Homecoming (2)
Kang Tae-san chatted with Min Jin-cheol, whom he hadn't seen in quite some time.
“Hyung, how’s Noona getting home?”
“We’re planning to catch the village bus right out front and head to the terminal. Isn’t that how you got here too?”
“Yeah, but my manager’s wrapping up a shoot nearby and offered to give me a ride back to Seoul.”
“Whoa, kid. You’ve really made it, huh?”
“Want to ride with us?”
“Really? You sure that’s okay?”
At Tae-san’s offer, Min Jin-cheol was about to accept when Baek Yeon-joo jabbed him in the side.
“It’s fine. We’ll just take the intercity bus. It’s quick.”
“Yeon-joo, you’ll be exhausted. Let’s just ride with him.”
“I told you, I’m fine. It’ll be nice to look out the window on the way.”
Tae-san felt uneasy watching Baek Yeon-joo insist on looking out for him even though she was pregnant and surely uncomfortable herself.
“Noona, the car we’re taking is pretty spacious. Manager-nim already said it’s fine, and it’s not like I’m putting anyone out.”
“See? Let’s just ride with him. Huh? This is exactly when you get to enjoy having a successful little brother.”
“Aigoo, we haven’t even done anything for him.”
Kang Tae-san smiled warmly and suggested they talk more on the drive since it had been so long since they’d seen each other.
Thanks to him, Baek Yeon-joo and Min Jin-cheol rode in the celebrities’ Carnival all the way to Seoul without issue.
During the ride, Baek Yeon-joo chattered excitedly about how much fun she’d had watching the shoot.
Especially fond of Eun Chae-won, she asked with sparkling eyes what the actress was really like.
Tae-san couldn’t exactly call her an old-fashioned nag, so he settled for polite answers about how she was a good senior at the company who looked out for everyone.
“Could you get me her autograph later under my name?”
“Tae-san’s uncomfortable. Don’t ask him for stuff like that.”
“You like Eun Chae-won so much you wanted to name our daughter Chae-won after her.”
“Shh, shh.”
Watching the couple, Tae-san couldn’t help but smile.
He had never once thought about dating or meeting someone while working so hard to survive, but in that moment the two of them looked so lovely that he felt a small pang of envy.
Meanwhile, the ever-perceptive Baek Yeon-joo noticed the manager in the front seat tapping the steering wheel with his index finger.
“Manager-nim, are we making too much trouble for you?”
Baek Yeon-joo spoke to the driver, Gong Jin-su.
“It’s fine.”
Gong Jin-su answered in a perfunctory tone.
What should have been a ninety-minute drive took three hours because of traffic before they finally reached Sadang.
The Carnival stopped near their destination. Gong Jin-su parked close to Min Jin-cheol’s neighborhood.
“It’s gotten pretty late. Why don’t you at least grab a meal before heading back? Tae-san, you should eat too.”
Min Jin-cheol tried to persuade them as he got out of the car.
“Manager-nim, if you’re free, please join us.”
“No, thank you. I’ll be going.”
“All right. Thank you for today. Drive safe.”
Tae-san stepped out after Min Jin-cheol’s family.
The moment they were gone, Gong Jin-su started grumbling.
“What meal? I’m starving here. I’m not even on a shoot schedule—I have to chauffeur some rookie actor around on his personal time? Actors really think they’re kings the second they get a little famous.”
In truth, Tae-san lived in Yeongdeungpo and Min Jin-cheol’s family lived in Sadang, so it was on the way anyway.
Most actors treated their manager’s car like a personal taxi, so the situation wasn’t unusual.
After the Odaesan pine mushroom incident, the team leader had ordered close surveillance on Kang Tae-san, so this was part of Gong Jin-su’s job.
Still, the Sunday evening traffic had been brutal.
Gong Jin-su had plans to watch overseas soccer with friends and was itching to get home.
Of course, his true nature showed the moment things got urgent.
“The team leader’s hilarious. Why call an actor with no schedule and tell him to ride the company car home? He’s not even the one doing the driving. That’s why actors get spoiled. Seriously, this entertainment industry is messed up.”
Grumbling the whole way, Gong Jin-su drove even more aggressively than on the way up.
They’d gone maybe five minutes when a vibration sounded from the back seat.
Stopped at a light, he glanced back and spotted a phone left behind.
“Ah, shit. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Soon his own phone rang. It was Kang Tae-san.
“Sorry, is there a phone in the back seat? Hyung thinks he left his behind.”
“Ah…… yes.”
Gong Jin-su wanted to say no, but barely held onto his last thread of reason.
“I’ll turn around. Same spot as before?”
“Yes. I’m really sorry.”
Click.
“Ah, fuck. These people are something else.”
Gong Jin-su wrenched the wheel around.
Honk! The car behind blared its horn when he cut in without signaling, but he ignored it and floored the accelerator.
“Aigoo, sorry about that.”
In the alley near the busy street, Kang Tae-san, Min Jin-cheol, and Baek Yeon-joo stood waiting.
