An Egg and a Hunch
“Seul-ho-ssi, are you okay??”
“Yes. It's just an egg—what's the worst it could do?”
I answered flatly to the staffer who'd hurried over with a towel. I wasn't pretending to be fine. I genuinely was.
Choi Ran had wiped me down with tissues quickly enough that nothing had stained my clothes, and my face had been sorted out with a light once-over from a wet wipe.
The problem was my hair.
There's no way around this except washing it.
Raw egg had soaked into hair that was fixed in place with wax, so no wet wipe was going to fix that completely. I briefly considered stopping by a nearby salon for a quick shampoo, but that felt like yet another chore, so I just threw on a hat instead.
“How does it look? Is it okay?”
“Oh, yes. Yes, it's... fine, but—”
By pure luck, the hat I'd grabbed without thinking happened to be the symbolic color of the university we were visiting today. It would look a little odd, suddenly wearing a hat I hadn't had on during the opening, but I judged it unremarkable enough to blend right in.
“Then let's head in as is.”
“Are you really sure that's all right?”
“Washing and restyling my hair would hold up the shoot. It'd be hard enough for us to reschedule among ourselves, let alone coordinate with the school again. Let's just finish today.”
At my words, the staffer's face visibly brightened. Then, apparently remembering whose presence he was in, he quickly rearranged his expression, said, “One moment,” and dashed off to the PD.
The PD, who'd been wearing a look of pure exasperation at the situation that had exploded out of nowhere, turned to look straight at me the moment he heard the staffer out.
“Seul-ho-ssi! Are you absolutely sure we can keep shooting?”
“Yes. It's what I want. Don't worry about it.”
Only after hearing my firm answer did the PD relax.
“Real men really are built differently. You must have been shaken, and yet—well, no more worrying from here on. No outsiders can get inside the building anyway. All right, let's move!”
“Yes, sir.”
The staff, worn thin from managing an ever-growing crowd, readied themselves and started hauling equipment.
Choi Ran said I should rest a bit, but I shook my head.
Finish the shoot first. Everything else after.
If anyone wanted this mess handled quietly more than the production crew did, it was me.
We were just hurrying toward the school entrance when—
“Beep! Everyone step aside! Police!”
...Ha.
So much for the hat.
The police didn't say who had made the report.
Probably one of the bystanders watching from nearby.
Someone had thrown an egg at me, and a crowd had swelled in an instant—it really had become a situation that needed controlling.
The officers dispersed the onlookers with practiced ease, sized up the situation, and came back quite a while later.
“So, to confirm—this person suddenly threw a raw egg at Yoo Seul-ho here?”
“Yes. There's video footage. Plenty of witnesses, too.”
“Good grief. Celebrities really do run into this kind of thing. Politicians I could understand, but still—must've given you a fright.”
The officer clicked his tongue.
“For now, we've spoken with the attacker separately. It's possible they're putting on an act, but they seem a little... unwell. Kept rambling incoherently. Something like—anyone who beats their family deserves to die. Does that mean anything to you?”
At the officer's words, everyone's expressions stiffened awkwardly.
Then they all started glancing at me, and all I could do was smile.
So it was because of the drama.
Even as I'd been wiping my face with wet wipes, I'd wondered why anyone would throw an egg at me. I was no pushover, and having an egg hurled at me out of a clear blue sky was not something I intended to let slide. But there was a shoot to get through first, and the attacker was already in custody, so I'd planned to wrap up my work and look into it afterward.
And here I thought it was an anti-fan of Yoo Seul-ho.
So if you get too invested in a drama, this is what happens.
It had sounded far-fetched at first, but the more I turned it over, the more sense it made.
Yoo Seul-ho had earned plenty of hatred over the years, but he'd never done anything vile enough to warrant death threats. Since I'd taken up residence in his body, I'd certainly seen plenty of people look at me with dislike—but never with that burning, murderous loathing.
Which meant it made far more sense that this had happened because of the character I was playing, not Yoo Seul-ho himself.
While I was nodding along to that logic in my head, the police officially confirmed with the hospital that the attacker was currently undergoing treatment for a mental illness.
I see.
It wasn't exactly shocking news.
Anyone with a shred of rationality would have waited for a moment when I was alone, not pulled a stunt in the middle of a filming set swarming with people. You'd only do something like that if you were dead set on seeing it through no matter what came after—and unless that person was an independence activist, a patient in urgent need of treatment was the more plausible explanation.
“Sounds like they've suffered abuse for a long time. That... what is it? PTSC?”
“It's PTSD, sir.”
“Right, right. That. Seems like the attack came from that. Poor soul, honestly.”
The two officers traded banter right in front of me, then asked whether I intended to press charges—suggesting, ever so delicately, that settling out of court might be the wiser path. I agreed readily enough.
If I want to keep working as an actor, suing is off the table.
Suing an ordinary citizen was hard enough as it was, but suing a patient who couldn't separate drama from reality because of domestic abuse trauma would fall far short of the moral standard the public demanded of celebrities.
The officers brightened at my answer, asked me to drop by the station sometime, and took their leave.
“Seul-ho-ssi, then, if you...”
“Yes. Let's get right back to shooting.”
I said it to the staffer who was still studying my face after the police left. The situation was handled, and I still had filming to do.
We moved to a lecture hall inside the university and sat in on a class that real architecture students supposedly attended. A man who introduced himself as a professor went on at length about dynamics-something-or-other, but honestly, I couldn't make out a word of it.
Thank god Yoo Seul-ho never went to college.
I'd lived my whole life as a loan shark without once coming within a mile of academia. Granted, calculating money for a living meant my head didn't exactly turn slowly—but there was no hiding a short academic string, no matter how brief. If Yoo Seul-ho had claimed to be from a prestigious university, I figured I'd have been caught sooner or later.
