Vacation
The nameplate the man hurled struck Kim Gye-sik square on the back of the head as he lay flat on the floor, splitting the skin so that blood quickly ran down his neck.
But Kim Gye-sik made not a sound, remaining pressed flat against the ground.
This was an unusual rage.
Kim Gye-sik believed this was his only path to survival, so he stayed fused to the floor, never lifting his head.
When a few of the informants he'd planted as bait had been caught, he honestly hadn't even known such people existed. Those nobodies were trivial matters that Hwang-geum handled on his own. Even when that same Hwang-geum had to be eliminated after an unnecessary clash with Chinese triads, he'd been indifferent. Plenty of replacements for that position.
When LN, which he'd acquired at a premium over market price, turned out to be an empty shell and took a loss, his mood had soured — but it wasn't worth getting angry over. After all, the entertainment business wasn't for profit. It was merely a useful tool for entertaining political and business figures and laundering funds.
But this incident was beyond tolerance.
The man sat back down in his chair and spat the words out as if chewing them.
"Kim Gye-sik. Step forward."
"...Yes, sir!"
Kim Gye-sik, who had been lying flat, sprang up and stood before the man's desk with his head bowed.
"They're calling it spontaneous combustion?"
"...That's what they say."
"Send some men. Round up everyone who worked there, and interrogate them while slicing off their fingertips one by one."
"......"
No answer came from Kim Gye-sik.
"What is it? Stop stalling and tell me now."
"Well... A Norwegian freighter that was passing nearby spotted the fire on the island and sent out an emergency distress signal. The US Forces Japan that received the signal deployed and secured the slaves who were on the island."
"......"
After a moment's thought, the man continued in a voice like grinding metal.
"Hoo. Tell the people in Okinawa right now to wipe every trace clean and come home."
He had no idea how to cover this loss, but first and foremost, getting entangled with the US military had to be avoided.
Meanwhile, at that same hour, Yeon-woo was lying on a sun lounger at the hotel, spending a leisurely afternoon.
Wearing sunglasses beneath a large straw parasol, Yeon-woo was in fact asleep. Having pulled an all-nighter on the operation the previous night, he was recovering his strength.
The other staff and actors would assume Yeon-woo had slept through the night — but if he stayed in his room sleeping straight through the day as well, they'd worry he was sick. So he'd come out early and claimed a sun lounger.
Then Director Lee Yong-su approached Yeon-woo on the lounger.
"Actor Ryu. You came all this way on vacation — shouldn't you at least see the ocean?"
"...Mm, sorry?"
Yeon-woo opened his eyes at the sound of his name and sat up, asking back.
Kim Min-su, standing beside them, added,
"The staff are all heading to the beach as a group right now. Fans and paparazzi will stick to you so you can't tour the city — so why not at least go to the sea?"
Hearing the two of them, Yeon-woo scratched his head.
The ocean, huh...
He'd already seen more than enough of it. Seen? He'd spent the whole night swimming, rowing, and riding boats, covering dozens of kilometers round trip for hours. Having already chewed, torn, tasted, and thoroughly enjoyed the Okinawa sea in full course, Yeon-woo wore an ambiguous smile.
"Come on, it's safe with all the staff around. Let's go now, yeah?"
Somehow the man had become genuinely invested in this Okinawa vacation, and Yeon-woo staying cooped up in the hotel seemed pitiful to him.
"Well, alright then."
Yeon-woo rose from the sun lounger. Still, after catching a couple hours of sleep, he'd recovered a fair amount of stamina.
Besides, the schedule from today on is just ordinary vacationing anyway.
Of course, that too was in a sense an extension of the operation. He needed to present the image of a star simply enjoying a normal vacation.
"So we're going?"
"Yes. Let's go together."
"Okay!"
As Yeon-woo went to his room to change into light outdoor clothes, someone knocked.
"Who is it?"
When Yeon-woo opened the door, Lee Ye-eun walked in carrying a large makeup kit.
"Sit down. If you're going out, you need at least basic makeup. Did you put on sunscreen? Did you wash up this morning and put on toner and lotion?"
Watching Lee Ye-eun fire off words like a machine gun, Yeon-woo shook his head with a laugh. He'd snuck back to the lodging at dawn, washed up, and gone straight out to collapse on the sun lounger and fall asleep.
"No. I didn't do any of that."
"Ugh, I knew it."
Lee Ye-eun's hands moved quickly as she began applying light makeup. Yeon-woo himself had felt a bit hollow-eyed looking in the mirror after the overnight operation, but once Lee Ye-eun covered it with basic makeup, he looked like his usual self again.
"Did you stay up late watching YouTube? You're a little puffy today. And lying on a sun lounger from morning without sunscreen, soaking up UV — that's probably it. Being under a parasol doesn't mean you're not exposed to UV. It all reflects and you still get a tan, you know?"
"Sorry, Mom."
"What? Why are you calling me Mom? Don't tell me I look old today?"
As Lee Ye-eun checked her face in the mirror, Yeon-woo shook his head and laughed.
"The way you're nagging today just feels like a mom."
"What are you talking about. Crazy. I'm still a maiden."
Lee Ye-eun smacked Yeon-woo's back with a sharp slap.
"All done. Let's go."
"Yes, ma'am."
