What If Something Happens to Hyung
"I'm just worried something might happen to Hyung."
Visiting Yoon Jay's home had reminded Han Jin-woo that he hadn't forgotten the day he'd been pinned down by him. Honestly, at the time, he'd thought it wasn't Yoon Jay at all — that it was someone else entirely.
I genuinely thought I was going to die.
And then, when they caught Kwon Min-jae's stalker, Han Jin-woo had been nearby again. The look in Yoon Jay's eyes as he subdued the man with a single hand had given him the same chilling feeling he'd faced once before.
Han Jin-woo had overheard the two of them whispering. So he wasn't the only one who'd noticed the change in Yoon Jay — Kwon Min-jae and Baek Da-eun, who had been there, had felt it too.
Isn't something bound to go wrong at this rate?
Back then, Yoon Jay had been so apologetic that Han Jin-woo had let himself feel reassured, but now he couldn't tell which version was the real Yoon Jay.
Was the real one the actor Yoon Jay — excellent at his craft, meticulous about self-management? Or was the real one the Yoon Jay whose buried violence had finally surfaced?
It wasn't a split personality or anything like that... surely. Though come to think of it, he handled everyday life far too well for that to be the case...
"I, um, I'm sorry. No matter how I think about it, I don't think I should be talking about this."
Even with the sentence left hanging, Park Chul-woo didn't take offense. If anything, he thought Yoon Jay had picked a good manager. However close Yoon Jay and Park Chul-woo might be, a manager airing his actor's sensitive private matters was simply not right.
There's definitely something there, though...
Park Chul-woo turned his attention to watching Yoon Jay at work instead.
Permafrost opens with a strange monster attacking an Antarctic research base as it withdraws for undisclosed reasons, and everyone but Jin Young-do dies.
"What do we do? If the experiments we conducted in Antarctica ever come to light..."
"We bury this incident. And conveniently, we have a scapegoat."
"Honestly, why did he even have to survive and make trouble for everyone? Tsk."
Captain Jin Young-do, made to shoulder the sins of a leadership desperate to bury its secrets, is dishonorably discharged and disappears.
Later, a researcher in Seoul discovers that the source of a mysterious virus outbreak is the Antarctic virus — and that the cure lies in Antarctica as well.
And so the government sends Captain Jin Young-do, the sole survivor to return from the ice, back to Antarctica as its figurehead.
"Are you afraid the mistakes of the past will be exposed?!"
"Keep this up and people will die from the virus!"
In the Seoul storyline, Moon Chang-min's congressman digs into the monster incident that took place in Antarctica years ago, while Brigadier General Wee, played by Choo Young-mi, stops at nothing to silence him before her own misdeeds come to light.
Thus the Seoul timeline races through a tangle of political intrigue — the virus, the truth about the Antarctic monsters, and an election on the horizon — carried by a lineup of heavyweight actors.
"Ugh..."
"Captain?"
And then, in Antarctica — Yoon Jay's Captain Jin Young-do leads the researchers back to the ice. To die on a battlefield.
"Hahaha!"
"Is that man insane?"
But Jin Young-do has a problem. His time stopped entirely the moment he lost his men in Antarctica. The instant he sets foot there again, his trauma awakens.
At times he descends into confusion, mistaking allies for enemies and threatening them.
"Captain! Captain! It's me!"
"..."
The researchers played by Kwon Min-jae and Baek Da-eun sustain the tension, caught between a monster that could appear at any moment and a captain who could turn at any moment.
The character's certainly three-dimensional...
On the surface he looks unbreakable, but underneath he's carrying all manner of wounds. He bleeds fighting the monster, and the action is stylish — plenty there for fans to love.
Still, in terms of the film's flow, he's a sweet-potato kind of character — frustrating to watch. He's neither a full ally nor a villain.
That would probably come down to how the director edited it... Han Jin-woo felt goosebumps crawl up his arms the moment he saw the eyes of the transformed Captain Jin Young-do on the monitor.
"Wow. That's a different person."
Or was that his true face all along? It helped that the role happened to be a soldier. Park Chul-woo mulled over these idle thoughts, then spoke up.
"Was it something like that? Something similar to what we just saw?"
At the ambush of a question, Han Jin-woo swallowed hard. Park Chul-woo watched the bob of his Adam's apple with great interest.
So it's true.
He hadn't exactly been blindsided. Judging by Jung Seung-woo's deference and Yoon Jay's skill, he'd already suspected the man was no ordinary Navy SEAL — and one look at the scars on his body told anyone he hadn't lived an ordinary life.
And with the question that followed, suspicion hardened into certainty.
"Well... with all the overseas deployments, I suppose that kind of thing would wear on you mentally."
He'd thought nothing of it when Yoon Jay had so flatly confessed to having trauma over drinks. But seeing this other side of him up close, Park Chul-woo found himself worried.
"Trauma can happen even without a deployment. Don't people sometimes say a manager or someone around them is a 're-enlistment nightmare sufferer'? That's a form of PTSD too."
"I-is that so?"
