Superstar From Age 0

Chapter 295

Song Yu-jung sat in front of the television as usual, chatting with Lim Ye-na on the phone.

“Did you hear that Seo-jun’s sneakers sold out as soon as they were released?”

“Yeah. Even though they only showed them briefly, people still managed to find and buy them. I had to go around several offline stores to get mine.”

“I wish they would restock them soon.”

“Me too. I want to buy a few more pairs, but I wonder when they will be available.”

Song Yu-jung and Lim Ye-na talked excitedly while watching the MBS channel that was still airing commercials.

“Has it started yet?”

And Song Yu-jung’s mom.

“No, not yet.”

“Hi, auntie!”

Lim Ye-na, a professional saleswoman who had succeeded in getting the sneakers, greeted Song Yu-jung’s mom over the phone.

“Mom, Ye-na got Seo-jun’s sneakers.”

“Really?”

Song Yu-jung’s mom widened her eyes.

The drama ‘Spring Has Returned’ that had been airing from April to May had shown an amazing promotional effect.

From the first episode, the products that appeared on the show were sold out.

Especially the sneakers that Seo-jun wore.

They were so popular that even the sneaker brand that had prepared them was surprised by the demand.

“I heard on the news that the sneakers were out of stock in no time…”

“Ehehehe.”

Lim Ye-na laughed sheepishly.

As they continued to talk about this and that, the commercials passed by quickly.

“It’s starting!”

The familiar opening scene that they had watched too many times on replay went by and the last episode of ‘Spring Has Returned’ began.

***

“Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No?”

Kim Seo-yeon raised her voice at her mom’s question as she was getting ready for work.

As soon as she heard her mom’s words, she unknowingly thought of someone else besides Yoo Sung-jin.

“What do you mean by boyfriend!”

“Your voice sounds brighter. It’s been a long time since you talked to me for this long.”

Kim Seo-yeon stopped in her tracks as she was heading towards the entrance.

“Whenever you call, you sound so depressed and say nothing’s wrong, you’re fine, you’re busy and have to hang up.”

“That’s because… I was really busy.”

“Are you not busy now?”

She was busy.

She was busier than ever.

But somehow, she felt more relaxed than before.

“Anyway, you look better now. I’m curious who changed our daughter like this. Introduce him to me soon. Dad is curious too.”

“No, I don’t have a boyfriend!”

Kim Seo-yeon laughed at her mom’s cheerful voice.

“That’s right.”

She wondered when she became able to laugh like this.

At the end of Kim Seo-yeon’s gaze, there was a yellow umbrella standing upright.

***

“Let’s take a break for a moment.”

In the middle of the shooting, Director Choi Yoo-won called for a break time.

The models who had been smiling brightly bowed and headed towards one side of the set.

Kim Seo-yeon explained the storyboard and the points that needed improvement to the models.

The models who were hastily cast were from a rising idol group that was chosen by the client among many storyboards that came out of the planning team 3 meeting.

“It’s a relief that we finished shooting today. The new models did well too. The agency people are all hardworking too.”

“That’s right.”

Director Choi Yoo-won answered the staff’s words, but his eyes never left Kim Seo-yeon.

Then someone else entered Director Choi Yoo-won’s sight.

It was Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung who was looking at Kim Seo-yeon like him.

One of the planning team staff called Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung.

Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung turned his head to the side.

Kim Seo-yeon, who was explaining to the idols, looked around and saw Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung talking with the staff.

Seeing their appearance, Director Choi Yoo-won, who was more sensitive to people’s eyes than anyone else here, gave a bitter smile.

***

The shooting resumed.

Kim Seo-yeon looked at the idols who were being filmed and turned her head.

She could see Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung who was looking at the set with a serious expression.

Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung felt Kim Seo-yeon’s gaze and turned his head.

Kim Seo-yeon was startled and tried to turn her head away, but for some reason her head didn’t move.

Her body seemed to freeze.

Kim Seo-yeon felt like she had seen this gaze somewhere before.

Scratch scratch.

The sound of a sharp pencil and paper touching each other and warm sunlight shining through the window.

Yoo Sung-jin looked up and looked ahead.

He watched Kim Seo-yeon, who was studying with a serious expression, with a gentle smile and lowered his head.

Kim Seo-yeon looked up and looked ahead.

