After trailing my sister around the place greeting staff, I finally managed to sit down somewhere quiet.
Only then did the things I'd heard earlier come back into my head.
-My oppa is an actor. He's shooting a drama right now.
The back of my head went hot all over again.
Ha-yul's delivery was offhand, tossed out carelessly, but she'd rattled off everything I'd done without leaving a single thing out.
Her expression the whole time said 'ugh, what a pain,' and yet a quiet pride was soaked into that annoyance.
She'd hammered it into me not to come where she worked, and then the moment I showed up she went and bragged, in a way that wasn't quite bragging, in front of her close coworkers.
On the surface she's always snapping at me, acting like she can't stand her brother, and it came through plainly that her actual feelings sat somewhere else entirely.
'Is this a brag or an insult......'
I cleared my throat for no reason and looked away.
Then a short voice came from beside me.
"Good work."
Along with that tossed-off line, Ha-yul opened her wallet and pressed a ten-thousand-won note into my hand.
"What's this?"
"You know the café out front? Buy a sandwich and coffee there and take it to Mom."
"...Hey, but I should be the one paying—"
"Quiet. And make sure you put the points under my name. Got it? My name, without fail."
'So that's the real goal......'
I stared blankly down at the bill in my hand, then looked back at Ha-yul.
Making a full show of how annoying it all was, quietly propping me up in front of her coworkers, and in the end handing over money to make sure Mom was taken care of.
It was funny, and it made me grateful, and it was somehow endearing.
"All right. I'll be something you can brag about to the very end."
When I said it with a smug little shrug, Ha-yul immediately made a face of pure disgust.
"Use my points and you're dead."
She cut it off flat and vanished into the library without looking back.
I watched her go and let out a snort of a laugh.
Even at the last second she did exactly as she pleased, and as absurd as it was, my mouth loosened into a smile anyway.
Letting out a sigh mixed with laughter, I headed for the café.
Inside, the café was full of the soft smell of coffee.
I stood at the register, looked over the menu, and ordered two sandwiches and two Americanos.
"Would you like to collect points?"
"...Yes. Under the name Cha Ha-yul."
The clerk's eyebrows rose slightly.
Remembering the way Ha-yul had bragged about me at the library desk, I cleared my throat for no reason.
'...12,900 won?'
The amount on the payment screen was more than ten thousand.
I was pulling out my card when the last thing Ha-yul had said came back to me.
"Use my points and you're dead."
A laugh escaped me.
I turned to the clerk and said, entirely straight-faced,
"...Please use the full point balance."
***
When I came out of the café, an evening breeze blew gently. Only then did my stiff shoulders finally loosen.
My mother's worry in the morning, a police car and an accident scene at midday, and my sister's ridiculous bragging on top of it—
It was eventful enough that I could hardly believe all of it had happened in a single day.
My body and mind, frozen with tension, felt a little lighter at last.
On my way home, my phone buzzed in my pocket.
"Brrring—"
The screen showed an unknown number.
My heart thumped strangely for a second.
What PD Lee Woo-seok had said a few days ago came back to me.
"Answer even unknown calls, no exceptions."
I looked at the phone for a long moment, then slowly drew in a breath.
PD Lee Woo-seok's words circled in my head. What call had he actually been expecting?
With confusion and tension and a very small hope all mixed together, I picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hello, would this be actor Cha Eun-yul?"
It was an unfamiliar man's voice. Composed, but I couldn't place who it was right away.
"...Yes, but who's calling?"
After a brief pause, the voice came through more clearly.
"I'm Na Han-seok, I direct films. We met briefly at PD Lee Woo-seok's set a while back. Do you remember?"
In that instant, the name lodged sharply in my ear.
'Director Na Han-seok!?'
"...Ah, yes. I know who you are. Director Na Han-seok. I've been deeply impressed by your work."
After a brief silence, the director's voice softened considerably.
"That's a relief, then. We can skip the unnecessary explanations."
His tone was calm, but a personality that values efficiency came through unmistakably.
