Bound for America (1)
It had been about a week since he'd gone to the little theater with his friends, and with Kim Ju-hyeong's script still in the final polishing stages, Yeon-woo had nothing particular to do.
Jin Yu-han was busy with his musical performances, and the rest of his friends seemed to treat the little theater like a hangout, showing up almost every day.
In the meantime, Yeon-woo had assigned Jun-su and Seong-sik a mission: go watch plays and get a feel for the atmosphere of the Daehangno theater companies.
"Hope they're actually watching properly."
Then he thought of the other person he'd given a mission to.
Hae-un's probably having a rough time of it too.
Most of the names on the list Yeon-woo had handed over were special operatives he'd come to know through various channels during his years of service. They had carried out operations under his direction a few times, of course, but they had never truly known who he was. He had always met them in disguise, under a different face, so in their past lives they had known him only as the operations commander codenamed Alpha-Beta.
Yeon-woo, on the other hand, had been a black ops agent with access to nearly every classified file, so he knew their operational records and citations inside and out. From among them, he had filtered for those least likely to have Baeksol's tentacles wrapped around them, yet still outstanding in ability, and passed that list to Han Hae-un.
Yeon-woo picked up his phone and sent Hae-un a message.
Meanwhile, the Han Hae-un Yeon-woo was thinking about was currently digging into the people on that list from every angle — background checks, recent movements, the works — collating a mountain of information into profiles.
In his past life he had been an NIS agent specialized in intelligence analysis and extraction, so even with the sheer volume of work, his speed was formidable.
Ding.
Hae-un picked up his phone, saw the message was from Ryu Yeon-woo, and tapped out a reply.
Setting the phone down, Hae-un looked back at his monitor.
"And what the hell does this guy do."
The deeper he dug, the more astonishing people he found. The list he was compiling was built primarily around former comrades from his special forces days in his past life — but the people Ryu Yeon-woo had ordered him to look into, though fewer in number, were on an entirely different level.
"Not even an instructor, yet he's got the Gold Laurel Wings Badge, and most of his records are classified…"
The so-called Gold Wing — the Gold Laurel Wings Badge — was an honor awarded for completing more than a thousand high-altitude freefall jumps. Jump once a week and it would still take nearly twenty years.
Outside the 707th Special Mission Group, almost no one racks up that many jumps.
An instructor teaching freefall at the Special Warfare School might hit those numbers, sure — but with most of the records classified, this man had clearly been a special operative running actual missions.
And yet what he's doing now is…
Hae-un stared at the monitor. On the YouTube window he had open, an ordinary middle-aged man was rambling to himself while climbing a mountain alone.
"Channel name: TarzanTV. Sixteen subscribers."
That formidable operative, after leaving the service and reentering civilian life, had become a completely unknown YouTuber. Hae-un had analyzed the videos the man had uploaded, of course. The only notable finding: they were genuinely, thoroughly uninteresting. Those sixteen subscribers were almost certainly all personal acquaintances.
Everyone on the Team Leader's list is simultaneously incredible and completely bizarre.
In short, they were absolute characters. Finishing this list was clearly going to take some serious overtime.
He had been mulling over variety shows he might appear on for the fans when a call came in from the company.
Hmm. Not Jeong Hyeok — Yoon. So this is probably about White Blood.
Yeon-woo picked up.
"Yes, Team Leader."
"Actor Ryu, good morning. A rather excellent offer has come in. The company is still reviewing it, but I wanted to reach out to you first."
"An excellent offer?"
CEO Kim Ju-seong had said he should rest for a while, so it wouldn't be about a new project.
"A variety show?"
"Yes. But not a Korean one. We've been approached by none other than Friday Night Show."
Yeon-woo paused for a beat, then asked again.
"…You mean the American talk show?"
"That's right."
Outside a handful of countries, most nations lacked the self-sustaining power of their own domestic broadcasting and simply imported American programming for regular slots. Friday Night Show was a show Yeon-woo himself had watched fairly often during his overseas postings.
"So the offer came through White Blood, then? What about the other actors?"
"The whole expedition team was invited together. However, the condition is that Actor Ryu must appear."
In other words, it would be nice if the other cast members came along, but the casting had come in on the premise that the lead — Yeon-woo — would be there.
"Hmm. Then I guess we ought to treat our actors to a trip to America."
A small laugh came through the receiver from Team Leader Yoon Mi-yeon.
"I'll take that as an acceptance and move forward with it, then."
"Yes. Thank you."
He hung up and sat for a moment with his thoughts. He had played it cool on the call, but of course Yeon-woo was considerably surprised. White Blood had held the number-one spot on Netflix for over two weeks now. Through Manager Kim Min-su, he had already heard that overseas broadcast and project offers were coming in to some degree — but among them, Friday Night Show?
