Who's Guarding Whom?
Who, exactly, was guarding whom?
The security contract between Astra and Wings Company had, for the time being, been settled with a provisional agreement exchanged between the two parties. The deal itself was all but done.
Wings Company was a household name in the protection industry, and its prices reflected that. But Lee Seo-won had promised his actors the very best support money could buy.
Besides, the fact that Yoon Jay had once worked there had weighed heavily in the firm's favor.
"So wait — Jay, is that guy going to be doing security work too?"
"That's right. He's one of our actors now, after all..."
"Well, how about that."
The security team traded hearty chuckles as they looked over at Yoon Jay. Maybe it was because he no longer needed to hide what he was, but Yoon Jay had brought his active-duty instincts roaring back to the surface, and the men had been getting mercilessly wrecked. Some of them were already sporting bruises.
"Ugh, I'm dead."
"Is that guy secretly some kind of android or what?"
"No need to be dramatic, gentlemen."
While the rest of them sat slumped on the floor, Yoon Jay looked refreshed, as if he'd simply enjoyed a long-overdue stretch of exercise. Who was guarding whom, exactly? At the ambiguous expressions on everyone's faces, Han Jin-woo cleared his throat and straightened up.
"What? Our Jay's a human being too, you know."
Honestly, Han Jin-woo felt a little absurd even as the words left his mouth. The Wings Company bodyguards he'd vetted ahead of the contract signing were no pushovers by any stretch. The fastest route to sanity was simply accepting that Yoon Jay was exceptional.
Granted, Yoon Jay was human, so he couldn't be invincible — but watching him take on the entire team at once, Han Jin-woo couldn't help wondering: was he actually any threat to them at all?
"So, what's the reason you're pulling Jung Seung-woo and Choi Tae-yang aside specifically?"
"There's something we need to discuss separately."
"Can I come too?"
Park Chul-woo grinned and slung an arm around Yoon Jay's shoulder. He was a man Yoon Jay could trust — and besides, his plans would require the CEO's blessing anyway.
"Yes, Hyung, you should come too."
"Booyah. You lot keep training on your own."
The remaining staff grumbled about what kind of CEO pulls stunts like this. Park Chul-woo breezily ignored them and led the three men to his favorite watering hole.
Somewhere in the middle of the meal, Park Chul-woo asked, as casually as he could manage:
"Jay. You ever do work for AGS?"
"I served as a consultant there for a short while."
"I worked there too, before I founded Wings."
Park Chul-woo had left no stone unturned when it came to the swirling speculation about Yoon Jay's unit — he'd even dug up articles from the American press.
And somehow, for reasons he couldn't quite name, Yoon Jay seemed to match the man his former comrades had always described.
"You wouldn't happen to be Ten, would you?"
Yoon Jay's chopsticks paused for a beat. Then he wore an expression that was nothing if not meaningful. Reading it as confirmation, Park Chul-woo was so dumbfounded he set his spoon down.
"Ha. It's true."
"...Did they talk about me a lot?"
"Constantly. Something about you being a legendary operative?"
"Don't put too much stock in it. They like to exaggerate."
Do they, though? These were the people who gathered at one of the most renowned private military corporations in the world — men whose pride was as enormous as their credentials. And every single one of those arrogant bastards had joined voices to sing the same praises... Park Chul-woo nodded to himself and let it go. Come to think of it, Yoon Jay had always seemed extraordinary.
A place that's nearly impossible to get into, and yet...
Yoon Jay, for his part, was looking at Park Chul-woo with new eyes as well.
"CEO-nim, what exactly are we talking about here?"
"Nothing at all."
Jung Seung-woo stole a glance at Yoon Jay, who showed not a trace of fatigue despite having gone through the entire team. He'd handled them all as easily as a grown-up humoring children at play.
He and Choi Tae-yang had landed a combined strike that grazed his flank, but nothing fatal — and Yoon Jay held the two men's persistence in high regard.
"So, why did you call just the two of us out?"
"I want to hire you for personal protection."
