Hoooouuung─
The winter wind felt like it was cutting through the skin with its coldness. Kim Sun-il blankly looked around himself. Upon regaining his senses, he realized that he was in an unfamiliar place.
Afterwards, when something cold began to fall from the sky, he checked what it was. It was something white and large in chunks – the heavy snow was piling up gently.
“…”
This was a bizarre situation.
Just a moment ago, he had been stepping on the gas pedal, but upon noticing, everything had changed around him. Yet what was even more unusual was:
This place was incredibly familiar to Kim Sun-il.
“…”
‘This place…’
The entrance to a public bathhouse.
It was the distant past, the place where Kim Sun-il had been abandoned.
Could there have been an accident?
Or did he lose consciousness while driving, maybe? Either way, things had turned out as Kim Sun-il had desired. He had felt like skipping the filming anyway.
But then, Kim Sun-il was greatly startled.
Because he saw a familiar face at the public bathhouse entrance.
“Go take a bath and come out. Your mother will wait here.”
“Mother?”
“I’ve already bathed at home. Especially you, Sun-il, you don’t even wash yourself properly after playing outside, do you? If you’re not clean enough, I won’t take you home. You need to wash yourself thoroughly.”
The younger versions of himself and his little sister held hands and nodded.
The mother, as vividly remembered, gave her children a careful warning.
It’s so vivid.
Yes, it was that vividness that was the problem.
“…”
Because, on the face of the mother walking away as if fleeing somewhere, Kim Sun-il saw an expression he had never witnessed in the past.
It was a look that showed weariness, and at the same time, something unbearably cold. Something that the children, who were only watching her back in confusion, couldn’t even imagine.
“Hey.”
“Hey!”
But his words did not reach her. His attempt to grab her shoulder passed through her as if she were a mirage.
Meanwhile, the children decided to take a bath.
“Come on, I’ll go inside and bathe.”
“Shall we take your doll in too?”
“Uh-huh. I’ll be lonely alone.”
Kim Sun-il could only watch everything happen.
Afterwards, how much time had passed?
Having finished bathing, the children came out with their skin turned pink. They held hands tightly, and with the rare pocket money given by their mother, they each bought a carton of soy milk.
“Hot, hot… It’s too hot.”
“We should blow on it before drinking.”
Naively, without a care, they drank the soy milk. They had no idea that the pocket money was given by the mother to ease her guilt.
Hooooouuuung─
The snow continued to pile up softly.
The children waited until the warmth of the soy milk cartons was completely gone. To a young child, nothing was more absolute than the words of their mother.
“Mommy, when will she come?”
“She’ll come soon.”
The children did not doubt their mother.
Instead, they started playing with the accumulated snow, forming it into balls. What better toy could there be for children than snow?
That movement was so pure, it tightened Kim Sun-il’s chest just by watching.
And yet, the mother never came.
Not even after a long, long time.
“Big Brother, mommy’s not coming.”
“Yes, she is.”
“It’s cold…”
“Let’s go back inside and wash again then. We’ve gotten dirty again.”
Even though Kim Sun-il thought his heart had hardened long ago, he felt sharp stabs as if pricked by thorns. The younger version of himself was even more innocent than he’d remembered.
“Don’t wait. That woman won’t come. Not even at the end.”
But despite Kim Sun-il’s quiet muttering,
The siblings bathed a few more times and never once doubted their mother. They stopped playing with the snow, thinking their mother might get angry if she saw.
Finally, as the bright sun disappeared.
An unexpected event occurred.
“Big Brother! Big Brother!”
“Yes?”
“I lost my doll, we need to find it.”
“Doll?”
“…”
‘What is this? Is my memory wrong?’
There was no such episode in his memory. He remembered simply waiting until morning.
However, Kim Sun-il quickly discarded his doubts. It was a dream, after all. In a dream, anything could happen.
At that moment, his younger self shook his head.
“No. What if mom comes in the meantime?”
“But… the doll…”
“Let’s wait a little longer.”
“No… We need to go now…”
The younger sister started to cry softly.
“If mom bought it for us, she’ll be mad if we lose it.”
Ultimately, the young siblings went back inside the public bathhouse and reappeared only hours later. Though the mother still hadn’t arrived, the younger sister had managed to find her stuffed doll.
“I found it! Thank goodness!”
“Hmm…”
Unlike the cheerful sister, the young Sun-il showed clear signs of anxiety.
It was natural. Even though they were both quite young, the older Sun-il was clearly older than his sister. He had to understand the situation faster and think more deeply.
The young Sun-il was starting to feel uneasy about this situation.
After quite a long time. Then another long while.
“Cold…”
“Yes.”
“Big Brother… I’m so cold…”
As the sun rose again, the siblings began to tremble with anxiety. Not only because of the cold, but more so due to the mother’s long absence.
