Snowball
"Ugh! I'm so nervous."
Seo Ji-eun kept clenching and unclenching her palms over and over. Yeon-woo nodded as he watched her.
"Yeah, this is a bit nerve-wracking."
"Ugh, even you, Yeon-woo—who didn't get nervous in Berlin—saying you're nervous makes me even more nervous!"
Yeon-woo found it interesting that he was feeling tense himself. He had lived through so much that ordinary things rarely rattled him; the sensation felt almost foreign.
"Maybe it's because this isn't my usual field."
A tone-deaf guy who never set foot on a stage—or even in a karaoke room—was suddenly about to rehearse for a music show. A little nerves were only natural.
"Jaynari team, please take the stage."
"Yes!"
At the stage manager's call, Yeon-woo and Seo Ji-eun climbed up.
Waaaaah!
Far more people than expected were already seated in the audience.
Huh? Have the fans already come in?
Their actual performance was scheduled much later in the afternoon, so the unexpected cheers made Yeon-woo glance out at the seats.
Ah. It's the singers performing today.
Idols who treated the broadcasting station like a second home still rarely got the chance to see actor Ryu Yeon-woo in person, so they had all come out to watch. The moment Yeon-woo stepped onstage with the large name tag reading Jaynari – Jay pinned to his chest, a stir ran through the audience.
"Whoa, unnie, look at that actor's face. Is he even from the same planet…?"
"Actors really are on another level."
From behind them, EXIS member Do-jun, who had been equally impressed, cut in.
"I go to the same salon as Actor Ryu Yeon-woo."
"Director Jeong Ha-neul's place?"
"Yeah. Apparently even among actors his looks are considered completely unfair."
The idols in the front row nodded at Do-jun's words.
"Yeah, that tracks."
"I'm going to grab an album and go say hello after rehearsal."
"What?! Me too!"
Sitting with his legs crossed and a bored expression, N-Boys' Jae-yun frowned.
"They're not going to hand him the music-show ranking too, right? That guy already stole first place on the charts and it's pissing me off."
"Hyung. FNX sunbaenims have been holding first place anyway, haven't they?"
Jae-yun shot a glare at Do-jun for the interruption.
"It was basically a photo finish."
Do-jun tilted his head and muttered to himself.
"Hmm, was it? I thought the tally scores were almost double…"
Jae-yun opened his mouth to snap back, then noticed the girl-group members around them paying attention and shut it again with a sour look.
"Damn it. She's the only one actually singing, so why is he even up there making a scene? It's not like he's the face of the group. At best he'll pretend to play. And I bet a double did all the playing in the movie too."
While Jae-yun was grumbling with his lower lip stuck out, the stage check finished and a voice came through the speakers.
"Hello. I'm Jay of Jaynari."
"I'm Nari! Please take care of us!"
As Yeon-woo delivered the greeting into the microphone in front of him, he tilted his head slightly.
They're not going to make me speak broken Korean on purpose just because Jay in the movie can't speak Korean, right?
While he was having that random thought, the song's intro began to play. Watching it, Jae-yun smirked with a "see, I knew it" expression.
"They're just going to play the MR anyway. Why even come onstage?"
That was when Yeon-woo started playing guitar over the background track. The melody ringing out through the microphone mounted in front of the guitar, perfectly locked to the music coming through his in-ears.
"Whoa, unnie, Yeon-woo oppa is actually playing right now, right?"
"When did he become 'oppa'? He's younger than you."
"Whatever. If he's that handsome, he's oppa."
Then Seo Ji-eun's voice joined in, and the beautiful harmony filled the open hall.
"Holy, she can sing."
"I think she was a trainee too. Lena unnie said they were at the same agency before debut."
The singers watching from the audience traded comments among themselves. New groups debuted every week, and most of them already knew one another's faces from trainee days. But today's stage by the two-actor unit Jaynari was a fresh break from the usual grind. And it was Ryu Yeon-woo.
Busy schedules left little time for dramas or movies, yet it was hard to live in Korea right now and not know who Ryu Yeon-woo was. He had debuted as a high-schooler playing an adult role, made a drama a hit, then starred—not as a cameo, but as a lead—in the ten-million-viewer blockbuster Master Plan. The historical drama that followed posted sky-high ratings, and the next film took the top prize at the Berlin International Film Festival.
Lena, who had been searching Yeon-woo on her phone through Plant Wiki, gaped at a filmography even more ridiculous than she had imagined.
"Looking at it all together like this is insane. He became an A-list actor in barely three years after debut…"
"Yeon-woo oppa? Not A-list—S-list."
"I told you he's younger than you."
"I don't care. Handsome equals oppa."
Right then Yeon-woo began tapping the side of the guitar body in time with the beat. After the first chorus ended and the interlude began, he set the guitar down, rose from the chair, and picked up the violin that had been waiting on the floor.
Hmm, the in-ear cable is catching on the violin shoulder rest. Annoying.
In the end he pulled out the left in-ear, settled the violin on his shoulder, and began to play.
Waaaaah!
The violin solo drew natural cheers from the audience. Seo Ji-eun watched his playing, bobbing her head to catch the timing for her next entrance.
"Insane! Taking out the in-ear to grab the violin is sexy as hell."
"Hey! Lee So-jin. I told you not to use slang."
"But how am I supposed to react to that? I can't just say 'Oh, how splendid' like a robot."
Yeon-woo's bow began to fly, launching into a rapid passage—the very section Chrissy Monroe had warned might be difficult. She had been right; it was anything but easy.
