after a scandal, wooyoung, a defunct k-pop idol, runs away to his sister's hometown. he craves anonymity, yet his quiet routine is disrupted by a chance encounter- a local with a warm presence, who offers him a glimpse of a life beyond the spotlight...
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1 week later
sitting still was harder than wooyoung thought it would be.
he sat crisscrossed on the living room sofa, eyes fixated on the tv screen in front of him that was playing avatar. he remembered liking the movie when he was younger, but now that he was older, the concept of jake sully & blue human-like creatures simply baffled him. the sad smell of homemade coffee wafted through the room, overwhelming his senses instead of relaxing them.
though he was as still as a rock in an air-conditioned room, his skin felt warm and sticky. the digital clock on the wall above the television screen read 12:46 p.m. had he really only been there for just twenty minutes?
morning had just tipped into the afternoon, and instead of letting the light in so he could bathe in the sunlight and reconnect with nature, all the curtains were drawn shut.
now that he was away from seoul and back in his hometown—well, technically, his sister's place—, wooyoung didn't really have to worry about paparazzi and unwanted attention. even then, the chances of people recognising him outside were high. he wasn't an unknown celebrity, after all. the fear of drawing back those pink floral curtains to see a whole crew of people holding flashing cameras and shoving their way through and into his personal space made his throat feel tight like a water balloon had been wedged into it.
it was safe to say that the events resulting in the end of his career had a detrimental impact on him.
even when he was a popular celebrity, he'd never been this terrified of paparazzi. maybe it was the possibility of accusatory, completely incorrect assumptions and questions that made him fear confrontation.
his younger sister, hana, walked into the living room, immediately clicking her tongue. wooyoung didn't have the confidence to look at her.
for four years straight, he'd been the sole pride and joy of the family. his career flourished, people loved him, and everything was going right. and now, at the age of 24, he was living with his 22-year-old sister who actually had a job and did something with all the free time on her hands. to put it simply, wooyoung felt completely useless.
"don't sit in the dark!" she lectured as if she was the older one, lazily throwing open one curtain and jumping onto the couch next to wooyoung. his heart immediately dropped as sunlight spilt into the room, his eyes snapping to the window that now exposed the world behind it. a long sigh escaped from his chest through his lips upon seeing that the people passing by the footpath outside were just neighbourhood people that didn't really give a crap about him.
or maybe they did, and their demeanour would fully change once they found out that a formerly popular idol was hiding in one of the houses in their vicinity.
for now, the fear of being recognised in this moderately eventful little district that was shoved into some corner of ulsan had completely disappeared. he didn't even need a mask to feel safe enough to step outside. a simple cap did the job quite perfectly.
