Along Along (4)
Along Along Holds #1 in Its Time Slot and Keeps Climbing
The Fantasy-Infused Fusion Sageuk Worked... So What's Driving the Boom?
Rising From Its Set Fire, Along Along Claims This Year's Top Drama Ratings
Yoon Jay's Heartbreaking Confession to Park Seo-ah... Instant Ratings Hit an All-Time High
Since the fire incident, Yoon Jay's name had been making constant rounds in the community forums. The drama's numbers were strong as well, so comments claiming he was practically a lock for Best Actor at the MSD Drama Awards — hyperbole fully included — were popping up without fail.
"Assistant Manager Lee, did you watch Along Along this weekend?"
"Me? Of course I did. I even caught the rerun on Sunday."
The talk had spilled over into everyday life as well. It meant the drama had captured not just the forums, but the general public too.
History-drama sets are almost always out in the provinces. What a hassle.
The reporter Kang Chang-hoon — who had unintentionally overheard the conversation between Lee Young-chang and Yoon Jay — had come out on assignment to the area near the Along Along set.
Yoon Jay sounds like a stage name...
Ever since the premiere screening of The Child's restoration, he had been researching Yoon Jay whenever he could finish work early and free up time. Naturally, nothing had surfaced.
When did he even build a friendship with Director Lee Young-chang?
Judging by the Hollywood star paparazzi shots, the man seemed to have lived in the United States — but if that were true, wouldn't that put him even further from any special-forces or bodyguard background? Not a single point of overlap.
What on earth had this man done with his life? Kang Chang-hoon started by tracking down the fire brigade that had responded to the set blaze.
"Hello there."
"Who are you?"
"Ah, I'm..."
"I already told you people we're not doing interviews."
As it happened, the fire captain — the very man who had ridden in the same vehicle as Yoon Jay — was heading into the station after lunch when the reporter grabbed hold of him.
"Hold on, just a moment, please! I'm writing an article about Mr. Yoon Jay, and I'd appreciate your help, even a little."
"Hm. With what, exactly? If it's anything malicious, I want no part of it."
"Oh, no, nothing like that. The man's the talk of the town these days, isn't he? So I'm just working on a piece to give him a little lift..."
The fire captain faltered for a beat. After the fire incident, he had belatedly started watching Along Along, the drama Yoon Jay appeared in — and it turned out his wife had loved the original webtoon from the very start.
"The fire incident stuff? The broadcasters already came and went over that."
"Aw, come on. You were there on site — surely you know more than they do."
The drama's production side had been reluctant to talk about the incident. Confirming the still-speculative cigarette-butt controversy as fact was the last thing they needed, and mid-broadcast, they wanted the matter closed without further stir.
"Well, it was the same as what ran on the news."
The captain gave a throwaway answer and shot Kang Chang-hoon a sidelong glance. He didn't trust reporters. Their false reporting had caused real damage more than once.
Hm. Then again, would this help the man?
He'd heard Yoon Jay was a rookie actor just starting out.
He remembered how his wife had made a fuss, insisting that if word spread he'd met Yoon Jay in person, and that he used to be a firefighter, it would make him even more popular.
In Korea, the job was underpaid for the work it demanded, but socially it carried a respectable image.
Besides — even in the United States, where firefighters are treated well, wasn't the LA Fire Department one of the largest in the country?
"Is there anything else? Like I said, I have no ill intent — I only want to write good articles about the actor."
"Hm... Well, from what I hear, he apparently worked as a firefighter at some point."
"Mr. Yoon Jay did?"
"Looked genuine to me. The way he handled that fire was expert-level work."
Would it be all right to let slip this much? It's not as if the man himself ever asked to keep it quiet.
The fire captain brushed past Kang Chang-hoon, whose eyes had gone wide.
"Ah — uh, you wouldn't happen to know which fire station, exactly..."
"Whoops, we've got a call."
Right on cue, a siren wailed. The captain hurried inside, and the garage doors rolled open as a red fire engine roared out on dispatch.
"...Guess I'll start with his social media."
Finding the evidence was Kang Chang-hoon's job now.
Reluctantly turning her back, Jung Yeon-hwa stared at Lee Hwi with trembling eyes.
"I..."
In truth, Jung Yeon-hwa was just as rattled as she looked.
The man in the bamboo rain hat who had listened so patiently to her story — and this Lee Hwi, who had not yet descended into madness — were still the same person.
But she had not forgotten how, before her regression, he had slaughtered and consumed himself with obsession over her family.
"I will take my leave now."
He'll become that soon enough, too. I have to steel my heart. She had deliberately kept her distance from the Crown Prince as well — all for the sake of avenging her family.
"So you still don't know me at all..."
How much more I want to catch him, the more he runs. Lee Hwi reached his hand out toward the retreating back of Jung Yeon-hwa. Of course, it touched nothing. It merely swam through empty air.
And so Lee Hwi awakened earlier than he had in the timeline before her regression.
"What do you think you are doing!"
"Waaah! Hyung-nim!"
"Yul. Come stand behind me."
The Crown Prince, Lee Geon, had always been gentle and tender-hearted by nature. That was what had drawn Jung Yeon-hwa to him — and what had led him, before the regression, to fall into scheming and be deposed.
But now a trigger had been created that would change his attitude toward Lee Hwi. Despite his weak claim to legitimacy, their youngest brother Lee Yul wielded the considerable power of his maternal kin — and Lee Hwi had secretly tried to eliminate him.
"What in the world is..."
"Do you see that child as a brother, Your Highness?"