She looked at Yoo Sung-jin, who was brushing his hair lightly as if the problem was difficult, with a smile and lowered her head.

Like that, without knowing each other, they looked at each other.

And eventually,

Their eyes met.

Ah.

It was their first love.

***

“Well, thank you all for your hard work today.”

“Everyone, please be careful on your way home!”

“Don’t get caught in the rain!”

The dinner of planning team 3 and the shooting staff who had successfully finished the shooting ended.

“Seo-yeon. You did a great job.”

“Director, you too. You really worked hard.”

Director Choi Yoo-won smiled bitterly at Kim Seo-yeon’s bright smile.

“Then, please be careful.”

“Director, please be careful on your way home.”

One by one, they started to head home after Director Choi Yoo-won. Someone asked Kim Seo-yeon.

“Deputy, how are you going home?”

“Oh, I’m going to take the bus from here.”

“Then let’s go together.”

Kim Seo-yeon nodded at Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung’s words.

They walked side by side to the bus stop.

It was raining.

It wasn’t too late and they didn’t drink much.

Kim Seo-yeon, who was walking with a clear mind with Team Leader Lee Hyun-sung, thought of that day.

That day, she was on her way back from the library after studying with Yoo Sung-jin.

They walked next to each other with their umbrellas.

She felt happy just by walking with him.

Kim Seo-yeon got on the bus first.

“Kim Seo-yeon!”

“Huh? Why?”

She couldn’t open the window because of the rain.

There were quite a few people on the bus and an announcement was playing on the speaker.

Kim Seo-yeon, who was eighteen years old, leaned against the window and sat down.

She saw Yoo Sung-jin through the glass.

The wind blew.

The yellow umbrella tilted to block the wind.

Soon, the yellow umbrella lifted its head.

Underneath it, the boy she loved,

He smiled so lovingly.

Kim Seo-yeon, who stopped breathing at that sight, couldn’t hear his voice.

It could have been because of the sound of the bus engine, the voices of the people on the bus, or the broadcast from the speaker.

The bus started moving and she saw Yoo Sung-jin waving his hand.

“…I’ll have to ask him tomorrow. What he said.”

Kim Seo-yeon, who was eighteen years old and had her cheeks flushed, leaned her forehead against the window and smiled softly.

But Kim Seo-yeon couldn’t ask him.

Because,

Yoo Sung-jin left like that.

***

It was drizzling.

Kim Seo-yeon opened her mouth as she remembered the teacher who announced Yoo Sung-jin’s transfer.

“‘Lee Hyun-sung’ team leader.”

She emphasized his name more than usual. It must have been because of her mood.

“Yes?”

He stopped walking at Kim Seo-yeon’s question and slowly turned his head.

Kim Seo-yeon looked at him with a tense face.

It was raining.

They bought two transparent umbrellas from a convenience store and raindrops fell on them.

He smiled under them.

On that rainy day,

He smiled like the boy who smiled outside the bus.

“It’s been a long time. Seo-yeon.”

***

Kim Seo-yeon and Lee Hyun-sung entered a nearby cafe.

They put their umbrellas in the umbrella stand at the entrance and took a seat by the window.

Lee Hyun-sung ordered peach drinks and coffee as if he was used to it.

“I have a lot of questions…”

“Ask me anything.”

“…When did you know it was me…?”

He turned his head slightly at her casual speech.

“On the first day we met, I thought you looked similar and I was doubtful, but when I heard your name was also Kim Seo-yeon, I became curious. And then I found out you were that Kim Seo-yeon.”

Just like Kim Seo-yeon looked at him and thought of Yoo Sung-jin, Lee Hyun-sung must have thought of Kim Seo-yeon when she was eighteen.

Kim Seo-yeon nodded her head.

“Hmm. Can I ask why you gave me that project? You knew I got rejected for a similar product planning before.”

She was talking about the first project that she failed.

“I thought you would do well even if you failed once, because you were the Kim Seo-yeon I knew.”

“People change. It’s been 14 years already.”

She laughed and cried with her friends, had a pure love, helped others, was lively and confident when she was eighteen. But after spending a lot of time, going through hardships, despairing and being disappointed in herself, she became a miserable thirty-two-year-old Kim Seo-yeon.

Lee Hyun-sung smiled bitterly at her words and nodded his head.

