skye ⭑

the director had warned everyone beforehand.

“this scene is ugly,” he’d said, standing right in front of the monitors with a lukewarm coffee cupped between his palms. “if it doesn’t make me feel entirely uncomfortable, we’re doing the whole damn thing again.”

which was, all things considered, a completely normal thing to hear at eight o’clock on a freezing tuesday morning.

you had laughed, a small, breathless sound that got swallowed by the rustle of the crew moving equipment. seonghyeon had not. 

because unlike everyone else on the payroll, he’d already read the script seventeen times, pacing the floor of your shared flat until his socks wore thin, spending three whole days complaining about the dialogue.

“why does he say this to her?” he’d asked, pointing an accusing finger at the highlighted pages on the kitchen table.

“because he’s awful, hyeon,” you’d murmured, finishing preparing your shared açai bowl.

“but why is he so awful? there’s no justification for it. it’s just cruel.”

“because he’s the villain of the relationship. every story needs some friction.”

“i don’t like him,” he’d muttered, his lower lip pulling into a stubborn, childish pout that made you want to kiss him.

“you are him.”

“exactly. which means i am currently hating myself.”

and now here you both were—standing smack-bang in the middle of a fake apartment set that smelled faintly of fresh paint and stale timber. the red light on the camera was rolling. the overhead lights were glaring down, hot and unforgiving against the back of your neck, and your boyfriend of five years was looking across the space at you like he genuinely, thoroughly hated your guts which shouldn’t have affected you. you were a professional. you’d done this a dozen times before with a dozen different co-stars. except it did affect you; it was your first time acting out something so heavy with seonghyeon, of all people. 

it settled like lead in your stomach, because your boyfriend was annoyingly, devastatingly good at his job.

“action.”

☆

the argument had already been building for several scenes prior. months of accumulated resentment, heavy miscommunications, and quiet, festering hurt that had been left to rot in the dark. and now, in this cramped kitchen set, it finally exploded.

“you know what your problem is?” he snapped.

his voice wasn’t his voice anymore. the low, velvety cadence he used to whisper against your shoulder in the dead of night was entirely gone. it was sharper now. colder. a brittle, metallic sound that made the air in the room instantly drop by ten degrees. every single bit of warmth had been scrubbed clean from his features.

“you’re insecure.”

you stared at him, your hands curling into tight, helpless fists at your sides. the silence that followed was suffocating. it was the specific type of heavy, theatrical silence that made the entire crew on set forget to breathe, everyone freezing mid-motion.

“excuse me?” your voice came out like a rasp, barely carrying to the boom mic.

“everything has to be about you,” he said, and then he laughed. it wasn’t a nice laugh. it wasn’t that crinkly-eyed, breathless sound that usually filled your flat when you made a terrible joke. it was something ugly and mocking. “every single conversation we have. every minor disagreement. every little thing has to revolve around how it impacts you.”

your eyes began watering instantly. it wasn’t because you were genuinely upset—it was because you were acting. really acting, feeding off the terrifying hostility radiating from his posture. his shoulders were rigid, his jaw set so tightly you could see the muscle ticking beneath his skin.

“i supported you through everything,” you whispered, stepping back until your spine hit the edge of the prop counter. “every deal, every late night, every single breakdown.”

“supported me?” he scoffed, tilting his head back with a dark, humourless smirk. “you didn’t support me. you just made everything ten times harder than it needed to be.”

from the corner of your eye, you saw the boom operator visibly flinch, shifting his weight.

“harder?”

“you constantly need reassurance,” he said, closing the distance between you with slow, scary strides until he was towering over you, blocking out the studio lights. he leaned down slightly, his dark eyes entirely vacant of the boy who bought you pastries on sundays. “do you have any idea how exhausting that gets? it’s like pouring water into a bucket with a hole in the bottom.”

your jaw tightened, a genuine prickle of heat rising up your throat. “i asked you for honesty, yi-jin. that’s all i ever asked for.”

