Beautiful Disaster
With her hair done up and makeup flawless, Yeo-reum chatted on her phone with someone on the other end, looking for all the world like she was having the time of her life.
"Yep~! Me? Whew…. Of course I got it. The invite! I'm not one of those scrubs fighting over scraps of a table, sweetie."
In short, she was hiking Peak Hopeless—and behind that peak, ranges of even more hopeless peaks stacked themselves in layers upon layers.
Yeo-reum, by far the most hopeless-looking of the three, checked her reflection in the sun visor with an airheaded little smile, striking her cutest expression.
WHAM!
….
Her forehead smacked into the steering wheel, and she went silent for a moment. On the screen, Yoon Hyeon-jo could be seen visibly wrestling with his temper.
Laughter rippled through the theater. Everyone could already see exactly how Yeo-reum was about to get drilled in discipline by Yoon Hyeon-jo.
"Roll down the window."
"…."
"I said, roll down the window."
At his words, the window descended with excruciating slowness.
And then—it happened.
The screen slipped into slow motion, and out of nowhere, music began to play.
Bowed low, Yeo-reum conjured up all the pathos of an abandoned kitten left out in the rain.
—Pretty girl….
The audience burst into laughter on reflex the moment they heard it.
"HAHAHAHA!"
Nearly everyone in that theater knew where the song came from. It was the signature track from a previous blockbuster.
Just like in that film, Yeo-reum was clearly hoping they'd fall for her beauty and let it slide.
The problem, of course, was that the person she was trying it on was Yoon Hyeon-jo.
"I'm sorry…. Truly. With all my heart. So, so much. I am so sorry."
Sweeping her hair back exactly like that film's most famous scene, eyes glistening with unshed tears, Yeo-reum was utterly transparent.
He'll forgive me if I do this, right? As she pulled out every trick in the book, Yoon Hyeon-jo gazed back at her with the dead, glazed stare of a dead fish. Laughter erupted from all corners of the theater.
"Forget the window. Open the door and step out of the car."
When her beauty offensive failed, Yeo-reum gathered up the hand that had been sweeping through her hair and rubbed her palms together with obsequious little rubs. She could not have looked more spineless.
"Um, so, I mean, really. Do I, like, actually have to get out? I mean, my body hurts so bad, you know? And it doesn't even seem like that big of an accident?"
Everyone could already sense this was going to become the Three Hopeless Musketeers meme any day now.
Yeo-reum was proudly serving as the comic relief of Faster Than the Law. Having finally climbed out of the car, she threw herself into minimizing her fault in the accident by any means necessary.
"Well, look, the car doesn't seem that badly broken…."
Clunk.
The moment her words ended, the rear bumper of Detective Yoon's car sagged and dropped.
Yeo-reum bowed her head again, brow knotted in anguish.
Taking in Yeo-reum's appearance, Yoon Hyeon-jo's eyebrow arched slightly. The phone call with her friends—still miraculously unbroken—blared from the speaker.
After listening to the call for a moment, Yoon Hyeon-jo quietly held out his own phone. He wore the expression of a fisherman who had hooked his catch perfectly.
"Huh…? Your phone…, what…."
"Number."
At Yoon Hyeon-jo's curt reply, Yeo-reum managed a faintly strange little smile for a second.
And then the same background music swelled once more.
—Pretty….
Tucking her hair behind her ear—before her daydream could even finish forming, Detective Yoon cut it off like a blade.
"Repair costs, medical bills, and a rental. To bill you, I need a number. Punch it in, fast. I'm a busy man."
CRASH—it was the sound effect of a glass window shattering. Yeo-reum stared blankly at the stone-cold Detective Yoon. Then her eyes slowly wandered elsewhere.
On the screen, the emblem of the luxury foreign car Yoon Hyeon-jo was driving came into view.
The moment her imagination of the final bill transcended all bounds of estimation.
"And if you don't have the means to pay it back, you may use other methods."
The instant Yoon Hyeon-jo finished speaking, the music swelled yet again.
—Pretty….
Yoon Hyeon-jo answered with dead-fish eyes.
"Stop."
A few days later, there they were—a pair of small, daintily adorable heels standing outside the police station. Yeo-reum, dressed up with extra care for the occasion.
"Whew…."
Yeo-reum drew a deep breath and hovered mid-step, agonizing over whether to take one more step forward. And then—
"Excuse me."
