Fallen Has-Been (4)

Inside a van tearing down the road, Rayoon of the top-tier girl group Ceriel sat alone. For once, she wasn’t with the other members. The reason was simple enough: she had a solo schedule from first thing that morning.

On the way to the shop, her bare face was buried under a white cap, and even without makeup, she was exactly what people meant when they called her the visual center.

Even when she wasn’t dressed up at all, her beauty still shone through.

Rayoon was staring out the window with a thoroughly irritated look on her face. There was a faint edge of annoyance around her eyes, and inside, her temper was already boiling over.

"Damn it."

She was thinking about Kang Jaeha.

"This is seriously pissing me off."

The idiot manager she had always thought of as her personal meal ticket. And then, all of a sudden, he went crazy and turned the tables on her. In that instant, the words Jaeha had snapped at her flashed through her head.

"Shut it and stop chirping."

That wasn’t even the half of it. He had told her to go to hell. Told her to keep her mouth shut. The more she thought about it, the hotter she got. She was angry at herself too for not saying a single word back to Kang Jaeha.

"I said I’m pissed off!!"

She shouted so loudly that the chief manager dozing in the passenger seat jerked awake in surprise.

"Ah! W-what? What is it??"

He ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠twisted around sharply to check on Rayoon. Still huffing, she fired a question at him.

"Oppa! Is Kang Jaeha really done for? No punishment or anything??"

"Ah, that again?"

"The chairman went too far! He didn’t do that to just anyone, he did it to me! He talked back to me like that!"

It was obvious this wasn’t the first time he’d heard it, and the chief manager let out a tired breath to settle himself.

"I told you already, didn’t I? Kang Jaeha got sent to Team 4. That’s punishment enough."

"No! How is that a punishment?"

"It is. You know what Team 4 is like at Leon Entertainment."

Rayoon knew Team 4’s reputation too. She knew what kind of celebrities ended up there, and what became of them. She’d heard that it wasn’t just the entertainers assigned there who got treated badly, but even the Leon Entertainment staff stationed in that team. And not just the treatment, either. The mental strain had to be brutal.

So anyone in Leon Entertainment who wanted to get ahead avoided Team 4 like the plague. There was an old saying: if you’re going to do a laborer’s work, do it in a lord’s house.

The chief manager rolled his neck from side to side, as if something ached, and continued.

"And from what I hear, the first person Kang Jaeha was assigned to the moment he got to Team 4 was Yoon Dayeon."

Rayoon’s eyes went wide.

"Yoon Dayeon sunbae?"

So Rayoon knew the actress too. Of course she did. There was no way she wouldn’t.

Everybody called her a psycho.

Yoon Dayeon was far too famous at Leon Entertainment not to know.

"Kang Jaeha got assigned to Yoon Dayeon sunbae?"

"Yeah. That crazy one— no, whatever. Anyway, if he has to deal with Yoon Dayeon’s temper, he’ll be gone in a few days. Yoon Dayeon’s got to be a special kind of awful for that. Worse than you."

"Hey! What’s that supposed to mean? Why am I getting dragged into this?"

The chief manager exhaled heavily and grew a little more serious.

"You should cool it down too, Rayoon. The chairman said it himself besides the Kang Jaeha matter."

"Damn it, what did I even do?"

"Just keep it in mind."

"Ah! Whatever!"

Rayoon answered half-heartedly, and as she mentally replayed Kang Jaeha and Yoon Dayeon in turn, some of her stress finally eased.

Kang Jaeha. So he’s going to be put through the wringer over there too.

No, Kang Jaeha was the one putting others through the wringer. The setting was the set of the daily drama Last Man. The main producer and dozens of staff members inside the set were staring with their mouths hanging open.

"Heh-"

"No way."

"Crazy."

They had every reason to react that way.

The washed-up actress Yoon Dayeon, who had been tearing her own hair out this whole time, had just done something completely insane. Out of nowhere, she had spat all over the head of the actress opposite her, Song Miyeon. She’d been hocking and spitting with full commitment.

Then came the apology that had zero sincerity in it.

"Oh my, what do I do- I’m sorry."

And then the line she’d thrown at the main producer.

"Thanks to your abstract directing, my imagination really got going. That ad-lib was good, right?"

The long-bottled-up outrage of a fallen actress had finally exploded. Of course, all of it had been exactly what Kang Jaeha told her to do. The spitting, the line to the producer, all of it. So it could just as easily be taken as Jaeha’s own madness. But this wasn’t the kind of madness that came from acting on impulse alone.

It was ad-libbing. In other words, she’d been acting underneath the strike.

This was a filming set. Who on earth was going to curse out an actor for ad-libbing off emotion like that? Inside, sure, they were probably ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠cussing up a storm. But on the outside, everyone including the producer had frozen solid.

