Chapter 7

Chapter 7

‘Something urgent?’

I immediately called a taxi and headed to the hospital.

I rushed there without even stopping to breathe, only for the first thing he said to be.

“After I die, stop living in that villa and live in my place.”

“...What?”

“I’m saying move out of that villa that looks like it’s haunted.”

“...”

It isn’t.

Though I admit the exterior does look like something ghosts would love.

“Is that... your will? You’re saying you’ll leave it to me?”

“Something like that.”

Park Songhu shrugged casually.

“I’ll have a lawyer take care of all the paperwork ahead of time, so there’s nothing you need to worry about.”

“...”

Listening to him, I felt strange.

I’d never met someone who could talk so calmly about what would happen after his own death.

“Um...”

“What.”

“...Are you really going to die?”

Maybe that was why I still couldn’t quite believe it.

“Why.”

A beat.

“You don’t want me to?”

“...”

“We barely even stayed in touch. What’s with you all of a sudden?”

“Still...”

Still what?

The rest wouldn’t come out.

Still, you’re my brother? Still, we’re blood?

Either answer felt shameless.

We’d lived like strangers our whole lives.

If this hadn’t happened, I would’ve kept ignoring him forever.

“You’re going to spend the rest of your life holed up in your room anyway.”

“...So?”

“Then wouldn’t a bigger place be better? What was the cat’s name, Louis or Ruby? He’d have more room to run around too.”

For the first time, I understood.

For Louis.

Cats definitely preferred having more space.

‘Ah, but.’

On the morning of the <​Our Hospital> shoot, when I’d rushed over to Park Songhu’s place to pretend to be him, I remembered being stunned by the sheer size of it.

Now that I thought about it, the size was the problem!

“W-Wait. If the place is that big, how am I supposed to clean it?”

“What kind of first-world problem is that, you bastard?”

“...Eek!”

“You should be bowing to me in gratitude.”

“Th-Thank you!”

“No... hey.”

“...”

“I didn’t mean literally bow.”

“Ah, okay...”

I dusted off my knees and stood up.

***

I hurriedly started preparing for the move.

‘What should I do with these? Park Songhu told me to stop wearing my own clothes and only wear the stuff in his dressing room from now on...’

I almost threw away all my shirts with stretched-out collars while I was at it, but they felt too wasteful, so I kept them.

I could use them as pajamas.

Louis actually had more luggage than I did.

Cat tower, scratcher, toys, treats, food, litter, and so on.

Last of all, I tried to put Louis into his carrier, and as expected, he launched an all-out resistance.

His strategy was to stretch all four legs in different directions and guard the entrance.

If I tried to physically shove him inside, he fired off a hind-leg kick. If I lured him with treats, he snatched the treat right at the entrance and retreated, executing an advanced tactical withdrawal.

“Louis, please.”

“Grrrrrrrr...”

“We’re moving. It’s a nice place. The living room is like ten times bigger than this one, okay?”

“Mraaak!”

After a fifteen-minute battle, I finally succeeded by throwing catnip deep inside the carrier.

There really was a reason people called it cat drugs.

“...A war with neither winner nor loser.”

I had lived in this cramped villa ever since returning to Korea, so now that I was actually leaving, strange emotions washed over me.

At that exact moment, my eyes landed on the wallpaper beside the front door, blackened with mold.

‘Bye.’

All lingering attachment vanished immediately.

A little later.

I passed through the security gate and took the elevator up.

I’d already been here before, so there was nothing particularly difficult about it.

That day, though, I’d been so nervous I hadn’t really taken in the layout of the place...

‘Wow, it’s freaking huge...’

The view stretched wide open from the entrance all the way to the living room.

One entire wall of the living room was glass, offering a full view of Seoul, and the ceiling was incredibly high.

I set down the carrier and opened the door.

Louis cautiously poked out his nose and began sniffing his surroundings.

One step.

Two steps.

Then suddenly, he bolted into the middle of the living room.

He went shwoosh-shwoosh-shwoosh across the wooden floor like he was skating, and before I knew it, the corners of my mouth had gone soft.

‘Moving here was the right call.’

Louis slipped under the sofa, emerged from the other side, then dashed across the living room again and vanished down the hallway.

Looks like his exploration instinct had switched on.

I began setting up the cat tower and automatic feeder on one side of the living room.

By the time I finished, Louis seemed to have already adapted. He was sitting in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows looking down outside.

A cat admiring the Han River view.