Making their way back home on their own would be impossible.
The mother had left the siblings in an unfamiliar place far from home. This was the entrance to a bathhouse in who-knows-where.
To begin with, they could not even think of wandering around.
Beliefs are like that. These small children firmly believed that their mother would return soon. That belief held them back so strongly that they couldn’t even think of wandering around the vicinity.
Then, suddenly.
“Big Brother…”
The younger sister finally spoke with her frozen lips.
“Mommy… isn’t she coming…?”
“What nonsense.”
The young Sun-il’s voice instantly carried irritation. For he was the most anxious person of all.
“Why are you always whining? Wait a little longer.”
“But…”
In the bitter cold, snow piled up on the siblings’ woolen caps, but that was not the biggest problem. The siblings simply waited for their mother to finally appear.
“Big Brother, Mommy’s not coming…”
“She will come.”
“No, Big Brother… Mommy’s not coming…”
Finally, the younger sister started crying.
“Big Brother, we have to find mommy.”
“Wait.”
“No, Big Brother… We have to go look for her…”
The sister is young,
believing her older brother can do anything. But the young Sun-il realized how powerless he was.
“Let’s wait.”
Therefore, he could answer nothing but the same.
“Big Brother, please look for her…”
At some point, the young Sun-il opened his eyes wide.
“Shut your mouth! This is all your fault!”
“…”
The younger sister was taken aback in shock.
Her whole body trembled; for a young child, her brother’s anger would be an unimaginable shock.
Simultaneously, Kim Sun-il realized something.
‘This memory is coming back…’
The memory returned.
This wasn’t a dream; this actually happened.
He had gone berserk and yelled at his sister.
His mind was growing restless, and more anxious than anyone else, the whiny sister seemed so foolish, and that made him even more restless, so he vented his frustration on her.
Why had he forgotten it all this time?
The young Sun-il started to rant.
“Our mother might have just left! She could have gone while we were looking for the doll! All because of that stupid doll!”
“O-Oh Brother…”
“Damn doll! What is so important about it!”
“Stop it.”
Kim Sun-il spoke. It felt like his heart was being squeezed.
Yet the young Sun-il would not stop.
“It’s your fault! Mom’s not coming because of you!”
“…”
“It’s all your fault! You!”
Simultaneously, Kim Sun-il realized something.
Why his sister struggled with speech.
The grown-up Kim Sun-il remembered the day he’d been abandoned just as vividly as he did; similarly, his sister must have remembered her childhood clearly as well.
Just as he had blamed himself over his uncleanness for his mother’s departure, his sister had felt guilty toward him all these years. Yet, in reality, there was nothing to be sorry for.
“…”
Kim Sun-il shut his mouth, and…
Afterwards, there was no further conversation between the siblings. They were as quiet as mice.
That night.
“…”
…
Kim Sun-il’s spirit was dazed, but this strange space never ceased its revelations.
Then the scenery changed, and he saw a slightly older version of himself.
Perhaps in middle school?
At this age, he was already quite successful.
He had already embarked on the path of an actor and had successfully appeared in a few dramas. He had reached a stage where he could buy his younger sister everything she wanted.
But Kim Sun-il felt a sense of dissonance as he watched the younger him.
“Was I really making that expression?”
When viewed from someone else’s perspective, it became clear.
The middle school version of himself looked as though he could collapse at any moment. His expression seemed like he was being chased by something, and his posture looked as though he carried all kinds of misfortunes on his shoulders.
On the dressing room mirror, there were his written goals.
1. Be successful and make lots of money.
2. Give my younger sister everything she wants.
3. Cleanliness.
Solid and straightforward goals, but to the current Kim Sun-il, they appeared strangely.
Was it because of the recent conversation with Sua?
Was it because he now understood why his sister felt guilty?
The element of ‘happiness’ now weighed on his mind.
In his goals, there was nothing about happiness. Moreover, it certainly wasn’t what his younger sister might have wanted.
It seemed so inadequate now.
Subsequently, Kim Sun-il watched as days and nights of the rehearsal room scenery passed.
What caught his eye was the increasingly crumpled expression on the face of his young self, who looked utterly miserable.
“Why?”
Kim Sun-il tried to identify the reasons.
Why was he unhappy?
To be more precise, why was he becoming unhappier despite improving circumstances? It was certainly not something comprehensible by common sense.
Was it because his sister was sick and that worried him?
But he soon discovered this hypothesis was incorrect.
Even on the day his sister appeared to have fully recovered and was temporarily discharged from the hospital, he still wore a dark expression, filled with nothing more than relief, not happiness.
Kim Sun-il continued searching for the reasons, and eventually found them.
Simply by observing his past, it became clear.
The younger Kim Sun-il, it turned out, was looking through social media on his phone. Various photos caught his eyes.
