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“Aren’t you hurt?”

Yoojung approached Maru. Maru pulled his hand back while asking what was up. He seemed to want to hide it, but he was a step too late. She grabbed his wrist and pulled it out. His palms had gotten scratched. It wasn’t a big injury, but it looked like he needed treatment.

“I just need to get it washed and apply ointment on it. I don’t want to cause a big deal out of this.”

“Did Giwoo do that on purpose?”

Maru shook his head with a smile.

“Our acts just communicated too well. Also, I was unlucky and there was a rock I didn’t see where I fell.”

“Really?”

Was he making excuses, or was he telling the truth? At that moment, Giwoo came over.

“Are your hands okay?”

Seeing Giwoo ask that with a tone that contained guilt, it seemed that he didn’t do it on purpose. Thinking back, even if there was something between the two of them, neither of them was immature enough to vent it out during the shoot. She was probably mistaken because she saw Giwoo push Maru back with a scary glint in his eyes. After all, director Park even clapped in praise.

“I’ll get some adhesive bandages.”

Yoojung turned around from the two of them and went to look for a staff member. When she asked for some ointment and adhesive bandages, the staff asked if anyone was hurt, and she had to calm down from their panic and have them just get the items. Gyungjin, who she met on the way, also seemed to have taken the hint and asked if Maru was okay.

“It’s not a big injury. There shouldn’t be any problems.”

“That’s good then.”

Yoojung looked down at the adhesive bandages in her hand. As someone with better observation skills than anyone else here, there was no way that director Park didn’t notice this situation. From how he just quietly turned a blind eye to it, it seemed that it was an unfortunate accident after all. She brought the bandage and ointment to Maru.

“I could’ve gotten them myself.”

“I just had nothing else to do. My scene is still a few scenes away. Rather than that, that scene just now was really good.”

“It’s thanks to Giwoo.”

Maru plastered some adhesive bands on his palm that looked similar to his skin color and was barely noticeable. He didn’t seem to feel any pain as the way he clenched and opened his hand looked natural.

“You’ll have to fall over a few times more if we shoot from more angles. You should be careful this time. Watch out for any rocks and stones by your feet.”

“I will.”

Yoojung patted Maru on the back, with the intention to tell him that he should be careful and that he should do his best.

* * *

He knew it. He knew that that guy was provoking him. The moment he saw the mocking smile on that guy’s face, he realized that it was a trap that that guy set, but he did not fall back. Rather than running, it was better to play along with him. He would also be able to vent his frustration, so there was no loss for him. He pushed that guy’s shoulders as hard as possible, wishing that he fell backwards and broke a bone or something. He would be glared at for causing an accident at the shoot, but the image he had built up until now would cancel out most of it in no time.

That guy should have screamed and fallen over miserably, or at least, have a sprained wrist or something. It would be lovely to see him being frustrated for falling into his own trap, but that guy fell over gently without getting hurt as though this was all planned beforehand. It felt like pushing a rock. It was easy to see since that guy fell right in front of his nose. It only looked like a terrible fall, but there were no injuries at all. All it amounted to was a scratch on the palm.

What drove Giwoo even more crazy was director Park, who judged that the acting was good. That didn’t sound like a compliment, it sounded like a warning instead. I am watching you, so you better not go beyond that — that seemed to be the order. That I-saw-everything attitude churned Giwoo’s insides. They say birds of a feather flock together, and Giwoo could be sure that everyone around Han Maru was terrible, with the only exception being Gaeul.

“You’ve been working out alright,” Maru said after plastering the adhesive band on his palm.

To Giwoo, that sounded like ‘why didn’t you push harder?’

“Just a scratch on your palms, huh?”

“I thought I cleared all the rocks beforehand, but there was one, unfortunately. If it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t have gotten injured.”

“Good for you, then. If you fell on something other than your palm, something terrible would have happened.”

“Like the back of my head, for example?”

Maru smiled while stroking the back of his head. Giwoo looked left and right before speaking softly,

“Rather than the head, the spine is better. The skull is too hard.”

“Aren’t you a little too different because people aren’t around?”

“I’m fed up with playing with words with you.”