"The truth is, I heard about you from PD Lee Woo-seok during the casting process for the new project I'm preparing."
"Sorry? From PD Lee Woo-seok?"
"Yes. He said both your acting and your conduct on set were excellent."
After pausing a moment, Director Na Han-seok carefully continued.
"So if it's all right with you, could we meet tomorrow through your agency?"
I hesitated a moment, then answered carefully.
"Ah... I'm actually down in Gongju right now."
"Gongju? For a shoot?"
"No. My schedule opened up, so I came home to see my parents for the first time in a while."
"Your hometown, is it......"
A trace of disappointment colored Director Na Han-seok's voice. But he soon continued evenly.
"Understood. Please do contact me when you're back in Seoul. We'll find a time to meet."
"...Yes, understood."
"Yes, thank you. Save the number and get in touch. I'll be waiting."
Click—
The call ended, and I slowly looked down at my phone screen.
The unfamiliar number left in my call log. Beside it, the name I'd typed in myself sat clearly on the screen.
[Director Na Han-seok]
I blinked several times, but the letters didn't disappear.
It was the first time a single contact had ever felt this heavy.
"...Is this for real?"
A breath escaped me on its own.
I couldn't believe it.
I opened the search bar immediately and typed 'Director Na Han-seok.'
Articles and profiles poured out in an instant. A filmography filled the screen.
[Red Shadow] – Invited to overseas film festivals for its spectacular action and realistic hapkido sequences.
[Heart of Iron] – Cannes Critics' Week section, praised as "a new horizon for Korean action cinema."
[The Deep] – A powerful film that took on the protagonist's psychological collapse head-on, over action.
The further I scrolled, the shorter my breath got. He wasn't simply a director who shot action well.
Intense emotional scenes, and a directorial power that drew actors' interiors out to the very end, all of it written up in article after article.
'The director who makes actors shine brightest in Korean film.'
'A filmmaker who has mastered both worlds, action and emotion.'
The reporters' epithets came into view one after another.
My finger stopped on the screen and wouldn't move.
That name was carved in bold across every article headline, every award announcement.
And a director like that, his number......
It was saved in my phone right now.
My heart pounded hard.
This wasn't simple anticipation.
It was the sensation of a key suddenly being placed in my hand, in front of a door that had been shut a long time.
I gripped the phone tightly and couldn't move for a long while.
My fingertips tingled, and my face burned with a heat I couldn't name.
"Is this... a dream?"
Inside a phone screen that had looked so unremarkable, a name that shakes the Korean film industry was carved clearly.
It felt as though a weight I'd never even imagined had been set on my ordinary palm.
***
The next morning, my family went out to the small vegetable patch in front of the house.
I was put in charge of the two lone trees, a jujube and a chestnut, while Mom and my sister dug sweet potatoes and pulled weeds from the cabbage bed.
"Hey! Put some effort into it!"
My sister's voice landed sharply from a distance.
'Worry about yourself......'
I muttered it internally, but well... even to me my hands looked hopelessly clumsy.
Mom and my sister, on the other hand, worked as if the tools were part of their hands.
Shoveling, hoeing, every motion clean and practiced, like something they'd always done.
I used to work the field with my parents sometimes as a child too.
But the jujube and chestnut trees had always been my father's charge, so this was the first time I'd ever laid a hand on them.
At most I'd only ever peeled the chestnuts or jujubes that had fallen.
"Eun-yul! That's enough, you'll hurt yourself."
Mom's call came flying over. In that moment my sister, shoveling beside her, shot back,
"What! You don't say a word to me, but for oppa you do that. That's so unfair!"
At Ha-yul's grumbling, a small laugh slipped out of me.
On the surface it sounds like childish whining, but I know. I know how admirable this kid is.
Living in Seoul, you see that people my sister's age chase trends around cafés and restaurants, and in the evenings have a great time at clubs and bars.
It's a privilege of being young, and of course it's understandable.
