Chapter 92: Sweet Enough to Be Misunderstood

“I guess you’re getting used to it now?”

After I finished the interview as usual, the video team staff member behind the camera spoke to me with a surprised expression.

Maybe because I was distracted by the preparations that had been going on since dawn, I didn’t understand right away and reflexively said, “Huh?”

She pointed to my ear with her chin.

“Your ears aren’t turning as red as before.”

“Ah…”

I covered my ear with an embarrassed hand, fidgeting with it, and nodded.

It seemed that my ears, which until just last week had turned bright red at every word I said myself, had stayed calm all day today.

Strangely enough, this was all thanks to Seo Jun-jae.

The other day, I asked Seo Jun-jae to help me with camera training for the live broadcast, and then we kissed…

No, after I was practically forced into it, I started thinking that acting a little flashy in front of the camera was actually less embarrassing.

“…I practiced hard on camera training over the weekend.”

At my hastily made excuse, the staff member said “Ah,” nodded, then laughed and said it was a shame for the fans that I’d gotten cute.

As if it’s cute that I talk and my ears turn red.

I smiled awkwardly and thanked her anyway, just then hearing someone call “Jae-seo hyung!” from inside the waiting room.

I gave a slight nod toward the camera that sat in place of the staff member’s eyes, nose, and mouth, then quickly moved along.

***

“Right now, this is the music video shooting location for our pre-release song ‘White Night’!”

As soon as I entered the waiting room, Lee Woo-rim and Lee Chan-seo, who were heading out, grabbed me and put me back in front of the video team camera.

“Hyung, you haven’t filmed yet either, right?”

The moment I nodded at Lee Chan-seo’s question, Lee Woo-rim made a big fuss and stepped half a step forward.

Then he started listing his review after finishing his shoot earlier as if it were some great heroic tale.

“They kept shaking the set floor, wow!

Was it because of the background?

It was seriously so scary!”

Apparently just remembering the moment made him shudder.

Lee Woo-rim’s shoulders trembled as he pointed to the set space behind us, which was decorated like a ruin.

Right now, Seo Jun-jae was filming there, facing a wind machine.

“Wow, how does he even withstand that?”

Kwak Jun-sung, who had come up beside us at some point, turned his body around following Lee Woo-rim, then immediately muttered in an astonished voice.

Lee Woo-rim, who had been speechless with a dazed face, just nodded a couple times in agreement.

That was understandable.

Seo Jun-jae was facing the wind machine turned up to an intense setting to express a storm, but he stared at the camera as if nothing was happening.

The sight was so incredible that not only us but even some of the staff had stopped what they were doing to watch the shoot.

“If it were anyone else, they’d definitely become a meme and get immortalized.

And definitely not in a good way.”

Lee Woo-rim must have even imagined what it would have been like if he were in Seo Jun-jae’s position, because his face crumpled completely as he shook his head.

Then Lee Chan-seo continued in his usual calm voice.

“Hyun-tae hyung has underwater filming tomorrow.”

“Ah, so that’s…”

Kwak Jun-sung, who had reflexively opened his mouth at the news from Lee Chan-seo, glanced at the camera still filming us and then subtly trailed off.

The conversation didn’t continue, but everyone there seemed to understand what Kwak Jun-sung had meant to say.

They’re assigning the easiest shoots to mess up to the most talented guys.

“We must be the only team that levels down visual standards instead of up, right?”

That’s true.

I nodded in agreement with Lee Woo-rim, but I furrowed my brow slightly.

Because in the distance, Seo Jun-jae’s hair, being wildly tossed by the strong wind, looked almost as if it had been carefully styled over a long time.

…I wondered if this might actually backfire.

***

After watching Seo Jun-jae’s shoot for a long time, half amazed and half in awe, my turn came soon after.

By then, I had stepped barefoot onto the thick layer of sand on the floor.

“I’ll move a bit further back.”

After confirming my position with the staff, I turned my body and stood with my back to the camera.

Immediately, ‘White Night’ began to play through the set.

Following the timing I’d been given before the shoot, I slowly turned my upper body.

When I looked back, the sand scattered right in front of the wind machine flew toward my face fiercely on the wind, but I endured it and tried to stare at the camera.

“Cut!

With a more wistful expression.

Let’s go again.”

I answered “Okay” to the director’s request and turned around.

After pressing my stinging, sore eyes shut, I turned my upper body again to the music and looked at the camera.

“Okay!”

After being told “A little more!” several more times, the okay signal finally came down, and the next cut started immediately.

According to the storyboard, the scene was “digging through the sand spread on the floor and discovering a ray of light.”

Unlike the previous shoot, there was no sandstorm from the wind machine, but personally I found it much harder.

