Fighter Jet
Gong Min-jeong had been struck by the highest-grade status ailment of Confusion at the sudden appearance of her ultimate bias celebrity, but fortunately she recovered quickly.
Even as she kept sneaking glances at the surreal sight of Ryu Yeon-woo typing away in the seat beside her, now that she was on the clock, the work still had to get done.
"Yeon-woo, if there's anything you don't know, just say so!"
"Yes, sunbae-nim."
When Yeon-woo looked at Gong Min-jeong and answered with a bright smile, she promptly melted off her chair like goo, fidgeting with her fingers.
"Ugh, he called me sunbae-nim…"
Even while rapidly revising the report, Yeon-woo's attention was fixed on the USB-shaped hacking tool he had ghosted into the computer behind the monitor with uncanny sleight of hand.
The format might be different, but writing reports was something he had done countless times in his previous life.
Being a field operative was not a profession of constantly firing guns and being chased the way movies portrayed it. The volume of desk work was far greater.
Revising a report that had already been drafted once was no great difficulty.
The real question is whether I can access the server from a work computer.
Just then, Han Hae-un, who had been pretending to film Yeon-woo from a distance, checked something on his smartphone and quietly shook his head.
Meaning no.
Then that means I'll have to infiltrate the CEO's office or the server room.
The planning office they currently occupied was on the second floor of the building.
The CEO's office is on the fourth floor, and though it wasn't marked on the directory I saw coming in, if it's not in the basement, structurally the server room is most likely on the third floor.
The first floor was the lobby, and from what he had seen on the way in, there was no server room on the second.
The fourth floor was the topmost level, and it was rare to place a server room—where cooling was critical—on the very highest floor.
What was on the third floor.
Yeon-woo recalled the directory he had glanced at on the way in.
Common lounge. Dance practice room.
He also flicked a sidelong glance at the face of the planning office chief, who was watching from afar out of the corner of his eye.
Making me rewrite a document that was already completed and approved means he wants a mention.
All Yeon-woo had done the entire morning was copy an already finished report word for word.
Yeon-woo nodded as he watched the blinking cursor on the monitor.
"Sunbae-nim, looking at this 'debut team schedule' I'm working on, debut is really just around the corner."
"Hm? Ah, right. They're cute, kind kids—I really hope they make it."
Sure enough, the moment the debut team was mentioned, the planning office chief rose from his seat in the distance.
"Speaking of which, how about we go watch the debut team practice? Feedback is one of the planning office's core duties, after all."
"What? That's the practical team's—"
"Ahem! Min-jeong, why don't you take the new hire along?"
Cutting Gong Min-jeong off with a pointed cough, the planning office chief approached Yeon-woo.
Yeon-woo beamed at him.
"Yes, Chief! Then I'll head up with Gong sunbae-nim."
"Ah, yes. Excellent. Haha."
As Yeon-woo stood, he swiftly pulled out the USB and concealed it in his sleeve.
"Shall we, Min-jeong sunbae."
"Yeees. Ugh, Min-jeong sunbae…"
As Yeon-woo left the planning office, he slipped the hacking tool into Han Hae-un's hand in a fleeting brush of contact.
Nodding, Han Hae-un followed Yeon-woo and the others up toward the third floor.
In the ascending elevator, Han Hae-un whispered quietly.
"Please check your messages once."
Hearing Hae-un's voice, Yeon-woo carefully drew out his smartphone.
Team Leader. There's no separate server room upstairs, so it looks like we'll have to open the server-management patch panel on the wall to work. But the security cameras are the problem.
Ding—.
While he was reading the text, the elevator finished climbing a floor and the doors opened.
Stepping out into the corridor, Yeon-woo rapidly scanned the security cameras mounted on the ceiling.
Then he spotted a small gray metal door set into the wall on the dance-practice-room side.
Hmm. So that wall panel is where the patch panel is. The only camera that would catch it is the one installed on the opposite side.
Chatting idly with Gong Min-jeong about this and that, Yeon-woo deliberately slowed his pace.
