Episode 35
So it was a hot topic, then. That had to be a good thing, right?
I lifted my head again, looking vaguely indifferent. The screen had shifted back to the interview.
-How does it feel to be forgiven by Gongza?
Kim Jin-hyung shifted in his seat and said, “Honestly, it doesn’t feel like just forgiveness.”
Well, it wasn’t anything that grand.
It was no big deal, but they were making such a fuss over it.
“The moment Gongza said it was okay—seriously, wow. My eyes started stinging right away.”
Did they, now?
They really were going through puberty, no question about it.
Or maybe they’d just had a hard life.
Kim Jin-hyung went on in a calm voice. “We keep hearing that there won’t be any more chances for us.”
He clenched his fist, then slowly opened it again.
He softened it, but the original words were probably even harsher.
The public’s gaze was unforgiving. I knew that better than most, having suffered every kind of indignity as a supporting actor.
Kids had a lot to endure.
Just hang in there a little longer.
Pretty soon, they’d be huge.
A sigh escaped me before I could stop it.
You’ll be the ones rising. The problem is me.
Well, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m free as a bird. I just eat and sleep every day.
The screen kept changing. Soon, there was a clip of me wrapping my short little arms around Kim Jin-hyung’s head.
Wow. That’s me, but...
It really was a cute scene.
Maybe because the height difference—no, the body size difference—is so dramatic.
It looked less like I was covering his face and more like I’d draped an arm over him.
I stretched my arms out.
Short.
They’d grown longer than they used to be on TV, I supposed, but still.
I refreshed the smartphone board. The clip must’ve hit hard, because everyone was having a blast.
Title: lol Gongza got protected by Jin-hyung
└ I’m dying from how cute this is lololol cute-death achieved hahaha
└ I’m already dead! Ahh, what a glorious death lol
└ 22222
└ 33 add one more here!
└ Holy crap lol what the hell is that? I’m losing it. He says it felt good to be protected lol
└ Well, sure it did lol
└ Weakest member Kim Jin-hyung being protected by Gongza (the baby) lolol
└ Hey! People can be protected sometimes, you know lol
└ Do you actually believe that could happen to you? lol
└ But Gongza really does look like a prince lol
└ Right? He’s protecting people already lol. The kid was born a prince lol
└ He’s still a baby and he’s protecting his hyung lol. Wait till he grows up lol Gongza protect me tooooo
└ How old are you, dude lol please contain yourself lololol
I quietly lowered my phone.
No profanity?
There had been some earlier. Had they disappeared already?
Or did the sheer momentum drown them out?
Either way, it was fine. I was just about to turn back to the TV when I heard footsteps.
Who is it?
I didn’t need to check. An all-too-familiar voice reached me first.
“Boss, I told you I can’t.”
Mom was on the phone, and then her eyes met mine.
“Mama!”
“Gongza! Mommy’s here! Sorry, I’m hanging up now. I’m looking at my Gongza for the first time in three days, okay? You know what happens if you interrupt me.”
She hung up and came running toward me at once.
“Gongza! My angel! Mommy’s here!”
“Mama! Nice!”
“Mommy’s happy to see Gongza too!”
I reached out my hands, but Mom shook her head.
“You need to wash up first. Hmm, what were you doing, Gongza?”
Oh, no.
I was watching TV and looking at my phone.
Long ago, floods, mothers-in-law, and wars were the most frightening things in the world, but for children in the modern age, it was the glow of a smartphone screen that inspired the most terror—ah, enough of that.
I can’t exactly tell the truth here.
In situations like this, it was best to glide right past the dangerous part. Fast.
I grinned brightly and pointed at the screen.
“Gongza is on!”
“Oh, really? It’s on commercial right now, though.”
For a second, cold sweat prickled down my back.
Why is it a commercial?
What I needed here was speed.
I tilted my head and said, “Huh? Gongza gone!”