"Hyung-nim!"
"I am not."
With Jung Yeon-hwa's help, Lee Yul's death had been averted — but Lee Geon could hardly believe what he was hearing. They had grown estranged now, true, but in childhood the two had been closer than blood brothers.
"Then am I... not your brother as well, hyung-nim?"
"You never were. Not from the beginning."
Thoom — a heavy, weighty sound effect rolled through the scene, and Lee Hwi's voice changed.
At first he had held it in out of some semblance of courtesy; now it was a voice boiling over, on the verge of eruption. The camera caught his eyes rippling with madness, exactly as in the very first scene of episode one.
"From the moment you put on those clothes..."
Lee Hwi gripped Lee Geon's shoulder. The blue dragon robe that marked the Crown Prince. With a light sweep of his hand across it, he laid bare his hunger for the throne itself.
"You were never my brother."
It gleamed. At those glittering, wet-black eyes, Lee Geon swallowed hard.
If this goes on... hyung-nim will swallow me alive too.
The once-mild Lee Geon, jolted awake by Lee Hwi's warning, and the two brothers at last locked into open, head-on opposition.
And at last, Lee Geon came to recognize his own feelings for Jung Yeon-hwa.
"Why did you hide the fact that you ran the Jeongyo Society?"
"Because I thought you would not wish it, Your Highness."
"Why would I not wish it!"
"You disliked me, did you not!"
"I did not dislike you!"
Like the meaning of the drama's title itself — a shape that never comes into focus, only flickering faintly at the edges — Lee Geon somehow finds himself thinking that Jung Yeon-hwa might not be the wicked person the rumors make her out to be.
"I always dream of the future. That is how I come by the precious treasures, too. But today was strange. I dreamt of holding Jeong-in in my arms and wailing. And in my embrace..."
"..."
"...there was you."
"...!"
"How can this be. What does it mean?"
"Your memory... is it returning?"
Lee Geon, too, was slowly, piece by piece, recovering his memories from before the regression — just as Jung Yeon-hwa was.
And when he happened upon the two of them standing close, the air between them humming with something unnameable, Lee Hwi's expression was, surprisingly, utterly ordinary. A face impossible to read. But the moment he turned away, his features twisted into something frightening.
"Damn it..."
Kim Hyun-jun flung his phone onto the chair beside him, nerves raw. Since the fire incident, public interest in Yoon Jay had only grown — but he himself hadn't felt much sense of crisis about it.
The drama had a published original, after all, and Jung Yeon-hwa's exploits formed the spine of the plot. On top of that, Lee Geon was set to fall in love with her, so his own screen time had been generous. That was what had kept him comfortable.
I let my guard down because he's a rookie.
But he had overlooked one thing: a truly magnetic villain stirs the fans' devotion far more than a male lead ever can.
Every scene featuring Lee Hwi carried presence so overwhelming it bordered on violence, and the side effect was unmistakable — Lee Geon looked weak by comparison.
"Wow. There's honestly nothing I could teach you."
"Thank you."
"First time on wires, isn't it?"
"I think I'll be fine. I've done a lot of rappelling."
"Oh, have you?"
"Still, could you run the demonstration once more for me?"
Today's shoot was the scene where Jung Yeon-hwa and Lee Geon, racing to spirit away the witness who could expose the corruption of Governor Yu — Lee Hwi's greatest ally and maternal uncle — collide head-on with Lee Hwi, who intends to kill the man before he can ever testify.
He really is good.
Kim Hyun-jun stole a glance at Yoon Jay rehearsing the wire action with practiced ease, despite it being his first time.
Drawing reactions like this from your very first project doesn't come easily...
That was precisely why there had been industry-pick casting controversy before the broadcast, too... And sliding straight into a supporting role — was that connections as well? He'd heard somewhere that investment companies had been asked to pitch in too.
Then there was that heavyweight senior actor Moon Changmin, who had posted behind-the-scenes photos from The Garden of Evil on social media along with a note saying, "Yoon Jay is a junior who acts so well I went up to him first just to get close" — and picked up a bit of attention for it.
Wasn't Moon Changmin a Cola Club member?
A shadowy investor's involvement, and possible ties to the Cola Club — the ultimate network of connections, thick as a vault door.
At this rate, it would be smarter to build goodwill now, before the man grew any bigger. With his calculations complete, Kim Hyun-jun approached Yoon Jay, water bottle in hand.
"Jay, here. Have some water while you're at it."
"Ah — thank you."
Yoon Jay accepted it graciously, if nothing else. Back then, the friendliness had been a calculated move to talk his way out of Kim Hyun-jun's chronic lateness; now, the whole dynamic had shifted into something strange.
"Man, you're really good. I can barely keep my balance once I'm up on the wires."
"...Thank you, sunbae-nim."
"Sunbae-nim? Come on, that's far too stiff."
Kim Hyun-jun put on his practiced smile and gave Yoon Jay's shoulder a friendly pat.
Over his shoulder, Yoon Jay could see the manager pulling a here we go again face. Apparently this was not the first time.
"You were born in '91, right? I'm a '90er myself. Just call me hyung."
"Yes. Once it sticks, I'll do exactly that."
Yoon Jay accepted the overture for what it was.
Why the sudden change?
It was a far cry from their first meeting. Maybe flipping your attitude without a shred of wounded pride was a talent in its own right. Yoon Jay gave a small, amused smile as he humored the man.
I just want to start shooting.
H-he smiled?!
Kim Hyun-jun, badly misreading that smile, was moved to his core — but he didn't let up on the friendly act one bit.