"······"

"······"

"······"

People sometimes forgot how to react when they witnessed behavior that flew too far beyond expectation. That was exactly what happened now. By contrast, Kang Jaeha, watching from the back, laughed under his breath.

"Not bad. Guess she really does have some mileage as a crazy bitch."

Yoon Dayeon had played the scene exactly the way he’d wanted. Still, rookie road manager Ryu Jinwoo, with only a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠year on the job, was completely rattled. Stocky chief manager Kim Daeyong wasn’t much different. Maybe it was because he was gentle by nature, but the sight in front of him seemed hard to digest.

"Jae, Jaeha. This isn’t good."

"Why not?"

"I mean- isn’t this way too much?"

"Too much? I think it came out pretty nicely."

"······Nicely?"

"Yeah. It’s perfect."

Chief manager Kim Daeyong stared at Jaeha’s sneering smile and felt thrown off balance. Villain? Eccentric? What the hell was this guy?

He changed so much it’s almost ridiculous!?

Compared to him, the woman on set looked almost innocent.

Naive? I was way off. Kang Jaeha’s the crazier one...

As if to prove his point, Jaeha’s grin deepened.

"Look at the producer and the staff’s faces. Masterpiece."

Soon after, with the discomfort thick on his face, chief manager Kim Daeyong whispered to Kang Jaeha.

"W-what are we supposed to do now? You’re not telling me to clean up the mess, are you??"

Jaeha gave a quick answer while glancing at the producer seated in front of the monitor.

"Just wait a sec."

Walking toward the producer, Kang Jaeha swept his eyes across the entire set, where time itself seemed to have stopped. Everyone’s thoughts had seized up. That was how it went. If you hit people with enough shock, they didn’t know what to do. Especially in a situation this insane, with this many people gathered around.

Mob psychology spreads.

If just one person opens the channel the right way, the whole crowd catches it like an infection.

People surprisingly want someone else to decide for them.

Seen up close, the producer looked completely lost. That ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠expression, that look in his eyes. He was the person in charge on set, but...

He wants to dodge responsibility.

It was obvious to Kang Jaeha. All he had to do was give him a line that diluted responsibility a little, and the man would swallow it whole. Standing behind the producer, Jaeha raised his voice slightly as if he were just another staff member.

"Wow, Dayeon’s acting is really good."

The producer, snapped back to attention, absorbed Jaeha’s line at once. He couldn’t afford to make this bigger than it already was. But he also couldn’t just let it slide. Right, Yoon Dayeon’s crazy behavior was acting. It had to be treated as acting. She’d just gotten way too immersed.

The producer gave Yoon Dayeon an awkward smile from inside the set.

"Aha- Dayeon, your acting was really good. It’s just... a little much."

By then, Yoon Dayeon’s hair, which had been a mess, was all tidied up again, and with a bright-eyed, borderline deranged expression, she answered.

"Was it? Sorry, I guess I got too immersed."

"Right? Even for an ad-lib, spitting was a bit too strong."

"Too strong?"

"Wouldn’t you say?"

"My hair was practically ripped out. I almost went bald, you know?"

"······"

There she was again, the crazy bitch. Even the lines he hadn’t told her to say just came flying out perfectly. Was this what experience in madness looked like? Kang Jaeha gave a faint snort, and the producer scratched his head before making a decision.

"Th-then let’s just go with the scene we did a moment ago. OK! Let’s go with that scene!"

And just like that, the scene of hair-pulling was replaced by Yoon Dayeon’s spitting ad-lib. The opposing actress, Song Miyeon, wiped the spit from her hair with a disgusted face, but there was nothing she could do, and the dozens of staff members on set also brushed off what had just happened and moved ahead with the shoot.

Kang Jaeha was satisfied with how things were flowing exactly as he wanted.

Yeah, this is how it goes.

This was the entertainment industry, this was a filming set. It looked glamorous from the outside, but it was a place where all manner of filth overflowed. When something blew up, everyone scrambled to bury it.

Someone gets hurt, and someone else smiles.

Up until now, Yoon Dayeon had been the one getting hurt, but after one insane stunt, she was smiling too. Then chief manager Kim Daeyong, who had sidled up to Jaeha, let out an admiring sigh.

"Wow... it really ended up like this. Just slipped it in there."

Kang Jaeha stuffed both hands back into his parka pockets and acted unfazed.

"There’s a limit to how much you can mess around. Once you cross the line, you cut it off."

"Heh-heh. I heard you were only in your fourth year, Jaeha, but you sound like a veteran with twenty years under his belt. Why are you so good at this? I guess it’s what you’d call a knack for handling people."

