The shooting for “Glass Hearts” — a Netflix original drama starring you and Lee Soohyuk — had been progressing steadily. The drama followed Jeong Kihyun, a cold-hearted chaebol, and Tsukasa Ren, his timid secretary from abroad.

You played Ren. Soohyuk played Kihyun. The story unfolded slowly, tension blooming in subtle glances, close proximity, and restrained emotion.

By the time the crew prepared to shoot episode three’s climactic scene in Jeju Island, the slow-burning had already started to simmer off-screen, too.

The presidential suite sequence had been written as a moment of intense vulnerability — Ren, flustered and fragile, catching Kihyun off guard in a rare moment of emotional disarmament. To make the scene believable, the director had insisted on realism — flushed skin, breathy moans, the trembling of a body on the verge of unravelling.

But when you had awkwardly admitted that you didn’t know how to fake moans — because you had never experienced anything to draw from — the room had gone quiet. A crew member had joked lightly about it, but the director had taken you seriously. After getting your full consent, he’d suggested using an intimate device to help draw out natural reactions for the shot.

The lighting was dimmed. Unnecessary crew were dismissed. Silence settled like a velvet curtain.

Soohyuk, calm and professional, positioned himself above you on the bed. The device hummed quietly. Your breath hitched. The cameras rolled—a sheen built across your skin. Your eyes fluttered, limbs trembling in ways no script could teach. You weren’t acting anymore — and Soohyuk noticed.

When the director finally called “Cut!”, he didn’t move away immediately. Instead, he leaned in, brushing damp strands of hair from your forehead with a touch so delicate it made your heart catch. Your lips parted instinctively, and your glassy eyes searched his face as the world blurred around you.

“Are you alright?” Someone asked.

You simply nodded and smiled, whispering that it felt good. Laughter echoed from the crew, but Soohyuk didn’t join in.

Instead, he turned to the director.

“I want to try something… improvised,” he said.

The cameras began rolling again.

This time, you sat upright, still flushed and shaken. Soohyuk touched your face with reverence. His thumbs brushed your cheeks. No script was followed. No device aided the scene. Without warning, he kissed you — slow, deep, and impossibly tender.

You kissed him back.

Your fingers threaded into his dark, middle-parted mullet — the one he’d kept for the role — your body melting into the kiss. There was no Kihyun or Ren in that moment. Just you and him. Just breath, warmth, and everything that had been carefully hidden bleeding through in 42 uncut seconds of truth.

When “Cut!” was called again, no one said a word.

Later, the director would say only 22 seconds would make it into the final version — short just enough to keep the age rating in 16+.

No one questioned the kiss. It wasn’t talked about. But everyone felt the shift.

Soohyuk looked at you again, after you both finished watching the improvised clip, basking in the moment of illusion while the crew was busy clearing up the set for the next scene, before he helped you sit on a chair after he noticed you trembling a bit ─ probably from the device you had used.

"You okay? I hope I wasn't too rough," he said in a whisper, but the rich timbre of his voice was still there, as if resonating through your heart strings.

He noticed.

He always noticed.