“If it was like that, you should’ve told me beforehand. I should have faced you without pretenses too.”

“You can only run your mouth off now. You know the difference between you and me, right? As long as I will it, I can make both of you unable to continue acting anymore. You know that?”

“Classic threats are the most effective, I guess. That made me a little scared.”

He wanted to spit on Maru’s nonchalant face. He wanted to see this guy’s blood drain. How pleasing would it be if composure disappeared from his face?

“Just keep going on like that. I’ll let you know how dirty this country is.”

“And you can do that?”

“You seem to have forgotten who I am. I see that you’re under the misconception that you’re in the same position as me after I played along with you a few times, but I’m Kang Giwoo.”

“Sorry to tell you, but I’m not old enough to have forgotten your name. I know your name perfectly fine. I know that you’re a competent actor, and err, that you’re quite popular? Actually, I don’t know that much about you. I don’t want to know, and I don’t need to know either. If I didn’t come across you because of various things, I would’ve at most known that someone like you exists. And also, that’s the only information I’ll know about you even in the future.”

You don’t have a speck of influence on my life, or so he was declaring. They were words that made Giwoo’s neck stiff.

“You really think so?”

“I saw some interesting news this morning.”

That answer made him speechless. The ‘interesting news’ was firmly related to what president Hong said in the morning, that Maru wasn’t someone he could handle. They were words that he ignored back then, but now they showed up in front of him in the most tragic form possible.

“Don’t tell me you….”

He couldn’t finish the words. That was impossible. Who was president Hong? He was someone who lasted more than 20 years next to his grandfather, who would flick people away with a gesture of his hand. He wasn’t someone a nobody like this guy could do anything to.

“This is just my guess, but being the meticulous person the chairman is, I think he should have told you to stay still, no? He might not have said ‘you’ directly, but he should have given orders to the main positions of the company and various partners. He should’ve told them that YM had everyone’s attention thanks to Hong Janghae and that they should stay low without causing trouble.”

He spoke like he had heard from the side. It was so precise that Giwoo briefly wondered if there was a wiretap in his room. Han Maru probably knew the entire situation. The belief that he could do away with this guy as long as he willed it crumbled apart like thin ice. The guy that was within arm’s reach felt like he had become incredibly distant. It was totally unpredictable. What relationship did this guy have with president Hong, and how did he get involved in this incident?

“Just like you want to do something to me, I want to do something about you too. If I think about what you did to Gaeul, just talking to you face to face like this is agonizing for me. So I’ll tell you this hoping that we’ll never see each other again in the future. If you plan to cross the line, you better prepare a lot. Even if you do succeed, you’ll definitely regret it. Why? Because I am confident that I’ll appear in front of your eyes even if I die. I’m not joking. I mean it.”

Maru added that both of them should stop here for both of their benefits while pointing at his hand. Giwoo stayed quiet. The absurd words that he ‘had the confidence to show up after dying’ seemed to have stitched his mouth. Just like how Giwoo himself had thrown away his mask, that guy had given up on wearing his mask as well. The bare face he showed was beyond imagination. He still had the eyes that reminded Giwoo of his grandfather. In fact, he looked like an abandoned ferocious dog when he talked about Han Gaeul. It made a chill run down his back. If he was pushed off a cliff, he would turn around instantly and bite at the pusher’s sleeves. He probably had no intentions of going to heaven together, but if it was hell, he would probably gladly drag others with him.

Maru turned around and walked away. Giwoo strained his locked hands and held himself back so that he didn’t jump forward. In his mind, he had already picked up a rock and smashed that guy’s head. However, he couldn’t turn that imagination into reality. He didn’t fear losing what he had. Rather, he feared not being able to kill him completely. That guy had a great physique. He could tell from the push just now. Bare hands weren’t going to do anything. He needed tools. A knife was not enough. If it wasn’t something that could settle the deal, that guy would crawl over with tattered arms and legs and bite his neck. It would be great if there were guns, but it was very difficult to get hands on illegal guns in this country. Above all, it would enter his grandfather’s ears. He needed something that could be found in everyday life, could deal with that guy cleanly, and had to be room for extenuation.

“We’re continuing.”

The assistant director’s voice could be heard.