Page 9 of Tell Me Where It Ends

“I just do.”

I pull my knees to my chest, a useless barrier. “You’re always like this.”

“Like what?”

“Too calm. Too… normal.” Suddenly, I want to scream. His unflappable competence feels less like comfort than accusation—a spotlight on my own spiraling chaos.

He’s a lighthouse, and I’m the storm. For a split second, I want to drag him into the waves with me. Shake him. Make him feel even a fraction of the chaos I’m drowning in.

“Why do you even bother?” My voice sharpens. “Why don’t you just manage another actress and leave me alone?”

Shin blinks, startled. “I couldn’t.”

“Why not? Is it in your contract? I’m a lost cause. Just save yourself.”

“No.” He shakes his head, gaze unwavering. “I will never give up on you.”

I blink. “What?”

He sighs dramatically, scratching his chin. A slow, infuriating grin spreads across his face. “I mean… maybe I should. When you get really mad like now, you puff out your cheeks and widen your eyes—it’s kind of like a frog.”

I blink. “A—a what?”

“You know… all puffed and wide-eyed. Very… expressive.” He smirks. “I’m just saying, it’s hard to look serious when you do that.”

I hurl a cushion at him. He catches it, laughing.

“And you talk in your sleep,” he adds, undeterred.

“I do not.”

“You do. Listing all the foods you want—bibimbap, kimbap, bulgogi. Like a starving ghost from a horror movie.”

I open my mouth to argue, but he keeps going. “You always have to wear socks to sleep, even when it’s hot, because you’re scared a ghost will grab your feet. And when you get excited, you switch dialect—like that time you saw that puppyon set. You went fullJeolla satoori, saying, ‘Aigoo, look at you! So fluffy I could die!’”

I just stare, mouth slightly open. Another cushion forgotten in my lap. Heart doing an unsteady flutter. “You notice all that?”

His smile fades into something softer. “Eight years is a long time, Min-hee.”

The silence that follows feels different. Something in my chest loosens, like a knot I didn’t know was there.

“Tell me something about you,” I say. “I don’t even know where you’re from.”

He seems taken aback. “Me?”

“Yeah. You know all my weird ghost superstitions. I know nothing about you.”

Shin shifts. For a second, I think he’ll deflect. But then he speaks. “My parents live in Yangsan. They run a small convenience store. My dad’s Korean. My mom’s Japanese—that’s why I’m Shin. She wanted Shinichi, but Dad vetoed it.” A soft chuckle. “She calls herself a runaway. Doesn’t talk to her family.”

“Oh,” I say, eyes wide. “I didn’t know.”

He smiles faintly. “I also have a younger sister. She’s fifteen.”

“That’s a big age gap.”

He nods, gaze distant. “She’s on the autistic spectrum. Loves books. When she was little, I read The Little Mermaid to her every night. She had it memorized.”

His voice softens, laced with tenderness. I see it in his face, a vulnerability cracking his perfect manager façade.