The middle of Gangnam.
A familiar building spread out in front of me.
Public Entertainment.
A place where people who felt more like family than family had gathered.
'The place I stayed away from for five years......'
The logo, visible even from a distance, was still exactly the same. As if time alone had stopped.
And even so, right now, I was hesitating in front of the door.
It wasn't that I was afraid.
But my fingertips trembled a little.
The feeling of the last time I'd walked out this door, before I left this place, came back to me.
The me back then hadn't had the confidence to open that door and come back.
But now was different.
I quietly drew in a breath and pressed the intercom bell.
Ding—
A brief silence.
And then the door opened.
"Eun-yul!"
A familiar voice.
It was Ji-ho hyung.
He greeted me with the same smile as ever and spread his arms.
"Come on in!"
I smiled sheepishly and nodded.
"I'm here, hyung."
"Hey, we end up meeting here again after all? Hurry up and get in!"
Ji-ho hyung clapped my back and led me inside.
"The CEO's waiting."
I naturally started walking to the right.
But Ji-ho hyung was heading in the opposite direction.
"Huh? Wasn't the CEO's office this way?"
At that, Ji-ho hyung snickered and pointed a finger at the ceiling.
"Ah, right. You wouldn't know, would you? We expanded. We've even got an elevator here now!"
"...An elevator?"
I looked around, startled.
A layout that hadn't existed before.
Unnecessary walls had been torn out to open the space up, and the interior had changed bit by bit as well.
As I followed along marveling at it, passing employees greeted Ji-ho hyung one after another.
"Team Leader-nim, hello!"
"Team Leader-nim, today's meeting is at 3 PM!"
I stopped walking at that.
I looked at hyung with a blank face.
"...Hyung, you're a team leader?"
"Hm?"
Ji-ho hyung turned around with a straight face, then snickered when he saw my expression.
Then he shrugged with a look full of mischief and said,
"Hey, in five years even the rivers and mountains change halfway."
I burst out laughing at that, like I couldn't believe him.
"Does that even make sense?"
"Why, doesn't it?"
I looked at him with an exasperated expression.
"You really haven't changed one bit, hyung."
"Right? Though five years in, I wonder if I should've changed halfway."
When Ji-ho hyung added that with a straight face, I couldn't help laughing.
When the elevator doors opened slowly, a scene both familiar and strange spread out before me.
The office.
A space I hadn't seen in a long while.
But the sight of it running at full tilt was exactly as it had always been.
Desks packed with documents and computer screens, phones ringing without pause, employees moving busily back and forth.
In the middle of it, Ji-ho hyung gestured lightly and said,
"That over there's my desk. What do you think, cool, right?"
I looked where he was pointing.
It wasn't a desk in the dead center of the office, but that spot was unmistakably the head seat.
"Hyung, you really were a team leader."
"Obviously~ Who do you think I am."
Ji-ho hyung shrugged and grinned proudly.
Watching him, I felt all over again just how much time had passed.
But then, whispers started reaching me from around the office.
"...Cha Eun-yul?"
"He was still with our company?"
"Wait, how many years has it been?"
"Is he back?"
I stopped walking for a moment.
Familiar faces.
But there was surprise and awkwardness mixed into their eyes.
It was as though my name sounded like a name out of the past.
Like a forgotten ghost had appeared again.
I made an effort to look unbothered, but I could feel those looks landing on my skin clearly.
Of course.
I had been gone for five whole years.
Feeling that gap all over again, I moved my feet with the sensation of having swallowed something.
And then, in front of the CEO's office.
Standing before the door, I drew a short breath.
This was the moment I truly felt that I was coming back.
Ji-ho hyung knocked lightly.
"CEO-nim, Eun-yul is here."
A low, solid voice came from inside.
"Come in."
The moment the door opened, manager hyung glanced at me once and clapped my shoulder.
"Talk it out properly, I'll see you later."
He smiled quietly, stepped aside, and closed the door.
I slowly walked in.
On the wide desk, a heavy black leather nameplate caught my eye.
[CEO Lee Sang-hyuk]
The name still at the center of this place.
When I raised my head, a familiar face came into view.
