Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator : M.N 1391
Chapter: 87
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“So this is the guest who was coming?”
“Yes. She’s Lee Mi-yeon, the all-around entertainer who’s been rising fast in Korea lately. Singing, acting, there’s nothing she can’t do. She’s the new blue-chip in the film industry. She was also the female lead in that blockbuster drama a while back. Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
“Hey, I’m in prison. I don’t exactly have a reason to care about that kind of stuff.”
No matter how fun it was, could a man who was a prisoner just go out and watch things freely?
Naturally, instead of searching for dramas, movies, or music, he found himself more often poking around the society or politics sections, wondering which idiot had put on what kind of comedy today.
Once you went in there, you quickly realized that human intelligence was far lower, more irrational, and farther from logic than expected. And when he provoked people in the comments now and then, the sight of idiots having full-blown meltdowns became no small source of entertainment for Kyung-wan.
You’re not supposed to bully sick people?
Then is it okay when sick people bully other people?
Anyway, at his words, Mi-yeon shook her head side to side and sat down on the sofa across from him, crossing her long legs.
“Ha! Seriously! Do you know how hard I busted my ass planning to feed you once you got out, and now I’m hearing you didn’t even pay attention to me?”
Kyung-wan snorted and replied.
“Don’t know about the bones, but you did lose some weight.”
She had been pretty even as a kid, but now the baby fat was completely gone, and Mi-yeon was overflowing with femininity. Calling her a beauty that could topple nations wouldn’t be an exaggeration.
At his remark, she bristled again.
“I’ve never been fat!”
“Guess you didn’t know because there were no mirrors at the orphanage.”
“There were mirrors! What place doesn’t have mirrors these days?!”
“Then I guess you lived without looking at them.”
“Ugh, ! Seriously!”
The two of them, reunited after a long time, showed chemistry like real siblings despite not being related, and into that dynamic stepped Kang Woo-bin.
“Alright, alright, calm down. Now that you know who the guest is, you can probably tell, this interview is less of an interview and more like a conversation between old acquaintances. That said, if things get too scattered, I may step in and organize things.”
The first topic he brought up was how the two of them first met.
“My first meeting with her? Man, that was one hell of a moment.”
Kyung-wan answered, then looked at Mi-yeon and asked,
“Can I say it?”
“Yeah.”
Mi-yeon nodded calmly.
“Your agency won’t say anything?”
“I came here without telling them.”
That answer left even Kyung-wan impressed.
“Whoa. Crazy woman.”
“What! What! What! What!”
Mi-yeon protested like a younger sister hitting puberty.
“Your ads are all gonna drop.”
“I make my living off dramas and performances anyway!”
Kyung-wan shook his head as if words wouldn’t get through to her. After all that hardship, she still seemed unable to tell up from down, so he asked Kang Woo-bin,
“It’s kind of a bad story. Is it okay to tell?”
“If it seems like it’ll cause problems, I can edit it out.”
In that case…
Kyung-wan told the story of how he first met Mi-yeon, about the time she was being molested by a boy their age.
“Molested?”
Kim Joon blurted out without thinking. Something like that had happened to this beautiful woman?!
Mi-yeon replied calmly.
“It was right before rape. If it hadn’t been for him, I probably would’ve been assaulted.”
Hearing her speak so evenly about such a dark past, Kim Joon felt she was a truly strong woman.
Kyung-wan added,
“Twice, even.”
“You showed up both times. How could I not think it was fate?”
“What on earth happened?”
At Kang Woo-bin’s question, Kyung-wan looked at Mi-yeon. It was her story, so it was up to her to censor what shouldn’t be said.
But she had no brakes.
She spilled everything, the story of almost being raped, the gangs backing the bastard who did it, and even what Kyung-wan had advised her to do.
Kyung-wan was impressed all over again.
“Damn. You’ve really become a full-on crazy woman while I wasn’t looking. Is it okay for a female actress to lay all that out? If you live off your image, shouldn’t you keep some mystery?”
“I started out trashy anyway. You don’t know how I climbed this far, do you?”
She started as an underqualified singer who came out relying only on her face, then as a half-baked supporting actress with nothing to show except crying scenes. She dragged herself through military condolence performances, practicing and working day and night.
That tenacity gradually earned recognition. Whether it was talent in acting and singing or sheer effort, her abilities eventually exploded. On stage, she became an icon of pure-yet-seductive girl-crush energy; on screen, a beautiful actress who could play anything; on variety shows, a chic yet down-to-earth self-made breadwinner. Her popularity soared.
“Is there really a reason to dig up a past that isn’t even good?”
“Everyone who needs to know already knows. Better to clear it out now, when it can be an opportunity, than have it grab my ankle later.”
“You’re going to use your image as a shield?”
Compared to what Kyung-wan had done, her past wasn’t all that impactful. It showed she hadn’t spent the years thoughtlessly.
At the same time, she understood well that the world works on give and take.
“I’ll give you whatever you want in return.”
As she said that, she uncrossed her legs and crossed them the other way.
A bewitching smile in her eyes. Kyung-wan wasn’t oblivious to the heavy implication of seduction.
“You don’t have a boyfriend?”
“Wouldn’t it be stranger if a girl who went through that didn’t have some man-hating?”
