Chapter 66
I let out a long sigh.
Come to think of it, that had been horribly inefficient too.
That wasn’t what I had used the coins for. It wasn’t to stop him from pulling the knife out.
I should have used the coins on healing.
Damn it.
Well, if he had yanked that knife out, the bleeding would have been no joke.
No, seriously, who had even tried to pull it out? Did they not know the obvious fact that something like that should send you straight to the Emergency Room?
I exhaled slowly. Well, the past was the past.
What mattered was cleaning this up.
I muttered at once, “Coin use! Tell me the number of coins needed for the quick recovery of Ki Cho-un’s arm injury, and the price to pay!”
500 coins are consumed to determine the price.
For Rising Star: Ki Cho-un to recover quickly from his arm injury, 100,577 coins are required.
The price is that I will cry for 30 minutes starting one minute from now.
I tilted my head.
Setting aside the fact that the coins are expensive, what kind of price is that?
Cry?
Well, it’s only thirty minutes.
I let out a sigh.
My coins, my very blood.
But I had to use them. Honestly, because of the movie, I had long since passed the hundred-thousand-coin mark.
Besides, that guy probably would have been in real trouble if he’d pulled the knife out without even realizing it.
My conscience pinched. I sighed and muttered inwardly, “Execute!”
It will be executed in 10 seconds.
All right, the urgent fire had been put out. I looked around, then froze.
Mr. Deok-su...
The big man had fallen asleep, crammed awkwardly into the narrow guardian’s bed.
Ah, I worried him.
I sighed and shook Mr. Deok-su by the shoulder.
“Sir!”
“Ah!”
Mr. Deok-su’s huge frame twitched once, then shot upright in a panic. At that sight, I covered my forehead with my hand.
He had cried.
A scrap of tissue was stuck to the corner of his eye.
He really is the type to cry easily, but...
The moment Mr. Deok-su saw me, he said, “Y-you’re awake?”
“Yep.”
“I was worried.”
“S-sorry.”
I should have prepared for this too, but I hadn’t even considered it.
“No, no. Hic.”
Mr. Deok-su started crying again.
“I didn’t think about the shock Gongja would get on set.”
No, what shock was there to think about...? No, wait, there was.
Of course a little kid would be shocked seeing a knife stuck in someone’s arm.
I gave an awkward smile.
“I’m fiiine!”
“No. When we get back, I’m absolutely giving you proper emotional care.”
“I’m really fine.”
Then it happened. Tears rolled down my cheeks.
Ah, damn it!
Right. There was a price.
When he saw me crying, Mr. Deok-su’s eyes shook.
I’m, I’m screwed.
How was I supposed to clean this up?
Rustling around, Mr. Deok-su pulled a child’s towel from his bag.
“Don’t cry.”
I shook my head while crying.
“I can’t stop crying.”
“I see. Our Gongja got very scared.”
No. I wasn’t scared.
Still, I think I can probably get away with the crying part.
Let’s just say I was shocked and frightened. Being a kid sure is convenient for this sort of thing.
I’ll just season it a little.
I took a quiet breath. Now I had to act like a child who had been scared out of his wits.
“I was actually scared!” I said to Mr. Deok-su desperately. “But seeing Gongja get hurt was scarier than being scared!”
It was true, wasn’t it? What did it matter if I was startled? I’d eat well and sleep well and get over it, but the important thing was Ki Cho-un’s injury.
“Is that so.”
“And I hate it.”
Mr. Deok-su wiped my tears away with the towel.
“What do you hate?”
“Gongja getting scared because of that!”
Mr. Deok-su’s eyes wavered in shock. I clenched my fists and confessed, “Gongja feels way too weak!”
Honestly, being weak was only natural.
If you expect a three- or four-year-old to stay calm in a freak situation like that, that’s absurd.
Even an adult couldn’t stay composed in a situation like that. After all, the excited staff member had really tried to pull the knife out.
Mr. Deok-su shook his head.
“It’s only natural to be startled.”
“But I can’t help at all, then!”
His eyes kept shaking.
“You’re still little. Don’t think like that.”
“But...”
“Haah.”
Mr. Deok-su let out a sigh and hugged me tight.
“You mustn’t think that way. That’s for the adults to handle.”
That was true.
I sniffled and said, “Sorry I fell asleep.”
“No. I’d already been told that when Gongja gets tired, you fall asleep. If you’re shocked, that can happen.”
Good grief.
He really is comforting me kindly.
My conscience stung in another way.
Sorry for deceiving you, Mr. Deok-su.
I’ll do better from now on. If anything hurts, please tell me. Even if the price is a hassle, I’ll make sure you’re healed.
“Actually, I should be the one apologizing.”
I blinked.
For what?
Every time my eyelashes fluttered, tears slid down my cheeks. Mr. Deok-su gently wiped around my eyes again with the baby towel.
“It was a crowded set, and I couldn’t pay enough attention to Gongja either.”
No, he had paid plenty of attention, hadn’t he?
I tilted my head. Mr. Deok-su patted me and said, “The set was terrible, wasn’t it? I should have held Gongja and moved farther away. If I had been even a little calmer, I would have covered your eyes first.”
Ah, no!
Why are you apologizing to a kid for something like this?
I shook my head.
“It’s okay!”
“No. I should have done that. I’m sorry.”
“It’s really okay!”
Mr. Deok-su sighed and muttered, “Gongja is like an angel.”
Huh?
“When Ms. Sujeong said Gongja was an angel, I thought she just meant you were cute.”
Th-that was probably right.
“But today I understood it keenly. Gongja really is an angel.”
Oh, no.
I guess I was trying too hard to act good.