Deep-set eyes under thick brows.
Sharply angled features and a solid build.
A man whose distinctive, strong presence came through even under an expression that said none of this was any big deal.
CEO Lee Sang-hyuk had one button of his black shirt undone and stood with his arms roughly folded, looking at me.
The look in his eyes hadn't changed.
And then—
"Hey."
A low, rough voice rang through the room.
That distinctive ringing tone.
"What the hell were you doing to only show up now?"
I scratched my head.
"I took... a bit of a long way around."
"A long way around?"
Then he slowly rose from his chair and came over with heavy steps.
"You were on track to go missing entirely, you brat."
"...I'm sorry."
"Well, forget it."
CEO Lee Sang-hyuk said it bluntly.
"As long as you came back somehow, that's what matters."
Then he let out a short sigh and looked at me.
Complicated emotions passed through his eyes.
Hurt, relief, and an unavoidably practical assessment.
And then he threw the question at me point-blank.
"So what are you going to do now?"
I knew this question wasn't a simple check-in.
The CEO wanted to hear my conviction right now.
Not some vague answer like "I'll give it a try," but whether I was truly prepared to stand as an actor again.
I slowly drew in a breath.
And I raised my head.
"I came to start over."
The CEO looked at me quietly.
I kept my eyes on his and continued.
"This time I'm never giving up on myself. So... I want to be with Public."
The instant those words dropped, the look in the CEO's eyes shifted subtly.
This wasn't something that worked on feeling or resolve alone.
Diet management, maintaining physical condition, space to practice acting.
And above all, the system and the people who would make it possible to get another chance in this industry.
Public Entertainment wasn't a simple agency.
There were already people here who had experience working alongside me.
The CEO.
And Ji-ho hyung.
Countless staff.
They weren't a simple contractual relationship. They were people who had stayed beside me even in my hardest moments.
I looked at the CEO again.
He was gazing steadily at me as well.
Then he lifted the corner of his mouth slightly and said in a low voice,
"You were eighteen, shooting that sitcom, when PD Lee Woo-seok brought you to me."
I smiled quietly at that.
"You remember?"
"...Yes."
"You said the same thing back then."
The CEO snickered as he spoke.
"That you wanted to be with Public."
I nodded quietly.
"And then the brat forgot every bit of that gratitude—"
Something must have flared up in him for a second. He sighed and shook his head from side to side.
Then he looked at my face once more, gave a small huff of a laugh, and said,
"Still, you came, so that's enough. ...Welcome back, you punk."
For some reason, those words made me truly feel that I had come back.
***
A dumbbell rose and fell powerfully in a thickened grip.
"Haa......"
Wiping my sweat-beaded forehead with the back of my hand, I let out a labored breath.
In the mirror was a version of me far more solid than a month ago.
Finishing my workout, I glanced for a moment at the TV mounted in the gym.
The hottest issue of the moment was playing.
[Convenience store MZ Vitamin commercial: a mystery actor appears?]
'That again?'
Familiar news.
It wasn't the product that had become the talk.
It was one figure who had brushed past in that commercial for barely a second.
[Cha Eun-yul, the actor who vanished five years ago.]
[Is it Cha Eun-yul or not?]
Netizens were still waging arguments over it.
At first it had been simple comments.
- Is this really Cha Eun-yul?
- Probably not, but he does look like him.
Then a day later it started climbing the trending searches on the communities.
And then—
[Cha Eun-yul, the actor from the controversy five years ago, making a comeback?]
Even news articles started coming out.
I snickered inwardly and picked up the towel draped over the machine.
"To think one little thing like that would cause this much noise."
I hadn't expected a commercial I'd shot as a bit player at a convenience store to draw this much attention.
After finishing my workout, I turned on my phone in the locker room.
Half anticipation, half unease.
The news articles already had hundreds of comments.
- Wait, is this actually Cha Eun-yul? Or a lookalike?
- It's Cha Eun-yul. That's exactly his gaze, isn't it?
- Hey, if this really is Cha Eun-yul that's insane. His first comeback work after five years missing is a convenience store commercial?
- Even so, this can't be it, right? Way too modest a role for a celebrity.
