The Heavenly Demon's Dawn Workout
The wrap party went off without a hitch, quiet and uneventful.
Jo Yooshin, who clearly had plenty of grievances with me, apparently hadn't changed his mind about never crossing paths with me again, because he didn't pick a single fight.
Kind of a shame, honestly. My mood was sour enough that a legal outlet for blowing off steam would've hit the spot.
But the look on his face, the glint in his eyes — it all read as a man who would cause some kind of problem sooner or later.
Preferably he'd ambush me from behind with a brick or a knife someday. That would be nice.
"Ahhh~"
"Come on, there's no reason to be disappointed."
"I know... I know. Still a little disappointing, though."
The final episode of Genius Copywriter, Yoon Seoeun closed out with a slight uptick in ratings, finishing at 24.2%, and both the PD and the writer lamented falling just short of the 25% mark.
"That's a wrap~ Drink up, drink up~~"
But the celebration was short-lived in more ways than one.
Since the drama had posted the best numbers of anything that aired this year, another rowdy, cheerful round of eating and drinking kicked off — everyone determined to live for today alone, apparently. From the writer all the way up to the PD, they started blowing through a second round, then a third, like there was no tomorrow.
In reality, most of the production staff bolted after the PD toward round two.
The two idol leads, naturally, slipped quietly out after round one.
So did Jo Yooshin, our leading man who'd arrived the latest of anyone.
I briefly considered what to do myself, but the news I'd learned earlier had been so shocking that I simply wasn't in the mood. So I slipped out alongside the other departing actors.
I genuinely wanted to keep cultivating my connection with PD Yoo and Writer Min, but today just wasn't the day, so I quietly excused myself from the party.
"It's really over. Bittersweet, honestly."
And with that, my schedule for Genius Copywriter, Yoon Seoeun — the first drama I'd ever appeared in — came to a complete end.
I gained a lot from it, but nothing about it was perfect. That's how the show would live on in my memory.
"Unbelievable. People say you'll see everything in a lifetime, but I never thought it'd come to this."
On the way home from the wrap party, I fished out the message the pipsqueak's mother had sent me and let out a hollow sigh.
It was because I simply couldn't bring myself to believe it.
Life really does throw things at you that you could never have imagined.
For instance: one day you're suddenly reborn as a seven-year-old, kidnapped into Murim, and after fifty years of grinding through it, you return to find your original world has regressed by five whole years.
Of course, no matter how absurd a thing happened to me, nothing would fluster me more than being hauled off to Murim out of nowhere — but my pipsqueak sister making an idol debut group was still a genuinely shocking event.
I'd honestly assumed her fixed future was enrolling in a beauty academy and showing up one day with a bafflingly premature trousseau.
And then, suddenly, an idol debut? That was a genuine Sixth Sense–level plot twist.
"Wait. Don't tell me — was her excuse about not being able to focus on trainee life because things were rough at home actually true?"
That part I had no way of knowing.
I'd never once seen her practice, never once paid attention to it.
I'd never even heard the girl sing a single bar of a song.
But that's what being family means — nobody bothers keeping track of that stuff.
She'd quit her part-time job, which gave her an environment where she could focus on practice.
The mood at home had grown noticeably warmer lately, clearing away her distracting worries.
And the Spirit Body Softening Technique had made managing her weight a little easier.
"...She's changed more than I thought. Mentally, the difference isn't even comparable."
Still, if all it took was those external conditions improving for her to make the debut lineup, then I had to conclude her skills had actually been better than I'd given her credit for.
The grievances I'd dismissed as mere excuses hadn't just been noise, after all.
"But still — come on. Her, an idol? From a major agency, no less? Who exactly is going to take responsibility for the future of K-pop? These are the end times. Truly the end times."
Right up to this very moment, I had no idea.
That now was no time to be lamenting the imminent death of K-pop.
The security guards who shared the company's facilities with me were a extremely high-spirited bunch.
Which is why, whenever they were off shift, you could catch them unwinding at the pool or the gym at all hours.
But even those guards had hours when they avoided the gym — namely, pre-dawn stretches of time like right now.
And I worked out regularly during exactly those hours, when nobody else came looking for the gym.
My dawn routine was built around the Spirit Body Softening Technique as a base, paired with light cardio and strength training.
The reason someone who'd already undergone Complete Body Reconstruction bothered cycling through the technique at all was simple: it was the single most effective exercise for weight control.
My housekeeper — Shotgun Mom — cooked so well that going without overeating was simply not an option.
Sure, Complete Body Reconstruction had sent my basal metabolism through the roof, but calories show no mercy to anyone.
And giving up food that delicious? Out of the question.
I was a celebrity too, after all — weight management and physical upkeep were things I had to do consistently, which is how I ended up carving out this separate window of time.
Honestly, the gym was available to me plenty even outside these hours.
But it felt a bit awkward.
The Spirit Body Softening Technique looked, from the outside, like some rather elaborate form of stretching gymnastics.
Most of the guards were Americans, and there were bound to be a few who took unnecessary interest.
A surprising number of Americans were fascinated by Eastern mysticism, after all.
Rather than dealing with this and that hassle, quietly cycling through it when no one was around was far more efficient.
Not that the technique's efficiency peaking in the earliest hours of dawn wasn't also part of why I came to the gym at this hour.
"...Hm?"
Today, just as I was about to run through my first cycle of the technique, I sensed a faint presence near the gym.
This was supposed to be the dead hours, when the gym sat empty. What on earth was going on?
Don't tell me one of the guards had come out for a pre-dawn lifting session?