Everyone else thought of him as a perfect multi-talented genius, yet across both his previous life and this one he had never possessed any particularly outstanding gift in any field. He simply took whatever needed doing, split his time with sheer stubbornness, and tried again and again. For days he had practiced until it worked, and so now he delivered a flawless performance.
"…Sexy as hell. This is crazy."
"Unnie! You just told me not to use slang!"
"You were right. This actually requires slang."
After that, Seo Ji-eun's clean vocals carried the song to its climax, and the rehearsal stage ended.
"Thank you. We are Jaynari."
They bowed and came down. Manager Kim Min-su, who had been watching on the monitor set up backstage, clapped.
"Actors, that was incredible. Absolute fire."
"Thank you, Min-su hyung."
"Especially pulling the in-ear out right before the violin—that was the highlight."
"Hmm, really…? I just took it out because it was uncomfortable. Then I should treat it as a performance choice and do it on the actual stage too."
Just then the staff member removing Yeon-woo's remaining in-ear and microphone widened his eyes.
"Huh? Did you hurt yourself?"
Quite a few of Yeon-woo's ten fingertips—left and right alike—were beaded with blood. On the right hand, drops were even falling one by one onto the floor.
"Ah, I'm fine."
Yeon-woo smiled lightly and slipped both hands into his pockets as if nothing were wrong. Manager Kim Min-su stepped forward, caught his arms, and pulled the hands back out.
"…Actor?"
Most of the fingers were blistered and re-blistered until they bled; the right hand was covered in layers of bandages. The left hand was not free of bandages because it was in better shape. On the contrary, the left fingers were worse. He simply could not put bandages on them because he had to press the strings. The only clean finger was the thumb that never touched a string.
Faced with the shocking state of those hands, Kim Min-su's eyes demanded an explanation. Yeon-woo gave an awkward smile.
"The arrangement was a bit too advanced for me to handle cleanly. I never really studied violin seriously, so…"
Seo Ji-eun was already staring at his fingers with tears welling up.
"Then why didn't you just get a new arrangement through the company instead of going this far…"
"Come on, fingers heal in a week. And I'm retiring right after today's single performance anyway, right?"
Yeon-woo grinned and tossed out the joke. Kim Min-su shook his head.
The actor he managed, Ryu Yeon-woo, was always like this. If something did not work, he kept trying until it did. When the target was himself, he never backed down and never compromised.
Looking at Yeon-woo, Kim Min-su thought of the proverb "A rolling stone gathers no moss." From the day he first took charge of him until now, the man had never stopped rolling. And it was not merely that no moss grew—the stone Yeon-woo rolled kept getting bigger.
Thinking about it now, what Actor Ryu Yeon-woo had been rolling ever since the day they met was not a stone at all. It had been a snowball. That snowball had grown and grown until the high-school boy became the undisputed blue-chip everyone acknowledged.
Kim Min-su felt a clear emotion toward the actor far younger than himself, the actor he managed—Ryu Yeon-woo. It was not a thought that had suddenly appeared because of the blood dripping from those fingers. It was something that had accumulated little by little over the past few years of managing him. Like a snowball.
To express that feeling faithfully, Kim Min-su bowed his head to Yeon-woo.
"Actor, I respect you."
"Huh? All of a sudden?"
Startled by the abrupt greeting, Yeon-woo nevertheless saw the look in Kim Min-su's eyes and nodded.
"Thank you, Min-su hyung."
The public did not need to know Yeon-woo's hardships. Everyone simply did what they had to do in their own place. Being a celebrity was a job that showed only the finished product. Still, if someone recognized the effort, it was a small comfort, so Yeon-woo offered his thanks.
Soon Kim Min-su guided Yeon-woo and Seo Ji-eun to the waiting room and then went outside to manage the fan-café members who had won open-audience tickets. Team Leader Jeong Hyeok would handle their care in the meantime.
They stopped by the medical room inside the station and brought back everything that might help, yet because Yeon-woo still had to play once more on the actual stage, it was hard to know how to treat the hands.
"Seriously, I'm fine. Just sit down and rest."
"Aigoo, just looking at them makes my own fingers sting."
Yeon-woo could only smile at Team Leader Jeong Hyeok and Seo Ji-eun fretting and fidgeting over a little blood on his fingers; the weight of the years he had lived was far too heavy for him to make a fuss.
They were killing endless time in the waiting room while the idol teams finished their pre-recordings when someone knocked and carefully opened the door. At first they thought Manager Kim Min-su had finished his work and returned, but several young men filed in with deep bows.
"Hello! Allow us to introduce ourselves. We are EXIS!"
At the sudden appearance of the boy group, Yeon-woo and Seo Ji-eun hurriedly stood. Team Leader Jeong Hyeok, who had been fiddling with his phone in the corner, quickly raised the camera he had brought to shoot making-of footage.
"Hello. Nice to meet you. I'm Ryu Yeon-woo."
When Yeon-woo bowed, Seo Ji-eun beside him dipped her head as well.
"Seo Ji-eun!"
Their leader, Do-jun, stepped forward and held out an album.
"This is our album. We wanted to give it to both of you and say hello. We really enjoyed Star Beyond the River that you two starred in! We watched every episode live at the dorm."
"Ah, thank you. We're the rookies debuting today—we should have gone to greet you first. Sorry."
Even though he planned to retire the same day he debuted… The members, knowing the line was a joke, laughed.
After that, several more idols stopped by to say hello and hand over albums, and a pile of idol albums gradually grew in one corner of the waiting room.
Hmm, what am I supposed to do with these?
Yeon-woo took out his smartphone, thought for a moment, then opened the family group chat.