Chapter 1 : Shattered Heart

“Even though you’ve done more recent projects as the lead actor, your first lead role was in “School 2013” wasn’t it?”

“Yes” Lee Jong Suk nodded. He flashed a big smile at the female reporter grinning at him as if she was waiting for him to say more. She rocked her head back and forth like a chicken pecking for food and eyed at her note book for the next question. Jong-Suk slurped on his caramel macchiato frappe as he watched her mascara smeared thin eyes scan through her notes. She paused at one page and darted her eyes back to him.

“Now that you have acted in different projects, when you look back to the time of “School 2013” filming, how do you feel?”

Painful…He couldn’t muster the courage to speak the thought out. He placed his drink back on the round two-person table and leaned on his comfy leather chair. He thought for seconds before answering. Back in the days, when the memories of filming ‘School 2013’ was still very fresh in his mind, especially when Woo Bin was with him in those interviews, he didn’t have to think about an answer; because either it came naturally to him or Woo Bin answered for him. Now things had changed far too much that it wasn’t easy finding an answer to those questions.  

“All of them were nice experiences for me” he said after a while, “And I have learned a lot about acting in all these projects. I guess I kind of miss going to school when I think about ‘School 2013’.” The way the reporter looked expectantly at him suggested that she wasn’t satisfied with such a cliché answer. But he had nothing else to say; at least nothing that he could say to a reporter. He gave her a big grin and uncrossed his legs, leaning forward to grab his drink. She curled her lips for a very short moment in acknowledgment of the end of his answer and took a sip on her coffee while eyes focused on her notebook.

“After “School 2013”,” she said, placing her mug back on the table “a lot of fans hope that you and Woo Bin will reunite on screen again, do you have any plans for that in this new year?”

Jong-Suk gazed out of the window to his right; the streets below were swarming with crowds. Even though a new year has started, things were just the same, people were busy, streets were busy, shops were busy, everything just as busy as always and life moving forward. He felt like he was the only one standing still, standing still on the memories before last September.

Why would I refuse all the offers I got for dramas and movies to star alongside Woo Bin if I ever wanted to act with him again, he thought secretly. That’s what he has been doing since four months ago; he has refused all the interviews and CFs if Woo Bin were to be his partner and he only read the scripts that did not have a role for Woo Bin.

 “If we ever get another chance” he said, turning his gaze back to the woman sitting in front of him. He tried to maintain a good smile, though he couldn’t retain it any longer than two seconds. He shoved the straw into his mouth and in, feeling the coolness of the drink soothe down the burning lump of air stuck in his throat.

“Not too long ago Kim Woo Bin-shi…” Here it comes; Jong Suk thought as he looked at the reporter’s gleaming eyes shifting back to him. He had seen this kind of gleam far too many times that he knew what topic caused it. “came out with his dating rumours and revealed that he’s being dating model Yoo Ji Ahn.”  

There we go again, he thought, pinching his nails wrapped around his drink.

“You are aware of that, right?” she waited patiently for an answer.

Jong-Suk felt his blood rush, heart thumping as his anger shoot up. Luckily he had the ability to mask that with a beautiful smile. At times like these he was so glad that he was an actor. “Yes” he said calmly.

“Do you know her personally?”

For god’s sake, can you stop with these stupid questions!! How the hell am I supposed to know who that is? He only managed so say so in his mind. He presented one of his best smiles he could manage at that time and answered, “I don’t really know her personally. Well I’ve seen her few times during my modelling days.”

“I see” she said and rustled through her hand bag. She slipped a photograph from her purse and slid it across the table. Jong Suk didn’t look down. He was mentally compiling a short list of Woo Bin’s and his girlfriend’s photos he hadn’t been shown by the reporters yet. Perhaps a shortlist was not enough, he thought as he leaned forward to get a better view; a girl looked away from him in the photo. She wore a pink, fuzzy jacket, a matching short skirt and a thin brown belt. Raccoon eyeliner made her dark brown eyes darker, frosty pink coated her lips and her hair was wavy in an ancient looking style that made her powder dabbed long face look even more like a geisha’s. Then he followed her hand linked with a boy’s. He was gripping tightly onto her hand as if scared she’d slip away as he stepped slightly behind her. His sharp eyes below the naturally raised brows gazed ahead of their path. Faded white jeans and his pistachio green t-shirt matched the tall boy’s fit body perfectly. His dark straight hair was combed to a side, and the pale skin hidden behind a lump of powder, but Jong-Suk didn’t need to see it to remember how he used to pinch those handsome cheeks playfully and watch the pale skin turn red during their filming of the Cass CF. Jong-Suk felt a sudden stab of pain deep into his chest. He jerked away from the picture of Woo Bin and his girlfriend.