“Louis, you look ridiculously fancy right now.”

“Meooow.”

He answered as though he couldn’t care less, but judging by the way his tail lazily swayed from side to side, he seemed to be in a decent mood.

I brought over my laptop and sat on the sofa.

I opened my serialization page on NovelJoA.

The chapter I uploaded yesterday had a whopping three comments!

[Keep up the good writing.]

[(Mass Release Prayer Emoticon)]

[This is pretty fun lol]

I’m in a good mood!

‘Open wide, here comes a mass release!’

I immediately opened my writing program and started hammering away at the keyboard.

Thankfully, the words were flowing today.

***

VIP hospital room.

Park Songhu was leaning against the bed, fiddling with his phone.

Park Songmin sat in the caregiver’s chair with a laptop on his knees, doing something.

Judging from the way his lips moved from time to time, he was probably writing his novel.

“It was pretty fun.”

“...What?”

Park Songmin looked over with his eyes wide.

An expression that was nothing like Park Songhu’s own.

“I left a comment too. Said it was fun.”

“...W-Wait! That was you?!”

“Hey, lower your voice.”

“A-Ah, s-sorry... But you seriously read it?”

His eyes started sparkling for no reason.

“I was just killing time because I had nothing else to do. Why are you making such a big deal out of it?”

“Ah...”

“But the scene where the protagonist levels up using the enhancement stone felt a little contrived.”

“Th-That part had foreshadowing! If you look at chapter sixteen... shh!”

Look at him.

Making a whole production by himself.

“What are you doing?”

“Anyway, there’s foreshadowing in chapter sixteen...”

“Who doesn’t know that? Foreshadowing or not, I’m saying the development itself feels contrived.”

“Urgh...!”

“Unclench your fist.”

“Yes.”

“Isn’t it a bit much for an enhancement stone to just be lying around in the middle of a dungeon? Especially right before the boss fight.”

“...”

“The payoff feels different to readers when the protagonist stupidly picks up something that happens to be there versus when he gets it through his own judgment. You mentioned that ore vein setting in chapter sixteen, right? If you use that in reverse and have the protagonist figure out a mining route himself, you can pay off the foreshadowing at the same time. Two birds with one stone.”

“...”

Park Songmin stared at him blankly.

Then he turned around and started typing something into his phone.

“Don’t tell me you’re taking notes on the idea I just gave you.”

“Ah, n-no!”

“Whatever. You know the <​Scene & Cut> interview comes out today, right?”

“...But wasn’t the last scene kind of awesome?”

“Oh, it was just uploaded.”

“...”

...He ignored me!

Park Songhu showed him the screen.

The official YouTube channel for <​Scene & Cut> magazine.

[Actor Park Songhu’s First Interview After His Comeback: “I Thought I’d Regret It”]

“I-I don’t think I need to watch it...”

“I’m playing it.”

“W-Wait...!”

The video started.

The interviewer’s question came through.

[What made you decide to return?]

The interviewer asked.

On the screen, Park Songmin lowered his eyes slightly.

[...I thought I couldn’t go on like this.]

“...?”

Something felt strange.

Of course, his voice had the same timbre as Park Songhu’s, but it seemed to carry a dense weight of emotion.

[I thought I’d regret it.]

It was only one sentence, spoken almost like a murmur.

But how should he put it.

His eyes stayed glued to the screen.

The angle at which he lowered his gaze, the pauses in his breathing.

‘...Coincidence?’

The live comments started rolling in.

-What is this atmosphere?

-Did his vocal delivery get better?

-It’s not even a special line, why does it somehow hit different?

-So this is where he talks about deciding to return

-But regret what? lol

└Why did I hit the table back then? Should’ve slapped somebody instead

└LMAOOOO

Mocking comments gradually began increasing.

A vein bulged at Park Songhu’s temple.

[Is there anything you’d like to say to your fans?]

[...I want to tell them thank you.]

[For waiting.]

Up to that point, it was a perfectly ordinary comeback statement.

A textbook answer.

Fine. That much was fine.

It could end cleanly there.

But then came the next part.

[...You waited for me, but.]

His voice trailed off.

An unfinished sentence.

Like he had been about to say something more and swallowed it.

‘...What?’

Park Songmin’s lips moved on the screen.

It was hard to pinpoint exactly, but there was a point where the atmosphere subtly changed.

He just didn’t know why.

All he’d done was let the sentence trail off.

[What kind of side of yourself would you like to show people from now on?]