Just as I was starting to feel that something was off—
The locker room door swung open, and someone stepped into the gym.
"...Huh?"
The person who'd come to the gym at the crack of dawn was the Heavenly Demon — that is, Cheon Yoo-ah.
Perhaps her tastes resembled those of the woman who'd been pathologically obsessed with black in her past life, because Cheon Yoo-ah was dressed head to toe in black leggings, and even at a glance, the sight was dangerously hazardous.
The black leggings clinging completely to her body laid her figure bare with almost cruel honesty.
That chest, those hips, that waistline — seductive to the point of outright violence — left me genuinely at a loss for where to put my eyes.
The bottoms were one thing, but I had no idea where she'd even found a top like that.
Come to think of it, the Heavenly Demon's dawn training back at the cult had always been uniquely stimulating.
She'd trained completely nude on the grounds that direct moonlight was good for the practice.
And if that wasn't enough, she was the owner of a preference for barely wearing undergarments — admirable? No, frankly senseless.
"Even thinking about it now makes my scalp sting. Guarding the training hall was a full-time job in itself. Peeping at the Heavenly Demon's naked body meant instant execution, after all. And besides, once you passed Demonic Transcendence, training efficiency didn't mean a thing anyway."
There or here, she was an utterly preposterous woman.
"No, wait. That's not the problem right now. What is that woman... doing here?"
Her outfit was so shocking I'd momentarily forgotten, but right now was a time when Cheon Yoo-ah had no business being at the company.
Current time: 5:21 in the morning.
Driving all the way to the office at this hour was strange no matter how you looked at it.
However good the company gym was, surely not this good?
Unless she was literally living here, eating and sleeping on the premises, there was no reason to—
"...Eating and sleeping here? No way..."
Just as one truly preposterous hypothesis began to carve itself into my mind—
Cheon Yoo-ah, having spotted me, broke into a friendly smile and started toward me.
Good grief.
To be dressed like that and still carry herself with this much confidence.
So this was the bearing of the Heavenly Demon?
Her easy assurance was hard to wrap my head around — I could feel an admiring exhale escaping me before I knew it.
"So you're Baek Si-woo, right?"
"Ah, yes. Nice to meet you, sunbae-nim."
"We're hardly strangers, you know."
"Right, we did meet once on set. Though I was in disguise at the time."
"Exactly. Out for a workout?"
"Yes. You too, sunbae-nim?"
"That's right. Well then, work hard, and I'll see you around."
"Ah, yes. You work hard too, sunbae-nim... Huh? Wait, you're going over there? Of all places?"
After exchanging a brief greeting with me, Cheon Yoo-ah headed straight for the Pilates studio.
The Pilates studio was the single best spot in this gym for practicing the Spirit Body Softening Technique.
My practice space stolen from under me in an instant, I flashed a hollow smile and moved over to the treadmills.
I simply could not muster the courage to walk into a Pilates studio where Cheon Yoo-ah was waiting dressed like that.
"It has to be... that, right? Otherwise there's no reason she'd show up at the gym at this hour."
And above all, the sheer shock of Cheon Yoo-ah having moved into the company building meant I needed a moment to collect my thoughts.
Because I couldn't quite believe it was real.
What on earth was lacking in her life that a titan like Cheon Yoo-ah moved into a company-provided officetel?
At her level, Han River–view apartments worth tens of billions of won would be sitting there for the taking.
"And besides, that woman... is she really cycling through the Softening Technique right now?"
But the shocks didn't stop there.
Because in the Pilates studio at this very moment, Cheon Yoo-ah was practicing the Spirit Body Softening Technique.
It felt slightly different from the original form I knew, but the foundation was unmistakably the technique itself.
Was there something resembling the Demonic Cult in this world too?
Or had she just picked up some exotic stretching regimen by coincidence?
"Ha. This is why I wanted to steer clear of Cheon Yoo-ah. My life, honestly..."
I couldn't tell whether I was overthinking things or whether that woman was genuinely strange, but every time I ran into her, my head got tangled in knots.
Part of me figured it shouldn't matter — there was no inner power in this world, so who cared about the Demonic Cult or the Heavenly Demon? — but the cult's traces kept peeking through at the edges, and it left me distinctly uneasy.
Perhaps it was worse for me because the Demonic Cult had never been simply a thing I hated and resented.
"Ugh. I truly don't know anymore."
There was nothing I could do about any of it anyway, so I just ran on the treadmill.
The cult, the Heavenly Demon, Flame Entertainment — whatever.
Right now, all I wanted was to forget it all for a while.
The first time I'd run into Cheon Yoo-ah at the gym, I'd assumed her "see you around" was just polite small talk.
It was not.
"...Cheon Yoo-ah sunbae-nim?"
"We already exchanged greetings, didn't we? Starting today, I'm Cheon Yoo-ah, here to watch over your acting."
"...You, sunbae-nim?"
"Yes. You did say you wanted an acting coach familiar with broadcast acting, didn't you?"
"That's true, but..."
"Is something wrong with me?"
"What? No, of course not. It's just, you must be terribly busy—"
"Nope. Not busy at all."
"Ah... I see..."
Because the acting coach the company had assigned me was none other than Cheon Yoo-ah.
Excuse me, you Flame Entertainment people. Is this right?
An actress who pulls in tens of billions of won for a single CF and nine figures per episode of a drama — and you're really putting her on as an acting coach for a rookie?
I'd let most of this company's absurdities slide with a shrug, but on this point, I could not suppress the eruption of pure indignation.
This company was... genuinely, profoundly out of its mind.