“What do you think about these two?” the reporter’s voice dragged him back to reality. Of course an exceptionally well-paid reporter for a glossy, weekly entertainment magazine did not withhold the moment to capture a well-known celebrity’s reaction when his once inseparable bromance partner has been dating someone without even telling them. Get yourself together Jong Suk!! You are in an interview for god’s sake. They are waiting to capture your reaction. He scolded himself in his mind.

He forced a big grin and pushed the straw back into his mouth as he sat back and crossed his legs. As the coldness of the drink once again softened through his aching throat, he was thankful for his manager for ordering a cold drink. He had to say something, he thought as he pulled away from his drink. Words refused to leave his mouth, but he had to force them out.

“I think they look good together” he managed to say, surprising himself with the amusing giggle following after the words. He never knew he had it in him to force such a happy sounding giggle after those words, you are becoming a great actor Jong Suk; you might even win an Oscar someday he praised himself silently.

“Woo Bin said they have been dating for almost two years now. Did you know about them before they came out? How did you fe…..”

The words trailed away, as Jong Suk was pulled back to the time his heart was shattered into pieces by the news;

It was late September and the weather was too hot for him to sit still during his rest day. He strode into the bathroom, stripped himself off the clothes and walked into the shower. He jerked as the first few drops of cold water kissed on his sweating skin, jumping up and down until he was settled into the coldness. After he had started shivering, he walked out of the shower wrapped in a cotton towel.  He pulled on his boxers, threw the towel on the bed on his way into the living room without bothering to dry himself properly. He grabbed the remote controller off the coffee table and hit the ‘turn-on’ switch. KBS Entertainment Weekly was airing. He tossed the remote controller onto the sofa and walked into the kitchen.

“Lunch,” he muttered to himself as he opened his fridge looking for something; he really should go to the grocery store. He typically went on Sundays for his shopping and bought food for the week but sometimes on Saturday he would run out but not wanting to waste his free time, he would get his manager to do the shopping most of the time. He took the green onion out with an egg off the fridge, placed it on the kitchen counter and started inspecting the cupboard carefully. His lips widened as he grabbed a ramyun pack and walked to turn the stove on.

Jong Suk plated his ramyun and brought it over to the television, which was now playing some commercials on low. His laptop was open next to him on the sofa. He placed the bowl of ramyun down on the table and flopped onto the leather sofa and placed his laptop on his lap. He opened his browser and purposefully by-passed his e-mail and went straight to me2day. No alerts, a few amusing posts on his feed but nothing really any importance. His eyes suddenly dropped on one post that said “Woo Bin revealed he is dating!!” he opened it to find some ridiculous statement that said Woo Bin had admitted to dating another model. Jong Suk smirked at the ridicule; he first thought it was a rumour made up by some random reporter or possibly just some fan.  He googled ‘Woo Bin dating’ and loads of articles from different magazines and newspapers flooded in with yesterday’s date. He felt his smile falter suddenly. He clicked on one article; a picture of Woo Bin sliding his thumb on a girl’s lip stood out like a sore thumb on the screen. Jong Suk felt his heart starting to race as he read the article. Half way down, his vision started to blur with the swelling tears. He could faintly hear voices in the television, people smiling and screaming happily, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the picture of Woo Bin happily wiping a girl’s lips. The girl was pretty. She was tall but not too tall, her long black hair streamed down against her deep-blue dress. They looked good together. Jong Suk couldn’t move. He couldn’t look away. He body was numb and his hands were shaking against the keyboard. It was like the past few months he had thought how close Woo Bin was to him, how he thought they shared all the secrets, all the feelings together, was now slapping him in the face. And that was the first time in his life that Jong Suk felt his heart shatter, and the life pour right out of him. And that was first time he realised how much he loved Woo Bin; not as best friend but as a man.

“Jong Suk-shi?” the reporter’s sharp voice broke him from the past memories.

“Yes?” he replied, he had forgotten what she had asked him.

“So you knew about them dating before the news came out?”

