The Cherry on Top Belongs to the Heroine
Only minutes ago she had been filming what was supposed to be a vlog, but at some point Han Yeo-reum had become so absorbed in her naengmyeon that the camera angle had gone completely sideways without her even noticing.
"Yeo-reum, have another bowl. You've suffered enough dieting for the awards ceremony. I know exactly how that feels. I do!"
"Yes, sir! Thank you!"
The conversation between Director Gong, bundled in his black padded vest, and Han Yeo-reum bore no resemblance to a proper actor's vlog. The camera, sagging lower under the weight of the lens, now captured nothing but Yeo-reum's naengmyeon bowl, and it looked profoundly suspicious.
To anyone watching, this would look like we're filming in secret….
With the sound muted, it could easily pass for a scene from an undercover exposé program. Something titled The Two Faces of the Naengmyeon Shop? The Terrifying Duplicity of the Broth We Eat — Yoon Hyun-jo chuckled quietly to himself. The camera angle was too funny to bother correcting.
Yoon Hyun-jo's eyes met those of his manager, who was watching him from among the staff. He gave a small shake of his head.
The atmosphere was noisy and far from tidy, and by any measure this gathering was a bit of a waste of time. Still, he thought he could afford to stay a little longer.
I hope it opens soon.
He was curious about the characters living and breathing inside that screen. Detective Yoon. And Influencer 1.
"Ah, the camera angle! This is a total disaster, it's ruined!"
It wasn't until she had polished off her second bowl of naengmyeon that Han Yeo-reum finally noticed what the camera had been doing.
Naengmyeon is a truly terrifying food.
I lost track of myself and just kept eating.
Time to refocus on my real objective. As it happened, the company dinner had matured to just the right point — the conversation had turned to break-even points and box office performance.
"You've heard about that director, right? They say six… six of his teeth got pulled."
"Aaagh!"
"You didn't know? And it's not just the teeth. His head has been…"
"Aaagh!"
No ghost story in the world could possibly be scarier than this.
In this industry, the moment break-even points come up, even directors who once wept over them fall abruptly silent. There was more than one ill-fated project that had burned through a staggering investment and vanished without a trace.
"Well, everyone's worked so hard for us. It'll do well. Yes. Of course it'll do well! Right? Huh? Right. Yes. Right."
Truly, the Chungmuro Civil Servant was built different. Not a flicker of tension showed on Director Gong's face as he calmly raised his glass.
"Director~. That's vinegar."
No, it wasn't. What Director Gong had been pouring wasn't soju at all — it was vinegar. Yoon Hyun-jo stopped him just in time.
The hand holding the glass trembled violently. Director Gong made dependable, crowd-pleasing films, yet even matching that average felt like gambling at the tables in this business.
"Yeo-reum, is it going to do well? It will, right? Huh?"
Director Gong was fishing for endless reassurance from me. I offered a faint smile, laced with a subtle, ambiguous nuance.
Well… who's to say?
His reaction was instantaneous.
"No! Say it's going to do well, Yeo-reum! If I had my way right now I'd be writing talismans! During our gosa ceremony, I swear I heard my knee creak just a little. It's been driving me crazy with worry ever since."
Director Gong finally downed the glass in one shot. It was the vinegar he'd poured mere moments ago, but he seemed past the point of tasting anything at all. He even poured himself another.
It's me who needs this movie to succeed, more than anyone, Director….
Now was the perfect moment for film merchandise to establish itself as a pillar of fandom-driven marketing. First-week merchandise and photo tickets in collaboration with the multiplex chains — the timing was ideal for sparking a collector's hunger in the hearts of movie fans.
Come to think of it, GCV and Modernbox just did that collaboration with a famous character, didn't they?
That strategy had been a roaring success not long ago. Even if Director Gong didn't know it, everyone else in this room couldn't help having at least some goodwill toward collaboration merch. I spoke up as if it had just occurred to me.
"Now that you mention it, what if we made some merchandise too? Wouldn't that be nice?"
Laughter erupted from all corners of the room. For a domestic film, suggesting merchandise in this day and age was hardly an opinion that deserved to be taken seriously.
"Adorable. She's adorable!"
"That's some nerve you've got! So you're the type who collects Coke cups and blind-box figurines, huh?"
Understandable, considering I'd just proposed merchandising ideas that only famous anime characters could pull off.
But just as predicted—
"No, no. Tell us more."
Someone took the bait.
From cinephiles collecting Cine 24 magazines, to ordinary moviegoers carrying posters home carefully so they wouldn't crease; block toys modeled on iconic film scenes that made everyone curious at least once; soundtracks that climbed to number one on the music charts — and wasn't a postcard set barely even considered merchandise, just a basic giveaway?
"I think it's a good idea. Remember two years ago? The single-serving popcorn set controversy."
That was the merchandise Modernbox had produced for a film it exclusively screened.
For the first time, a theater chain printed images onto popcorn tubs and sold them as sets. At the time, social media had been flooded with demands to sell single-serving sets instead of pairs.
"Oh, I remember. Some people just tossed the popcorn and kept the tub, didn't they?"
"Right, that happened… but that franchise had an incredibly solid fanbase."