I snuck a glance at her. Mom laughed.
“It’ll be back soon. You were watching yourself on TV, huh?”
“Mm-hm!”
“Well, I was watching it in the car on the way here too.”
Ah. She’d been watching on the van.
“Thanks to that...”
Then, suddenly, a phone ringtone rang out.
“Honestly, this is ridiculous.”
Mom checked the caller ID and swiped left.
Ah, she rejected it and blocked the number.
Then she suddenly ground her teeth.
“What’s wrong with these people?”
Huh, Mom?
“How did they even get my number? Do I need to change it again? What, they want me to help campaign with someone else’s precious son?”
She fanned her face with her hand.
“People keep calling me with all this crazy nonsense because they want to cash in on the buzz. Honestly.”
Ah.
So that’s why nobody was reacting. It wasn’t that they weren’t responding at all.
It seemed more like Mom had blocked the weird ones before they could get through.
Well, if Mom says something’s not right, then it really isn’t right.
Ah, Mom.
My eyes stung again. I looked up at the ceiling, keeping myself from crying for a second time.
Then I heard another familiar voice.
“Oh my, you’re here, miss?”
“Yep. I’m here!”
“Go wash up. Ah, where did I put my phone?”
Ansan-daek pointed at the smartphone on the sofa.
“Look at me, I must be losing my mind. Here it is.”
Ah! I wanted to keep reading the replies!
But Ansan-daek ruthlessly slipped the smartphone into her apron pocket.
“Did you leave it here?”
“Looks like I did.”
“Hm, I see?”
Mom smiled sweetly.
“So that’s what happened. Gongza, Mommy thinks Gongza should stop watching TV now.”
What? Mother! No!
“Gongza is on there!”
“Still no.”
Ansan-daek tilted her head. “Miss, you always watch the dramas you’re in from start to finish.”
“Of course I do. It’s monitoring. I’ll let Gongza watch it too if it’s a project he’s in.”
Ah. Fair enough.
I can’t argue with that.
Mom turned off the TV with the remote and said, “That’s variety, not a drama. He shouldn’t be watching things like this yet.”
“I didn’t get to see it. How was it?”
At Ansan-daek’s question, Mom stared at me for a long moment.
“Why? Was it strange?”
“Ansan-daek, our Gongza, you know...”
“Yes?”
“Could he be a wingless angel?”
Ansan-daek tilted her head. “Excuse me?”
“No, I mean... I’m honestly a little used to it by now. But I can’t even get into CocoaTalk right now. My messages are exploding.”
Mom looked at me and smiled brightly.
“Gongza looked after the idols.”
“What? He looked after them? Couldn’t that have been edited to seem that way?”
“There wasn’t even a script for the baby and me. The whole plan was just for Halo to come to our house and look after Gongza. And even if there had been a script, Gongza isn’t an actor yet, is he?”
Ansan-daek looked down at me.
“Well, that’s true.”
“Things just happened that way. Yes. And now I think I know for sure.”
Mom gently stroked my cheek.
“What I need to do for my angel.”
“What do you mean?”
“Hmm. It’s a secret.”
She looked at me and winked one eye.
N-no way!
Had she figured something out?
“I knew my instinct was right.”
Mother!
I blinked at Mom, my chest swelling with admiration.
“Honestly, because of this decision, Gongza may resent me later...”
She kissed my cheek and said, “But I’m prepared for that, Gongza.”
No, no!
Resent you?
I’ll bow to you for the rest of my life!
God. If I don’t repay this filial debt, I’m not even human.
Be filial. I absolutely will be. Lee Hanjo—no, Ma Gongza!
I was swimming through a river of emotion when Ansan-daek spoke again.
“Will you keep sending Gongza out there?”
“Mm-hm. I’m glad I know the industry so well. I’ll be picky about it. At the very least...”
Mom glanced at her glittering phone.
“Not these people who are causing a scene right now.”
