Landing on the Island
"I'm telling you, it's Ryu Yeon-woo."
"Uh, Director… are you talking about the Ryu Yeon-woo I'm thinking of?"
"That's right. That Ryu Yeon-woo."
"…Excuse me? All of a sudden?"
PD Yoon Chang-joon stared at the director with a look of pure incomprehension.
Who was Ryu Yeon-woo, after all?
The variety department had long since given up on him, and even the drama department treated casting him like plucking a star from the sky. A titan like Director Park Chan-hong was sending him love calls, and enough A-list production talent and actors had already clustered around him that people casually called them his "crew." Yoon had always thought of him as a celebrity among celebrities — the kind of star you never even bothered to consider casting.
And now that actor was going to appear on his variety show?
Worse, his concept was a nightmare of a program where contestants would roll around in mud, sleep in ruins on a deserted island, and go without a proper meal for days on end.
"Just make it good, Chang-joon. I told you when I saw the proposal — this one's going to work. Right?"
"Ah… yes."
Complete nonsense.
This was the same director who tossed every budget-eating proposal straight into the trash without so much as a glance. Yoon had begged and pleaded just to scrape together a single green light for this survival concept — and already he could feel the man lining up to take credit.
"That's my guy. Always trusted you."
"……"
"Lock it down so he can't back out. Drop the articles right away. Provide the basic materials. Keep the show description short, but plaster Ryu Yeon-woo's name across the headline."
"Yes, sir."
And the very next day, the internet flooded with articles.
Apparently terrified that Yeon-woo might change his mind and refuse to appear, TVM had started pumping out press releases and articles before a single frame of footage had even been shot.
Meanwhile, the contestants who'd already been cast learned the news from the articles and spent that entire morning fielding endless calls from everyone they knew.
Jang Ju-won was no exception — a former long-time idol trainee who'd completed his military service and pivoted to acting.
Jang Ju-won scrolled through the messages on his phone and grinned.
"This is actually perfect. Time to make sure people know my name. TVM must've spent some real money. How the hell did they land him?"
It felt like a legendary quest had just popped up on the glittering road to victory that had been prepared just for him — one he absolutely had to claim first.
"He's never even served, so has he ever fired a gun? If I take out Ryu Yeon-woo, I'm automatically the star of that episode, right? First thing I do is hunt him down. Ha, just thinking about it tastes sweet."
Most of the other contestants were thinking along the same lines.
The majority were unknowns, or people who'd spent years scraping around the fringes of the industry without any real achievements to show for it — aging out, finishing their military service, and essentially walking the path toward retirement from entertainment. Winning would be nice, of course, but what they all had their eyes on was taking Ryu Yeon-woo out first.
Do that, and there was no way their footage would end up on the cutting-room floor.
"Thank god I did my service the hard way. At least it got me an opportunity like this…"
And Yeon-woo, of course, saw the flood of articles as well.
"They're driving a stake through it so you can't reverse course."
Yeon-woo nodded at Executive Director Yoon Mi-yeon's assessment.
It didn't matter.
No — this was exactly what he wanted.
He had zero intention of backing out of the appearance, so the more publicity they poured on, the better it was for him and the Parabola team.
In Korean variety, the "survival" genre was both relatively unfamiliar and, at the same time, utterly ubiquitous.
From ordinary people showing off their talents, to idol survival shows, band auditions, even dating programs where people pair off — everything is a competition.
In the broadest sense, all of it was survival.
What variety had never touched, however, was the sport that literally called itself a "survival game" — mock combat with airsoft guns.
And in this industry, "new attempts" almost always followed the same pattern: a tiny handful became mega-hits, and the rest failed and vanished without a trace.
Pulling off a mega-hit with a new attempt was Yeon-woo's specialty.
"Having Actor Ryu — a face you almost never see on variety — appear will definitely spike interest in the short term."
Of course, if he got eliminated and left the show, that interest would evaporate just as fast.
Yeon-woo caught the unspoken half of Yoon Mi-yeon's sentence, grinned, and answered.
"Doesn't matter. I have absolutely no intention of getting eliminated."
He was confident.
Confident he would not lose.
The news that Ryu Yeon-woo was suddenly appearing on a variety show — and not just any show, but a real-competition program where contestants would land on a remote deserted island and wage individual survival combat — set the internet on fire.
Fans reacted positively, of course, but the broader community's gaze was far from uniformly kind.
Gong Min-jeong, scanning the community reactions, felt a surge of irritation and nearly typed out an angry reply — then barely managed to stop herself.
She'd first crossed paths with Yeon-woo through a hidden-camera-style YouTube variety project back when she was still at Plus Ten, and she was now core personnel at Saebyeol Media.
One of the things she did best was smelling money.
Drawing on years of fan-café experience, the merch business she'd built had grown into a genuine cash cow and a solid pillar of revenue. The company cafeteria project she'd run alongside CEO Kim Ju-seong had also been wrapped up cleanly and successfully.
