If receiving an award doesn’t make you happy, it might mean you’ve truly become an adult. Or maybe you’re just so exhausted that your emotional circuits have fried. Or perhaps it’s because you were beaten down so much during the process of winning it.
I was on the stage of the Haeoreum Theater.
When my feet, stepping in time with the polite applause, met the spotlight, I moved like a machine, focusing only on taking one step at a time.
“The winner of the K-Expo Ministerial Award from the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism is Writer Lee Junghyuk.”
It was a moment I had dreamed of so much in the past. To have my name called, a certificate in my hand, and the Minister himself shaking my hand. An event where dozens of shutters clicked and the scene was broadcast in real-time as news articles.
But strangely, that whole landscape felt like someone else’s dream, not mine. That day, I stood there like a withered tree, in a state that was neither happy nor sad.
When I stood before the microphone, the words I uttered were incredibly cliché.
“Thank you. I will continue to write good stories.”
That was all.
Words without emotion carried no resonance, and the applause that followed felt even thinner. It was a reaction that clearly said, ‘Ah, so he’s getting one too.’
Ritualistic applause and ritualistic camera flashes went off. I left the stage without leaving anything behind.
In the hallway behind the stage, I heard the footsteps of the staff and rehearsal lines leaking through the gaps in the waiting room doors. Passing between actors in heavy makeup, I pulled out my phone. My hand stopped at a notification window that suddenly popped up.
[Breaking News!!! Setflix’s ‘The Rose of Sharon Has Bloomed’ breaks global viewership records!]
[Four-time Emmy winner Writer Park Ra-el rewrites the history of Korean dramas!]
Those flashy headlines explained my emptiness today. Someone was receiving all the spotlight, and someone else was stepping on the very edge of that shadow. I was the latter.
As I scrolled down, a familiar chart appeared: the stock price of CL Media. Just a few days ago, the graph had been labeled with a ‘continued decline’ diagnosis, but now it was lifting its head, tracing an upward curve as if it were on fire.
I poured a glass of water instead of drinking coffee. The lukewarm water turned slowly in the cup, and when it touched my lips, it had no taste. I couldn’t even feel the temperature. It wasn’t that the water was bland; it felt as if my senses were broken.
A moment later, someone approached cautiously. It was an official from the Ministry of Culture. He wore a suit, but his expression and way of speaking still smelled of a newcomer to society.
“Writer, have you seen the article about Writer Ra-el? They swept not only Best Picture at the Emmys but also Best Lead Actor, Best Director, and Best Music. It’s almost… on the level of a film festival.”
I nodded slightly at those words. I made a gesture of lifting the corners of my mouth, but it was more of ‘a facial posture to hide awkwardness’ than a laugh.
“That’s truly amazing.”
While saying those words, there was nothing in my head. No, to be precise, I was in a state where I couldn’t think of anything because too many thoughts were overlapping.
The official left, and as I walked out to the end of the hallway, word was delivered that the press interview would be skipped.
“Ah, yes. That’s more convenient.”
I replied naturally, and those words were sincere. Instead of flashes staring at me uncomfortably, I wanted to return quietly to the dark hallway. I wanted to hold my confidence, which had cooled like cold water, in silence.
I turned on my phone again. This time, I opened Instagram instead of the news app. A familiar feed, familiar people.
In a photo posted by Cheon Na Young, I was standing in front of a pot of boiled pork, and the hashtag ‘#Writer’sSpecialBoiledPork’ was attached.
Seojiwon posted a group photo taken at the filming site with the text: ‘The atmosphere on set went up thanks to the writer’s cooking skills lol. This is why everyone says Junghyuk, Junghyuk.’
Seeing that, the corners of my mouth lifted again. This time, it was a bit sincere. However, at that moment, a thought briefly crossed my mind.
‘…Why am I so grateful for something like this?’
***
The Emmy afterparty hosted by Setflix.
The party hall was still buzzing, and as champagne glasses were constantly being replaced, Park Ra-el began to tire earlier than expected.