“Ugh, you’re such a klutz. Always dropping stuff. At this rate I’ll start losing things too.”
“Hehe. Can’t be helped.”
“Why don’t you two head to the barbecue place first? I’ll grab the phone and catch up.”
“Come with us. That guy’s already gone out of his way because of me. Ah, I should at least buy him a drink.”
“Good idea. Hurry back. It’s night, so skip the coffee.”
“Okay! Got it.”
The large Min Jin-cheol waddled into the convenience store.
While he was gone, Baek Yeon-joo took the chance to list everything Min Jin-cheol had ever left behind before.
That was when it happened.
A menacing-looking man with a threatening build approached, followed by four or five others snickering behind him.
Their clothes alone made it clear they weren’t ordinary.
They wore skin-tight tracksuits, and their arms were covered in bizarre tattoos.
The leader’s name was Hwang Yuk-hee.
A former youth national judo team member, he had the infamous “mandu ears” that warned people to stay away.
“Yo, that bastard Cho Tae-man really turned himself in?”
“That’s what I heard, hyung-nim.”
“Fucking idiot. He was strutting around like his dad had his back, but he folded like a paper doll.”
“Exactly, hyung-nim.”
They were the same type as Cho Tae-man.
Among the “yaking” BJ community, they were all each other’s subscribers, so rumors spread fast.
Who fought whom in a night raid, who got beaten up where, who was borrowing money from whom.
But the hottest topic by far was the Cho Tae-man incident.
A typical delinquent BJ who made timid kids film hidden-camera videos and cross-dress for donations during his school days.
Hwang Yuk-hee, broadcasting under the name “Yuki TV,” had once shared a drinking session and collab stream with Cho Tae-man and some girls.
When he heard that Cho Tae-man had turned himself in claiming remorse, he snorted.
“Because of Cho Tae-man, our yaking side’s image is in the gutter. Can’t even go live. It’s driving me insane, hyung-nim.”
“We’ll just have to lie low until the public cools off. Fuck, this is annoying as hell.”
Already fuming from being unable to stream, Hwang Yuk-hee’s eyes landed on Kang Tae-san and his group.
His gaze settled on Baek Yeon-joo.
She looked small and fragile—exactly the type he would normally approach with a camera for some yaking content.
Unable to resist his old habits, Hwang Yuk-hee ignored Tae-san and spoke directly to Baek Yeon-joo.
“You’re pretty. Is that your boyfriend next to you?”
He threw in a crude wink, half provocation, half flirtation, speaking in casual banmal.
“Who are you? Do you have business with our Yeon-joo noona?”
When Kang Tae-san stepped in front of Baek Yeon-joo, the group burst into mocking laughter.
“If you’re not her boyfriend, get lost. Don’t get in the way. Come drink with us, pretty noona. You like Dom Pérignon?”
Hwang Yuk-hee raised his already unpleasant voice, practically shouting as he picked a fight.
Passersby stopped to watch or whisper.
The group closed in to keep Tae-san and the woman from escaping when Min Jin-cheol appeared, phone in hand, returning from the convenience store.
“What the hell is this?”
Gong Jin-su quickly ducked behind a telephone pole.
Seeing Hwang Yuk-hee and his crew surrounding Kang Tae-san, he knew instantly it was a disaster.
He started to dial 112, then stopped, worried he’d get dragged into endless statements as the reporter.
“The traffic’s bad. It’s fucking jammed.”
Gong Jin-su hurried back to his car. He planned to show up once things settled.
Even though the manager had fled without lifting a finger, Baek Yeon-joo stepped forward with a bold voice.
“Excuse me, I think you’ve got the wrong person. I’ll give you one chance. Keep walking.”
“Give us one chance too. We’ll make sure you have a blast after a few drinks. Yeah?”
“Aigoo. I clearly gave you a chance.”
“Puhahaha! This noona’s character is hilarious as fuck! What, you got superpowers? Gonna take us all down?”
As Hwang Yuk-hee roared with laughter and caused a scene, a thunderous voice rang out.
“Yeon-joo—!!!”
Min Jin-cheol emerged from the convenience store carrying a box of drinks, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
His voice was so loud it drowned out both the pedestrians and the car horns for a moment.
Thud, thud, thud.
Watching Min Jin-cheol approach, Hwang Yuk-hee felt the ground itself trembling.
Even Hwang Yuk-hee, who usually intimidated people with his physique, looked like a middle-schooler standing before an adult man when faced with Min Jin-cheol’s sheer presence.
“J-Jin-cheol hyung?”
Kang Tae-san called out in surprise, but Min Jin-cheol’s rage had reduced his brain to animal instincts. He didn’t hear a thing.
Baek Yeon-joo had begged him not to cause trouble again, so he was barely holding back. Otherwise he would have folded these thugs like flip phones for daring to approach her.
“You. Get lost. Right now. From Yeon-joo.”
The moment their eyes met, Hwang Yuk-hee thought he heard sirens blaring in his head.
“Th-this monster… No way.”