"Why? Because of your background?"
"It's a bit different from that."
Even as he answered, Yoon Jay tilted his head slightly. Because of my background, huh... It's not impossible. The other side was already in an uproar hero-worshipping everyone who'd participated in the operation to dismantle LIS — he couldn't rule out the possibility of something actually happening to him.
"Since when do you need personal security?"
"He's right, Hyung-nim. It's not like this country is especially dangerous, is it? Wouldn't regular company-level protection be enough?"
South Korea wasn't a nation where civilians carried firearms, and public safety was excellent. With LIS in fragments, the surviving remnants had been carrying out attacks across Europe and elsewhere — but Korea, far removed from those theaters, remained quite safe.
"No. I need protection from me — for other people."
"What?"
"Can you do it? Just answer that much first."
The two men exchanged baffled looks. Park Chul-woo leaned forward, abandoning his slouch against the chair's backrest.
Yoon Jay's face was the same as always. But the way his fingers fidgeted at their tips seemed, strangely, anxious.
"Fine by me. Ever since I went on that variety show, I've been pulled off VIP protection duty anyway."
"Really? That's a shame."
"A little, yeah. Honestly, I saw this coming."
Jung Seung-woo, a fixed cast member of Soldiers K, was practically a celebrity now. He'd joined the show without much thought — a lighthearted gig — but thanks to Yoon Jay's appearance and the resurgence of special-forces mania after the LIS leader's assassination, he'd drawn far more attention than expected.
That was why he'd drifted into celebrity protection work. In truth, there were times Jung Seung-woo attracted more attention than his clients did, so he'd been limited almost entirely to event appearances.
"If it weren't for our CEO-nim, I might've been cut ages ago."
"There you go. Take him."
So Jung Seung-woo's settled. Then Choi Tae-yang... Yoon Jay waited for his answer.
"If I tag along with you, I'll get to see plenty of celebrities, right?"
"You're really agreeing for a reason that flimsy?"
"What's wrong with it?"
Choi Tae-yang mulled it over for a moment, then agreed without much ceremony. He had a vague suspicion that something was going on with Yoon Jay.
"Perfect timing, actually. You two both live alone, don't you? Your families are far away."
"Why do you ask?"
"How about living at my place full-time?"
"You want us to move in with you? Wait, hold on. Hold on a second. Resident security? Why?"
And it wasn't even to protect Yoon Jay — he was asking them to protect other people from him.
"Jay. What on earth is going on?"
Park Chul-woo asked again, calmly. No matter how he turned it over, Yoon Jay had been off all day. Part of it was the mercilessness in sparring now that he no longer had to hide his identity — but it was more that emotion had started bleeding into his behavior.
"Well..."
Yoon Jay hesitated for a moment before answering with a sigh woven into his voice.
"I nearly attacked Do-jun."
"What?"
"How did that happen?"
Choi Tae-yang's voice came out loud — too loud. Everyone at the restaurant had already been stealing glances at Yoon Jay's table, and now this commotion... Park Chul-woo lightly smacked Choi Tae-yang's forearm.
Yoon Jay recounted, in a low, level voice, what had happened the night before.
"That was a close call, Hyung-nim."
"Has this happened before?"
"It has."
"Who was it, back then?"
"Jin-woo. And Mom."
At the revelation that the attacks had actually landed, the three men's jaws dropped in unison. The noisy restaurant table went silent in an instant.
"You okay? No — stupid question. Forget I asked."
"I'll co-sign that one, Hyung."
All three were military men, seasoned veterans who'd even deployed overseas because of LIS. They knew all too well the spectrum of post-traumatic stress disorders that soldiers carried home with them.
"Is it serious? Should I help too?"
"No, Hyung. You're busy with the company."
Park Chul-woo was clearly an extraordinary man, but he already had his hands full running the firm, and Yoon Jay couldn't bring himself to pile this on top of it all.
He trusted Choi Tae-yang and Jung Seung-woo — the two men who had studied his weaknesses and struck at them. Those two could subdue him without a moment's hesitation.