Ugh, this is still gross, though.
I'd scrubbed diligently with the wet wipes, but there was no erasing every trace of raw egg. I kept catching a faint fishy whiff from the hair pressed down under my hat, and it was getting on my nerves.
“Ran, does my hair smell weird?”
“Nope. Doesn't smell like anything.”
“Really? Must be the bit that got my upper lip, then.”
“Stop worrying. You smell genuinely great.”
“Hey, you two! You're supposed to be paying attention!”
The professor caught us mid-whisper. We scrambled out hasty apologies and buckled down for the rest of the lecture. Not that either of us could decipher a word of it.
“Whew. Must be because I'm a liberal arts guy. None of that landed.”
The MC yawned after the lecture ended.
“Did you understand it, Seul-ho-ssi?”
“Not a chance.”
“Haha! All right, let's wrap up. Everyone, hang in there just a little longer. Moving on to the next room!”
With the MC leading the way, we headed to a space next to the lecture hall. The original schedule had included a hands-on practical session, but the egg incident had delayed filming so badly that this was all we had time for.
“So, how was everyone's day?”
At the MC's prompt, we each shared a few light impressions and managed to squeeze in a plug for the drama while we were at it.
After Choi Ran said she'd had a good time and thanked everyone, Woo Jun-seo opened his mouth with an oddly sneering expression.
“I had a wonderful time too. Thanks to today, I got to see plenty of interesting sights.”
That had teeth in it.
The MC was no fool—he must have felt the edge—but he clearly had no desire to poke at it, so he smoothed the moment over.
“That's right! I can't stop thinking about that video from the lecture. Who knew building a structure was that complicated? Goodness. You were amazed too, weren't you, Seul-ho-ssi?”
The MC turned his gaze to me. The moment I opened my mouth naturally in response, everyone on set looked my way.
Everyone except one person.
Not even a glance.
Woo Jun-seo had apparently decided to treat me like thin air from here on out.
Well, I understood. It was about time the whole “you're the lead, I'm just a supporting role” medicine stopped working on him.
But I've hit my limit too.
More than half the shoot was done. There was no longer any need to grovel and curry favor with Woo Jun-seo. So today, I made a point of not approaching him, not watching my step around him—not once.
Whether he'd sensed that shift or not, Woo Jun-seo's expression soured even further.
The only time he'd smiled today was when I got hit with the egg. The moment he'd spotted me with raw egg running down my face, he'd burst out laughing before he could stop himself—and then swapped his expression back with lightning speed. It was, frankly... a very actorly performance.
“Please show lots of interest in our drama. And I hope I'm a Freshman Again Today is a huge hit as well.”
“Wow, thinking of our show too! Thank you so much for the kind words.”
Just as the MC was offering a suitably smooth reply to my closing remarks—
“You really don't know Seul-ho yet, Min-cheol-ssi, do you.”
Woo Jun-seo cut in out of nowhere. The MC tilted his head at the sudden intrusion from an actor who hadn't volunteered a single word all shoot.
“I'm sorry?”
“Seul-ho might look terribly sweet on the outside, but he's a genuinely bad guy. These days he won't even take my calls—keeps dodging me, you know.”
The MC fielded it with an awkward laugh.
“Ooh, really? Seul-ho-ssi is a bad boy? That makes him even more charming.”
“He's a very hard man to win over. I suppose that's why I want him all the more. Haha.”
Woo Jun-seo flashed the eye-smile he reserved for moments when he wanted to be seen as a charming man.
If he'd torn into me openly, I could have dealt with that. But thanks to some actor's peculiar, slippery nuance, the whole thing landed in this muddled space—was that a compliment or an insult?
Choi Ran, visibly dumbfounded, shattered the pure, demure mask she'd kept up all day and said, “Funny, he answers my calls just fine.” I didn't dignify any of it with a response.
“Aaand that's a wrap! Truly, thank you to our three guests for showing us such unexpected sides of yourselves today!”
Worried that a full-blown fight might break out on set, the MC hurriedly brought the filming to a close.
The moment it ended, Woo Jun-seo vanished—straight into his car and gone without so much as a backward glance. The look on the MC's face as he watched him go was something to behold.
“It's ironic. The public has absolutely no idea what he's really like...”
Just as PD Jang had absorbed Woo Jun-seo's tantrums on the drama set, today it was the MC's turn to take the abuse.
I was busy consoling the man who seemed to have aged half a decade in a single morning when Choi Ran came up beside me.
“It's not like the public knows nothing, though. Remember that drinking live broadcast thing?”
“Oh, right! That's true. Wow, that whole thing got buried, didn't it? It completely slipped my mind.”
The MC laughed it off, said today's shoot had been hard on everyone, and left with a wave. After exchanging goodbyes with Choi Ran—see you tomorrow—I got in the car.
Hyun Jin-gae, who'd heard the whole story from the staff, kept stealing glances at me.
“Seul-ho, uh... man, tough day. Sorry I couldn't stop it.”
“It's fine. What can I expect from a manager who'd rather be on a golf course than a film set?”
“Aish, don't start with that again. I've got my own circumstances, you know. Anyway—really, I'm sorry. For not stopping it...”
My manager shrank into himself.
This was par for the course with him, so I'd been trying to tune it out—but something felt off. Off in a familiar way. My mouth moved on instinct.
“Hyung.”
“Hm?”
“You knew in advance, didn't you? About the egg.”
The words came straight from my gut—my brain hadn't even properly registered what I was asking before it blurted it out, running on nothing but instinct. Only after the question was out did a stray thought flicker past: baseless suspicion could really hurt someone's feelings.
Well. It flickered and was gone. Because I saw that face.
“......”
“So you really did know.”
Hyun Jin-gae's face went bone white.