When is she going to stop asking this crap about these two? Is this an interview about me or about Woo Bin’s love life? Jong-Suk felt the urge to his chair back and run away from this place as fast as possible. He took in a good breath, the faster he answers the faster it’ll finish, he thought.

“No, I didn’t really know.”

“Then you—”

“But I’m very happy for them. I hope they will stay together for a very long time. I also hope to find someone I love and have a nice relationship like them” he saw the reporter’s smile falter and he let out a sigh of relief in his mind. That should stop her from asking anything else about Woo Bin’s love life, he thought as he the last dregs of his too-sweet caramel frappe through his straw.

“Then, you don’t have anyone you are dating now?” she asked.

“No I don’t” he said, “Although I am not dating now, I do occasionally see women and think that they are alright” a small smile formed as he shared his honest thought about his life “But that’s a one-sided love.”

“You have experienced one-sided love?” she asked curiously now.

“Of course I have experienced a sad one-sided love. I still remember that. A one-sided love is so very sad”

“I guess she was a blind person”

“Eh?” Jong Suk darted his eyes at the sudden remark the reporter had made.

She giggled softly at Jong Suk’s expression. “I mean, why else would she reject someone like you when there are hundreds and thousands of girls wishing to die for just a simple handshake from you”

Jong Suk laughed. “You are flattering me.”

The interview ended with a blast of flash lights as they captured Jong Suk’s cute poses and he said his good bye to the reporter from The Spotlight Magazine. He hurried down the stairs and walked out of the café. His manager was on a call and he popped into his van without a second thought.

He sat back on the seat and folded his arms across his chest and closed his eyes.

His phone vibrated jolting his eyes open. He let out a sigh as he fiddled through his trouser pocket and pulled out his mobile phone. One new text message sign illuminated in the screen. He swiped his finger across, typed in the password. How silly of him, he thought as he entered the last few characters of his nine letter password. He should have changed it to something else four months ago, but somehow he hadn’t had the time to change it, or so he convinced himself. He opened his inbox to see Woo Bin’s name he had saved as Hyun-Joong bright on his screen. He opened the message and it read “Have you been well? Did your interview end? Call me when you are free”

How does he know my schedule? He wondered.

“Sorry about that, I was in a call” Jong-Suk’s manager said as he settled into his driving seat. “You have the rest of the day free” he switched the engine back to life, “Is there anywhere you want to go?” he asked eyeing at the rear view mirror to see Jong Suk lost deep in his own world.

“Hyung” Jong Suk leaned forward, grabbed tightly onto the driver’s seat, “By any chance, did Woo Bin call you today?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah, just now” the manager said, driving carefully through the narrow road. “I was on the phone with him, he wanted to know if you had free time today.” He stopped at a traffic light and looked into the mirror to see Jong Suk sunken back into his thoughts, biting on his finger nails. “He has a photo-shoot and finishes in about an hour or so” he said pulling Jong Suk out of his messy mind, “Do you want me to drive you there?”

“No!” Jong Suk was quick to answer. He didn’t have to think about it, because he knew more than anything that seeing Woo Bin no longer excided him the way it used to. He looked at the rear view mirror to see his manager give him a worried expression.

“After 3 months you only saw him once at the SBS award ceremony, and even then you hardly talked with him. You just rushed home right after the ceremony”

Jong Suk knew where this was going, before his manager could say anything else, he said “Hyung, the light is green now” pointing at the traffic lights.

The van drove through the busy streets of Seoul. “Are you sure you don’t want to go see him?” his manager asked again.

“Yes” Jong Suk said, his mind buried in the game he was playing.

“Did you guys had a fight?”

“No”

“Then what is it? You used to run to him right after your schedules finished”

Jong Suk paused his game, lifted his eyes at the rear view mirror to see his manager’s eyes focused on the road. He let out a lump of air in a deep sigh that he didn’t know he was holding in. “I feel tired now” he said after a moment, “I don’t have the energy to run to him anymore.” He saw his manager’s startled eyes dart onto the mirror at his last few words. He realised what he had said and how it must have sounded in his managers ears. He quickly waved his hand, “It’s not like what you think” he blurted out.

His manager laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“You are too obvious Jong Suk-ah”

“What are you talking about?” Jong Suk asked, not very happy about the I-know-it-all expression his manager was making.

“Nothing” he said, “nothing at all….So I’ll just drop you off at your house then?”

“Yeah” Jong Suk said as he leaned back on the seat and buried his mind into the game.