Chapter 2
The One Who Stayed
I was twenty-three when they assigned me a new manager. A male manager. That was new, considering my life until that point had been run exclusively by no-nonsense female publicists and older-sister figures from the company.
It happened around the time our girl group, Jellypop, had become less active, as each of us started shifting toward our inevitable solo careers—mine in acting.
We met for the first time over a quiet lunch in a glass office tower in Gangnam. He wasn’t what I expected.
With a four-year age gap between us, he felt much older—quieter, more put-together, like he’d already figured things out while I was still fumbling through everything.
“Hi,” he said, adjusting his glasses. “Let’s work together from now on.”
That was it. No dramatic flair. No over-eager flattery about how much he admired my work.
Just a calm voice and an even calmer gaze.
He didn’t talk much during that first week—just drove me to auditions, handed me scripts, and stood quietly in the background while I rehearsed lines in the backseat of the van.
Previous managers I’ve worked with are all about the flash and sizzle—quick with jokes, fluent in casual banter, always armed with the latest industry gossip.
Shin is nothing like them. He keeps to himself, speaks only when necessary, and seems content to fade into the background. I remember thinking, Never mind. No need to make small talk. They’d probably assign me someone else soon anyway.
But they don’t.
He’s been my manager for eight years now.
He was there for the indie drama I thought would ruin my career but somehow became a cult hit. He was there when I landed my first luxury fashion campaign, lingering just beyond the lights—quiet and still—as photographers called my name and the flashes sparked like a storm.
And he was there, waiting downstairs with a bouquet of flowers when I finished my first lead role in a primetime drama. He looked like it was no big deal, but it was. To me, it was everything.
He saw all the highs and the lows. He was there when news of my relationship with Suho leaked, and I ended up crying alone on the rooftop because the internet hated me—as the internet so often does.
He even sat outside my apartment once when I locked myself in and refused to speak to anyone for days.
He didn’t knock. Didn’t text. Just waited.
When I finally opened the door, I found him asleep in the hallway, leaning against the wall with a cold takeout bowl in one hand. He never once brought it up.
When I had my first real panic attack—backstage at a live awards show, knees buckling and chest caving in—he crouched beside me on the dressing room floor and whispered, “Breathe. Just copy my breath.” He counted slowly, held my shoulders steady, patted my back until the trembling passed.
Then he fixed my earrings, adjusted a stray strand of hair behind my ear, and handed me the mic like nothing had happened.
He’s gone out of his way more times than I can count.
Picked up hotteok from my favorite street stall when I was too anxious to leave the house.
Drove across the city to find that specific peach-flavored water I liked.
Sat in hospital lobbies during my therapy sessions, waiting without asking a single question.
Shin doesn’t make grand gestures. He just does things.
He’s a fixture in my life—so constant that sometimes, I forget to see him. And yet, he’s always there.
The first person I see on set in the morning, the last to text good night.
Through grueling schedules, national holidays, rain or shine.
We’re an accidental package deal: I’m the product, and he’s the warranty.
He’s seen every version of me—the polished star, the exhausted mess, the frightened kid—and he’s never once looked away.
“Min-hee, open the door,” he says, his voice measured—but I can hear the undercurrent of panic rising beneath it. A louder knock follows. “If you don’t give me a choice, I’m coming in.”
I press my back against the sink, the cool porcelain anchoring me, the bottle of sleeping pills clenched in my hand. I’m frozen, unsure if I should move or stay perfectly still.
The doorknob turns.
Of course I haven’t locked the door.
It swings open hard, hitting the wall with a jarring thud that snaps me back to the moment.
Shin steps in, eyes sweeping the room before landing on me. His face is a perfect mix of exhaustion and alarm, like he’s already played out the worst-case scenario in his head and is now trying to figure out how to solve it.
And then he sees it—the bottle in my hand.
He doesn’t speak right away. Just looks at me—his gaze heavy, unblinking. It’s a look that bypasses the celebrity and goes straight for the source code, cataloging every single one of my messy, terrified parts. He’s the one person my performance has never worked on.
Then, slowly, he steps forward. Reaches out. Not with anger. Not with fear. Just quiet, maddening certainty. He takes the bottle from my fingers—gently, but with finality.
