— December 2018—

“What do you think about this?” Stylist-noona asked flattening down his hair a bit on the sides.

“Noona, whatever you do works.”

“You need to take more interest in your appearance,” she said.

It was two years since he had stood on stage with Ji-hyun but today, as on many other days, their mutual stylist was about to share some gossip about her.

“Seo In-guk had to pull out of hosting an award show with poor Hyunnie. Now they don’t know who they will get to replace him.”

“She was going to host a show with him?” Chang-wook asked, surprised his friend hadn’t mentioned it before. “Because of "Shopping King Louis"?”

He had enjoyed the drama, mainly because his friend was hilarious, but she had also caught his interest in her first “grown-up” role. 

“Yes. But I don’t know why he backed out. She was really worried about it yesterday when she came in.”

Over beers a few nights later Chang-wook teased In-guk that he had left his leading lady in a difficult position. 

“What could I do? They tried to change my schedule but it wasn’t possible.” In-guk sighed. He felt guilty but with his enlistment coming up he had less control over his schedule than normal.

“Why don’t I play knight in shining armour? Rescue the damsel in distress for you? Stand in as your wingman,” Chang-wook offered half-joking. Music awards really were not his thing but he had just presented at one a few weeks before so it wasn’t exactly something new for him. In-guk’s eyes had lit up and agreed to mention it to the producers who in turn agreed that it could be a good move to get in another high profile actor recently off another hit drama. 

— A couple of days before the Seoul Music Show —

Bang Chi-gu did some background research on the young actress and they were both shocked to find out she had also been in “Warrior Baek Dong-soo”. Chang-wook had not met her because she had been the younger version of the female lead. Chang-wook immediately felt horrible that he had not remembered her.

“She probably thought you were an for not remembering.” Chi-gu pointed out. “That is why she isn’t friendly with you.”

To make it up, Chang-wook tried to reach out to her before the show. He reasoned that because she had never done anything like this before he could give her a few pointers. Except he was told that she was out of the country.

— 19 January 2017  —

It was on the day of the show when they did a walk through and rehearsal that he was finally able to try and give her some advice. However, she showed no nervousness and performed her duties with practised ease. She was not shy at all, and he wondered if he misjudged her three years ago. He remembered his conversation with In-guk who had informed him that she was easy going and fun to work with. "But," his friend emphasised, "she still thinks she is a kid. She isn't. 100% grown woman and, Chang-wook, my special friend, don't you forget it". He discovered just that while they were being styled. He about her being his sunbae-nim since she had started working two years before he had. With a poker face, she responded that if he called her sunbae-nim she would have to call him oppa.

"Why not!" he laughed quickly dropping into banmal.

"Then, Oppa," She flicked him a glance up through her eyelashes, "as your sunbae, I think it is important that you reconsider how you behave around your seniors. I don’t approve of how quickly you dropped honorifics with me… Orabeoni."

The stylist team burst out laughing. So did he. A woman? Yes, she was definitely a woman. Only a woman would know how to wrap a man around her finger with a subtle glance and a single flirtatious quip. He jokes that he can’t believe it has been eight years that he waited to meet her—properly that is, because he decided it doesn’t count when they pass in the salon. 

"Eight years?" Nam Ji-Hyun frowned. She would have been fourteen and it was long before they had both been in "Warrior Baek Dong-soo". Truthfully, she’d been a little hurt when they first met that he had forgotten about their connection. Meanwhile, for him it seems awkward to admit that he’d come across a video of accepting an award at the MBC awards show eight years ago. But eventually, he gave in.

"Yes. Eight years. When you won the award for Queen Seondeok," the information hung in the air. "I was in "Hero", just a small part but was…"

He trailed off. He, one of the top Korean actors, one of the most desired men in Asia, was having to explain that when she was accepting an award for Young Actress he’d had a bit part in a drama that same year. It didn't seem to matter that he'd had a larger role in another drama that year. She'd been accepting awards... He found him looking a bit foolish in front of these women who were looking at him with anticipation.