“Sounds like you don’t like them much.”
“Right. At the very least, it has to be a place that takes child protection seriously.”
Mom let out a long sigh.
“This industry is rough.”
“It really is.”
“If it’s some weird director or a toxic set, I need to keep Gongza away from it. I’m Gongza’s mom.”
Ah, Mother.
If I don’t repay you someday, you can smack me on the back of the head.
That’ll knock some sense into me.
Ansan-daek laughed a little and picked me up.
“And if they call from a good place?”
“Then...”
That was when it happened.
Beep, beep, beep—
Mom’s smartphone rang again. She checked the caller and said, “I’ll consider it like this.”
She swept her hair to one side and answered the call.
Maybe because the living room was so quiet, I could hear every word of the conversation.
“Hello, PD Lee.”
-Oh, Miju! Long time no see.
“I heard you’re starting a new project this time.”
-Yep. The ratings are doing well.
“I know. People keep saying that’s just like you, PD Lee.”
-Thanks for the praise.
“Not at all.”
PD Lee?
Who’s that?
How many producers could there possibly be with the surname Lee? But if he was a Lee who made well-regarded work, that changed things.
-I’m busy, so I’ll get to the point. Miju, I need your help.
“Oh? You want a special appearance?”
-A special appearance would be nice, sure, but that’s not it. Sigh.
Whoever Mom was talking to drew in a breath.
-You know I’m filming a medical drama, right?
“Of course I know that.”
At once, I knew who it was.
So it was Producer Lee Je-min.
Ratings of 20.8 percent. It would later move to OTT, but for now it had to be on IBS.
I even worked on that once in my past life.
Back when I was filming a historical drama, I’d rolled around as an extra there once.
Was it the beggar with 23 lines?
I remembered an old scene. I’d been the one eating potatoes and then getting slaughtered by enemy soldiers.
I was pretty seasoned by then.
He was strict, but his directing wasn’t bad.
He was a decent person too.
So the atmosphere on set hadn’t been bad either.
-We’ve got twenty episodes of pre-shooting on this one.
“That sounds exactly like you, Director. More pre-shooting is better.”
-Exactly. I threw a fit and said I wouldn’t do the project unless they gave me that much pre-shooting, so I got it. But the thing is, the lead dies later on.
“Oh? Director, I’m watching that drama right now, and that’s a spoiler.”
I knew the show immediately.
Emergency Room.
Wow.
That’s a masterpiece.
Twenty-six episodes, with two ER doctors as the leads, each patient story more moving than the last. And the real highlight of the drama was when one of the leads died of an incurable illness.
The stern teacher eventually died in the end.
And the teacher’s son was a child who had just held his first birthday party.
No wonder it became a total tear-fest later.
I’d heard it also made a serious amount of overseas revenue on the back of the Hallyu wave.
So that drama was being filmed right now.
Had no idea.
-Sorry, sorry. But I can’t find the right child actor. The kid we originally planned to shoot with got measles.
“Oh my?”
-I was looking around for anyone suitable and then I saw that variety show. Miju, let me use Gongza.
Wow. Mom!
We have to take this!
The teacher’s son!
That scene is legendary!
This has to happen! I’m doing it!
I stared at Mom, my heart pounding.
“Our Gongza, you mean...”
-Please, I’m begging you. Hm?
“Today’s variety show has already blown up my phone. That means my angel must’ve done something incredible.”
-Looking at it, the teacher role really does resemble Han Woo-jin.
Wow. Han Woo-jin.
He’s in his late thirties now, but he’s still a ridiculously handsome actor.
Even ten years later, if you said “handsome,” Han Woo-jin’s name would be the first one to pop into your head.
“You know how old our Gongza is, right?”
-Of course. Of course.
“And you know the set has to be a good place, right?”
-I’m famous for following the rules, you know.
Mom flashed a grin.
“I know. That’s why I’m saying yes. Understood?”
Mother!