My sister surely wants to live that way too. Hanging out with friends in Seoul, taking photos, laughing and talking... the ordinary life of a twenty-year-old.
But after our father died, my sister chose on her own to stay beside our precariously remaining mother.
Without ever once saying 'I want to go to Seoul,' she looked after the vegetable patch on weekends with dirt on her face.
She looks like she has no sense at all, but the truth is she's more grown up than anyone.
Making a choice like that as if it were nothing struck me as genuinely remarkable.
That was when it happened.
My pocket buzzed.
Assuming without much thought that it would be manager hyung, I took out my phone.
"...Huh?"
The name on the screen was [Director Na Han-seok].
The number from yesterday's call.
My chest dropped.
'What's this about?'
I answered carefully.
"Hello?"
"Actor Cha, hello. You're in Gongju right now, correct?"
"Yes. Hello. Gongju is right. What's this about?"
At his answer, after a brief pause, my eyes went wide.
"I'm in Gongju right now myself."
"...Gongju? How did you get here...?"
At my evident surprise, the director explained with a laugh.
"The project I'm preparing has a lot of regional shooting. One of those places is Gongju, so I came down to scout locations. And since I heard you happened to be in Gongju, I thought I'd call while I was at it."
I lost my words for a moment.
A person I couldn't even have imagined until yesterday was in my hometown today.
"If you have the time, could we meet briefly?"
"Yes... that's fine. Where should we meet?"
The director named a nearby café, as if he'd already looked it up.
I nodded blankly and answered,
"Yes, I'll head there, then."
Even after hanging up, I looked down at my phone for a while.
Until moments ago there had been nothing but the familiar smell of soil from the vegetable patch, and suddenly an entirely different air had settled in front of me.
***
When I set off because of this appointment with Director Na Han-seok that had appeared out of nowhere, my sister saw me leaving like I was running away and gave me an earful.
Only after barely managing to placate her could I hurry toward the café downtown.
The moment I got on the road my head grew complicated.
For a man like Director Na Han-seok there must be actors piled high who want to work with him, so why had someone like that sought me out this urgently?
For a simple casting offer, it felt like there had to be another reason.
I carefully opened the café door and looked inside.
As my eyes searched between the tables, I saw someone raise a hand.
For an instant my breath cut short.
The first time I'd seen him at the set it had been evening, so I'd only been able to catch a passing glimpse.
But his impression, faced in the bright light of day, came at me far more vividly.
Deep eyes where you couldn't tell what the focus landed on, a smoothly drawn line of the face, the corners of the mouth settled low out of habit, visible within the beard.
Despite the beard it was a face that looked neat, but the energy that expressionlessness gave off sat coldly.
Just looking at him from a distance there was a power that overwhelmed the space at once, and in that moment I understood.
'Ah... so that's why people call him cold.'
His appearance alone made those rumors entirely convincing. The eyes and the air about him were both cold and sharp.
Eyes that seemed to see straight through a person, an expression that wouldn't easily show what was inside.
And yet, somehow, a strange curiosity, a sense that he carried some deep story in him.
I approached carefully and greeted him.
"Hello, Director Na Han-seok. I'm Cha Eun-yul."
"Hello. I apologize for calling you out so suddenly."
He rose from his seat and offered a brief handshake. His hand was warmer than I'd expected, but his eyes were as unwavering as ever.
"Seeing you in person... you're calmer than I'd thought."
I smiled sheepishly and took a seat.
"My face may look like this, but the sudden call actually surprised me quite a bit."
"Haha. That's usually the normal reaction."
Director Na Han-seok turned his coffee cup slightly and continued.
"Eun-yul-ssi, when meeting an actor for the first time, most people bring up the project first. But I'd like to do it a little differently."
"Differently?"
I asked it back shortly, but inside I could tell.
There had to be a reason he'd come all the way down to Gongju like this.
The look in his eyes wasn't simple curiosity.
There was a cold and tenacious will in it, wanting to confirm something.
Without realizing it, I steadied my breath and braced myself.