The Child Who Doesn't Flinch
Before the regression, there had been a drama that Gwon Du-il — a living, breathing detector of smash hits — had lamented letting slip through his fingers.
"I made it right up to the casting, but, ah, well... kids are a little scared of me, as you well know..."
The drama's PD and writer had asked for his understanding and brought Gwon Du-il and the child actor into the same room. The idea was to check whether they fit the image of the roles.
Looking back on it later, he said they were probably just trying to see how the kid would react.
As expected — or perhaps unfortunately — the child actor, who had already been cast, took one look at Gwon Du-il's face and burst into tears. There was no world in which they could act together after that.
They could hardly scrap a casting that had already been locked in just to bring Gwon Du-il aboard. And just like that, his role evaporated.
But what if I took that part?
In Gwon Du-il's entire life, only two children had ever looked at him and not cried.
His son, Kwon Jin-ho. And me.
"Filming with you would be the best, honestly. Not like I've got a lot of options."
"There's so few options there are only two. And you can't even pick one of them!"
"Aigoo, the sass that just keeps pouring out of that tiny mouth of yours, I swear."
Gwon Du-il ruffled my hair with his fingertips. Whether it counted as a pat or a scalp massage was anyone's guess.
I grinned up at him, and he let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Feels a little weird, like I'm talking out of both sides of my mouth... but what can you do. Help your uncle out with this one job, and then you rest some more, deal?"
"For free?"
"Y-you little...?"
"I'm kidding. We'll call it even for the red bean pouches."
I wasn't planning to stop at just once anyway, so it was fine. Gwon Du-il eyed me with suspicion as I let it drop so easily, but he soon gave in.
While the adults prepped for the shoot, I took a selfie with Gwon Du-il's back filling the background. Ha Ji-hyun from the PR team had asked me to beforehand.
She said she was worried people would start claiming the agency CEO was working his own talent like a rented mule.
There were people who left comments like that out of sheer malice, but it was also something that actually happened often enough. So her suggestion was to keep putting our closeness on display, just to keep pointless rumors from taking root.
The captions would be written and posted by Ha Ji-hyun anyway, so I told her I'd do it. I sent her photos of the meal and snacks I'd eaten earlier, along with the selfie.
"Su-a, let's get ready!"
"Yes!"
"Alright, Uncle's gonna jump out and scare you from right here. I'll yell real loud, make a scary face, wave my arms around all rough, okay? Don't get too shock— wait, no, you can be shocked, just don't completely lose it— no, no, if you brace yourself you won't be that surprised, so..."
Projecting an image of not being afraid of Gwon Du-il was something I wanted too. I asked him, full of confidence:
"Just how scary are you planning to be?"
"Hmm, like this...?"
"Oh."
The man really did know how to weaponize that physique of his a little too well. I was beginning to understand, if only a little, why the casting had fallen through.
"Uncle, you've got chili powder stuck in your teeth."
"Hup— I'll go brush."
While Gwon Du-il stepped away to the bathroom, Kwon Jin-ho whispered to me. I was still perfectly unfazed.
"You sure you're okay? Even I got a little scared just now."
"I'm really fine. He just made a scary face."
"You've got some serious guts."
Kwon Jin-ho marveled. It was his own dad, which made the whole thing even more absurd.
Gwon Du-il came back after brushing his teeth with military precision — three minutes on the dot — and we filmed the video.
5
4
3
2
1
"Gack!!"
The instant Gwon Du-il's face filled the monitor and that roar hit, Woo Jeong-ha screamed. She had read the warning subtitle. It had not helped.
If it was this terrifying on a screen, wouldn't a kid seeing it in person just pass out? Should she report this as child abuse?
Even as the thought crossed her mind, her reporter's brain was already spinning sensational headlines — Gwon Du-il, This Time He Went Too Far, Abuse Disguised as a Hidden Camera? Controversy Over Gwon Du-il's Video — and then, just as quickly, all the air went out of them.
Because Lee Su-a, walking down the hallway of an ordinary house, met Gwon Du-il's terrifying face and monstrous roar head-on — and simply smiled as she strolled right past him.
Did they stage this? Ah, the description says they told her in advance. But even so — she doesn't jump at all, and she smiles like that?
The clip ended on Gwon Du-il looking thoroughly sheepish, and then the screen cut. Same angle, same hallway. Only the people had swapped.