A knack for handling people? They might not be from the same world, but Kang Jaeha had handled plenty of people. No, subordinates. He was somewhat used to the entertainment industry too, but what he was truly good at was human nature itself. If you spent eighteen years meeting every kind of bastard imaginable, you learned instinctively. Of course, chief manager Kim Daeyong had no way of knowing Jaeha had lived eighteen years more than he had.

"Anyway, I need to learn how to do this kind of thing."

Still wary of everyone else’s reactions, Kim Daeyong gave a thumbs-up.

After that, once the first bomb had gone off, the shoot ran smoothly.

In Yoon Dayeon’s scenes, the producer called OK whenever he could. She had been good from the start, after all. Even when there was an NG, he didn’t give vague direction the way he had before. As if he never wanted to witness anything insane again. After that, things moved fast.

What didn’t change was that Yoon Dayeon was still basically a bit player.

Which meant a lot of waiting.

While the other actors were filming, she waited endlessly. By then, after touching up her makeup, Yoon Dayeon drifted over to Jaeha. She cleared her throat awkwardly.

"You know."

"What."

"I mean- uh, you did well."

"Did well at what?"

"At everything!"

It was obvious she didn’t know how to praise someone. Kang Jaeha let out a low snort. The one who has been praised before knows how to praise others well; that probably meant Yoon Dayeon hadn’t been praised much herself.

"Not me. You did well, Yoon Dayeon."

"Me? I did well?"

"Yeah. Guess that’s what you call an experienced pro? You were good at it. The crazy stuff."

"!!!"

Her forehead scrunched hard, and her tone snapped back into irritation.

"Hey! What are you talking about? You told me to do that!"

"Exactly. I’m saying you did well. The crazy stuff."

"······Unbelievable."

Yoon Dayeon glared at Kang Jaeha, muttered under her breath, and moved away. She looked uncomfortable from the outside, but even as she sat back down, she was secretly in a good mood.

When was the last time someone told me I did well?

It brought back some distant memory of someone praising her acting, saying it had been great. Was it a director? No, a production company? The details were hazy. It was too far back. The years she had spent as a has-been were too long.

Yoon Dayeon shot a sidelong glance at Jaeha, who was yawning at the back, and murmured softly,

"He looks exactly like a total villain psycho."

Then she added, under her breath,

"Why the hell did rumors spread that he was soft, that he was pathetic?"

About two hours later.

Yoon Dayeon’s waiting time grew even longer. Since she was a washed-up actress, she didn’t have a schedule to jump to in the gaps. Unable to stand the boredom any longer, Kang Jaeha finally said,

"I’m heading to the convenience store!"

"No, I’ll go."

"You will?"

"Yes."

Instead of the youngest road manager, Ryu Jinwoo, he headed out to buy snacks at the convenience store. There was one inside the broadcasting station too, but Jaeha deliberately chose the one outside.

Half of it was wanting some fresh air, and the other half was planning to wander off and slack for a bit.

He walked slowly, sorting out his thoughts as he went.

- Swoosh.

He headed for the convenience store that was already in view. As he opened the door and stepped inside, he brushed shoulders with someone. A man in a suit. Kang Jaeha didn’t pay much attention, but for some reason, the man turned his head and looked at him very carefully.

······

After staring at the back of Jaeha’s head for a few seconds, the man tilted his head and left the convenience store.

- Beep beep beep.

After scanning the barcode and paying for his simple snacks and drinks, Kang Jaeha stepped outside and turned back toward the broadcasting station. That was when it happened.

"Excuse me."

A man’s voice called to him from behind. Turning around, Jaeha saw the same suited man who had been staring at him just moments ago. His tie was loosened, and his eyes were on the small side. The moment the suited man clearly saw Jaeha’s face, his eyes widened.

He closed the distance in an instant and called to Kang Jaeha with a word that was both unfamiliar and strangely familiar.

"...Commander?"

As soon as he recognized the man now standing right in front of him, Kang Jaeha was surprised too.

"You-"

"It’s you, right? Commander."

"Why are you here?"

"Whoa, were you summoned too, Commander? To this other world?"

There was a rough edge to the man’s tone. He was one of Kang Jaeha’s subordinates. One of the mercenaries who had served under him in that other world for over a decade. One whose neck had been half cut through, and who had died before Jaeha did. A trace of shock settled in Jaeha’s eyes. It was strange, and hard to believe.

"What the hell, you were from this side?"

"A few days ago, I suddenly opened my eyes."

A few days ago? Kang Jaeha had gone through the same kind of exaggeration.

At that moment.

Absolute Obedience? What the hell was that supposed to mean? The female voice was spouting nonsense again. Kang Jaeha met the suited man’s eyes.

"You can hear it too."

"Yes, I can."

Then the female voice shot another line at both of them.

The moment he heard it, the suited man let out a dry laugh.

"I guess I’m dying again."

Kang Jaeha gave a short laugh.

"Like hell I’d let that happen."