“you didn’t ask for honesty,” he hissed, his face inches from yours, his breath warm but his expression freezing. “you asked me to babysit your feelings. and frankly, i’m very fucking tired of being a parent to a grown woman.”

somewhere behind the black shroud of the monitors, the assistant director quietly whispered a thoroughly shaken, “shit, that was good.” because the chemistry between you two was terrifying. it wasn’t romantic anymore; it was just pure, unadulterated devastation. it was the sight of two people who knew exactly where the armor was weak, systematically destroying each other piece by piece.

the scene kept going, dragging out the agony. every line landed harder than the last, like physical blows in a ring. and then finally, just as the script demanded, your character completely broke.

“right.” your voice shook, the word cracking right down the middle. another long, agonizing pause. the tears were properly gathering now, blurring his harsh silhouette. “i think i finally understand it now.”

he said absolutely nothing, his arms crossing over his chest, his posture unyielding.

“you don’t actually love me,” the words came out so small, fragile enough to shatter if anyone moved too quickly. “you just love the feeling of being needed. you love the power of it. that’s it, isn’t it?”

the room went completely, utterly still. even the heavy cameras felt like they’d stopped whirring.

“and now that you don’t need me anymore…” you laughed once, a hollow, heartbroken sound that scraped against your ribs. “…i’ve just become a massive inconvenience to you.”

he swallowed. you saw his adam’s apple bob, a tiny, involuntary break in his composure, but his character stayed fiercely cold. “if that’s the ridiculous narrative you want to believe, go right ahead. see if i care.”

“no.” you stepped back, pulling yourself away from his space and shaking your head. “that’s not a narrative. that’s what you’ve spent the last six months showing me.” a heavy tear finally spilled over, tracking a hot line down your cheek. “and i deserve so much better than somebody who makes me feel this small.”

god, the director was practically falling out of his chair, leaning so far forward his nose was nearly touching the viewing screen.

“angel—” he started, reaching out a hand, his fingers twitching as if to grab your wrist.

“don’t.” you cut him off instantly, stepping entirely out of his reach. “don’t you dare call me that. you lost that right long ago.”

the nickname—the one his character had used throughout the entire script. the shattered, desperate look that crossed seonghyeon’s face in that exact split second nearly broke the remaining crew members.

“we’re done.”

with trembling fingers, you reached behind your neck, unlatching the silver necklace his character had given yours in the first act. you let it drop onto the wooden table with a sharp, metallic clink. then, without looking back at him, you walked straight out of the frame.

“cut.”

☆ 

nobody moved.

seriously, absolutely nobody moved a muscle. the entire room stayed frozen in place for three agonising seconds because somehow, you two had made a fake breakup feel like a real tragedy. 

the director just stared blankly at the monitor, his coffee long forgotten. the sound team stared intently at the floorboards. the makeup artist looked vaguely traumatised, clutching her powder puff like a weapon, and one of the production interns, juhoon, looked about two seconds away from an actual crying fit.

and then—“cut!” the director slammed his bound script shut against his knee. “that’s it! that’s the one!.”

everyone jumped. spontaneous cheers erupted from the back of the studio. applause rippled through the grips and gaffers. someone—probably james, your friend—near the fire exit actually shouted, “thank god!” because nobody wanted to sit through another take of that emotional warfare.

the absolute second the cameras stopped rolling, seonghyeon completely fell apart. “angel.”

you barely had time to wipe the wetness from your cheek before he was moving.

“angel, look at me.”

he was already crossing the set, his long legs eating up the distance between the prop sofa and the door.

“baby, please.”

“hyeon, wait, my mic—”

“absolutely not.”

he reached you in a second, his hands coming up to frantically grab your face. his palms were warm, a little damp with nerves.

he immediately leaned down to press a hard, lingering kiss to your forehead. then to the bridge of your nose. then your left cheek. the other cheek. your right temple. your chin. he was kissing everywhere except your actual lips, purely because his brain had short-circuited and he’d forgotten where basic human features lied.

“i’m so sorry,” he mumbled against your skin, his voice thick and entirely his own again.

