Kim Donghu was originally good at sports.
You could say he had a natural talent for moving his body.
“Yeah, I knew that.”
And he was confident that nobody understood this better than he did.
It had now been eight years since he met Kim Donghu at the gym and started teaching him.
Baek Sang-ha thought it was about time to stop being surprised by Kim Donghu’s talent.
But.
“What on earth is going on right now?”
Baek Sang-ha couldn’t escape the shock of sparring with Kim Donghu.
In sports, experience is essential, after all.
No matter how well you handle the moves, in the end, you’re dealing with an opponent.
With an opponent, there are variables,
And even if you use difficult techniques well, you might not land a hit.
This was why Baek Sang-ha felt Kim Donghu was special, yet still had much to improve.
In a clear match, where the opponent isn’t a sandbag hanging in the air,
Even a genius struggles to control the variables.
“Have I been wrong about everything?”
Experiencing what was unfolding before his eyes, Baek Sang-ha felt his common sense crumbling.
Smack!
Fists flying like bees and feet dancing like butterflies.
Movements that reminded him of someone he had seen in a video long ago.
Chasing those fluttering moves, he found a fist suddenly closing in on him.
A precise pinpoint strike with no chance of missing.
Boom!
Though they were sparring and he was clearly holding back, the blow delivered straight to his insides.
Huff huff.
He noticed his breathing becoming ragged.
How much time had passed?
He glanced at the clock.
“Dammit.”
He thought he had endured hellish time, but only a minute and ten seconds had slipped by.
He had to endure another two minutes for this situation to end.
“Was it a bad idea to make this like a real fight?”
With late regret, Baek Sang-ha tightened his guard.
At the same time, he realized he was going all out.
Tap tap.
Tap tap.
Tap tap.
Light jabs connected with his gloves and abdomen.
It was definitely what he had taught,
But he had never instructed at this fierce level of depth.
Glancing quickly,
In the midst of it all, Baek Sang-ha looked at Kim Donghu’s face and immediately felt despair.
“Donghu, come on, I’m the coach here. Aren’t you a little too relaxed?”
As a courtesy, he could at least keep his breathing steady.
How is he still so chill and relaxed?
Tap tap.
Tap tap, wham.
After lightly jabbing, suddenly, he changed the direction and tapped Baek Sang-ha’s abdomen.
Obvious movements that feel like they’re intentionally avoiding a liver shot.
No one would believe it, but Baek Sang-ha perfectly felt it just now.
‘Donghu is looking at me right now.’
Baek Sang-ha was taken aback by the feelings he was experiencing for the first time in his life.
He thought he had said goodbye to moments like this forever. Who would have thought he’d get hit by a trainee?
‘But still, Donghu, my spirit is still youthful like you!’
After internally grumbling something a bit old-fashioned, Baek Sang-ha fiercely moved his body to show his prowess as a director.
There was about 1 minute left. At that moment, he vowed to show what a true master looks like.
“Director! No!”
At the urgent shout of Kim Donghu.
“Huh?”
Baek Sang-ha hurriedly looked around, but it was too late.
Thwack!
Kim Donghu’s fist landed squarely on Baek Sang-ha’s liver.
It was the worst possible coincidence.
Donghu’s fist aimed at the abdomen met Baek Sang-ha’s body which had contorted to give it his all.
“Oof…!”
No matter how much he worked out, you can’t train your internal organs. Baek Sang-ha immediately sank to his knees.
“Director, are you okay?!”
In a panic, Donghu hugged Baek Sang-ha.
Baek Sang-ha mustered all his strength to say each word.
“D-Donghu.”
“Y-yeah! What do you need? Are you really okay?!”
“When you talk about where you learned to train… you’ll mention my name, right…? You’ll say you learned from me…?”
Thunk.
“…”
Donghu let go, looking deflated.
‘Guess worrying didn’t pay off.’
At the same time, Donghu replayed the sparring in his mind.
‘It felt like I actually downloaded it.’
Like suddenly being able to play the piano well without ever learning it. A skill far beyond what he developed through consistent training emerged.
‘What an incredible cheat code.’
Realizing how amazing [The Sims – The Real Life] was, Donghu checked the time and quickly got dressed.
“Director, I’ll be going now.”
“Huh? Already? Ah… it’s the day of the solar eclipse, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, I have to catch the live broadcast.”
“There’s a TV here too, how about watching it with me?”
“I promised to watch it with my friends.”
“…You say that after hitting me like this and heading off to see friends?”
Instead of answering, Donghu bowed and hurriedly left.
‘Time to skedaddle.’
He knew from experience just how annoyingly persistent Baek Sang-ha could be in situations like this.