They boarded a large bus as a group and headed to a sparsely populated beach.
Kim Min-su, who got off following Yeon-woo, craned his neck to scan the far side of the road.
"What is it?"
"Ah, there was definitely a cream-colored compact car that followed us from the hotel... I don't see it now."
Yeon-woo had been watching that car as well. Habitually scanning his surroundings, he'd been keeping an eye on it and hadn't missed it parking far off after rounding the corner that led to the beach.
"I think it parked over that way — paparazzi, you think?"
"Probably so. Should I go stop them?"
At Kim Min-su's words, Yeon-woo shook his head.
"No. No need to create controversy for nothing. Let's play on the beach first, and if we catch them taking pictures, we can think about it then."
"Mm, understood."
Apparently excited by the sight of the ocean, Lee Ye-eun and Hong A-yun could be seen kicking off their shoes and running across the white sand. The other staff members also walked toward the beach to enjoy their vacation in their own ways.
Hmm, the sea is clear.
This wasn't the pitch-black, rough-waved ocean he'd seen last night. Transparent emerald water rolled in with gentle waves, lightly sweeping the white sand and breaking into white foam. And the scorching sunlight poured down over the ripples, glittering as sparkles on the water.
Peaceful.
Gazing at the sea for a moment, Yeon-woo also walked toward the white sand. A place that gave some people peaceful ease of mind — yet to others, it had looked like a natural prison for locking up slaves who would never leave the island for the rest of their lives.
Thinking of last night's operation as he walked, Yeon-woo spotted a man approaching stealthily from afar with a camera.
Hmm, clumsy...
The scrawny man was hiding his body behind a guardrail on the coastal road, creeping toward the white sand where the film team was. Of course, no matter how scrawny he was, a guardrail wasn't thick enough to hide a body properly. He seemed to catch his foot on a rock while walking, nearly toppling forward before barely recovering his balance.
...Really clumsy.
He didn't seem like a professional paparazzo. Whether he knew Yeon-woo was watching or not, the man raised a large telephoto camera and started taking pictures. After a few shots he tilted his head and looked around — with so many male staff in the group, he apparently couldn't even find where Yeon-woo was.
Don't tell me this is his first day out?
Yeon-woo waved at the bumbling paparazzo. As if to say, I'm over here — go ahead and shoot. Then, as if finally spotting him, the man turned the camera toward Yeon-woo and began taking photos.
Kim Min-su saw this and approached.
"Actor."
"Yes. I think we need to bring that guy over. I have something for him to do."
"Understood."
Kim Min-su sprinted toward the paparazzo at high speed. Startled by the sudden approach of a large man, the guy fumbled to stuff his camera into a bag and tried to flee, but was caught in no time.
As Yeon-woo approached, the man Kim Min-su was holding started making excuses in Japanese.
"Ah, no. I was just trying to photograph the beautiful ocean..."
Yeon-woo smiled and shook his head.
"I'm not trying to accuse you of anything. Could I take a quick look at the photos you took?"
Kim Min-su immediately checked the camera. Naturally there were multiple photos of Yeon-woo, and occasionally ones of Hong A-yun as well.
Oh, but he takes good photos?
His shooting technique had been so clumsy that Yeon-woo hadn't expected much from the results — but looking at the actual photos, the composition and shutter timing were on par with decent pictorials. Of course, no matter how good the results, unauthorized photography without personal consent remained illegal.
Then, thinking something had happened, a few staff members walked toward Yeon-woo and Kim Min-su from behind. People who spent all day hauling heavy filming equipment tended to be as burly as athletes. Watching them approach, the bumbling novice paparazzo's face — which had been yellow as a rice sheaf — went white in real time, as if it had gone through threshing and polishing into pure white rice.
"Is something wrong?"
Seeing the worried staff approaching, Yeon-woo smiled and shook his head.
"Nothing at all. It's fine."
Then he looked at the paparazzo and asked,
"When you take photos like these, do magazines or newspapers usually buy them? How much do you normally make?"
The man, fidgeting, explained the rates.
"...W-well, the rate varies by photo. I've heard the cheap ones start at a thousand yen, and rare ones can go up to two hundred thousand yen."
"'I've heard'? You haven't sold any yet?"
"T-to be honest, today is my first time. I'm sorry! I just heard that Ryu-san was visiting Okinawa, and with money troubles..."
Hearing the explanation, Yeon-woo stroked his chin, nodded, and spoke again.
"Then how about this. I'll give you double whatever sales you'd have made from today's photos. In exchange, put your whole soul into it all day long and follow me around exclusively, shooting like it's a pictorial."
"Yes! I'm sorry. I'll never do it agai— ...Huh?"
Looking at the paparazzo's blank expression, Yeon-woo figured this had worked out rather well. He'd made an SNS account long ago to communicate with fans, but he was so hopeless with cameras that he couldn't take photos, and after Woo Seong-sik — who'd handled that role — had gone off to the military, he'd heard fans were suffering from a photo drought.
While I'm at it, I should dump a ton of vacation photos.
Of course there were several excellent camera directors among the party, but who wants to hold a camera when they're on a trip? Looking at the earlier results, the guy's photography skills were quite to his liking.
"You won't do it?"
"I-I'll do it! I'll burn myself out taking the best photos! Thank you!"