“Since the director mentioned she would show you a separate script, I don’t think there’s a big problem if I show you a little first. Actually, I was very curious.”
“Then there’s even more reason not to hesitate. It’s the director’s memory, but it’s also your memory. Shared memories.”
“Ah…”
That’s right. These were memories we shared. Two people remembering them in slightly different ways.
I looked down at the script in my hands. Upon closer inspection, there were no intact corners; it must have been square and neat at first. Now, it seemed like debris might fall from the worn-out edges.
I vaguely guessed how Minseo might have mulled over the memories of Jun and me depicted in this script, as well as the emotions of that day. I could sense the effort she put into making that day come alive.
“Oh, by the way, writer. You should only read up to the part I marked with the orange Post-it. Don’t go beyond that.”
“Ah, only up to here?”
“Yes, yes. It’s because of the director. She strongly emphasized not to show the entire script to you all at once. She’s usually gentle, so I don’t know why she’s so strict about showing the script to you.”
“Yes, she’s too strict.”
While making unnecessary complaints, I was, in fact, excited. No, am I shaking right now? Excitement and nervousness were indistinguishable.
My fingertips, filled with those emotions, opened the first page of the script. This time, without hesitation, I read through the characters that filled that page.
“…Jun, what were you thinking that day? How were you looking at me that day? In those memories, is there really your hidden emotion that I don’t know?”
As the characters in the script I was reading began to blur, they started to take me back into the memories of that day.
More precisely, into the memories that Jun remembers.
Into the faint memories of that day that neither twenty-year-old me nor twenty-year-old Jun could have imagined, into that.
A day nine years ago. A place similar to where I am now. However, today, the place in the memories seemed a bit more poignant.
Jun, passing by the front of the foot bath, and me, following him slowly, looking at the foot bath with curious eyes. I recalled that scene.
“Is this a foot bath? Isn’t it a stream? It’s so long like this.”
A foot bath that stretches to a total length of 105m, extending in the direction where the sea ripples. My eyes, looking at that sight, quickly widened.
Right. At that time, you tried to pass by without much thought. I pulled you back.
“There’s plenty of room, so don’t fight, okay? I guess that’s the mindset behind making it.”
“Ah… really?”
“There’s no way.”
I remember your face, laughing while teasing me on that day…
“Jun, I want to try going in here.”
Back then, just like that, I boldly took off my sandals and stepped into the foot bath, only to jump out in a panic because of the intense heat. Thankfully, Jun held me as I almost fell. Right, that happened back then…
At that moment, the characters in the script began to lift the narration into that scene. The narration Jun wrote in the script, which might have been hidden and, therefore, not shown to me for a long time, containing his sincere feelings.
(N) I wrapped my arms around your shoulders, which were about to lose balance for a moment. Thanks to that, you regained your composure and looked at me with a rare difference. Your face, reddened until the cheeks, was filled with the warmth of the hot water in the foot bath, making it even more alluring.
In that moment, a small impulse arose within me.
A wish for your cheeks to turn red only in front of me, filled with affection for me. An impulse to confirm if you would fulfill that desire for me every day.
In that moment, the Jun in my memory, at the age of twenty, asked the twenty-year-old me.
“Yi-Haru, do you know this? If you walk from here to the end of this foot bath, you can have an everlasting love that never cools down.”
Compelled by that impulse, I fabricated a story that was nowhere to be found in this world. If you walk from the beginning to the end of this foot bath, you can have an everlasting love that never cools down. Perhaps, I wondered if you wanted to have such love with me. It was my way of expressing my feelings without directly asking.
Would you believe those words? Would you show me your heart? Would you promise that your feelings would never change?
A story that doesn’t exist in this world…
My love for the Jun I gave. The belief that this love would never change. And your little lie that you wanted a promise for it…
“Well, then, I’ll just go for a love that cools down someday.”
Without any hesitation, I burst into laughter as I looked at you firmly stating your refusal. Well, there was no reason for you to believe. Even if you believed, there was no need to show that feeling here. Alright, I said something unnecessary.
“Sure. Shall we go then? Is your foot okay?”
And then, I remembered.
Back then, I casually blurted out that I would someday have a love that cools down, only to regret it immediately. A light-hearted remark that treated the love we were having then as a daytime dream that would cool off someday.
So, to avoid leaving regret as regret, I immediately turned my body and tried to enter the foot bath.
“What are you doing?”
“Just want to try it once.”
Soon, Jun’s narration continued. Sentences filled with your emotions from that time.
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
_____
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