“That’s enough,” he says, soft but firm.
“I wasn’t going to take them,” I whisper. But even as I say it, I’m not sure I believe myself.
“I know,” he replies quietly. “But I’m not going to give you the chance.”
I want to look away. But his hand is still holding mine—warm and solid—after he slips the pill bottle into the inside pocket of his jacket, like it’s something dangerous. Like he’s afraid I’ll try to grab it back if he lets go.
He doesn’t speak as he leads me back to the living room, just places one hand on the small of my back, gently guiding, like he always does when the cameras are too close or the reporters too loud.
We sit down on the couch. He disappears for a moment and returns with a hangover drink—the kind I always keep stocked, even though I can’t remember the last time it actually helped. The bottle with the orange sticker lands on the coffee table with a soft thunk.
I just glare at him. Why does he always have to be so... responsible? So maddeningly calm? So frustratingly here? Can’t he see what a mess I am? Why won’t he just walk away, like everyone else eventually does?
He sits down beside me, elbows on his knees, his voice quiet but steady. “Tell me what happened.” It’s not really a question—more like a lifeline, reaching out through the noise. Something real I can hold onto when everything feels shaky.
I open my mouth. “I… I just smoked a cigarette and I…” But the words collapse before they can take shape. My breath catches, and then it all crumbles.
A sob breaks free before I can stop it—thick and guttural—and suddenly I’m gasping through tears I didn’t know were waiting. The story I mean to tell—the long, complicated series of moments that brought me here—unravels in my throat, and all that escapes are half-formed syllables and broken sounds.
“I didn’t mean to—I just—I couldn’t—” It’s useless.
My voice is buried under the wave of it.
Grief, shame, fear—they tangle in my chest and spill out in hiccupped sobs, hot and loud and messy.
I want to explain. I really do. But I can’t seem to find the language for this particular kind of falling apart.
Shin just sits there beside me, quiet and still. It’s a miracle he doesn’t just roll his eyes. A lesser man would already sigh and mutter, What is it this time?—the familiar opening line to another episode of my life going completely off the rails.
But he doesn’t. He just waits. He doesn’t try to stop the crying or offer empty reassurances. He simply takes my hand in his, his thumb brushing over my knuckles like it’s muscle memory by now. Then he lets out a soft sigh—a sigh that says, I’m here with you in the wreckage.
When the sobs finally quiet into hiccuping breaths, he speaks. “Listen,” he says softly. “The test usually only detects repeated use… you didn’t, right?” He hesitates, then adds more carefully, “If you used it at all.”
I manage a small, jerky shake of my head. It’s all I can give him, but it’s enough.
Something in him visibly eases. I see it in the slight drop of his shoulders, the way the tight line of his brow finally softens. It doesn’t fix the fact that the ship has hit an iceberg, but for a second, the floor stops tilting beneath my feet.
He gives my hand one last, firm squeeze before standing. He disappears into the kitchen, and soon I hear the quiet, ordinary music of him getting the soup ready—the rustle of a takeout bag, drawers sliding open for bowls, the soft clink of a spoon against ceramic.
From the other side of the room, he calls out, his voice deliberately casual. “I’ll stay here. For now.”
I sit up straighter on the couch, swiping the back of my hand across my damp cheeks. “You don’t have to.” My voice comes out hoarse.
“I know,” he says, not turning around. There’s a quiet finality in his tone. “But I’m not going anywhere, Min-hee.”
He says it so simply. So matter-of-fact. As if it’s a law of physics. As if staying is just part of his job—like booking appointments, managing scandals, or picking me up when I fall apart. My chest constricts again—for a different reason, though I couldn’t say what.
He ladles the galbitang into a bowl and sets it gently on the table. I watch him move around the kitchen with that quiet, practiced ease—sleeves pushed up, cuffs rolled unevenly.
And for the first time, I don’t see my manager, or the fixer, or the guy who always knows what to do. I just see him. The man who never raises his voice. The man who never walks away, even when I’m a category-five hurricane of my own making.
He’s my one constant variable. The single, predictable data point in an equation that never makes sense.
My pillar in all this madness.
And maybe that’s the most dangerous thing of all—learning to lean on someone, just when you’ve convinced yourself you shouldn’t need anyone at all.