Península: De Figurante a Rei do Cinema de Chungmuro

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[Parallel World]
[Prologue: An actor’s first lesson is to learn to be a commodity. Unfortunately, I’m defective.]

05:57 AM

When Jang Jae-hoon was jolted awake by his vibrating phone, warm yellow light was already spilling from Lee Sung-kyung’s bedroom.
“Three minutes left before the bathroom is mine. Damn it…”
He resisted the urgent pressure in his bladder, stumbling toward the fridge to pull out a prepackaged rice ball for heating.
The double-door refrigerator was the only luxury in their shared apartment.
Lee Sung-kyung had bought it with her first paycheck from a print ad, staking out a secondhand market for three weekends before finally snatching up the retired display model.
The upper compartment bore a label: “Sung-kyung’s Sanctum”—
Glass jars of cherry tomatoes lined up by size, vacuum-packed chicken breasts with calorie counts carefully noted.
Below was a sticker: “Jae-hoon’s Junkyard”—
Spilled chili sauce staining kimbap, instant tteokbokki a day past expiration, now marked with a skull in red by Sung-kyung’s hand.

As Lee Sung-kyung opened the bathroom door, lavender steam laced with the scent of hair mask swept toward the entryway.
Jang Jae-hoon’s eyes lit up and he dashed for the bathroom, only to be blocked by her arm braced against the doorframe.
“Did you use my hair mask as shaving cream again?”
He marched in place, legs clamped together. “Sung-kyung, the human sphincter has its limits…”
“Did you or didn’t you?”
He tried to squeeze past her arm, but she caug