“for what?” you laughed, though your ribs still felt a bit tight from the scene.

“everything. all of it.”

“you didn’t actually do anything, dumbass.”

“i called you insecure,” he insisted, his thumbs wiping away the remnants of your stage tears with fierce, trembling tenderness.

“your character called my character insecure.”

“same thing.”

“that is literally, by definition, not the same thing.”

he ignored you, pressing another desperate kiss to your forehead, his eyes dark with lingering guilt. “i hated it. i hated every single second of it.”

“you wrote four pages of notes in your script complaining about this specific scene, hyeon.”

“because it was mean! it was unnecessarily cruel to your character.”

“he’s supposed to be mean. he’s a terrible boyfriend.”

“well, i didn’t enjoy acting like one.”

you finally let out a proper, bubbling laugh, and the sound of it seemed to physically heal him. his broad shoulders immediately dropped an inch, the rigid tension melting out of his spine.

“there she is,” he breathed to himself, leaning his forehead against yours.

“you are so dramatic.”

“i’m entirely serious.” he slid his arms around your waist, pulling you flush against his chest and burying his face deep into the crook of your neck, inhaling the familiar scent of your shampoo from your hair that was let down. “i would never say those things to you.”

“i know you wouldn’t, baby.”

“ever.”

“hyeon, i know.”

“not even if somebody paid me a million.”

“they are literally paying you to do it right now.”

“you know what i mean,” he mumbled into your skin.

around you, the crew—especially martin from props and keonho from lighting, who were straining their necks to lean closer to the set like they were listening to some neighbour’s juicy gossip—collectively pretended to be very busy with cables. it was difficult for them, though, considering seonghyeon had apparently decided the entire studio needed to hear him worship his girlfriend to compensate for the script.

“you’re not insecure at all,” he said, shifting to kiss the top of your head. “you’re one of the most brilliant, confident people i’ve ever met in my life.” another firm kiss.

“and you’re so clever.” kiss.

“and funny.” kiss.

“and ridiculously, unfairly pretty.”

“seonghyeon, stop it.” you could feel your cheeks flushing red under the heavy foundation.

“and so talented.”

“hyeon, please.”

“and kind.”

“seonghyeon.”

“and every single room feels completely different the moment you walk into it.”

“that doesn’t even make any sense.”

“it makes perfect sense to me.”

you groaned, lifting your hands to cover your burning face. he immediately caught your wrists, gently pulling your hands away so he could look at you. “don’t hide from me.”

“you’re embarrassing me to death.”

“good.”

“everyone is literally watching us.”

“excellent. let them look.”

“eom seonghyeon!”

he grinned, a shameless, bright thing that crinkled the corners of his eyes. 

“angel, i just spent four agonizing minutes pretending i didn’t love you with everything i have.” he squeezed your fingers tightly, lacing them with his own. “i need at least ten minutes of proper recovery time from that trauma.”

from somewhere behind the lighting rigs, one of the staff yelled out, “take twenty minutes if you need, bro!”

“thanks, man!” seonghyeon shouted back over his shoulder without breaking eye contact with you.

“no one asked you, james!” you shouted towards the rafters at the same time.

the entire set erupted into a loud, collective burst of laughter, breaking the final remnants of the heavy tension.

☆ 

later on, while the crew was packing away the heavy diffusers and winding up the thick black cables, you found him sitting alone in the dim corner beside the monitor, quietly rewatching the playback of the scene. his expression looked oddly miserable, his chin resting in his palm.

you slid into the canvas chair beside him, rubbing a hand over his knee. “you alright?”

he nodded slowly, then immediately shook his head, letting out a heavy breath. “i hate it.”

“because it’s a sad scene?”

“because you looked genuinely hurt,” he whispered, turning his head to look at you, his eyes full of that soft, yearning vulnerability that always made your heart ache. “i know it’s just the script. i know it’s acting. but for a split second, when the lights were up, it felt entirely real.”

your heart melted into a puddle right there on the dusty floor. “hyeon.”