Some people were meeting someone else to eat delicious food.
Some people were traveling to exciting places with others.
Some were gathering around, having loads of fun.
Social media was filled with such posts. And while observing them, the younger him had muttered a short response.
“How pitiful.”
From this, Kim Sun-il understood one thing: He viewed happiness as something to be avoided.
Finally, it struck him what the problem was.
When he was living his life as the main character, he had no idea. But now, as an outsider, it was glaringly obvious.
From the beginning, he had never intended to be happy.
If anything, Kim Sun-il had this thought – that he didn’t deserve happiness.
To him, happiness was just a waste of time.
Children who had lost their parents had no tools to prevent being looked down upon other than social success. And he had regarded happiness as something that couldn’t coexist with success.
Success, he believed, was something that could only be achieved through relentless effort.
Thus, he harbored a strong aversion to happiness.
He compared happiness to his mother.
Isn’t happiness something that can betray you at any moment? No matter how joyfully you try to live, isn’t it true that only success and money could ultimately guarantee your life?
And then, at some moment.
Ssssssssswiping the broom –
It seemed the younger Kim Sun-il had finished his acting practice and began cleaning the surroundings with the broom.
Suddenly, while cleaning, young Kim paused and muttered to himself with an utterly empty look in his eyes.
“Why did I end up like this? Am I destined to live like this for the rest of my life?”
The voice was depressingly gloomy in his ears.
That question which he had brushed aside back then when busy working hard — why is everything so tough? His misery wasn’t due to physical fatigue but the illness of his heart.
He understood it now.
“… you, or rather, I..”
So Kim Sun-il said.
“I didn’t acknowledge that I was pitiable and unfortunate.”
He meticulously strived for cleanliness and tried hard not to show vulnerabilities.
To become the person suitable for success, that’s what he did.
But it bore no relation to happiness. In fact, he didn’t even know who he truly was.
He thought he was strong, but in reality, he was extraordinarily fragile.
He deemed himself clean, yet in fact, he was a transparent state that bore nothing.
He was no more than an empty sheet of paper.
Ssssssswiping –
Yes, right now, the younger Kim was scrubbing his hands with sanitizer like crazy.
Ssssssswiping – Ssssssswiping –
Like someone suffering from an illness, he was violently wiping his hands that collected dust from cleaning.
The scope expanded to his arms.
His actions grew more frantic, resembling some sort of seizure.
“Always, I need to stay clean… I must stay clean…”
Obsessive cleanliness.
In fact, it bordered on pathological.
“I am… I must not be dirty…”
To deny the fact that he was abandoned by his parents, he had been endlessly “whitewashing” himself.
He didn’t know what happiness was or what unhappiness was.
Thus, he wiped away everything that touched his body and mind.
At least, nothing bad would remain this way. So he wiped them all away desperately, always, to prevent getting hurt.
And watching the younger version of himself, Kim Sun-il thought.
“So, how should I proceed from now?”
He had understood why he was unhappy.
But still,
he didn’t know how to make himself happy.
Despite his resolve to be happy, a person who had always pushed happiness away could not simply conjure it out of nowhere. It was an understandable situation, naturally.
But Kim Sun-il soon negated his own thoughts.
“Isn’t it true that I now know why I’m unhappy? If I remove that unhappiness, wouldn’t I become happier than before?”
Soon, his thoughts shifted elsewhere.
“I just need to remember a few kinds of courage: the courage to accept that I am a pitiable person, the courage to acknowledge that I am a child abandoned by my parents, and the courage to paint anything onto my body and mind.”
That’s when it happened.
“!!”
His younger self’s eyes widened dramatically upon spotting Kim Sun-il observing him.
Kim Sun-il instinctively felt it — that from now on he could interfere in this world.
“But who are you?”
However, Kim Sun-il did not answer.
Instead, he grabbed a handful of the dust from the trash can and flung it with full force at the young boy furiously rubbing sanitizer.
“Ugh, AAAAA! What is this?! What are you doing?!”
The young version of himself reacted with a pathological outbreak.
That was only natural. For someone suffering from obsessive cleanliness, being forcibly covered with dust would provoke unbearable discomfort.
But Kim Sun-il took a deep breath.
“Yes, I understand now.”
Because he finally comprehended what he needed.
The next moment.
Kim Sun-il suddenly grabbed the trash can and shook it fiercely over his own head.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Every time he shook it, trash flew everywhere onto his head like an avalanche.
Torn tissues, empty bread wrappers, dust particles… every shake sent the contents cascading onto Kim Sun-il’s head.
But he didn’t stop.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
The younger version of himself was thoroughly shocked.
“Why? Why are you doing this? Are you crazy?”
There was no time to hear his voice.
Kim Sun-il was busy gritting his teeth.