"I am so sorry… I don’t remember…" Ji-hyun said when it became clear he wasn't going to finish his sentence.

"It’s fine."

"Oppa! Sorry! I’ll watch it. What was the drama? "Hero". I’ll have to watch it now. Oh, Oppa!"  And she grabbed his hand shaking it up and down to appease him. He can’t help telling her how pretty she looks. She blushed but managed a quiet thank you. 

After the show, they talked about what kind of project he would like to do before his inevitable enlistment. She suggested a roco since it would be a change but also a new challenge before he went on hiatus. He agreed because he was getting tired of playing highly draining action roles. So when a roco script was sent through he jumped on it. Even going so far as to tell her the plot. She replied that it sounded interesting and that the lead female role looked like a lot of fun. 

— March 2017 —

Suddenly he had confirmed his next project but every actress who had been approached refused the role for the leading lady. It started to look bad and people began speculating why this kept happening. What the production team don't say publicly was that the script had changed. The lead female role was now younger and less glamorous than originally imagined. And the actresses they’ve approached were not interested in playing a role as naive and reckless as the writers were now imagining Bong-hee. It was dispiriting that no one seemed interested in picking up the role and he, and his company, worried it could harm his pre-enlistment reputation. His mother had other ideas.

"Now. Our son, you are perfectly fine. It isn’t you but the part that they are rejecting. Hmmm… Is there someone you think would fit the role? Isn’t that what happens? Don’t you find the right person at the right moment? Then you think about it. Don’t sit around moping. You are getting under my feet."

"Eomma… who knows. Maybe there is someone who would fit the role. But…"

"Ha! Excuses. If you don’t look who will?"

He mentioned his problem to Ji-hyun and Stylist-noona at their next run in, but at the time it never occurred to him to ask her since she was gushing about her school work and how much she was enjoying studying. 

"Also, I want to try something different to roco." She mused as she looked at him through the mirror. "Maybe a saeguk? It has been so long since I did one of those."

Two days later he got a text.

"Orabeoni, send me the script." No signature but there was no need. There wasn't anyone else in the world who would call him "Orabeoni" so casually.

It took him by surprise given their last conversation but her request seemed like gold dust. He called the PD and writer. Would they mind, no, what did they think of casting Nam Ji-hyun as Bong-hee? After a quick conference, they agreed that if she liked the role she could take it. 

A few days before her casting was confirmed, he saw her at the salon. She ran over to where he was sitting.

"Orabeoni!"

"Ji-hyun-yang-i" he winked at her, "Thank you, so, so much. You have saved us all!" 

He realised that it was the first time he has addressed her so informally. They burst out laughing. He waved goodbye and left her watching his back as he walked away.

"Eonnie… did it seem like I was too excited?" She asked.

"You took the first step. What is wrong with that. You went for what you wanted." Stylist-eonnie smiled as she fluffed the younger woman’s hair. They look good together, she thought, I knew they would look good together. 

— April 2017 —

One thing he learned about her when they started working together was that Nam Ji-hyun might not dress glamorously but she was by definition a tidy person. 

"Dirty, but pretty…" he reflected as he pat her head between takes.

"Do you have to look so disgusted?" She pouted and squashed his hands in her fake dirty hair.

"But pretty… very, very pretty" He teased. It was silly but the idea of her comfortable and clingy like she was at that moment made him giddy with happiness.

The next day while preparing for a scene where she was meant to try and seduce him, he told her to be y. He assumed that she, admittedly single since birth, would end up overdoing "y' making it perfect for the scene. But when they started rehearsing she was so naturally y that he had to laugh or he might say or do something that would shock her. Thankfully she took his laugh good-humouredly but when he assured her it was because she was, in fact, y she relaxed a bit. It broke the final, thinnest layer of ice between them. And the fact he admitted he found her y opened their originally friendly skinship to something more flirtatious. Their ‘some’ now made each day exciting and he couldn't wait to get to set to see her.