Park Chul-woo had lived at least a decade longer than Yoon Jay. He'd deployed himself, taken part in a hostage rescue operation against insurgents. There had been a time when something from his army days had left him in a bad place mentally.
Before founding Wings Company, he had even worked for a foreign private military firm.
He'd heard all sorts of things there — mostly puerile arguments about whose unit was tougher, whose deployments had been the real deal.
And then there were the ones who listed the inhuman, brutal things they'd been through, many of whom had suffered lasting damage because of it.
Who on earth was this "Ten" anyway? He'd asked once, but no one would tell him. Not that it mattered right now. Park Chul-woo relayed to Han Jin-woo what he'd heard from those men.
"There are plenty of cases. One man was living a perfectly normal life after discharge until the sound of a gas pipe exploding brought the war rushing back — they say he mistook the spot he was standing in for a battlefield."
"Oh no. What happened to him?"
"A civilian approached him out of concern, and he mistook the man for an enemy and killed him. Then the police shot him dead."
Han Jin-woo's mouth just hung open. It's worse than I thought.
"Are you worried something might happen to your manager because of Jay?"
"No. It's not that."
Something had already happened, and yes, he was afraid it might happen again — but that wasn't the point.
Han Jin-woo had been a manager at other agencies before Yoon Jay. He'd handled a few actors, but mostly idol groups.
He hadn't lasted long, though. He had terrible luck with his talent.
One actor had thrown a tantrum because he didn't like the manager, and the idols, once they found a little success, looked down on him while working him to death with murderous schedules.
That one was all looks and no substance.
So when Han Jin-woo joined Astra and laid eyes on his new charge, Yoon Jay, he'd carried a bit of prejudice.
But Yoon Jay was nothing like he'd expected. The best-natured celebrity he had ever worked with.
He's just like this because he's a rookie. He'll change once he gets famous. But he never changed — not once, not ever. Han Jin-woo decided this was a man he could follow for the long haul.
"I'm just worried something might happen to Hyung, that's all."
The age gap between them was small, but Han Jin-woo thought Yoon Jay was genuinely cool. His self-discipline was exceptional, and there was plenty about him as a human being worth respecting.
What Han Jin-woo feared was Yoon Jay himself going wrong — or, like what had happened to him, Yoon Jay hurting someone else and dragging his reputation down with it.
He wanted to stop job-hopping for good and be one person's manager for years to come. For that, Yoon Jay had to stay out of trouble.
"Hmm... why don't you have a serious talk with him?"
"Would that be okay? Jay Hyung is... he keeps a wall up, you know?"
"He always did."
"You felt it too, Boss?"
"Oh, don't get me started. When I first met him, the man had all the warmth of a block of ice."
Yoon Jay had given off that walled-off feeling at first too, but he'd changed a great deal lately. The air of mystique he'd maintained so consistently was fading bit by bit, and he'd started offering up little pieces of his personal life.
"But well, at this point, I'd say you're fine."
If someone approached him in earnest, Yoon Jay would treat them with the same sincerity in return. That was the Yoon Jay Park Chul-woo had come to know.
"I suppose so..."
It was true that he'd softened, in a strange way. But every so often, Yoon Jay's atmosphere turned odd.
"Cut!"
Yeah. Like right now. When the take ended, Yoon Jay stood motionless, staring into empty air.
At first people had found it a little strange, but by now nobody paid it any mind. It didn't interfere with filming, and ever since he'd caught the assailant, the prevailing mood was to let whatever he did slide.
"Man, you can really act."
While Yoon Jay waited for the next shoot, Park Chul-woo wandered over.
"Hyung. You're on vacation — you're really going to keep hanging around here?"
"You picked yourself a good manager."
"I didn't exactly pick him."
It was an odd thing to say out of nowhere, but Yoon Jay smiled anyway. He was glad Han Jin-woo was his manager too. He'd been through plenty, but when it came to luck with people, he'd stake his life on it.
Shame, though.
He'd had hopes because of Jin Young-do's arc, which mirrored his own situation in some ways, but through all the filming of Permafrost so far, that sense he'd found during Daldongne still hadn't come. How could he shed his personal burdens the way he had back then?
Then again, if it were that easy to shake off, it would've been gone long ago.
Yoon Jay sighed.
The film wasn't due out until next year, but with such a formidable cast assembled, the articles were already pouring out.
Fortunately, the story that the stalker had been the assailant and that Yoon Jay had caught him was quietly fading away.
The man had blustered about suing Yoon Jay for assault, but whatever strings Cho Youkyeong had pulled, he never filed.
Instead, word came that the police, once they learned the full story, had offered him a position as a public relations ambassador — an offer he had no choice but to decline. He was already serving as a fire department PR ambassador thanks to the fire he'd caught during Along Along.
"Good work today."
"See you tomorrow, then."
Yoon Jay nodded at Kwon Min-jae's words. Tomorrow was the awards ceremony. Most of the actors in Permafrost had been nominated for the Baeksan Arts Awards as well.
Been a while since we've all been in the same room.
Word was that the Along Along and Daldongne teams would be attending too. Yoon Jay had been nominated for Best New Actor for both Along Along and Daldongne.