I had to pretend to desperately dig through the sand, which wasn’t very thick, and I also had to act surprised as if I’d found a light source that was supposedly hidden but didn’t actually exist.

For reasons unknown, compared to singing or dancing, my acting stat was still growing slowly, and these scenes felt far too difficult to handle with it.

“Could you let your hands tremble just a little?”

“That was too much tremble just now!”

This time too, after multiple reshoots, I finally got the okay.

After that, only the final cut with the same set remained.

As I stepped off the sand set to have my messed up hair, makeup, and outfit fixed, I kept blinking my still stinging eyes.

“Your eyes are red.”

Yeo Hyun-tae, who had been talking with a staff member near the set, approached me and spoke.

The moment I heard his words, my stinging eyes started to feel even more noticeable, and my hand reflexively went toward them.

“Don’t touch them.”

My wrist was gently caught right away.

As my eyelids kept twitching because the uncomfortable sensation wouldn’t go away, Yeo Hyun-tae looked closely at my eyes with a worried expression, then turned his head toward the makeup staff.

“Can Jae-seo use some artificial tears once?”

“Oh, did sand get in his eyes?

I can fix it right away, so yes, use them.”

Yeo Hyun-tae thanked the makeup staff, then immediately pulled a single-use artificial tear from his pocket.

He then tried to tilt my head back, so I urgently raised my free hand and grabbed his, which had wrapped from my cheek down to my neck.

“Give it to me.

I’ll do it.”

“No, Jae-seo, you were touching the sand until just now, so your hands are dirty.”

Yeo Hyun-tae lightly blocked my hand with his arm, opened the cap of the artificial tear without hesitation, and raised it to my eye.

When I saw his lips pressed stubbornly shut, I gave up first.

I obediently tilted my head back, and soon the artificial tear solution flowed into my eye.

The liquid, which slightly washed away the foreign body sensation, ran down my cheek.

“Manager Kim bought saline solution.

Let’s wipe it again after filming.”

Yeo Hyun-tae, who had even gotten a tissue somehow, wiped my eye as he spoke.

I nodded meekly, and then suddenly a laugh burst out from behind me.

“Ah, Hyun-tae, that’s so sweet!

I’m jealous, Jae-seo.”

The stylist who had been grabbing the waist of my shirt and pinning it laughed as she spoke.

She probably didn’t mean anything by it, but I felt a pang of guilt alone and abruptly pulled my body back, only to get stabbed in the waist by a pin that hadn’t been fully inserted.

“Oh dear!

Jae-seo, are you okay?”

The stylist hurriedly pulled out the pin that had dug into my skin and shouted.

I swallowed the groan that tried to escape and said I was fine.

Only then did she seem relieved, scolding me that I shouldn’t move so suddenly.

I bowed my head and apologized.

The stylist let out a short sigh, finished fixing my clothes, and then both sides came to touch up my hair and makeup.

“I’ll go again.”

After all the fixes, I went back to the center of the set and got into position.

Soon, the shooting signal came along with the end of the second chorus of ‘White Night’ starting to play.

I stomped my feet on the sand a few times to get used to the feeling of my feet constantly sinking, then straightened up to the familiar beat.

A little later, after the second chorus ended, I began dancing the choreography for what’s commonly called the dance break section.

I put strength into my feet to keep from slipping on the scattered sand mounds and carried the choreography to the end.

“Jae-seo, let’s level the ground a bit and try again.”

Instead of the director, who didn’t know dance well, Yoon Ji-heon was called over to help monitor the choreography.

Following Yoon Ji-heon’s instruction, I swept the sand with my foot a couple times to roughly flatten it, then restarted the shoot.

After dancing for the fifth time, the director’s okay signal for direction and Yoon Ji-heon’s okay for choreography came down simultaneously, and my individual cut shoot ended.

“Good work everyone!”

After greeting the shoot staff, I went straight to the bathroom and thoroughly washed my hands, which felt unpleasant from rolling around on the sand.

Then, as Yeo Hyun-tae had told me, I poured the saline solution I’d gotten from Manager Kim Jung-chan over my eyes, which felt gritty, rinsing them.

“Are you okay?”

I hadn’t sensed anyone approaching, so a voice suddenly spoke, but I wasn’t that surprised.

Because even though we’d only lived together a few days, I was already so accustomed and comfortable with him.

After finishing washing my eyes, I looked up, and a face as familiar as the voice came into my now-clear vision.

“You didn’t hurt your eyes, did you?”

Seo Jun-jae, holding a towel from somewhere, gave me a worried look and then immediately came close to me.

…Isn’t this a bit, too much?

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