Housewarming (2)
At Yeon-woo's words, Woo Seong-sik's eyes lit up with sparkling intensity.
"Whoa, so you even call Seo Ji-eun on the phone? I'm so jealous."
Beside him, Kim Jun-su shot Seong-sik a look of pure disbelief.
"Dude. You've already done two projects together."
"Have we?"
Judging by Seong-sik's reaction, Seo Ji-eun's popularity had clearly surged of late.
Yeon-woo grinned playfully and opened his mouth.
"So you switched from Han So-hyun to Seo Ji-eun? So-hyun noona was so good to you, Seong-sik… Well, can't be helped. I'll pass the message along."
"No! Absolutely not!"
"Ohhh? So you're saying an actress like Seo Ji-eun can't even be compared to Han So-hyun?"
"…What? No! Yeon-woo hyung-nim!"
Everyone burst out laughing at the sight of Woo Seong-sik trapped in the so-called "unguardable technique"—or "UGT"—while Yeon-woo quietly grilled him.
Watching the scene, Son Jin-uk clapped Yeon-woo on the shoulder.
"Looks exactly like hazing a fresh recruit who just got assigned to his unit."
"Ah…"
The forbidden word that left Son Jin-uk's mouth froze everyone solid.
"Hyung-nim… We're shipping out for the military soon."
Woo Seong-sik and Kim Jun-su wore grim expressions.
"…Ahem. Ahem. You kids are already that age, huh. If you're done eating, how about we head to the living room and watch some variety? You said you were catching it live."
Everyone stood and followed Son Jin-uk as he hastily changed the subject.
They spilled out into the living room, scattered across the spacious sofa, and flipped on the TV just as the commercials before the variety show were rolling.
It was a beverage CF starring Jin Yu-han.
"Hey, Yu-han's on."
At Seong-sik's remark, Kim Ju-hyeong—who had been staring at his phone—looked up at the screen and then glanced around the room.
Sitting right beside him was Ryu Yeon-woo, a university classmate and yet the first Korean actor ever to win the Golden Bear at Berlin, a ten-million-ticket star.
The hyung who had just been eating dinner with them was Son Jin-uk, currently riding the absolute peak of his career as one of Korea's top male actors.
And Jin Yu-han, whom he often texted and hung out with, was right there on the TV commercial.
Just last year he had been an ordinary college student…
No—he was still an ordinary college student…
"This is insane."
"Huh? Who is? Yu-han?"
When the words slipped out unbidden and Kim Jun-su asked, Kim Ju-hyeong waved both hands in denial.
"No, no, just thinking about something else."
"Alright, it's starting."
The variety show began.
It was a talk-show concept set on a stage dressed up like a pojangmacha, where guests simply shared drinks and conversation.
"Jin-uk hyung, have you been on that show?"
"Yeah, about four years ago?"
Son Jin-uk nodded at Yeon-woo's question.
Immediately the friends around them unleashed a barrage of questions.
"Hyung-nim. Do they actually drink real alcohol while filming?"
"Well, if you want? If you can't drink, you can just do it with plain water."
The show rolled along quite entertainingly.
Seo Ji-eun melted into the atmosphere with her signature bright personality and completely unpretentious banter.
Then the MC smoothly tossed out a prepared question.
"Seo Ji-eun-ssi, I hear there's a man who has saved your life three times?"
"Three times?"
The other panelists reacted with surprise to the MC's question.
Hmm, so she talked about me in this segment?
Since Seo Ji-eun had said she would talk about him, Yeon-woo had assumed it would be something about the Berlin Film Festival or the earlier stalker incident.
On the TV, Seo Ji-eun began answering the MC.
"Yes. Some of you may have seen it on the news—there was a dangerous situation, and luckily Actor Ryu Yeon-woo saved me."
She deliberately avoided specifics, but the panelists all nodded in understanding.
"So that man is Actor Ryu Yeon-woo, then?"
As the panelists each expressed their admiration, a small inset of Yeon-woo's face appeared in the subtitles.
The admiration wasn't limited to the television screen.
"Ooooh. Hey, they're talking about you."
"Insane."
Yeon-woo snorted a laugh at his friends' reactions, then tilted his head.
"But why three times that I saved her?"
On the TV, Seo Ji-eun was already launching into the next story.
"The second time was on set, when I almost fell off a horse."
Listening to her, Yeon-woo nodded.
The variety production team must have borrowed it from the KBC1 drama department, because making-of footage began to play.
The camera had perfectly captured the heart-stopping moment when Seo Ji-eun tilted sideways off the galloping horse and nearly fell.
And then Yeon-woo, bending his waist in an acrobatic twist to snatch her and pull her forward.
Even in the studio, watching the monitor, the MC and guest panelists let out gasps of awe.
And once again, gasps erupted in the living room as well.
"Whoa, hey. That actually happened? Why didn't you tell us?"
"That was seriously dangerous."
"But damn, his athletic ability in that moment was unreal."
Leaving his friends' reactions behind as they sat watching the TV, the variety show continued with the MC's voice.
"That really was a dangerous moment. Whew, even watching it on screen my heart dropped. But you said he saved you three times—besides these big incidents, is there another?"
"The last one is my life as an actress. Honestly, until we filmed Star Beyond the River, after my debut work flopped, my acting career had basically been cut off."
When Seo Ji-eun credited the success of Star Beyond the River to Ryu Yeon-woo and even laid out the casting backstory for the subsequent Sketch, the panelists' sounds of admiration poured out.
But Yeon-woo only smiled awkwardly and shook his head.
No. Even without me, Jin Yu-han would have been the lead in Star Beyond the River, so the box office wouldn't have been a problem.