I’d started crying because of the price, so I had no choice but to go along with it!
“This shock Gongja got is entirely my fault.”
“No, it’s not!”
Accidents weren’t anyone’s fault.
“Next time, I’ll make sure to protect Gongja.”
No, you don’t have to. I’m fine.
Ah, damn it, my conscience hurts.
I let out a long breath. Because I’d been crying, it came out in a shaky little gasp.
Let’s salvage this.
I smiled brightly and said, “Yep!”
Mr. Deok-su looked at me and started crying again. I fidgeted with my fingers.
“Thank you for accepting my apology.”
Ahahaha.
I felt my expression crumple. I buried my face in Mr. Deok-su’s arms.
Damn it.
How had this ended up like this?
It feels like I cleaned it up... sort of.
For some reason, though, it also felt like it had become even more of a mess. Was that just my imagination?
What am I supposed to do now?
I couldn’t see an answer. Just then, I heard the door open.
I drew in a breath and turned my head. PD Seonwoo Yeongjae was standing there.
“Uh, Gongja...”
Sensing the mood, the PD hesitated. I smiled through my tears.
“Gongja is okay!”
“Oh, y-yeah? Ah, you’re awake. That’s a relief.”
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae came in and asked Mr. Deok-su, “So, is he all right?”
“It seems so. Of course, I’m planning to give him proper emotional care when we get back.”
“Good grief.”
I hurriedly said, “Gongja is okay! I can keep filming!”
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae blinked, then asked Mr. Deok-su again, “He’s really all right?”
“I think he can keep filming. The doctor’s opinion was fine too.”
“Good grief.”
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae took my hand and said, “Thank you, Gongja.”
For what, PD-nim?
“Because Cho-un needs time to recover.”
Ah.
So they’re pushing back the scenes with Ki Cho-un and filming other scenes first.
That was perfectly possible.
“We have to cut down Cho-un’s scenes. That means the other characters’ scenes will increase relatively. I don’t know how the writer will handle it, but Gongja’s screen time might increase too.”
Well, that made sense.
The writer couldn’t just suddenly add a new character.
I grinned and said, “Gongja! Hic! Is okay!”
Maybe because the tears kept coming thanks to the price, PD Seonwoo Yeongjae asked Mr. Deok-su again, “Is he really okay?”
“He’ll be okay.”
“Phew.”
Mr. Deok-su pulled a chair over for him. PD Seonwoo Yeongjae sat down and apologized.
“Gongja must have been badly shocked. I’m sorry. I didn’t know something like that would happen.”
That was impressive.
The PD is apologizing.
I could immediately see why the staff respected PD Seonwoo Yeongjae so much.
“Seeing Gongja cry hurts my heart.”
“PD-nim!”
I reached out and grabbed the hem of PD Seonwoo Yeongjae’s clothes.
“Is Gongja’s brother okay?”
Well, I knew he was okay since we’d stopped him from pulling the knife out and used coins to help him recover.
“Mr. Cho-un is okay. It’ll take time to recover, but the nerves are fine and the bleeding stopped quickly.”
That was a relief.
“It was good that he didn’t pull the knife out then. If he had, Mr. Cho-un might have been in serious trouble.”
The PD scratched the bridge of his nose.
“But something feels a little strange. I was definitely the one who shouted for them to stop, right?”
Yes, you were.
I was the one who moved things with the coins.
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae tilted his head.
“I did shout, but honestly, it’s a little weird. I’m telling you this in front of Gongja.”
Don’t say it.
“I was pretty panicked too, you know. I wasn’t in any condition to shout something like that. But then suddenly, it was like something came down on me and I yelled, ‘Stop!’”
Yes. That was because I used the coins.
“Now that I think about it...”
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae said seriously, “I think I used the talisman well.”
I had nothing to say.
“The Jirisan Hundred-Fathom Bodhisattva told me so. He said the youngest one would get hurt. But he also said that even if disaster came, there would be help from the heavenly spirits, so it would be fine.”
I blinked. Because of that, tears rolled down my cheeks again.
So the heavenly spirit is the coins, then.
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae folded his arms and nodded.
“He also said that my ancestral spirit would be protecting us. So the reason I shouted back then was probably because of my ancestor spirit, right?”
Don’t ask a kid about that kind of thing.
“He said it was a spirit of peace and harmony. I wonder who that could be.”
Ahahaha.
All I could do was laugh.
Wow. That Jirisan Hundred-Fathom Bodhisattva was seriously gifted.
He’d come pretty close.
I’d like to ask where he is.
But if a kid asked that, it would sound strange.
“Still, I’m a little puzzled.”
What is it?
“He said the youngest one would get hurt, but the injury was suffered by Mr. Cho-un.”
Ah.
That bodhisattva is seriously amazing.
He must have counted age by mental age.
Then it definitely wasn’t me.
It had been Ki Cho-un after all.
The tears kept coming. Mr. Deok-su silently wiped around my eyes. Seeing that, PD Seonwoo Yeongjae lowered his head slightly and said, “No, Gongja got hurt too. I’m truly sorry. We should have been more considerate of the child actor.”
No. What could anyone do in that chaos?
“It’s okay!”
PD Seonwoo Yeongjae looked down at me, then smiled a little.
“Gongja really is kind and cute.”
Thank you, but why are you suddenly praising me?
“You must have been really shocked, but you keep saying you’re okay. And you’re still crying like this too.”
Uh, huh?
“Ms. Sujeong said Gongja was an angel, and I think I understand what she meant now.”
Oh no.
“I’m looking forward to seeing how Gongja grows up. I think Gongja will become a truly excellent actor.”
I’m losing it. An angel again?