Back to the Island
An Jun-ho, who had been unceremoniously kidnapped and bundled into a vehicle, sat there completely dumbfounded.
At first, he had no idea what was happening. His cognitive faculties short-circuited on the spot, and his brain simply refused to process the situation.
Then he lifted his head and looked around — and realized that the interior of the minibus looked nothing like what he had expected.
"Heyyy. Hi. Hello."
Son Jin-uk waved casually, greeting An Jun-ho as if nothing were out of the ordinary.
"…Huh?"
Watching An Jun-ho tilt his head with that vacant, idiotic expression, Han So-hyun finally lost the battle she had been fighting and burst out laughing.
"Pffft—!"
"Jun-ho hyung. Congrats on your discharge. Uh… surprise…?"
Only then did the full picture snap into place. An Jun-ho melted bonelessly into his seat.
"Aaaagh, I thought my heart was going to give out."
At that, PD Joo Hyun-seok rose from his seat.
"Alright then, An Jun-ho-ssi?"
"Y-yes? Yes, sir?"
Hearing his name called, An Jun-ho answered in a fluster, the burly men from moments earlier still vivid in his mind. Then he looked at the face of the person who had spoken, tilted his head again — and shot to his feet.
"Whaaat? P-PD Joo Hyun-seok?!"
"You've got Ryu Yeon-woo, Son Jin-uk, and Han So-hyun sitting right behind you, and I'm the one who startles you?"
The two of them had never met, of course, but Joo Hyun-seok was such a star producer that An Jun-ho could hardly have failed to recognize him.
"Ah, well — those three I've seen so often it barely registers anymore."
Son Jin-uk snorted at that.
"What's with that? We're doing pretty well for ourselves, you know. And here we are, getting treated like the neighborhood older brothers?"
Whether Son Jin-uk complained or not, An Jun-ho scanned the cabin and fixed his gaze on Yeon-woo. In this vehicle, Yeon-woo might be the youngest by age — but if anyone held the decision-making power, it was unmistakably Ryu Yeon-woo.
"Yeon-woo, what did you cook up this time? What is all of this?"
"Come on, I didn't cook anything up. I just personally crafted a job and brought it to you, hyung — to rescue you after you got dumped straight onto the job market. It's Summer's Table Season 2."
An Jun-ho looked back and forth between Yeon-woo and PD Joo.
"Summer's Table…? JNBC?"
"Well, Season 1 was their project, so we'll pitch it to them first. But if they turn it down, we can air it under a different name on a different network."
Son Jin-uk nodded and added,
"We've got in-house production capacity at Saebyeol, and we've already got the best variety PD in the business who's worked with us before. So we just shoot first."
PD Joo shook his head at that.
"No network is going to turn this down. This is a winning lottery ticket — who's going to blow their nose with it?"
Only then did An Jun-ho notice the cameras installed throughout the minibus. He looked at the grinning PD Joo and asked,
"So all of this… we're already filming a variety show…"
"Obviously."
"So the part where I just got kidnapped like an idiot out front — that was…?"
"Of course. That's the highlight."
An Jun-ho melted into his seat all over again.
"Aaaagh — please tell me I didn't swear earlier?"
"Hmm. I feel like I might have heard something…? Either way, that's entertainment too."
"Urgh, why are you doing this to me?"
By the time An Jun-ho had more or less adjusted to being on camera, Yeon-woo turned to PD Joo.
"PD-nim, so where are we headed now?"
"Huh? You don't know either, Yeon-woo?"
Still in his military uniform, An Jun-ho asked, and Yeon-woo nodded.
"No idea. I left everything to PD Joo. I'm just a regular cast member."
PD Joo answered,
"From here, we head for Gunsan."
Something flickered through Yeon-woo's mind at those words.
"Don't tell me — Gaeya-do?"
"Bingo."
Han So-hyun tilted her head.
"Huh? Where's Gaeya-do?"
"Where do you think? The place we made octopus carpaccio."
"Oh? Gaeya-do is there? Where we filmed Summer's Table?!"
It was PD Joo who answered her.
"That's right. The writers and I sat down to figure out where to take all of you, and it turns out it's already been three years since you filmed Summer's Table."
"A little longer and it'll be four."
Yeon-woo nodded at Son Jin-uk's reply.
Four years already. Well — So-hyun was still in middle school back then, and she's already taken the CSAT.
Of course, he meant his little sister, not the So-hyun sitting next to him.
Then the So-hyun beside him clapped her hands.
"This is going to be so much fun! I wonder if that house is still the same — the one where we cleared out the jungle of a yard and even painted everything nice and clean?"
PD Joo smiled. The production team had already secured filming permission from JNBC and confirmed the current condition during a preliminary site survey, so he knew exactly what state it was in.
"Well now. Will it still be the same? You'll just have to go and see for yourselves."
With An Jun-ho aboard, the complete cast rolled toward Gunsan Port. They had set out early in the morning, but between the kidnapping and the drive to Gunsan, by the time they arrived lunch was long past and the sky was beginning to turn the color of oranges.
They got out of the car, headed to the harbor, transferred to a boat, and after another long stretch finally reached Gaeya-do.
"Hmm. Come to think of it, I've been ending up on islands a lot lately."
Son Jin-uk snorted at Yeon-woo's remark.
"At least nobody's going to be shooting at you here."
"Right. I saw you in action during military service, Yeon-woo. You were something else."