It was, without exaggeration, one of the highest-rated talk shows in the world.
"White Blood really did make it, huh."
Even when Sketch had won the Golden Bear — the highest honor at the Berlin Film Festival — there had been no American talk show invitations. But this was also a moment when the OTT market's growth was becoming terrifyingly large, distinct from Europe-centered film festivals, and Netflix had a massive audience inside the United States itself. The cast of a globally ranked number-one series like White Blood would be a ratings card any American talk show would salivate over.
He had more or less sorted his thoughts when his phone started vibrating. He checked it — the White Blood group chat.
Jeong Yong-ho was an English teacher in his twentieth year at the podium. The moment lunch ended, he clutched his throbbing head and headed for the homeroom class he was responsible for.
As he drew near, he could already hear the racket — a crowd of students spilling out into the hallway.
White Blood had exploded, and Han Byeol's popularity at school had surpassed even what Ryu Yeon-woo had enjoyed at his debut — more, not less. And middle schoolers, by nature, had no sense of proportion; left unchecked, it could easily turn into an accident.
"You lot — swarming around here again! Get back to your own classrooms, now!"
At Yong-ho's bellow, the kids scattered, grumbling.
"So unlucky. What does it matter where we are during lunch."
"Most stuck-up homeroom teacher in the second year. What's his problem."
They thought they were muttering quietly enough, but insults about oneself have a way of carrying farthest. Still, Yong-ho hadn't come up here because he wanted to waste his precious lunch break.
At Monday's faculty meeting, the vice principal had specifically ordered them to take extra care with safety accidents and keep students from clustering, so he had no choice but to come up to the classroom every break and lunch period.
And it's all because of that kid.
He looked at the girl with twin tails in the center of the room, laughing brightly with her friends. Having one student in his class make his life this much more annoying, he couldn't exactly look on her with fondness. He had never been particularly fond of students who veered into the arts and athletics track to begin with, which only made it worse.
Netflix or whatever — something that doesn't even air on regular TV — and the whole school loses its mind just because she was in it. She'll flash and fade like the rest of them. I've seen kids like that more than once since I started teaching.
Jeong Yong-ho didn't watch Netflix, cable, or even general programming channels, so he genuinely couldn't grasp what all the fuss was about. Of course, the news had been making enough noise that he abstractly understood White Blood had accomplished something significant — but that was the story of the lead, Ryu Yeon-woo.
At best she's a child actress. Why is everyone making such a production out of it.
To Jeong Yong-ho, Han Byeol's existence was simply the one variable threatening his wish that this school year would just pass without incident.
With no other option, he pulled out the chair at the teacher's desk and sat reading a book through the entire lunch period for the sake of accident prevention. Lunch passed, regular classes ended, and Jeong Yong-ho was working through his backlog when the faculty room door opened and Han Byeol walked in, the sunset pouring red through the windows.
"Teacher!"
Jeong Yong-ho looked at her.
"Why aren't you going home?"
"I have something coming up, so I don't think I'll be able to come to school for the next few days…"
"Again? Look, I know you act, but this is a critical time — you need to study. For a student, coming to school is always number one. In all my years teaching, I've seen plenty of kids skip school for child-actor work, flash for a bit, and end up able to do nothing."
Han Byeol, being sharp, knew that better than anyone. Roles as distinctive and substantial as Ella in White Blood were rarely given to child actors, and there was no need to force her acting career forward right now — so she had put the flood of love calls on hold and still hadn't even settled on an agency. Even if she eventually went to an arts high school, she and her parents had already agreed she would focus on school life for the time being.
"But this is something I really have to go to… The company said they'll send an official notice to the school today."
In truth, she didn't need her homeroom teacher's permission — but Han Byeol had thought it only polite to stop by the faculty room and say something before heading home.
At her words, Jeong Yong-ho frowned and asked in a slightly sharper voice,
"What for?"
"I'm going to appear on an American broadcast."
"…America? America, all of a sudden? You didn't get scammed somewhere, did you?"
Just then a fax arrived in the faculty room, and at the same moment Jeong Yong-ho's inbox lit up.
"Ah! Teacher, I think the company notice just came in."
Jeong Yong-ho eyed Han Byeol with open skepticism, then clicked open his mail. He read the official notice from LN Media and tilted his head.
"…This Friday Night Show written here — is that the one I'm thinking of?"
"Huh? You know it too, Teacher? Honestly, I'd never heard of it."
Of course he knew it. The only thing English teacher Jeong Yong-ho watched outside domestic terrestrial channels was NBS — which he had started watching for English pronunciation back when he was preparing for the teaching certification exam — and that channel's flagship TV show for twenty years running was Friday Night Show.
"…You're going on that? Are you famous?"
At that, Han Byeol tilted her head the other way and beamed.
"Hmm, maybe just a teeny-tiny bit…?"