Naturally the YouTube team overtook them, walking backward to film the two from the front, leaving only Han Hae-un behind the group.
Passing the server-management patch panel on the way to the practice room, Yeon-woo gauged the positions of the security camera at the end of the corridor, the practice-room door, and the patch panel itself, then gave a small nod.
Creak—.
Pulling open the practice-room door and standing in front of it, Yeon-woo spoke to Gong Min-jeong.
"Sunbae-nim, have you seen all the works I've done?"
"Y-yes? Of course! From Summer's Closet all the way through Sketch—every single one!"
"Really? Thank you so much. Which one did you enjoy the most?"
Smiling brilliantly at Gong Min-jeong, Yeon-woo kept the conversation going while standing in the middle of the corridor.
The practice-room door, Yeon-woo himself, Gong Min-jeong, and the YouTube staff formed a natural wall that completely screened Han Hae-un behind them.
While every staff member and camera was locked on the exchange between Yeon-woo and Gong Min-jeong, Hae-un swiftly used his tools to open the wall panel, plugged in the hacking tool, uploaded the payload, pulled it free again, and shut the door—all in a blur of practiced motion.
Checking the sequence with a sidelong glance, Yeon-woo looked over lightly; Hae-un, camera still slung over his shoulder, raised his smartphone, checked something, and quietly nodded.
Looks like it worked.
Yeon-woo allowed a faint smile and spoke again.
"Ah, right—we're supposed to be working. Let's head in, Min-jeong sunbae."
As Yeon-woo entered the practice room, Han Hae-un slipped in among the YouTube crew as if nothing at all had happened.
Inside, the members of the girl group on the verge of debut were waiting in full makeup, as though they had been standing by for this exact moment.
"Oh?! Hello!"
"Let's do a proper greeting. One, two, three."
"Hello! We're the rookie girl group Fateys!"
Yeon-woo bowed his head in a polite return greeting.
"Yes, hello. I'm Ryu Yeon-woo, working today as a one-day new employee."
The variety shoot proceeded smoothly after that.
With the infiltration objective already achieved, he devoted himself entirely to the YouTube filming.
At lunch he ate alone with Gong Min-jeong, took plenty of photos, and gave her unforgettable memories as a fan.
Having neatly caught both rabbits—the shoot and the hack—Yeon-woo opened his smartphone in Kim Min-su's car on the way home.
Checked that it's operating normally. Unfortunately, since CEO Byeon Hak-gyu doesn't use the company Wi-Fi, smartphone access looks impossible. Still, from now on every piece of information exchanged via PC can be intercepted mid-transit.
Yeon-woo nodded at the message.
Exposing the true face of Baeksol and wiping them out in one stroke was of course important, but already, in the course of his acting career, he had collided—directly and indirectly—with their black hands more than once.
Directly, there had been various attack attempts during the filming of Star Beyond the River; indirectly, the drug-related scandal that had engulfed An Jun-ho, who had shot Summer's Closet alongside him, had never sat right.
That he kept getting entangled even when the attacks were not aimed at him meant Baeksol's sinister, vicious reach already stretched across the entire entertainment industry.
"I can't let those bastards touch this life as well."
"Sorry?"
Kim Min-su, hearing the muttered words from the driver's seat, asked back, but Yeon-woo only smiled.
"It's nothing, Min-su hyung."
First he needed to get home and prepare for the commercial shoot that was right around the corner.
A few days passed, and still there had been no particular yield from Plus10.
"We'll be fighting those bastards over the long haul, so there's no need to rush."
Yeon-woo dressed simply and headed down to the parking garage.
"Min-su hyung, good morning."
He greeted Kim Min-su as he climbed into the car.
"It's been a while since you've headed to a set, Actor."
"I know. My body was itching the whole time I was living the university life."
It was no exaggeration—he had genuinely been suffering from how badly he wanted to act.
I have no idea how I ever held it in during my past life.