"It's not that dire. Cases like mine are few and far between."
"......"
"But I figured I should at least make the minimum preparations."
Of course, he had no idea whether any of it would actually work. But it had to beat leaving the walls undefended.
Seo Geonwoo, in Backstage, had left behind a message: never lose hope. Yoon Jay had resolved to follow that conviction — and yet a sigh escaped him all the same.
I can't say for certain this method will work...
He understood the Icarus members a little better now, at least in the drama's early episodes. Hope without an answer sometimes only breeds despair.
Backstage had turned out to be an unexpected hit, and the release of Intermission was now just around the corner.
Yoon Jay kicked off his pre-release promotional schedule. For Intermission, the plan was for Soldiers K to run a promotional segment featuring the actors behind Agitato.
His first leading role — strictly speaking, not his first, but his first as far as Yoon Jay was concerned.
He accepted nearly every promotional slot the production company lined up. With the actor himself so wholeheartedly committed to the publicity push, the studio was practically giddy.
"Wow, this place is huge."
"You two can use this room and that one."
Choi Tae-yang and Jung Seung-woo had accepted Yoon Jay's offer. Astra had assigned the two of them as Yoon Jay's dedicated protection detail.
In exchange, they would forgo any personal security fees — instead, as friends, they would simply live under the same roof and keep watch over the changes in Yoon Jay.
"Shouldn't we at least rewrite the contract?"
"Dude, you're letting us live in a place this nice rent-free and you think we should be collecting on top of that?"
"He's right, Hyung-nim."
The two had agreed purely out of worry for Yoon Jay, and he understood that well enough.
"You said there's a schedule today? Let's go."
At Intermission's production company, the decision had been made to leverage Yoon Jay's extraordinary talents for the marketing campaign. He would appear on a popular music MyTube channel with a large subscriber base to conduct a live college-admissions performance evaluation.
Distinguished professors would be invited as judges, and Yoon Jay would pose as an admissions candidate, playing the violin behind a curtain.
"You're telling me you can replicate every applicant's playing style?"
"Yes."
"How is that even possible?"
The original format had Yoon Jay performing interspersed among actual admissions candidates — but they had restructured the segment entirely. Now Yoon Jay would copy the applicants' playing styles and perform them all himself, alone.
The production company staff, who already knew what Yoon Jay was capable of, were supremely confident. The MyTube channel staff, however, thought the claim was flat-out absurd.
"Just trust us and run the segment as planned."
"Hmm... all right, fine."
The staffer agreed in a distinctly dubious tone. The advertiser had requested it, so he would comply — but seriously, no way that actually works? They really will try anything to hype up a movie.
We'll just have to edit it cleverly in post, I guess.
With that thought, he stole a glance at Yoon Jay as he observed the applicants' performances.
Bluntly put, Yoon Jay did not look like a man with any business near music. A towering 190cm frame, a body conditioned by years of steady training — and a faint scar visible on the forearm bared by his rolled-up sleeve.
"You're really saying one viewing is enough?"
"Watch the performances first, then decide."
The channel staff shared the very same skepticism. How on earth do you replicate something from watching it once... Having finished 'viewing' the first applicant's performance, Yoon Jay picked up the violin.
And the doubt the channel staff had been nursing evaporated — fast. Before anyone noticed, their cameras were already trained on him.
He's doing it?
It's identical, isn't it?
No — how was that even possible? The first applicant's technique, her quirks, even her brisk tempo — every detail was a perfect match.
"Whoa... what is this?"
"Am I the only one hearing them sound exactly the same?"
Anyone running a music channel tended to have well-trained ears, and the staff were no exception. They buzzed among themselves at Yoon Jay's feat.
The first applicant — the one who had performed before him — stood frozen, mouth agape, staring up at Yoon Jay.
"That's what I've been telling you, isn't it? I said I could do it."
The production company staffer preened. He was, after all, the man who had watched Yoon Jay's audition for Intermission with his own two eyes.