“when you took off that necklace and said ‘we’re done’?” he looked down at his own lap, picking at a loose thread on his trousers. “i actually felt physically sick to my stomach.”

you leaned sideways, pressing your shoulder against his comfortingly. because there he was—the exact same boy who got incredibly clingy if you left him on read for more than twenty minutes while you went shopping alone. the same boy who texted you a string of incoherent emojis every morning before his eyes were even fully open. 

“well, it’s a very good thing i’m not breaking up with you in real life then, isn’t it?” you murmured.

“an excellent decision on your part.”

“is it really?” you teased. 

“absolutely.” he turned towards you, pressing a tiny, sweet kiss to your forehead. then another one right between your eyebrows. and another one on your temple. “because i’m keeping you forever. you’re stuck with me.”

“that sounds slightly threatening, pretty boy.”

“it’s romantically threatening.”

“that doesn’t make it any better, i think.”

“angel.”

“what?”

his smile softened, becoming small, private, and deeply fond—completely, thoroughly seonghyeon again, with no trace of the script left in him. “thank you for never making me audition for the role of your ex-boyfriend in real life.”

you stared at him for a beat, deadpan. “that might genuinely be the most cringe thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“and yet you’re still with me.”

“unfortunately for my reputation, i am.”

“see?” he beamed, his chest puffing out as he looked around the emptying studio. “she loves me.”

“somebody please remove this man from the set,” you said dryly to the empty audience. 

“she absolutely loves me!”

“security!”

“the love of my life loves me!”

and somehow, despite the fact that he’d spent the entire morning making an entire film crew weep into their coffee cups, he ended the day exactly the way he always did—making you laugh until your stomach hurt.

© hyuneskkami ❦

For thousands of families, yesterday wasn't just another day. Behind every statistic is a human being, and every number is someone's mother, father, brother, sister, child, friend, neighbor, or loved one. I know for a fact that it's easy to scroll through social media and see numbers, headlines, and videos, but sometimes we forget that every single person affected has a story. There are families desperately trying to find their loved ones, people who woke up today without a home, children who are scared and don't understand why everything suddenly changed, and people waiting for answers that they may never want to hear.

And I want to take a moment to thank the people that are also doing everything they can to help. Rescue workers, emergency responders, volunteers, medical workers, neighbors, and ordinary people who are putting aside their own fear to help someone else. To every person who has been out there helping, searching, comforting, carrying, rescuing, donating, or simply being there for someone who needed support, thank you. I'm so glad that humanity is also what reminds us that we are not alone.

I may not be in Colombia or colombian, and not know every person who has been affected. But that doesn't mean their pain should go unnoticed. My heart goes out to every family that has lost someone, who are still waiting for news, to those who are injured, who have lost their homes or everything they worked so hard for, to the people who are afraid to go back inside their homes, and to everyone who is simply trying to process what happened.

You don't have to know someone personally to care about what they're going through. And right now, Colombia needs that care.

I hope that the people who are still missing are found, that the injured receive the care they need, that families are reunited, and that those who lost their homes find somewhere safe to stay. And most importantly, I hope that no more families have to experience the pain of losing someone they love in such a tragic way.

To Colombia: please know that you are not alone 🇨🇴❤️‍🩹

Let's keep Colombia in our thoughts, support one another, and let's never take another ordinary day for granted. Here are some links from Twitter and websites you can look at to help:

ABAC (Food Bank for Colombia): Here, you can donate money that will be distributed to all 26 banks of Colombia

SOS Chocó: Platform that helps Chocó directly (Chocó has been suffering since October last year from floods and river overflows, causing families to lose their homes, food, and more.

Refuges (TWITTER POST): List of every place that is taking people who have lost their homes so they can stay.

VERIFIED LINKS FOR PEOPLE OUTSIDE COLOMBIA (TWITTER THREAD)

MEDICAL LIST (TWITTER POST): The capital of Chocó (Quibdó) is asking for more supplies as they are running out of them.

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