It had been quite some time since he had last done real acting, with the filming of Sketch as the final instance.
Today was the day they would shoot the commercial for Ihan Technology that would air in honor of Patriots and Veterans Month.
This CF was no mere image advertisement.
Looking over the storyboard, it was a narrative that demanded considerable acting skill.
And to do it well required even more.
I don't know whether the person who planned this intended it, but from my analysis, the tiniest differences will decide the quality.
The commercial's story began with Seo Hui.
Just as he had heard in his earlier meeting with Chairman Seo Tae-gwang, the will to fuse the image Yeon-woo had built in Star Beyond the River with Ihan Tech came through strongly.
From there, Seo Hui's figure transformed across the ages through Yeon-woo's face: an anonymous blacksmith forging weapons day and night to repel foreign invasion; a Joseon general commanding troops; an independence fighter resisting Japanese occupation; a young soldier charging forward through the fire of the Korean War.
It closed on the image of a modern soldier defending land and sky with the weapons developed by Ihan Tech.
An advertisement designed to drive home the image of safeguarding the nation—from Seo Hui all the way to today's defense industry.
The problem is how hard it is to bring that fully to life.
But for that very reason he had spent the past several days steadily thinking and practicing.
The car carrying Yeon-woo entered the set on the outskirts of Wonju.
"It's been quite a while since a CF shoot, too."
"It really has, Actor."
They got out of the car and followed a staff member's guidance toward the set.
"Ah, Actor Ryu."
Director Lee Yong-su, who had been directing operations in the middle of the set, spotted Yeon-woo and came over.
They already knew each other.
"Hello, Director Lee Yong-su. It's already been two years since we last met."
Yeon-woo greeted him with a warm smile.
Lee Yong-su had directed the telecom commercial that had been Yeon-woo's very first CF.
Apparently glad to see Yeon-woo again after so long, the director clasped both of Yeon-woo's hands.
"When I saw you back then you still had that student look, but now there's real aura coming off you. Haha."
"Come on, what aura. Is your daughter doing well in school?"
When Yeon-woo mentioned the daughter for whom the director had once taken an autograph, Lee Yong-su's face lit up.
"She's a high-schooler now. She framed Actor Ryu's autograph and keeps it on the wall like a household shrine. Says it's a good-luck charm for getting into a good university."
"Haha, is that so."
Items in the car flashed through Yeon-woo's mind.
"Ah, right—then just a moment. Min-su hyung, can I borrow the car keys for a second?"
"What are you going to get? I'll go fetch it."
"No, it's inside my bag. I'll just run and get it."
Taking the keys from Min-su, he retrieved two spiral notebooks and a few pens from the backpack in the van.
Returning to the set, Yeon-woo handed the items to Director Lee Yong-su.
"I'm in the middle of the semester, so these are notebooks I use at university. One only has a few pages used at the front; the other is brand new."
Notebooks and pens stamped with the Hankuk University logo.
He had brought even the used ones, thinking they might give a high-school student some extra motivation for exam life.
Receiving them from Yeon-woo, Director Lee Yong-su smiled with quiet pleasure.
"Aigoo, my daughter's going to lose her mind today. Thank you."
"Please tell her to just tear out the two or three pages I used and then use the rest, Director."
"I don't know much, but I can guarantee she will never tear them out."
Yeon-woo might have focused on the Hankuk University logo, but for the daughter receiving the gift, the important part would be that they were "notebooks and pens Ryu Yeon-woo had used."
"By the way, what do you think of the set?"
At Director Lee Yong-su's question, Yeon-woo surveyed the set.
For a CF shoot, the scale was enormous.
Divided into multiple sections, the set held period-specific environments coexisting exactly as he had seen in the storyboard.
From the anvil used by a blacksmith, to a trench dug deep into the earth, to a sandpit surrounded by chroma key.
And among them all, the thing that most drew the eye was the set farthest back.
Sitting squarely in the middle of the chroma-key stage was a fighter jet.
"…Is that, by any chance, a real fighter jet?"