Beyond the toxic users leaving hate comments for no reason, Gong Min-jeong also checked the comments from people whose interest in Survival Island itself had been sparked by Ryu Yeon-woo's casting.
Status window?
Gong Min-jeong tilted her head at the baffling comment — and at the same time, her mind started turning.
"Our Actor Ryu, Survival Island, and SL Electronics. Hmm. If we play this right, we might actually land something."
Gong Min-jeong had caught the faint scent of money drifting in from somewhere.
She shot up from her seat and knocked on the door of Yoon Mi-yeon's private office.
"Come in."
At the sound of Yoon Mi-yeon's voice from the other side, Gong Min-jeong opened the door and stepped inside.
"Director. I thought of something else we can squeeze out of the Survival Island project."
"Hmm? Squeeze out?"
Meanwhile, PD Yoon Chang-joon — deep in final preparations for the shoot — was left completely stunned by the call from Saebyeol.
"Uh, Team Leader Gong Min-jeong, was it…? So you're saying SL Electronics is interested in a main sponsorship deal, and smartwatches are coming in as product placement too?"
"Yes, that's correct. Actor Ryu Yeon-woo is currently the main model for SL Electronics smartphones, and our relationship with them is strong, so this came together as a special arrangement. Separate from the advertising fees, they'll also supply as many smartwatches as we need."
After reporting to Yoon Mi-yeon, Gong Min-jeong had contacted SL Electronics herself and locked down the product placement — meaning a substantial portion of the ad revenue would flow to Saebyeol rather than the network.
The structure was simple: Saebyeol and SL Electronics would sign the sponsorship first, and then Saebyeol and TVM would enter a separate contract underneath it.
PD Yoon's mind raced as he processed what he'd just heard over the phone.
Weaving the smartwatches in as natural product placement would be easy.
Originally, the plan had been to push notifications — someone getting eliminated, special missions, remaining time, survivor status, and various other battlefield intel — to each contestant's smartphone.
If those same updates were sent in real time to the smartwatches on the contestants' wrists, they could eliminate unnecessary scenes of people fishing phones out of their pants pockets.
After all, nothing would kill viewer immersion faster than watching people mid-gunfight stop to fumble a smartphone out of their pocket, check it, and then go back to fighting.
"Th-thank you. SL Electronics, of all companies…"
"We'll prepare the related documents separately, so please visit our offices when you have time to finalize the contract."
In other words: if you want the money, come sign. But with an SL Electronics sponsorship on the table, PD Yoon couldn't have cared less who was coming and going.
"Of course, of course. I'll be there today if I have to."
Time passed. Filming on Parabola was already past the halfway mark, and the actors had each carved three days out of the schedule to appear on the variety shows they'd been assigned for drama promotion.
"Yu-han said he's going on a program where experts get together and review movies, and Jin-uk hyung's schedule is probably the roughest, right?"
Kim Min-su nodded at Yeon-woo's question.
"Yes. Actor Jin Yu-han is appearing on Rooftop Cinema, and Actor Son Jin-uk is going on Dawn Market."
Son Jin-uk, he'd heard, was joining a variety show co-hosted by a national MC, built around a "labor healing" concept — boarding early-morning fishing boats, working on farms, that sort of thing.
"Whew, heading out to work at dawn? Just hearing about it sounds brutal. Tell him to take it easy."
Yeon-woo shook his head, and Kim Min-su stared at him with a look of pure disbelief.
"……?"
The man himself was about to board a boat bound for a remote deserted island, where he would wage a breathless war until only one of thirty people remained standing — and he was worried about someone else?
"Uh, not to state the obvious, but wouldn't you have it the hardest, Actor…?"
"Me? Come on. Physical labor is way tougher. He'll be getting up at dawn, boarding a fishing boat, and working his back off all day."
Kim Min-su considered that for a moment — Is he right? — then shook his head firmly.
"Ah! Are you planning to get eliminated right at the start? Then your shoot would basically just be a few interview clips and you'd be done…"
This time it was Yeon-woo who tilted his head.
"What? Didn't you say last time you wanted a massage chair, Min-su hyung? They give one as a prize if you take out five people, so I was going to win it for you…? You know I'm a good shot."
Of course he knew.
He'd seen Yeon-woo's phenomenal marksmanship with his own eyes at the shooting range in Hawaii.
He'd also watched him nail high-difficulty action sequences to perfection while filming Star Beyond the River and White Blood, so he was well aware of the physical ability involved.
Still… does that even translate to a survival game? He's never trained for anything like this. I just hope he doesn't get hurt…
If even the person closest to Yeon-woo was thinking that, it was no surprise that the production staff, the other cast members, and the vast majority of viewers who'd heard about the casting expected absolutely nothing in the way of results from him.
The only ones who simply nodded were the people who'd experienced it firsthand — Jin Yu-han, Kim Ju-hyeong, Woo Seong-sik, and Kim Jun-su.
Just then the cabin door opened, and PD Yoon Chang-joon stepped in, his face pale and drained from a thorough bout of seasickness.
"We'll be arriving at the island shortly."