The professional variety cast took what might have been a dull story and elevated it with delicious reactions, and the broadcast went out.
The internet reaction was quite good.
In an era when variety shows mattered less for live viewership than for how widely their clips circulated online, an eight-minute episode packed with a complete story was primed to blow up.
It was a story about two currently hot actors—Seo Ji-eun and Ryu Yeon-woo—containing the behind-the-scenes of last year's hit Star Beyond the River and the casting secrets of this year's hit Sketch.
And once the production team added the making-of footage of the near-fall from the horse, the view counts on the clipped videos naturally exploded.
Whether or not they knew about the online reaction, once the variety show ended Yeon-woo and his friends gathered around the living-room table.
"This wholesome atmosphere. Is this real, kids?"
Son Jin-uk stared at Yeon-woo and the others as if he couldn't believe it.
Twenty-one-year-old strapping young men at the age of drinking beer by the barrel.
Yet there wasn't even a single can of beer in sight.
What Woo Seong-sik pulled from his bag was a deck of cards and a silver ring bell he set on the table.
"Alright, everyone's played Halli Galli, right?"
Seong-sik rubbed his hands together confidently as he shuffled the deck.
"I am Kim Jun-su. The man of pentakills who severs the champion's lifeline with mouse judgment faster than anyone. A few fruit pictures can't stop me."
Not to be outdone, Kim Ju-hyeong cracked his knuckles with a series of pops.
"I'm Korea University Economics. Want me to add up to five? I can win with one eye closed."
"Bringing school prestige into this? Kinda cringe—we're Yonha University too."
Watching the kids take something so trivial so seriously, Son Jin-uk shook his head.
But the words that left his mouth were different.
"You know what staff do most often in the evenings on location shoots? Card games."
Bluffing over the smallest things was the same whether you were a kid or an adult.
That was when Yeon-woo quietly raised his hand.
"I have no idea what this even is? Halli what?"
Kim Jun-su nodded as if that were only natural.
"Of course Ryu Yeon-woo-ssi, who spent his whole life training at a temple, wouldn't know. I'll explain the rules."
Yeon-woo, who hadn't even known what LoL or noraebang were, let alone Halli Galli, wasn't surprised by this level of ignorance.
After listening to Jun-su's explanation, Yeon-woo nodded.
"So you flip cards, and when there are five of the same fruit, you hit the bell?"
Confirming the rules once more, Yeon-woo tilted his head.
"Is this even a game? Seems way too simple."
It wasn't blackjack or baccarat—how hard could it be to just look with your eyes and hit a bell?
Seeing that, Woo Seong-sik wagged his index finger left and right.
"Beginners always say that. Time to start the real game."
Seong-sik dealt the cards and the game began.
Three bananas.
Two plums.
Among the men quietly flipping cards and twitching their arms, Yeon-woo sat completely still, watching with leisurely eyes.
When the cards that had started with Kim Jun-su reached Son Jin-uk's turn, the instant the card flipped, Yeon-woo's hand shot out like lightning and touched the bell.
Ding—
Only after the bell rang did the fully flipped card settle onto the table.
Two bananas.
"Is this how you do it? Why isn't anyone else hitting the bell?"
When Yeon-woo asked his friends with a bewildered expression, they all stared back as if he were absurd.
"…Excuse me? You hit the bell first when not even half the cards were flipped yet?"
"No, if the fruit is yellow and there's only one on top with the middle empty, of course it's two…"
Woo Seong-sik shook his head slowly.
It wasn't that no one knew.
It was that no one could check all of that in an instant and stretch out their hand.
"B-beginner's luck, right? Next round right away."
And so the cards piled up in front of Yeon-woo.
The next round began.
Ding—
Ding—
Ding—
"Hmm, so does that mean the game's over?"
Because Yeon-woo was ringing the bell and collecting cards at such blistering speed that no one else even got a chance to reach, the game had become completely one-sided.
"…Halli Galli tyrant."
In the games that followed as well, the cards naturally gathered in front of Yeon-woo.
"Okay, this isn't working. Let's play something else. Got anything?"
At Kim Jun-su's words as he raised both hands in surrender first, Woo Seong-sik grinned and rummaged through his bag.
"I figured you'd say that, so I prepared another game. Analog's not gonna cut it—let's go digital."
"Digital? Thinking about how he plays LoL, that might actually be doable."
Back in high school, whenever they occasionally went to a PC bang, Yeon-woo had always been the one getting killed and staring at a gray screen.
Seong-sik stuck his hand in the bag and looked around.
"What I brought is none other than! A Nintendo that lets the whole family dance and match the rhythm at home…"
At Seong-sik's words, Yeon-woo's face lit up for the first time with recognition.
This one I actually played in university.
And right beside him, Son Jin-uk shouted at the exact same moment as Yeon-woo.
"DDR!"
"DDR!"
Hearing that cry, the kids all tilted their heads at once.
"…What's that?"
"DDR? I feel like I've heard of it somewhere."
"That's probably like the ancestor of the Pump machines in arcades, right? I heard about it from my parents."
Looking at the small game console Seong-sik pulled from his bag, Yeon-woo shook his head.
"Of course it wasn't going to be something I knew."
"Yeon-woo, I'm in my thirties so fine, but why do you not know any of this?"
The only answer Yeon-woo could give was to spread both arms and shrug his shoulders.
Because I'm from the ddakji-slapping generation.
Once again Yeon-woo swallowed the words inside.
Instead of the DDR of that era, the cutting-edge game of strapping on a gyroscope sensor and dancing or playing sports while watching the connected TV stretched late into the night.
And a few days later, the day of the supporting-role casting audition for White Blood dawned.