These days, my son’s face has brightened significantly.
From the daycare to kindergarten to elementary school.
My socially awkward son never talked about his friends.
I wondered if he was being bullied, but there was no sign of that either.
Even what the homeroom teacher said had nothing problematic to report.
Just the usual.
– “Kang Sik seems a bit clumsy still, but it’ll get better with time, Ma’am.”
Just formal words spilling out. Not a single mention about the current situation.
Being ostracized doesn’t necessarily require bullying to happen.
If you go around alone without a single friend, that’s what we call being bullied, right?
“I’ve taught him all wrong.”
When I was blaming myself for his awkward speech, after he entered middle school, my son’s face lit up.
In the past, as soon as he came home, he would say hello and dive straight to the computer, but at some point…
– “Uh, umma, ch, my friends really, they, they love the notebook g-g-g-game I made!”
He proudly laughed and poured out his school stories.
How handsome his friends are, who did what, how fun they play, and so on.
Just listening to my son’s school stories gave me a surge of energy.
So I started asking him this and that.
– “What’s your friend’s name?”
– “Donghu, Kim Donghu! And Min-hyuk and Ye-rim.”
– “Wow, Kang Sik has a bunch of friends!”
– “Hehe, o, today we p-p-played cops and robbers!”
– “What’s cops and robbers?”
– “It’s a game where you play police and thieves!”
Honestly, there were nights when I silently cried.
It felt like I hadn’t seen my son’s smiling face while asleep in ages.
I wondered how excited he must be to wake up every morning eager for school.
Was that why?
– “Um, umma, can I watch a drama at our house with my friends?”
Hearing my son say that, I automatically responded:
– “Of course, you can eat dinner and go, or you can even stay the night.”
That was my reply after hearing it might be a girl who came along.
From that day on, I started thinking about what to make for dinner.
The friends’ names remained the same: Kim Donghu, Kim Min-hyuk, Shin Ye-rim.
But among them, Kim Donghu felt oddly familiar.
“Sounds like I’ve heard that name before.”
With life being busy and my not watching TV often, I was slow to catch up, so I, Na Kang Sik’s mother, Park Ok-soon, kept that question in my mind until the day my son’s friends were coming over.
When I opened the door and saw Kim Donghu walk in, I was genuinely taken aback after such a long time.
“Hello, Ma’am, I’m Kim Donghu. Thank you for letting me hang out today. Excuse me.”
“Thank you for letting me play today. Excuse me.”
That’s Kim Donghu.
Someday, he would be the topic among the neighborhood ladies, wondering, “What kind of fortune does a mom have to give birth to such a son?”
Even among moms who think their sons are the best in the world, he’s ‘that guy’ who’s still less good-looking.
And the ‘that dude’ who’s praised for his character, with moms wishing their sons had at least half that.
“Th-That Kim Donghu from TV?!”
“Hehe.”
Seeing her son’s proud smile,
Park Ok-soon recalled all those moments when her son talked about Kim Donghu.
– P-Please listen to the whole thing, Donghu.
– Donghu said I could be a really great person, a big person.
– U-Um, Mom… should I try game development? My friends really like the notebook game I made.
Then her memories loop back to the first day her son came home smiling for the first time after school.
– Mom! There’s this incredibly handsome boy named Donghu who saved me… And he even shared his lunch with me during meal time?!
That was the first step her son’s school life began with happiness.
Before she knew it, her feet moved forward.
Holding back tears that seemed ready to spill for some unknown reason,
Park Ok-soon struggled to say what she had to say.
“…Thank you for being friends with our son.”
She tightly gripped Kim Donghu’s hand.
Grabbing hands like this might seem burdensome to Donghu, but he and Min-hyuk and Ye-rim answered brightly.
“We’re really happy to be friends with Kang Sik.”
Upon hearing that, Park Ok-soon hurriedly dashed into the restroom.
Then, she turned on the faucet full blast and quietly wept.
“…It seems like my son finally made a good friend; it took him a while to find one.”
Truly,
It was a very, very happy day.
++++++++
At the end of the third episode of “Solar Eclipse,” MNC’s drama director Park Seol-jae pushed his glasses up with an intrigued look.
“Oh, so what’s the percentage?”
“…Solar Eclipse! The third episode’s viewership rating is 24%! It’s showing amazing growth!”
“I see, understood. Everyone has worked hard, so let’s have eel for the company dinner. Anyone who skips out before the third round, I, Park Seol-jae, will never forgive!”
“Thank you! Thank you!”
It’s only the third episode, but the viewer rating is 24%.
Something unusual was about to happen.
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