- What's weird though... the agency hasn't said anything?
- He's the power abuse actor, of course they'd stay quiet.
- What are you talking about? Don't you know he was already cleared? It's because of people like you......
- Do agencies market like this these days? If they announce a project after this, that's insane.
I let out a short breath.
The agency still hadn't issued an official statement.
There's a saying that you have to row while the tide is in, but manager hyung's opinion was that the 'tide' hadn't come in far enough yet.
"Let's wait just a little longer."
That's what Ji-ho hyung said.
That interest was building right now, and this was the time to measure every bit of the timing.
I set my phone down and quietly sank into thought.
Would this attention really become an opportunity for me?
Or would it be a wave that came crashing down on me again?
But one thing was certain.
The name 'Cha Eun-yul' had started rising back up in the world.
Just then, the gym door slammed open — BANG! — and someone came running in, breathing hard.
"Eun-yul!!!"
Ji-ho hyung's voice.
I put the dumbbell down at once and raised my head.
Ji-ho hyung stood in the doorway drenched in sweat, panting.
Gasping for air, he waved his hand through the air and shouted,
"W... water...!"
"Sorry?"
I gave a bewildered laugh and picked up the water bottle beside me.
"Hyung, there's a water cooler right there?"
"No!!! Haah...!!"
Ji-ho hyung ran all the way up to me in one go, braced his hands on his knees, bent at the waist and heaved for breath.
"No!! The tide's in!!"
I blinked with a blank expression.
"...Huh?"
"Let's go row!!!"
Ji-ho hyung snapped his head up and shouted.
I was dumbstruck for a second, but then I caught up with the situation and snorted out a laugh.
An opportunity had come.
***
"Hyung, what is this about?"
Breathing hard, I followed Ji-ho hyung and arrived at the conference room in one straight sprint.
Still in workout clothes, my sweat not even cooled yet.
When the door opened, a scene both familiar and strange spread out before me.
Across the long table, the CEO was seated.
I stopped walking for a second.
It wasn't common for the CEO to attend a meeting himself.
And yet today the marketing team, the PR team, the legal team, and even the stylist were all seated and waiting for me.
Instinctively I sensed something was out of the ordinary.
Ji-ho hyung clapped my shoulder and said,
"Sit down for now."
I took a chair and looked around.
Several sheets of documents lay on the table, and the people were looking at me with subtle expressions.
"...So, what exactly is going on?"
The CEO didn't answer my question right away.
Instead he tapped the desk slowly with a finger and wore a meaningful smile.
"The staff tell me... you're pretty hot these days?"
"...Sorry?"
"You don't know? That you've blown up on the internet lately?"
The convenience store commercial.
I drew a small breath.
"Well, let's save that talk for later."
CEO Lee Sang-hyuk picked one sheet out of the stack of documents on the table.
His fingertips tapped lightly at the edge of the document, and then he pushed it in front of me.
I looked down at it without thinking.
At first it just looked like an ordinary contract document.
But as my eyes climbed it line by line, I felt a chill go through one side of my head.
A title I felt like I'd seen somewhere.
And beneath it, a name I knew far too well.
I let my breath out slowly and stared once more at the name on the document.
[Director – Lee Woo-seok]
Those three syllables lodged themselves vividly in my head.
'PD Lee Woo-seok......'
To me he wasn't simply a director.
When I was eighteen, back when I didn't even have the chance to properly begin something called acting.
He was the first person to hold out a hand to me.
"You want to try acting?"
It was a line he'd tossed out with no expression at all, but I started acting on that one sentence. And that first sitcom succeeded beyond expectations, and became the reason my name got known to the world.
But after that, PD Lee Woo-seok rapidly expanded his standing in the drama world. He became a director who never missed a hit, and I could only watch his success from further and further away.
I had the hope of working with him again someday, but as I struggled with camera phobia, that wish grew more and more distant.
And that same PD Lee Woo-seok had held out a hand to me again.
I steadied my breath and slowly raised my head to look at the CEO.
He was gazing at me with a serious expression now.
"Eun-yul."
A short but heavy sentence reached me.
"We've got a project."