“The original plan was good, so I thought you would do well without any interference.”

Kim Seo-yeon touched her cup as she asked him what she really wanted to know.

“…Why did you leave without saying anything?”

On Sunday, they said goodbye and on Monday, she had to hear about Yoo Sung-jin’s transfer at school.

They didn’t even take their final exams that they studied hard for together.

Lee Hyun-sung’s face clouded over.

“It was similar to why I transferred to Korea.”

“…What was it?”

It was a question that eighteen-year-old Kim Seo-yeon didn’t ask Yoo Sung-jin.

She refrained from asking because she wanted to be considerate of his stiff attitude.

“My parents divorced when I was in elementary school. My mother stayed in Korea and I followed my father to the US. When I became a high school student, my father remarried and sent me to Korea, to my mother.”

It was a notification without any discussion.

Yoo Sung-jin had no choice but to take the plane ticket that his father handed him with his trembling hands.

“I was a minor, so I had to follow.”

Kim Seo-yeon suppressed the urge to curse.

Lee Hyun-sung seemed to notice her expression and smiled faintly.

He didn’t know how long it took him to be able to smile like this.

“It was the same that day. This time, my mother sent me to the US. When I came home, my luggage was already packed and everything was ready.”

He couldn’t do anything against his mother’s cold eyes.

He wanted to stay with Seo-yeon and take the final exams and grade them and graduate and study and take the college entrance exam and go to college and maybe even longer, longer…

On the bus to the airport, Yoo Sung-jin cried.

“I wanted to contact you, but… I wasn’t in my right mind then.”

His life in the US wasn’t good either.

Lee Hyun-sung, who had become hardened at thirty-two, swallowed his words and looked at Kim Seo-yeon.

“But thanks to you, I was able to endure that situation.

You were my spring.

And I knew the warm spring, so I could withstand the cold winter.”

Kim Seo-yeon’s eyes trembled at his hot, rather than warm, gaze.

“So when I found out you were Kim Seo-yeon, I hoped you would smile brightly like before.”

Lee Hyun-sung couldn’t forget the dark face of Kim Seo-yeon he saw on the first day.

He wanted to bring her back to her old self.

The lively, affectionate, and bright eighteen-year-old Kim Seo-yeon.

“But that was also my selfishness.”

He left for the US without saying goodbye to his friends because of his parents’ selfishness.

He changed from Yoo Sung-jin to Lee Hyun-sung and remained a man. He smiled bitterly.

“Trying to make you live brightly could also be a burden for someone. So I decided to just help you from afar.”

At first, he felt like meeting an old friend. The memory of fourteen years ago was too old and his feelings were faded.

But Lee Hyun-sung soon fell in love with Kim Seo-yeon again.

And today, at the shooting site, they realized that they fell in love with each other again, just like they did fourteen years ago.

“Ah, I wanted to do it more coolly…”

He didn’t expect Kim Seo-yeon to ask him like this. He paused from washing his face and looked at Kim Seo-yeon.

“Seo-yeon. Kim Seo-yeon.”

Lee Hyun-sung smiled shyly but didn’t take his eyes off her.

She heard his soft call and her heart pounded.

“I like you.”

Ah.

She thought she knew.

What Yoo Sung-jin muttered outside the bus.

The words she couldn’t hear that day.

Under the yellow umbrella.

The boy who was in love smiled like a blooming flower.

‘Seo-yeon. I like you.’

Kim Seo-yeon remembered Yoo Sung-jin’s appearance from Lee Hyun-sung and Choi Yoo-won’s appearance, and she recalled her old memories with Yoo Sung-jin’s memory as a start.

She realized that there were days in her life that were happy and warm like this.

She had forgotten the happy memories buried under the busy and hard ‘now’.

Kim Seo-yeon’s life wasn’t always hard.

The past that she looked back on with Yoo Sung-jin’s memory gave her the strength to live again.

She could say what she couldn’t say then, now.

“I like you too.”

Kim Seo-yeon, who was thirty-two years old, smiled brightly like she was eighteen years old.

Lee Hyun-sung also smiled brightly like the boy that day.

Under the yellow light of the cafe.

Their faces, sitting across from each other behind the glass window, were reflected on the screen.

The hard winter had passed,

And finally returned.

Our spring.