It was a property that had dominated Japan for half a century. Just as the room was settling into the notion that only such exceptions could pull off merchandise—
Han Yeo-reum spoke lightly, as if it were nothing at all.
"You know how there's a photo zone installed inside the theater when a movie opens? What if we made a merch ticket tied into that?"
The moment he heard it, the exec's upper body leaned toward her without his even realizing.
"Ours is a crime action, after all. We could build a photo zone as simple as a mugshot setup and it'd still feel legit. I'm no expert, but… installing photo zones nationwide would cost quite a bit, right? Shave that budget down and redirect it into the merch tickets…."
It was an era when merchandise was being churned out spearheaded by a hit animated film and a handful of overseas blockbusters.
And what's stopping a domestic film from doing the same?
His audacious pitch was brushed off as a joke, but deep down, everyone's longing for merchandise was alive and kicking.
"Plus, with audiences taking photos holding their photo tickets, word of mouth would spread on its own. People would post them to their Instagram stories and go, 'Ooh, that looks fun.' That's exactly the kind of organic buzz you can't buy — and you'd be opening a hashtag event for no reason otherwise."
Truly, there was something different about a twenty-year-old. At some point the exec had wedged himself right between Director Gong and Han Yeo-reum.
"Merch has to tap into the collector's instinct, sure! But it's also about… you know? That feeling of, 'Oh, that person has one? I can have one too!' Right?"
"Exactly. It's no accident that anime films release different merch every week. People rewatch multiple times just to get one more postcard."
Before anyone noticed, the exec and Han Yeo-reum were talking as if it were already a done deal that Faster Than the Law would be producing merchandise.
"And, what's it called — badges. Everybody's making badges these days. What do you think, Yeo-reum?"
"The die-making costs for badges are a bit steep, though…. My idea was to put a little spin on the photo ticket and make business cards instead."
"Detective business cards! I love that! Ooh!"
"We could run Detective Yoon and Detective Gwak's cards in week one and week two, and slip in club cards for the villains of the Happy Series — the ones running the happy balloon scheme. That'd be fun."
Once the conversation was uncorked, things moved fast. The listening staff began offering ideas one after another.
"What if we put 'Happy Balloons' at a few of the photo zones? Like, with a smiley face."
"Ooh! Then the campaign video could be them reciting their lines after huffing helium?"
"What about buying those tiny smiley stickers and sticking them somewhere on our outfits at the stage greetings?"
December 31st. The hearts of a crowd already giddy with the year's end soared even higher.
From pre-production through the shoot, nothing made the staff more anxious than whether the film would succeed.
And Faster Than the Law carried that unmistakable air of a project destined to make it. At some point, the trembling of Director Gong's nervous hands simply stopped.
"Oh! They're doing the countdown!"
At someone's shout, every head turned to the TV mounted in the corner of the restaurant.
"Ten! Nine! Eight! Seven!"
The voices of the staff joined in one by one. The room filled to bursting with anticipation for the new year.
"Three! Two! One!"
The bell rang. The hearts of everyone who had toiled together through it all drew tight as one. Director Gong smiled and raised his glass high.
"Happy New Year, everyone! And let's take Faster Than the Law to ten million!"
At the word ten million, everyone burst out laughing. A goal too absurd to voice seriously was, by nature, best delivered as a joke.
"Yes, sir! To Faster Than the Law hitting ten million!"
The only ones not laughing were Han Yeo-reum, and—
"Yes~. To it."
Yoon Hyun-jo. Just the two of them.
The exec, who had been fired up about merchandise only moments before, raised his glass as well. Everyone in the restaurant clinked their glasses together in warm harmony.
"Aack! Wh-why does this taste like that?!"
"Ah… Director, you just drank the vinegar again."
It was a peaceful first day of the new year.
Han Tae-yang sat exactly where he'd been on the couch. Arms crossed and eyes shut, he looked like pure, compressed fury.
"Has she lost her mind…"
Past midnight, by house law, counted as staying out overnight. Han Yeo-reum had said she'd just be back from the company dinner — and then spent the very first day of the new year out all night.
Beep-beep… beep… beep.
Even from the hand punching in the door code, the drunkenness was plain. She'd gotten the numbers wrong, and the machine wailed its complaint.
"Yeo-reum, you okay?"
"I'm fiiine, Taeyang-ah. Unni! The thing is, I… my alcohol tolerance is really, really high…."
Han Tae-yang shot up from the couch. Then, with a gait carefully calibrated for the neighbors downstairs, he padded soundlessly to the door — and yanked it open.
"Thank you for your hard work getting her home. I'll take her from here."
"Oh, ohh! Yeo-reum's little brother! You're still up?"
Yeo-reum staggered, stepped squarely on a delivery box sitting by the door, and swayed dangerously. Tae-yang caught her with a look of long-suffering resignation — and only then noticed the delivery box at all.
"Well, I'll head off then! Please tell Yeo-reum I'll come pick her up tomorrow at lunch!"
"Yes. Get home safe."
One corner of the box, freshly carried into the entryway, was dented where Yeo-reum had stepped on it.
He planned to settle his sister into her room first and examine the box after — but then a line of crisp text leapt out at Tae-yang's eyes.
The cherry on the parfait belongs to the heroine.
"…Merchandise?"