8 march 2008, 11:30 PM

It had been a month since I had become Kim WooHyun shi's manager. I was monitoring his acting on the director's screen. It was all really fascinating and new to me. The way the camera captures the video and the acting done by the actors. I have always liked watching movies and TV, and never before have I ever seen a shooting before. And it was interesting to see how a story comes into shape.

WooHyun shi still had a lot to learn and was not that expert in acting. But once his face comes up on screen people would not even care about his acting, I guess. Because he is a treat to look at. Handsome.

I cleared that thought out of my head. Of I keep thinking that he is handsome, I won't be able to work. I need to get my head straight and think of him only as a fellow human. He is nothing special. Just a regular guy. Of course, he looks better than any guy I have ever met, but still...he is just a human.

"Cut..." the director called. He verified what was shot and called for pack-up. And WooHyun shi came to me. I handed him his water bottle. "Sorry, YuBin shi." He said, "It got really late today, right?" He asked really politely. He was always really polite to me. "That's okay," I said.

"I am used to late-night shoots. But you are not, right?" He asked.

"It's fine," I said. I was okay. I did not mind working late. I was actually happy to have something to do. If I did not have, my mind will wander off to things that happened. Oppa's death. Our dad not even coming to Oppa's funeral. Mom being too sick to work. Yuri still being a child.

"Let's go home, YuBin shi." WooHyun shi said.

I walked to our car. And I began to drive. It had been just one week since I got my driving license. Before that, a driver used to drive us around. But I did not want to be an incompetent manager. The basic need of a manager was to know how to drive a car. Thankfully I had been taking driving lessons even before Oppa's death.

"You won't crash the car and get us dead, will you?" Hyun shi was still nervous about my driving.

"No," I said.

"You are not sleepy, are you? Because sleepy driving is more dangerous than drunk driving." He repeated.

"I am not sleepy." I was tired though. And I was not that used to late-night driving like this and I was nervous. "And we don't have any choice anyway, because Hyun shi doesn't have a license anyway," I told him.

"Right." He grinned. He did not learn to drive yet.

I drove on, and he had gone silent after a while. I turned to look at him and he had fallen asleep. He falls asleep fast. And do not wake up when called. I noted that in my mind. I was noting everything about him in my mind nowadays, to make a mental note about everything about him and do a better job. So he does not eat onions, and he is scared of big dogs because he ran away last time when he saw the big dog owned by a guy in his apartment. And he likes colours like pale-blue, beige, or yellow and hates brown and dark green. And oh yeah, he liked Iced Mocha. Or every coffee in general.

I was in thoughts so I almost did not see someone crossing the road. I stepped on the brake so hard that we jerked forward as the car came to a stop. "What the hell happened?" WooHyun shi woke up, startled. I looked ahead to the road. The road was empty. "I thought I saw someone," I said.

"What?"

"Did I hit them?" I was terrified.

"What?" He was more scared than me. I got out of the car and looked around. But there was no one. WooHyun shi was near me. He looked more scared than me. "What if they are under the car?" He asked. That sent a shiver down me. "Look under the car," I told him. "I am not looking. You look." He said. I was kind of damn scared. There was no one else on the road as well. I began to bend down to look, but he clutched my hand at once, scared. "Don't look..." He sounded really nervous. "What if there is a dead body?"

"I have to look na..." I said, I began to bend down to look under the car.

"YuBin aa..." He clutched my hand tighter. I bent down and stared under the car. There was nothing... My breath came back and I stood straight. "There is nothing," I told him.

"Then why did you stop the car?" he asked, now looking even more scared.

"I thought I saw someone," I said. I had certainly seen something. "Something white. Maybe I misunderstood."

"No. No..." He looked even more scared now. "You saw something, right? That's why you stopped the car, right?" He stepped closer. "What if it was a ghost?" he whispered to me.

"Ghost?" I asked, finding it hard to suppress my laughter. He actually thought it was a 'ghost'. "Seriously?" I asked.

"Haven't you seen movies? Where people are travelling in a deserted road and – bam there is a ghost." He was actually scared. Actually watching him scared like that was quite cute. He was kind of adorable. I laughed slightly. "Don't laugh." He snapped at me. But when I did not stop he yelled, "Kang Yu Bin..."

"Well, there is no ghost. So let's go home," I said in casual speech. It was impossible to use formal speech with him just then because he was being adorable. And by the way, he had just switched to casual speech himself and called me 'Yu Bin aa' and 'Kang Yu Bin' without honorifics.

"I am not getting back in that car without being sure there is no ghost." He said. "Ghost can follow us home."

"Hyun aa..." I called. "There is nothing in this world as a ghost. That's superstition." I had switched to casual speech as well.

"What are you going to do if there is? Just like we can't prove it exists we can't prove it does not exist. If it does not exist why do people around in this world see things and have stories and stuff." He was making this into logic now. "There are many stories of ghost sightings, you know."

I shook my head. I looked around the car. "I can't see a ghost. So can we go?"

"But you saw..."

"I am sorry. I didn't see anything." I said. "Forget I even said anything. Can we go now?" Just then the wind blew and there was a rustling sound under the car. Hyun jumped and clutched onto my hand. "See... I told you, there is Ghost." He yelled at me in casual speech. I was kind of scared now as well. Not scared of a Ghost. I was scared that I might have hit something. Maybe even an animal. There was again a sound. I bent down to check under the car. WooHyun bent down, still clutching my hand.

And there was something white under the car. My breath came back as I recognized it, I grabbed it and stood up and held the newspaper in my hand to him. "Your ghost," I told him. A newspaper had flown in the wind and in the headlight of the car I had mistaken it for a person or thing. It was something white.

Hyun gave me a sheepish grin. I shook my head in laugher.

"Sorry." He said, in casual speech.

"Okay," I said in casual speech. "Can we go now?" I asked.

"One second." He said. "We are speaking in casual speech." He got that only now.

"You dropped it first. I thought... Should I switch back?" I asked.

"Nah..." he shook his head. "The formal speech was way too uncomfortable anyway before. We are the same age. Why use formal speech? It feels weird. And you are YuJin Hyung's sister and all. You already feel like a friend." He was totally cool about it. "So, Yu Bin, let's go home."

I nodded. "Okay, Hyun aa..." I said.

"YuJin Hyung used to call me 'Hyun aa' he said." Because many people call him 'WooHyun aa' instead of shortening it.

"Oppa spoke about you saying 'Hyun'. So it's stuck to my tongue." I said. "Is it weird?"

"No." he shook his head. "You can call me that. But on one condition."

"What?"

"You are not supposed to say what happened tonight to anyone." He said sounding really serious. I almost laughed again. "Which part? The part where you were scared of the ghost."

"Hey, it's in your job contract to maintain my public image. It's your job. So you can't tell it to another soul. That's a promise." He bent down to match my eye level. "Okay?"

I nodded. He was cute.

"Cool. Deal." He said getting back in my car and grabbing a pack of gummy bears candy from the car's gloves compartment. I was stuck with such a child. Actually that kind of generated a bit of maternal instincts for him in a weird way, it may be because I was supposed to 'take care' of him. Even when he and I were the same age, I was more mature than him, and he was just so much like a child. But maybe I needed to handle him like a child as well. Be strict with him like a mom would be. I got back in the car and snatched the gummy-bears packet from him. "No sweets at night," I told him.

"But but..."

"No," I threw the packet out of the car to the road and drove the car on. He scowled.