Chapter 624 (1/2)

“Then let’s do it that way, yes. Thanks for your work. Dinner? Oh, it’s that time already. You should eat. I will take care on my own.”

Junmin put down his phone and pressed firmly between his eyebrows. His body felt like a lump of lead, as he hadn’t had much sleep recently. He leaned back in his chair and took a deep breath before looking at the clock. It was 5:49 p.m. It was time for dinner. He briefly thought about going home and cooking his own dinner, but he didn’t feel like he had the energy to drive himself home. He picked up his wallet and left his office. He said goodbye to a few of the managers who were waiting inside the company before going to the kimbap restaurant in front of the company.

“Tuna kimbap?” The lady asked as soon as she saw him.

Junmin nodded before taking a seat. Back in the days when he used to wear the worn-out suit every day, he swore that he would eat the delicacies of the world for every meal when the number of digits on his bank account surpassed ten, but after achieving that goal way too easily, the restaurant he frequented the most was still a kimbap restaurant and one that was located in front of his company. He could go to the restaurant in his company, but when he ended up making a subconscious decision, it always turned out to be kimbap.

As he ate the tuna kimbap with the miso soup, he looked at the TV on the cabinet. He looked at the ad that was airing out and compared the image of some actors in his mind. When his mind was filled with a rather decent-looking business plan, Junmin shook his head. At this point, he was obsessed with work. He wanted to forget about work when he was eating at least, but whenever there was a TV or a radio around him, his stream of consciousness naturally flowed towards the entertainment industry.

“Thanks for the food.”

“Goodbye.”

It felt like he was leaving his house. These days, a lot of people asked him if he was going to get married soon. It made him tired of retorting to them every time that it was already too late for him since he was in his fifties.

He returned to his office and took off his shoes before lying down on the sofa. He kept training to stay fit, but he could feel his stamina decreasing every year. Wondering whether or not he should try to quit smoking, Junmin put a cigarette in his mouth. That was definitely not happening.

He puffed a short one before looking at his laptop. There were tons of emails regarding advertisements. Despite the fact that the head manager had filtered them once, there were more than forty of them. Most of them were for Suyeon. After that was Sooil. There was nothing for Geunsoo or Ganghwan.

“Well, these two will become big soon.”

Suyeon was currently the face of JA Production, but Junmin thought that it would soon change. Junmin had excavated and nurtured many actors until now. However, most weren’t a part of JA right now. Although he kept a good relationship with them, Junmin did not choose them. Geunsoo, Ganghwan, Suyeon, and the child actors who were still growing right now - Junmin decided to house them in JA. Not the best, but the irreplaceable. Junmin set a clear path that JA was going to take.

Perhaps his dream might have strayed off, but Junmin still wanted to achieve it. That was because the only way he could atone was for him to pave the path that Haejoo should have walked on.

Junmin took out a phone from his chest pocket. The light from the phone screen colored the dark office in a hazy white color. He pressed a few buttons to bring up the photo gallery. When he clicked next a few times, some old photos filled his screen. Junmin zoomed in on one of them. Haejoo was standing with a prankster smile and he was standing next to her. Junmin faintly smiled as he looked at his past self that was at a loss on what to do since Haejoo had hooked her arm around his.

The gallery on his phone was a treasure island that he could visit at any time. There was no need to worry about losing directions, no need to go past the rocky waves, and yet he could still come across treasures that couldn’t be compared to anything else in the world. Junmin rubbed the smiling Haejoo’s face with his thumb.

“If she was still alive, would I have gotten married?”

I am going to confess one day - Haejoo’s whisper rang inside his ears. Junmin reminded himself of the two regrets that changed his life. One was that he made an appointment with Haejoo on that rainy day, and the other one was that he did not reply to that shy question. If he acted differently in any of those two scenarios, would that girl’s fate have changed?

Junmin looked around his office. A thirty year-old nameless actor with no assets had now achieved all this. Ironically, Haejoo’s death brought a drastic change to his life, and that became the motivation that led to his success. Perhaps due to that, Junmin would sometimes want to vomit when he looked at the building that he named after Haejoo. It wasn’t just once or twice that he wanted to turn his back to this place and leave, thinking that everything here was built on top of another person’s life as the foundation. But, whenever he felt like that, he scolded himself. He told himself that running away right now would make Haejoo’s death even more meaningless.

‘Though, even that is just an excuse and self-justification.’

In retrospect, he lived a dream-like life. They say a story of a hundred different people was equivalent to a hundred different dramas, but how many people would actually live a drama-like life? Most people just joined the rail that society wanted them to. They would come across a few opportunities that could be said to be a turning point in their life on their narrow railroad, but that did not change the fact that they were still on the rails. Before he met Haejoo, he was also following along the ordinary rails. It was because he met her that he came to doubt the rail, stopped, and eventually escaped it. The start of the change definitely stemmed from Haejoo.

“Where am I heading now?”

His objective was still clear now. It was to nurture another actor like Jung Haejoo. Well, it was unknown whether an actor like her would ever exist again, but the ones growing under him right now definitely had the potential.

After gazing at the photos for a while, Junmin felt his vision go blurry and closed his eyes. He felt like fatigue was piling on his eyes. He wondered if he should sleep like this. When he sighed and opened his eyes again, he had a sharp sense of déjà vu. Junmin quickly stood up and looked at his work desk in front of him. He felt like he had seen the same desk somewhere before.

‘What am I thinking….’

Obviously, he would have seen it before, since he came here every single day. However, it also felt like there was a slight difference. He felt like it looked redder before. Before? Junming stroked his face. His head felt hazy and he couldn’t continue thinking properly anymore. Was a lack of sleep this frightening? Feeling a floaty sensation, he opened the fridge. After he drank a cup of cold water and turned around, a heavy headache overwhelmed him.

At the same time, he experienced the scenery in front of him changing all by itself. His office, which had a blue overall theme turned grey for a moment before it changed into an extremely ordinary-looking office. He could see his own figure looking at the computer with a bored expression. No, could it be expressed as ‘seeing’? He felt like he was being reminded of an event in the distant past. Was he hearing things? Seeing things? Did something bad finally happen to his mind? Perhaps it was his body’s way of telling him that he should quit the goddamned alcohol and cigarettes.

He clutched his head and sat down on the sofa. The scenery in front of him was still changing. He could see himself working while wearing more informal clothes like he was wearing now, and he could also see himself running around busily with a necktie tightly strapped around his neck. Everything in this space changed except for the sofa he was sitting on. Even the people changed, whether it was their faces or their clothes. Some of them were people he knew, and some of them were people he did not know at all. However, these seemingly unfamiliar people felt incredibly familiar to him. It was an indescribably complex and strange, nay, rather horrifying sensation if he dug into those feelings more deeply.

The scenery, which was rapidly changing like switching TV channels, was eventually fixed on one scene. Junmin heaved out a deep breath and focused. Did people go through this kind of strange phenomenon when they were tired? He was reminded of his friend, who was a doctor and had told him that he should get some rest.

“Is it finally time that I rest?”

He did feel like it was about time to rest since he had been working non-stop for the past twenty years. Junmin lay back on the sofa again. It would be a huge problem if he kept standing up and collapsed and injured his head or something. He clutched his still dizzy head and forced himself to sleep.

Fortunately, he calmed down when he closed his eyes. He felt like he could fall asleep quite soon at this rate.

‘Looks like I really needed some rest.’