"Eh, I got lucky."
Son Jin-uk recoiled in theatrical disgust.
"Yah, Jun-ho — you know that line. It's exactly what the kids who rank first in the whole school and get into Korea University say when you ask them for their study secrets… Ah."
He stopped. Come to think of it, this guy was that guy.
The first-in-the-school, Korea-University type.
"What is this, a racial trait?"
"Right? Next time something good happens to me, I'm copying Yeon-woo. Heh — I got lucky."
Watching An Jun-ho mimic him with an exaggerated expression, Yeon-woo let out a quiet laugh.
When exactly did I ever smile that insufferably while saying that?
Still — they had known each other a long time, and they had first met when they were all younger, before their careers had really taken off, in an exceptionally good filming atmosphere. Being together simply felt comfortable.
"Hey, hey — let's get off. I'm dying of curiosity. Nobody's been taking care of that house, right? The old couple who lived there said they were moving to Seoul."
"The network bought it at the time, so maybe they turned it into a tourist filming location and maintained it?"
"You think so?"
"Doesn't look like it. I just checked SNS and nothing like that came up."
The cast poured off the boat and hurried along, watching the sunset sink into the West Sea.
"So-hyun noona, no seasickness? Last time you said the sky was spinning."
"Huh? You're right. I talked the whole way over today, so I didn't feel sick at all!"
A staff member waved them over.
"This way, please. We'll move by vehicle."
"This is bringing it all back. I'm getting butterflies."
"It really is. Last time we rode an old van up these winding roads just like this."
Just like three years ago, the four actors piled snugly into the van.
Watching the scene through the cameras, PD Joo nodded to himself. They had each been reasonably well-known actors back then, of course — but the tier was different now.
Ryu Yeon-woo, who had gone from rookie to world star, needed no further comment. Cataloguing his career and international success would require a dedicated documentary special.
Son Jin-uk and Han So-hyun had already been top stars then, and every project they had shot since had done well. Back then they had felt like the next generation of rising talent; now they had fully settled into the ranks of national actors.
And even An Jun-ho, who had been without any real activity to speak of, still commanded solid public interest. Once the truth of that unfortunate incident came out — that he had been the victim of a setup crime — the wave of sympathy toward him had been large enough to become a genuine topic of conversation. Netizens would occasionally ask, with a note of anticipation, when An Jun-ho was getting out of the military. There had even been a meme circulating online about how An Jun-ho alone seemed to have been in the army for three years.
And finally, Joo Hyun-seok found himself studying Ryu Yeon-woo's face again.
Anyone in the broadcasting industry knew that Saebyeol, as a company, effectively ran on Ryu Yeon-woo's hand.
And every one of these actors is signed to Saebyeol…
Which was why they could start shooting a variety show without even contacting a network first and still have no problems. No broadcaster would turn down a catch this big — and even if one did, Saebyeol's own YouTube channel, SaebyeolTube, had already blown past five million subscribers and was now eyeing six million. Self-broadcasting would be no issue at all.
And that wasn't even the half of it.
Jin Yu-han, Jeong Cheol-min, Han Byeol, Jeong Su-yeon, Seo Ji-eun, and the newly discovered rookie Hong A-yun…
The empire called Saebyeol that Ryu Yeon-woo had built — still only in his early twenties — was already packed with stars who would each be called free-agency whales if they hit the transfer market, plus promising talents carrying the weight of massive expectations.
Listing them one by one, PD Joo shook his head at the sheer scale of it.
For the next few years, Saebyeol is going to have the entertainment industry in a lock grip.
He himself, after all, had accepted the moment the call came — without weighing options or running calculations — and had come out here to shoot.
While his thoughts wandered, the van climbed the winding road and finally stopped in front of an abandoned house.
"We're here. Everyone out."
"Ah…"
Climbing down from the van, all four actors stared at the scene before them in disbelief.
"This is worse than when we came last time…"
"This is seriously the same house?"
In hindsight, it was only natural. Back then, the old couple had left for their children's home in Seoul only six months prior. Now another three years — nearly four — of neglect had piled on top of that.
"Ugh, those network people. They didn't maintain a single thing?"
A thoroughly rusted front gate, and beyond it a jungle of vines and overgrowth.
No — last time you could still describe it that way. Right now, this place looked like it was required by law to have ghosts living in it. If no ghosts had moved in, it was only because even the spirits had withdrawn their purchase offers thanks to the frozen real estate market.
If you wanted a visual definition of the words desolate and eerie, this was it.
While everyone else stood frozen at the sight, Yeon-woo walked forward without the slightest hesitation and opened the rusted gate.
Come on. It's got a wall and a roof. Compared to digging into a grave in a cemetery to wait out a sandstorm during the Second Yemeni Civil War, this is a five-star hotel.
He swung the gate open without a second thought, stepped inside, and looked back at the others.
"What are you all doing? Get in here. We've got a mountain of work. Welcome home, sweet home."
The other three actors shuddered.
"There it is. Captain Ryu…"
"I'd almost forgotten."
Then a sharp, cutting voice rang out from inside.
"Private First Class An. Do you have time to stand around chatting?"
An Jun-ho moved on pure reflex.
The person inside was clearly draft-exempt Ryu Yeon-woo — and yet it felt exactly like being summoned by a demon drill instructor.
"Yes, sir! Moving right now!"