He also suffered from obsessive cleanliness. The sensation of dust touching his body was making his whole body react pathologically. It was akin to torture by thousands of insects nibbling on his skin. He nearly fainted from the feeling.
But.
He did not stop. Instead, his movements became even more forceful.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
‘What I need is an attitude of trying to paint something onto myself.’
Rrrreeeeeee – !
All the trash dirtied Kim Sun-il’s body. The hard work he had done to maintain cleanliness was ruined in an instant.
Despite the pain from thousands of insects biting his skin and the feeling like he might pass out, Kim Sun-il had no intention of stopping.
Because he resolved to change.
‘This is what my younger sister wished for.’
The girl only wished for Sun-il to be happy.
And now, there was one more thing added to that truth.
Now, he also wished for himself to be happy.
Therefore, he would not back down.
Since everything had already been covered in dirt thanks to all that trash, Kim Sun-il decided to let it be.
…
Time passed.
Sometime later…
When the maddening pain finally subsided…
The trash can was now perched on Kim Sun-il’s head like a hat, and he stood facing his younger self covered in dust, dirtier than ever before.
Once upon a time, a man who avoided carrying any burdens in his heart and instead chose to clean everything away, now resolved to receive everything. Finally and belatedly, he embraced emotions.
…
A brief silence.
But it didn’t last long.
Soon,
“Ha, hahaha…!”
The younger version of himself burst into laughter at Kim Sun-il’s appearance.
“Hahaha! What on earth is that?! Hahahahaha!”
Kim Sun-il quietly observed his younger self laugh.
The sight of his younger self laughing wasn’t all that bad.
And a short while later, he looked at the mirror.
Even his dusty self wasn’t too bad.
He knew that by staining the pristine version of himself, pain and filth would naturally follow.
But at the same time, he realized nothing was more greedy than wanting only good things to stick. That was the excuse of a coward.
Even a bright happiness that could shine through all sorts of misfortunes was sufficient.
And that became what Kim Sun-il now aspired for.
The moment Kim Sun-il quietly closed and reopened his eyes,
Rustle—!
The world shook again.
◈◈◈◈◈
“…!”
Kim Sun-il opened his eyes.
Huuuuuuuung—!
His foot was heavily pressing the accelerator, and the car was rushing through the tunnel breathlessly. He instinctively knew: this was reality.
Quickly looking around, he realized they had only just passed the halfway point of the tunnel.
What had he just seen? Was it a fleeting vision like a life flashing before his eyes?
Right at that moment,
The radio crackled.
『Lee Kang-cheol! Remember this! If we don’t catch that guy now, we’ll never get him!』
Ha Yoon-jin, played by Seo Yeon-joo, was shouting.
‘Wait a moment, if this line is being said now…’
This was the final part of the script.
Meaning, from now on, he had to solely rely on his creativity to fill in this scene.
He had reached the moment to choose one of the two options written in the script. The pivotal climax.
However,
“…”
It was truly a strange thing.
Right now, in Kim Sun-il’s mind,
the answer was crystal clear.
Lee Kang-cheol had built his career pristinely without a stain. Missing this criminal would leave a huge mark on the career he had been so proud of.
But,
Lee Kang-cheol,
or rather, Kim Sun-il, soon grabbed the radio.
『I’ll keep that in mind.』
There was no need for further contemplation.
He knew exactly what he needed to say and what he needed to do.
『But. 』
Because it was set, after all.
『I’m heading to Kim Yu-han.』
Amongst the various stains on his career, there was a happiness that remained.
And wouldn’t friendship surely belong to that happiness as well?
BOOM—!
Kim Sun-il pushed the accelerator even harder.
The car, as if waiting for Kim Sun-il’s decision, began to speed up to its limits.
HUUUUUUUUNG—!
Kim Sun-il’s car overtook the criminal’s vehicle but did not cut it off by steering the wheel.
HUUUUUUUUNG—!
Instead, it kept accelerating to the left fork in the road.
HUUUUUUUUNG—!
Lee Kang-cheol did not hesitate at the prospect of tarnishing the pristine record of his career, and Kim Sun-il had no fear about acting without a script.
Both would never end up with any regrets.
“…!”
Everyone on the filming team monitoring through the monitor stood up out of pure astonishment.
For the first time throughout the movie, Lee Kang-cheol finally revealed his own desires.
Not moving for what he must do.
But for what he wants to do.
Yes, Kim Sun-il now had a clear direction he wanted to pursue.
HUUUUUUUUNG—!
Kim Sun-il pushed the accelerator even more.
Now, he knows.
Happiness isn’t something clean.
But precisely because it isn’t, it is happiness.
For only those with the courage to be dirtied can grasp happiness.
『Kim Yu-han. I request a response. I’m currently on the move.』
Why? Now, like someone running ahead without hesitation.
…
