.

“Actually, since my trainee days I took acting lessons steadily, and I filmed a few dramas. The reason I’m telling you this is that I’m thinking of playing Lauren in The Day of the End.”

I looked at Raymond with an anxious heart, wondering what expression he would make, what if he disliked it. But there was no sign of dislike at all; he just drove with the same blank expression as usual.

“Would you dislike it if I played Lauren?”

“Not really. You have talent for acting.”

I was startled by the sudden praise. To think the day would come when I received praise from the blunt Raymond. Even during script practice, he had never said I was good or anything similar, so I hadn’t known he thought that. Thanks to that, I even felt touched.

When Raymond and I entered Matthew’s office, Sophia was there again today. She took a sip of coffee and raised her hand high to greet us.

“Welcome. Did the meeting go well yesterday?”

“Yes. Actually, I have something to say about that.”

Sophia and Matthew looked at me curiously.

“Something to say? What is it?”

For me, who had rejected the role of Lauren consistently for a long time, suddenly saying I would take it was a little embarrassing. I was also worried what Sophia would think.

“Actually, the role of Lauren. I’m thinking… I might try it.”

Sophia had been drinking her coffee with a relaxed expression, but she seemed genuinely surprised; her mouth just hung open. Then she came to her senses and leaned in so close it felt aggressive.

“What? Say that again!”

“The role of Lauren…”

“Seung-won! Why did you suddenly have such a wonderful thought!”

Sophia shouted in an excited voice. Matthew beside her was also smiling as if surprised.

“Just…”

“Honestly, I had given up, but you made a good decision. Taking this opportunity will definitely be good groundwork for you.”

Sophia put down her coffee cup and picked up the phone on the table.

“No, let’s call the director first. He’ll definitely like you too.”

“Actually, I already auditioned yesterday.”

“What? You auditioned?”

“Yes, somehow… But the director said to decide by today, so please call him.”

“I really have an eye for these things, don’t I? So that picky man chose you? Wow, this is really amazing.”

Sophia kept marveling and called the director. After a short conversation, she hung up.

“The director praised you and said it was a wise choice. Anyway, an audition? Weren’t you nervous?”

“I wasn’t really nervous… More than that, there’s something else I need to tell you.”

“What now? It’s not another shocking thing, is it?”

Sophia laughed heartily, looking pleased. It probably is a shocking thing… I sat across from Sophia on the sofa and slowly opened my mouth. Then I explained that I had worked as a singer in Korea, that I had been despised and looked down on by everyone because of a false accusation, and that after my mother’s sudden death I had no choice but to flee Korea for America.

Even while talking, there were times my throat tightened and the words wouldn’t come out well. When the memories of that time came back vividly and I had to stop and pause, Sophia and Matthew waited with warm eyes as if it was okay, letting me say everything. Thanks to that, I was able to tell the whole story. Without their silent support, I would never have been able to finish.

Having spoken aloud a story I had kept to myself because I couldn’t tell anyone, my heart felt lighter than I expected.

Then Sophia wiped away a few tears. She must have been empathizing with my story from the middle; she made a dumbfounded expression, then an angry one, over and over. Later she even shed a few tears, her expression changing constantly.

“I really never imagined you had that kind of pain. And I didn’t understand why you didn’t want to play Lauren so much. I’m sorry.”

“What do you have to be sorry for, Sophia?”

“Anyway, I really can’t believe it. How can a person do something like that?”

Sophia said with a shudder. Matthew beside her also looked sickened after hearing about his misdeeds.

“That’s really terrible. To carry such a huge thing alone. How hard it must have been for you all this time.”

I was grateful for their warm comfort. Sophia, who had been wiping her eyes with a tissue, raised her head again and looked at me with curious eyes.

“But even after going through all that, why do you suddenly want to join the drama? Will you be okay?”

“Yes. I’I’m not going to run away or hide like a fool anymore.”

Today is the script reading for The Day of the End. It was supposed to be the day I took my first step, but it wasn’t smooth from the start.

Last night, even though I kept telling myself to sleep, thoughts kept popping up and I had to toss and turn all night. I fell asleep long after sunrise and couldn’t hear my alarm, which made things worse.

Thanks to the bell ringing now, I barely woke up, but the sad thing was that it was Raymond calling. I pushed my messy hair back and checked the clock several times. Clinging to a small hope that maybe I had misread the time. But no matter how much I blinked, the time of course didn’t change, and soon I had to accept the scary reality.

The look in Raymond’s eyes when he stared at the female model who was late during the last photo shoot kept flickering in my head. I cleared my locked throat once and quickly answered the phone.

“Hello.”

“I’m on the first floor. Come down.”

“Raymond… can you come up to my apartment for a moment?”

“Why.”

“No, just a moment.”

Fortunately, Raymond answered okay without saying much and hung up. I had asked him to come up in case he might leave me behind, but I could already imagine what expression he would make when he saw me, and a deep sigh escaped me. I was fidgeting and staring at the door when the doorbell rang. I grabbed the handle and opened the door with the most pitiful expression I could manage.

Still, there’s a saying that you can’t spit on a smiling face. I decided to believe in that proverb with a thread of hope. Ah, he wouldn’t really curse at me, would he? Knowing Raymond’s personality, there was a higher chance he would just turn around and leave with a blank face.

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