A man's voice and the shuffle of footsteps came from beside her.
—Pretty girl….
By now, the song practically felt like her personal theme music. The audience burst into reflexive laughter the moment it played.
"You need to write down your reason for visiting."
But the man was a police officer. Yeo-reum pondered briefly over the clipboard he held out, asking for a simple explanation of her business.
When the officer took the clipboard back, he tilted his head for a moment.
Yeo-reum pushed her sunglasses, worn defiantly, up onto her head. Then she looked up at the officer with big, glistening, doe eyes.
Spellbound by that gaze, the officer murmured something into the radio at his chest, reporting to someone somewhere.
"…We have a visitor whose stated reason for visiting is… a 'car smasheroo.'"
Several pairs of eyes turned as Yeo-reum walked into the violent crimes unit office. Every detective in the room was quietly getting a good look at her. Yeo-reum offered an awkward smile.
"Why on earth did you write that as your reason for visiting? People will get the wrong idea."
Detective Yoon interrogated her coolly. Yeo-reum answered, sheepish.
"…Because I figured if I wrote 'I hit a detective with my car,' I might get… arrested…."
Every single word out of her mouth was an instant classic. Each time Yeo-reum opened her lips, laughter of all sizes popped out of the audience.
Then came the full explanation of the Funny Series operation.
"So, so what you're saying is. That you'd like… me…."
Nod. The detectives nodded with grave, serious faces.
"A task… so weighty…? So…."
Nod. The detectives nodded again with grave, serious faces.
"…Important… to entrust… to me…."
Nod. The detectives nodded with grave, serious faces, as if to say, that's exactly it.
"Oh my god, I think I'm losing my mind. Isn't this the kind of thing that only happens in movies? What is this, a hidden camera? Targeting a beautiful civilian?"
Yeo-reum whipped her head around and around. Her vision spun dizzily. The shabby office rotated along with her gaze before coming to a stop on Detective Yoon.
….
He was holding a calculator. One absolutely stuffed with zeroes. Yeo-reum's mouth fell open on its own.
She could feel it: if she didn't take his offer, that was the number she'd owe in damages.
Even so, courage didn't come easily. As she drooped beside her, Detective Gwak did his best to pump her up.
"Hey there, missy. We don't make this kind of request to just anyone."
For a man saying that, Yeo-reum was about as anyone as it got.
"We chose you. Picked you out, carefully, deliberately."
There was no one left to pick.
"You couldn't just be any influencer! It had to be someone whose pure, fresh-faced cuteness could short-circuit those bastards' brains!"
—Pretty….
"And a voice that could charm the pants off anyone just from hearing it!"
—Pretty girl….
"It had to be someone like you! We had no other choice!"
—As everyone falls….
Hearing all this, Yeo-reum bowed her head once more. And then she fell into slow motion again, synced perfectly to the music.
—I'm a pretty girl….
Yeo-reum slowly raised her head. And this time, she didn't just lift it straight up. She tilted it at just the right angle—the exact pose of someone determined to get their most flattering possible selfie—and locked eyes with Detective Gwak.
"Sigh…. Well, I really have no other choice, do I."
Watching Yeo-reum's retreating figure as she accepted the role of undercover agent, the detectives each tossed out a remark.
"Detective Gwak, I think you'll end up in prison someday. With a fraud record."
"He'd make a better con artist than the ones we actually arrest…."
Listening to his subordinates, Detective Yoon gave a quiet nod.
And so the stakeout preparations for the Funny Series operation began.
Deep in the heart of Gangnam. A space that refused to sleep, even as midnight fell far behind it. Club D.K, where people dressed to the nines lined up for a chance to get in.
"My apologies, but you're not quite a match for our establishment."
As guards with earpieces turned people away, let others through, and turned more away again, a procession of supercars roared up with earsplitting noise.
The people watching that parade whispered among themselves—after all, these were cars appraised at the price of a decent house.
"Another day, another—grind, right fellas?"
Straight past the waiting line, they pulled wads of cash from inside their jackets and tucked them into the guards' chest pockets. Playful and irreverent. They were the coin-rich—the so-called new money.
The moment they entered, the news of the Cheongdam fam lit up the LED board. Everyone cheered, as if the club had become their own personal kingdom.
Fireworks bursting through the deafening music, champagne arriving in a line. And last of all—
"HAHAHAHA! Ah—! This is hilarious as hell—!"