"What you playing at," Bang Chi gu asked him that night over beers.

"What?"

"With Nam Ji-hyun. What you thinking about with that kid."

"She isn’t exactly a kid," he responded defensively.

"Eight years is a pretty big ." His friend said making sure that Chang-wook saw how serious he was. 

Chang-wook admitted he had been a bit reckless with women in the past. Nothing to ever cross the line but he tended to prefer looser arrangements with women in the industry who weren't looking for long term. Therefore anyone who was focused on their career was fair game. That brief relationship with that one actress was one thing but both of them knew it wasn’t going to work. Or at least she did. It had hurt to be dumped like that but not for long. It also helped that before Ji-Hyun his ideal girl wasn't floating around the Korean Entertainment industry.

"I am not thinking anything at the moment. We are just… colleagues. Sunbae and hubae, dongsaeng and oppa. Simple."

"With you nothing is simple. Does she see it that way? Simple? Does she think of you as Sunbae or as Oppa... or should I say Orabeoni?"

Chang-wook understood exactly what was being said. He was a big name, a hot commodity, and his legions of fans were very protective of their Oppa. He liked it that way. It reminded him that he had made a success out of his life. The years of hard work in weekend and daily dramas had paid off and he now got courted for dramas rather than working every moment to get his name out there. 

"When you figure that out. That is when we will talk," his long-standing manager and friend said.

"When I figure her out?" Chang-wook asks. "She is a woman, how am I meant to know what she is thinking?"

"Women are simple. We over-complicate them. Women like to feel like they are the most precious thing in the world. If she wants you to treat her like that then you know."

"That is not an answer." 

In bed that night Chang-wook flipped through their messages. Most of the time she was asking whether he thought they should try something for a scene. A couple were funny pictures they took on set. But nothing convinced him that she saw him any different to their fellow costars. He asked his mother about what Bang Chi-gu said.

"So, you want to know how women think?" She gave him an inquisitive look.

"For the drama," he tried to explain.

"Well if she wants to… Oh. This really isn’t my area of expertise. I’d just say go with your gut." She smirked and went on folding the laundry.

— May 2017 —

The press conference for "Suspicious Partner" was held on the 10th of May the same day of the premiere. Nam Ji-hyun wondered why she was wearing such a y dress for the presser when Nara-eonnie got to wear a more dignified shirt and skirt outfit. 

"You need to look y. Your style is changing. You aren’t a little girl any more," Stylist-eonnie said.

"Eonnie, don’t you think you are taking it too far?"

"Never! You are my baby. My favorite."

"Oppa is your favourite."

"That crazy man? He doesn’t know what he wants even if it was sitting right next to him" She said before shooting the man in question a sarcastic look. He knew exactly what he wanted, she thought. But whether he would do anything about it was another question.

Then Ji Chang-wook, accomplished actor and veteran of interviews, fell into a trap of his own making.

"I waited eight years to meet her," He admitted. "But I don’t know why I waited."

Afterwards, Choi Tae-Joon cornered him when they went for a cigarette.

"Hyung, why did you say you waited eight years to meet Ji-hyun? When could you have met eight years ago," the younger man asked.

"Uhh… I… who knows." Chang-wook glanced around hoping that Ji-hyun was not listening to their conversation. He was irrationally afraid that she would expose his embarrassing secret--that he remembered her winning an award when he was a nothing actor. But at that moment, Fate, he decided, was on his side. It really was amazing that it had taken eight years for the paths to properly cross.

"Wasn’t Warrior Baek Dong Soo… wasn’t that 2011…" He saw his friend processing the dates and thought of an out.

"Six! I meant six. You know that I’m not good at math." Rescued Chang-wook thinks.

Tae-Joon, however, wasn't convinced. Whatever had gotten into Chang-wook was going to make life on set so much fun. He walked off whistling a little tune thinking about all the havoc he would get to cause going forward. 

—