This time, it seemed, Lee Su-a was going to scare Gwon Du-il. They had killed almost every light; the frame was dim and grainy.
This, apparently, had not been discussed. Gwon Du-il fidgeted on camera, visibly uneasy.
"W-what...? What is this? Su-a?"
Woo Jeong-ha found herself recalling the original video this was riffing on. A dad and his son taking turns scaring each other, then dissolving into giggles.
That one was cute. This is a little...
Again? What's a kid going to do to scare anyo—
"GYAAAAH!!"
From the open doorway of the hallway, something heavy dropped out of the dark room beyond, flopping and twitching. It was split down the middle, grotesquely twisted, and there were shoes on the ends of it.
As if it were a person's lower body.
Gwon Du-il's scare had been frightening enough, but this was a horror of an entirely different register. The Gwon Du-il on screen and the Woo Jeong-ha watching it both failed to collect themselves. She barely managed to swallow the curse that had been about to fly out of her mouth.
"What the hell is th—AAAAH?!"
"HUUUURK—! S-Su-aAAA!!!"
Before she could even gather her rattled nerves, Lee Su-a came writhing out through the doorway on her stomach. Her hair was down, hiding almost all of her face, and she was crawling on arm strength alone, bending her joints at angles no arm was meant to bend. It was a horror movie all by itself.
"Give me back my legs. Give me back my legs..."
"Give me back my legs from WHEN exactly—AAAAH!!"
That's what I'm saying! Summer's already over — what is this, a late horror special?!
Even in the middle of being scared out of his wits, Gwon Du-il backpedaled down the hallway on a former athlete's remarkable reflexes, screaming the whole way. Lee Su-a pursued him to the far end, committing to the bit with a full and fervent performance — and then she giggled and stood up.
"You didn't have to go that hard!"
The Gwon Du-il on screen scooped Lee Su-a into his arms, speaking for Woo Jeong-ha's own soul. Lee Su-a beamed, bright as anything.
"What even was that? Pants? What did you put in the pants?"
"The sandbags Uncle uses when he works out. I wrapped them in some other clothes and stuffed them in. I thought it'd be funny if it made a loud noise."
"No wonder!"
No wonder!
When he heard that his wife, Ji Soo-bin, had even put shoes on the pants for them, Gwon Du-il's face took on a look of genuine betrayal.
Lee Su-a watched him and burst into a peal of laughter.
"How'd someone as scared as you manage to donate bone marrow?"
"That's different, you little rascal! Needles don't scare me one bit."
"Heh-heh, well I would be. ...But doesn't it hurt when they stick a needle in your spine?"
"If it can save a life, that's a pain worth taking. These days you can even do it the same way as a blood donation."
They're launching into a sketch all of a sudden?
Lee Su-a was speaking the same way she had from the start, but Gwon Du-il had slipped into that distinctive acting tone of his.
His story had made the rounds in a fairly big way: right after retiring, he had registered as a bone marrow donor for something he had always wanted to do, and by a small miracle he had been matched with a compatible patient within six months and completed the donation.
So why bring that up now? Woo Jeong-ha kept watching, and the sketch rolled on.
"Then I want to donate bone marrow too!"
"Not yet, Su-a. Only grown-ups can do it."
"Hmph. Uncle gets to do all the good deeds!"
"If you eat well, sleep well, and run around and play, you'll grow up strong in no time — and then you can do it too."
The line was so public-service-announcement it hurt — and the moment she thought so, the two of them turned to the camera and waved.
"A little discomfort — and you could save a life!"
"Please show your support for bone marrow donation for leukemia patients!"
This has been a bone marrow donation campaign with YouTuber Glang!
Bye~
The horror concept had been a little out of left field, but the video itself ended on a warm note. Glang's other campaign videos surfaced in the related-videos sidebar.
Woo Jeong-ha skimmed a few of them, turning it over in her head.
Good quality. Pretty fun, in its way. And it actually means something.
She clicked her tongue, a little dissatisfied, and fished out a serviceable headline.
It was a little light on the sensational flavor, but the heartwarming twist — that the punishment video had actually been a public service campaign — plus a famous YouTuber attached to it, ought to guarantee a decent number of clicks.
The video hadn't been up long, and it was short, so she was writing the article without spoiling too much when someone tapped her on the shoulder.