*The Rose of Sharon Has Bloomed* had swept Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Lead Actor. Park Ra-el had been interviewing in front of reporters until just a moment ago and was now drinking wine with producers.
To anyone, it was a perfect scene. Yet strangely, the flow kept going awry somewhere.
“Congratulations. Korean drama is the future, you know?”
A white producer tapped him on the shoulder. He glanced down at Ra-el’s blonde hair and clinked wine glasses. Ra-el raised his glass habitually. The smile wasn’t forced; he simply had no choice but to wear it.
“Thanks. The future’s probably blond and under 30, then.”
Ra-el’s joke worked quite well here. In this place, a self-aware genius is more attractive than humility.
Just then, the top star of Korean descent, Grace Kim, approached Ra-el. She arrived just as Ra-el was unfastening two buttons on his shirt.
“Ra-el, congratulations. I didn’t expect ‘The Rose of Sharon’ to do this well.”
“I did. From the moment I wrote the script.”
“That’s some well-founded confidence. But honestly, I think it would have been more fun if ‘The Traveler’ had been there with you. It’s better for the box office when works compete against each other.”
“Even if we competed, I would have won.”
The answer was short, full of confidence, and didn’t waver an inch. Park Ra-el spoke as if it were a joke, but he wasn’t smiling in the least.
Grace looked at him intently with an interested expression for a moment before asking with a seductive face, “By the way, Writer Lee Junghyuk. You know him, right?”
“I know him. It’s impossible not to know him in the industry.”
“I guess you two aren’t close?”
“Not at all. We aren’t in a relationship where we’d be linked like that.”
“Really? I heard his name several times at this gathering today. They were talking about the reason why he couldn’t come here.”
“…Is that so?”
Ending the short conversation, Grace gave a slight nod and moved on. Ra-el’s expression remained the same, but his jaw muscle twitched slightly. It wasn’t a smile, nor was it annoyance. It was a moment when an unclear emotion seeped through a tiny crack.
After that, the name Lee Junghyuk drifted around the party hall several more times. The production team of *Kingdom Game* played a big part in the noise. They approached him because he was Korean and talked loudly, suddenly bringing up Lee Junghyuk’s name.
“Lee Junghyuk. You know that guy, right?”
Park Ra-el stared blankly at the straw in his mouth before answering.
“No.”
Fed up with the repeated ‘Do you know Lee Junghyuk’ situations, Ra-el decided to leave the party.
When he returned quietly to the hotel, it was 3:00 AM. The lobby was quiet, and the luxurious room was unnecessarily spacious for one person to use alone.
He stood blankly for a long time even after closing the door, then slumped onto the bed without even changing his clothes. Then he picked up his phone.
While flipping through his social media feed, he stopped at Cheon Na Young’s account.
#Writer’sSpecialBoiledPork
#WaitingForOurDrama
#TheAtmosphereOnSetIsCrazy
In the photo, Lee Junghyuk was wearing an apron and holding a ladle in front of a large pot. Surrounding him were Writer Im Seong-hee, Jeong Tae-mi, staff members, and actors. Everyone looked happy with smiling faces, and he was at the center.
Ra-el swiped through the screen and this time looked at Seojiwon’s account.
—No one has had indigestion after eating Writer Lee Junghyuk’s food yet lol. He cooked personally again today.
His finger stopped, and his eyes narrowed. Could a person look this warm just because they boiled some meat? He turned off the screen again and leaned his head back.
He had won a world-class award, and all the media were calling his name, so why did another person keep coming to mind at the center of it all?
Lee Junghyuk.
Why did a mere writer boiling pork capture his attention like this? He didn’t know exactly what this feeling was, but after mulling over the name several times, Park Ra-el muttered.
“…How annoying.”
The lights outside the window hadn’t gone out yet. Past 3:00 AM, club music flowing over the city was vibrating the glass windows, but Park Ra-el was still leaning against the bed, looking at his smartphone screen.