Park Songmin’s gaze slowly dropped.

He looked down at his hands resting on his knees.

‘Did he stop because he couldn’t think of anything?’

That was what Park Songhu assumed.

Obviously.

It was only reasonable to think he’d frozen up in front of the camera.

But something bothered him.

This guy had been answering reasonably well until then, only to suddenly stop at the very last question.

‘...Did he do it on purpose?’

No way.

He dismissed the thought.

That was just nerves.

Then Park Songmin’s eyelashes trembled.

His eyes reddened, and something clear gathered at the tips of his lower lashes.

“Hey, you crazy bastard. Why the hell are you cry—”

The moment he saw Park Songmin’s face on the screen, Park Songhu unconsciously closed his mouth.

He could only stare blankly, completely captivated.

...Why is he crying?

-?????????

-What is happening all of a sudden?

-Holy shit Park Songhu is crying?

-I guess I’m into teary-eyed Songhu now...

-Obviously acting

└Nah Park Songhu can’t act tears for shit.

-But seriously why is he crying?

└Looks like he got emotional while thanking his fans for waitingㅠㅠㅠ

The comment section was fierce.

Positive and negative reactions tangled together, and Park Songhu had naturally expected the negative side to overwhelm everything...

-No but he actually looks like he’s crying for real?

-So crying means everything’s forgiven?

└Who said anything about forgiving him? It’s just surprising to see him cry

-But seriously those aren’t the same eyes old Park Songhu had. Looks like there’s some kind of story there;;

-100% acting. Don’t fall for it lol

└Do you not know how bad Park Songhu is at acting? There’s no way he could pull off tears that naturally

└Ah, true... so it can’t be acting

-Damn but he looks insanely handsome crying

-I almost became a fan just now. Is that normal?

└222222

└Completely normal yep

There were surprisingly quite a lot of decent reactions.

Of course, percentage-wise, the negative ones were still more numerous.

-Emotional manipulation is disgusting

-Looks like he spent his whole hiatus practicing how to cry on cue

‘Crying on cue?’

Park Songhu glanced sideways.

Park Songmin was looking somewhere else, desperately avoiding his gaze.

“Hey. Don’t tell me that just now was acting.”

Park Songmin’s eyes darted around before his head creaked into a nod.

“...”

That was acting?

That just now?

No way.

‘He probably just got lucky.’

Maybe the mood of the interview got to him, maybe he was holding back a yawn, whatever.

Just as Park Songhu settled on that conclusion, Park Songmin muttered.

“...I just tried getting into the character.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Ah, nothing. Just talking to myself.”

Park Songhu almost pressed him for an explanation, then stopped.

If he pushed, that bastard would just open and close his mouth like a fish before running away.

His eyes happened to land on the clock.

“It’s about time.”

He picked up the remote and turned on the TV.

The opening of <​Our Hospital> was beginning right then.

The background music played, and the hospital-room set appeared onscreen.

“I-I think I should get going.”

Park Songmin shot to his feet.

“Why.”

“Ah, um, I just got a feeling someone’s about to break into my house.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You know how good security is there.”

“Ah, no, actually, I left the refrigerator door open.”

“Why would you leave it open?”

“...! I-I suddenly need to go water the plants!”

“What are you babbling about? I don’t have any plants.”

Park Songmin’s eyes started darting around helplessly.

“Ah, and my manuscript, I’m behind on my manuscript too! My readers are waiting, so I really need to go write now...”

Park Songhu narrowed his eyes.

“Do you need to take a shit or something? The bathroom’s over there. You can use it.”

“N-No. I’m just going to leave. Thank you. Yes, I’m going now!”

“...”

Park Songmin hurriedly grabbed the doorknob.

Park Songhu warned him from behind.

“You’re going out like that?”

“!”

Only then did he put on his mask and cap, bow quickly, and flee the VIP room.

“What’s wrong with him?”

The live broadcast of <​Our Hospital> was already underway on TV.

The screen showed “Park Songhu” entering.

Even to his own eyes, the face looked exactly the same.

The walk was slightly awkward, but because the camera angles were mostly framed from the torso up, it wasn’t very noticeable.

The MC asked a question.

[So what illness brought you here?]

According to the script, prince syndrome...

[Anger management disorder...?]

[※Actual Situation※]

...was what he should’ve said?

“You fucking bastard!”

Park Songhu reflexively snatched up his phone and checked the live comments.

At least something was moving quickly.

The Genius Actor Is Hiding Twins