"Heh heh… hngh… heheheh…."
The room was filled to bursting with smiley-face balloons. A smiley balloon is, in itself, a cute little prop—but beside these men, it somehow felt chilling.
A man staggered up from his seat and gestured to the waiter. Fresh champagne was set out once more.
He pulled a wad of cash from his jacket, unstrapped the watch on his wrist, arranged his luxury wallet just so, then raised his phone and—click!—snapped a photo.
The instant he uploaded the flex shot with its hashtags, the DMs came flooding in. Ding, dingdingding—! The notification sounds rang out without pause.
Skimming the messages they'd sent while glancing at their profile photos, the man's smile was venomous.
"HAHAHAHA! Idiots…. All of them."
The whole world was nothing but a joke to him. Just like their very own Funny Series. Beyond the vast door of the room, a commotion erupted. Crash—the shatter of a bottle rang out sharp and clear.
"AAAAH—!"
Someone's scream echoed faintly, but it was soon swallowed up beneath the club's pounding music.
The scene cut to a space that stood in perfect opposition to Club D.K—solemn and silent. The thick soundproofing walls stood grim vigil, as if determined that not a single word spoken here would ever be carried outside.
Tap—. Tap—. Tap—.
The sound of polished shoes striking the floor was like the crack of a gavel in a courtroom.
Click.
The moment a middle-aged man stood before the door, it swung open, as if it had been waiting for him.
"The Chairman has arrived."
Everyone seated in the room rose to their feet in a hurry. It said everything about just how powerful a figure this man was.
Sinking into a luxurious mahogany chair and surveying his surroundings, the man's face bore no expression at all.
"Sit."
He was the Chairman of the National Assembly's Legislation and Judiciary Committee. Gathered here now were senior officials of the National Police Agency and heavyweight figures from the world of finance.
Everyone you might call one of the bigwigs, assembled in a single room.
"They're saying the violent crimes unit has been running wild lately."
Staring hard at someone, the man spoke in a low voice. The National Police Agency official bowed his head, utterly abashed.
"I really… simply cannot understand it…."
His gaze swept slowly over the police official. A crushing pressure filled the room.
The order was clear: shut down the Funny Series investigation.
Mm, yes. Right about here, the conflict arc begins.
Reporter Wi, watching the film, gave a light nod. It was a movie that gathered every cliché in existence and strung them together—exactly as expected.
Right on cue, the order came down to the squad chief who'd been pummeling Detective Gwak: halt the investigation.
Walking down the office corridor, the squad chief looked all the more pathetic today, perhaps because of the raggedy nightshirt of a uniform he wore.
"Hey. Get out here."
Two detectives in rumpled clothes sat down on a bench behind the police station. The squad chief lit a cigarette, face heavy and sour, and finally opened his mouth.
"You already know what I'm about to say."
"Ah, hyung."
Detective Gwak's face contorted—he'd seen it coming. The chief stubbed out his cigarette in the empty paper coffee cup and said,
"Keep going."
"Ah, hell no! Never in a million years! You know what it took for me to get this far! Did you not see the way Detective Yoon's little punk dismisses us? We've got to show them what we're made of! Ugh, no way. I can't quit!"
"I'm saying keep the case going, you idiot."
"…Huh?"
At the chief's completely unexpected words—certain that he'd say quit—Detective Gwak's eyes went round as saucers.
"Hyung, are you out of your mind?"
"This kid's got no respect at all."
"Wait, didn't you tell me before to stop causing trouble? That you'd kill me if you got fired? That for Min-jeong's sake at least, I could never take my clothes off again?"
The chief's life as the ultimate small-time everyman was plain to see. Reporter Wi predicted the next line with ease.
Something about upholding justice, and then he'll be moved to tears.
The ending where the everyman character sacrifices his future for justice, and in the end the world recognizes his heart and justice prevails.
A good cliché.
That was the moment. The chief, who'd been hanging his head, suddenly exploded into laughter.
"Pfft, HAHAHAHA…. Hng, HAHAHAHA…. HAHAHAHAHA…!"
As if he'd taken a dose of the Funny Series himself.
It was laughter that looked utterly beyond his control.
Wait… what?
Every audience member sitting there thought the same thing. There was nothing worth laughing at that hard. Just as everyone was puzzling over the out-of-nowhow fit of laughter—
The chief pulled his phone out of his jacket.