Strong. Very strong.
Kyung-wan shook his head. It wasn’t normal for a top-tier female celebrity at the peak of popularity to be this foul-mouthed.
“Your agency CEO must have it rough.”
“It’s fine. I make them plenty of money.”
“Don’t you feel even a little bad?”
“I do, but what can I do? He’s so stupidly kind that he’s not reliable when it comes to this kind of thing.”
“Wow. There are kind people in that industry?”
“That’s why I survived.”
Thinking about it, it made sense. Back when she had nothing but a face and no talent blooming yet, the person who supported her so she could keep working must have been far from ordinary.
For the record, suckers are far from ordinary, they’re a rare species, being eaten alive by hyena-like people and driven toward extinction.
“But aren’t you worried?”
“About what?”
“People up top really hate me.”
After the National Assembly terror incident and the mess he caused in Japan, how could they like him?
No matter how popular a celebrity was, the moment they fell out of favor with those in power, things would get hard.
“I told you, I don’t live off ads. And I’m planning to use this chance to go overseas and become a global star. Honestly, with a face like mine, don’t you think just getting exposure abroad would boost my recognition?”
“Big ambitions.”
“You said it back then, remember? If I didn’t want bad guys touching me, I needed to become famous.”
“Is your current fame not enough?”
Under his piercing gaze, she turned her head slightly. She seemed embarrassed anew.
“You don’t need to know. Anyway, ”
She glared back at him with sharp, catty eyes.
“Did you know? There are rumors everywhere about what you did with women.”
The topic shifted to the intense compensation from that intense David guy and the equally intense call girl who had intensely spilled the story on a talk show, but Kyung-wan felt not a shred of shame or embarrassment.
He merely shrugged and replied,
“It was business. What’s the problem? If someone comes to work and you just send her back, wouldn’t that be awkward for her too?”
Mi-yeon raised her voice in disbelief.
“Awkward?! Awk-ward?! You paid for sex and you’re this proud?!”
“Better than enjoying drug-fueled sex parties and receiving sexual favors at a villa.”
Kyung-wan was confident. Unlike those people way up there, he hadn’t taken bribes. And he wasn’t even a public official, what was wrong with enjoying a little hospitality?
Faced with that confidence, Mi-yeon looked furious.
“Some people are still virgins, and some people go and lose their bachelor badge…”
“Good for you. Virgin premium will raise your price.”
Even statements so outrageous you’d want to believe they were movie lines, coming from a female actress’s mouth, were met calmly by Kyung-wan.
If people believed what she had gone through, they’d also believe she was a virgin. A woman with man-hating tendencies wouldn’t be likely to date easily.
Mi-yeon grimaced.
“What era do you think this is, talking about virgin premiums?”
“Because it’s something like a fantasy.”
Why else would there be legends of unicorns as virgin detectors?
Even if some dismissed it as an outdated idea, the fantasy surrounding virginity wouldn’t disappear.
Why? Because firsts always carry weight.
First child, first day at kindergarten, first friend, first love, first relationship, first job, first paycheck.
If firsts matter this much, how could the first experience not matter?
The importance of a first experience applies to both men and women, but virginity has been scrutinized more because when men lose theirs, no trace remains, while women risk pregnancy on their first time. It was also a cultural influence born from the technical limitation that men had no way to confirm whether a child was theirs.
Kyung-wan gave a thumbs-up and continued,
“I told you to become an expensive woman, and you really did. Well done.”
“...”
Mi-yeon was left speechless, dumbfounded, when Kang Woo-bin cut in.
“We’ve been focusing too much on Ms. Mi-yeon. I’d like to shift the focus more to Mr. Kyung-wan, or to something the two of you share. For example, how about the orphanage where you met?”
At his suggestion, both of them nodded.
Kyung-wan spoke first.
“How’s the director doing?”
“Looks like he’s in better spirits. That was you, right?”
“Yeah.”
“You drove off the gangs clinging to the orphanage?”
“How’d you know?”
“Who else from that place has abilities like that besides you?”
“Wasn’t there an older guy named Lee Cheol?”
Kyung-wan dug through his memory and came up with a name, the one who had a sponsor and was supposed to become a police officer.
“He’s not a police executive, and he’s old. Impossible.”
“What about you?”
“No matter how popular I am, I’m still just a celebrity. Getting involved with society’s rotten parts is too much in many ways. All I could do was donate quietly and keep my popularity up.”
No matter how famous, a celebrity couldn’t do anything about a criminal organization colluding with public authority.
Even trying to expose it required securing clear evidence, but would public authority colluding with criminals ever gather proper evidence? More likely, she’d be hit with backlash for not knowing her place. Why else would celebrity scandals conveniently break every time something blew up in politics, diverting attention?
That said, it wasn’t entirely one-sided. Gangs also found it hard to lay a hand on a popular celebrity.
The situation was like whoever drew their blade first exposed an opening, forcing both sides to clash through influence instead.
Lee Mi-yeon, the popular celebrity, offered dreams and hope to the orphanage kids.
The gangs offered a realistic path to success in a brutal society.
Which side would win depended on the children’s hearts.
And then Kyung-wan made his move, and the gangs were swept away completely.