The feed flowed quietly, and his finger continued to scroll down the screen without any particular purpose. At first, it was articles he appeared in. From the BBC and CNN to the Guardian and Bloomberg.
In articles titled ‘Korean Dramas Have Changed the Emmys’, his name was repeated several times, and in interview videos with English subtitles, Ra-el was drawing everyone’s attention with a calm and confident attitude.
While feeling satisfied with how the feed’s algorithm flowed with scenes that looked quite cool even to himself, the image of Lee Junghyuk kept coming up.
Ra-el paused the screen and searched for Lee Junghyuk’s name himself to find a video.
Under fluorescent lights, ordinary indoor lighting, everyone in shabby clothes, and strangely warm expressions. Lee Junghyuk’s voice was faintly in the background.
—When boiling pork, the timing for skimming the foam is important. It won’t taste good if you do it carelessly. You have to do it precisely.
The camera zoomed in on Lee Junghyuk’s face, and one by one, the actors gathered behind him. A few jokes, laughter, and a scene of reaching out to taste the broth.
He turned off the screen.
In the dark screen, his own face was reflected like a mirror, and for a moment, his face felt a little unfamiliar.
‘It should be a happy day… Why am I so tired?’
He was the writer who had won an Emmy today, sweeping Best Picture, Best Director, Best Music, and Best Lead Actor. On a day like this, when the whole world was congratulating him, why was he lying down so lethargically, looking at someone else’s photos?
Park Ra-el had always been number one since he was a child. His IQ was abnormally high, and even in elementary school, he had received a review from a mathematics professor at Seoul National University asking, ‘Why did such a genius choose the humanities?’ A one-act play he completed in middle school had even been adopted as internal training material for the National Theater Company.
He learned everything easily and was recognized quickly everywhere. People called him a prodigy, a genius, and treated him as if he were a monster. He had never felt the need to deny it.
In fact, he was a genius, and he had believed that cold reason rather than hot emotion maintained that genius. He had always thought that emotions like jealousy were things only slow-witted people harbored.
But now.
On this night when he was receiving applause at the center of the world, Park Ra-el was feeling an inexplicable emotion toward a man who was just boiling pork.
Jealousy.
An unfamiliar word rose in his heart. Ra-el nonchalantly placed the word on the tip of his tongue, but unable to spit it out, he swallowed it.
He thought there was no way. There was no reason for him to be jealous of that person in the first place. He didn’t trail behind in name value, career, talent, or popularity in any way. No, he thought he was superior in almost every area.
Nevertheless, looking at the photos of that man made him feel strangely pathetic.
A man who had no applause, no trophies, and no interviews. He was just skimming foam off meat broth, blending in among people.
But there was something in that scene. A certain warmth that he didn’t possess. Natural support, unpretentious laughter, and an atmosphere where one couldn’t tell who was at the center.
‘It’s suffocating.’
Park Ra-el kicked off the blanket and sat up. His blonde hair stuck to his forehead, and he breathed out harshly.
Emotions are not organized until they are given a name. It felt as if something he couldn’t understand had been born inside him.
Sometimes, very rarely, he felt scared by the fact that someone else’s ‘reality’ was better structured than the scripts he created. The feeling he got whenever he realized there were people whose light and frame, expressions and tone, and the distance in relationships all fell into place perfectly even without calculation.
So now, that feeling had returned.
He suddenly stood up. His body moved before he even recognized the fatigue, and his hand opened his laptop out of habit. In times like this, he had to fill the emotional void by writing.
A blank document. He didn’t give it a new project title, nor did he write a synopsis. He stared at the screen while the cursor blinked, but soon, he couldn’t even write a single sentence.
He closed the laptop again.
His fingertips pushed the firmly closed lid, and he let out a short sigh. This was an emotion he didn’t want to acknowledge.
He stood up and walked to the window. The night wasn’t over yet, and a faint dawn mist was beginning to set over the streets. He pulled back the curtains and looked down outside.
The world was moving perfectly fine, and only he was standing still.