Unlike the others, Hwang Yuk-hee had trained in martial arts for years and could roughly predict the outcome of a fight just by looking.
The difference in physique, the trained muscle groups visible even through clothes—he instinctively scanned Min Jin-cheol and suddenly remembered why he had quit judo in the first place.
Back then.
A monster had stormed into his school, Anjung High, and single-handedly sent over a dozen delinquent students, including the judo club, to the emergency room with his bare fists.
The man in front of him looked exactly like that monster.
“D-did you happen to grow up in Anyang……?”
Nod.
“Then… is your name Min Jin-cheol?”
Nod.
He was dead.
If this was really the Min Jin-cheol, he wouldn’t even get a chance to fight back.
But there were too many eyes watching.
And unfortunately, his lackeys had zero situational awareness.
“Is this idiot slow or something? Why’s he stuttering like that?”
“Hey, can’t you see our hyung-nim’s ears? If you want to live long enough to see your pretty daughter’s ears, get lost.”
Emboldened by Hwang Yuk-hee’s judo skills, the underlings kept mouthing off.
Min Jin-cheol suddenly raised his right hand and spread all five fingers wide.
“Five.”
“Five what, you moron. Hahaha.”
“Ahem, guys, let’s stop for a second.”
“Four.”
“This guy’s counting down? Hyung-nim? Should we just kill him?”
“Why would you say something so violent?”
“Three.”
“Hyung-nim, why don’t you show him your signature throw for old times’ sake?”
“Shut up! Everyone stop talking shit and bow your heads right now!”
In the end, Hwang Yuk-hee threw away his pride and bowed ninety degrees to Min Jin-cheol.
“Two.”
“W-we’re sorry. We mistook you for someone else. We’ll leave right away. Please forgive us just this once.”
He thought that would be enough to save his life, but Min Jin-cheol didn’t stop counting.
“One.”
“H-hiik! W-we apologized! We said sorry!”
The idea that an apology within five seconds would spare him had been Hwang Yuk-hee’s own assumption.
Min Jin-cheol had simply sentenced him to death in five seconds.
Just as Min Jin-cheol’s fingers curled into a massive fist, Baek Yeon-joo stepped in.
“Stop.”
She mediated the situation.
“The apology is enough. Just go.”
“Thank you!”
Hwang Yuk-hee quickly gathered his crew and fled.
Once they were gone, the crowd that had gathered also lost interest and dispersed.
“Hey, Min Jin-cheol. Snap out of it.”
“Uhh……”
At Baek Yeon-joo’s voice, Min Jin-cheol returned to his usual gentle self.
“You okay? No injuries?”
“I’m fine.”
“Tae-san, you okay?”
“Yes, hyung. Thanks to you.”
Just then, Gong Jin-su came running over with Min Jin-cheol’s phone.
“Sorry I’m late. Traffic was bad.”
Gong Jin-su held out the phone.
Instead of thanking him, Min Jin-cheol stared at him in silence.
“Ahem. I’ll be going then. Enjoy your meal.”
Watching Gong Jin-su leave, Min Jin-cheol looked displeased.
He had seen the manager abandon Tae-san and drive away earlier while coming out of the convenience store.
“Jin-cheol, what’s wrong?”
“Huh? Nothing. Let’s go eat. I’m hungry.”
Min Jin-cheol almost told Tae-san what he’d seen, then closed his mouth.
He worried that getting involved might cost someone their job.
After the brief commotion, they headed to the charcoal-grill barbecue place that was Min Jin-cheol’s regular spot.
Two days later, Moon Jeong-ki, the second-in-command at Kidari Entertainment, returned to his office after a meeting with the legal team.
He had just finished personally contacting the BJs who had picked a fight with Kang Tae-san two days earlier and wrapping things up.
Knock knock—
“Yeah, come in.”
The manager Gong Jin-su, whom Moon had summoned, entered.
“What the hell were you doing? You just stood there watching while your actor got into it with those thugs? You watched people taking pictures and did nothing?”
“I dropped him off and left, so I didn’t know.”
“You think I called you here to make excuses?”
“……”
“This isn’t the first time. I’ve gotten multiple complaints about your attitude. Kang Tae-san’s new to this, so maybe that’s understandable, but you’ve been in this industry for three years. How long do you think you can keep saying you didn’t know?”
“But this really wasn’t my fault. Honestly, driving day and night is one thing, but how was I supposed to know Kang Tae-san would get involved with people like that? I’m exhausted and frustrated too.”
“Ha. You can’t even say sorry. There are plenty of other people who can do this job. If you keep creating risks like this, you know it’s on the manager, right?”
“……”
“If you’re going to work like this, just quit.”
“Ha, seriously.”
Gong Jin-su removed his employee ID from around his neck and placed it on the desk.
“Fine. I was sick of this industry anyway. Why is everything my fault? This is bullshit.”
“What—what?”
Gong Jin-su slammed the door and stormed out.
Moon Jeong-ki was speechless.
“These kids these days have zero sense of responsibility. Ha.”
Moon pressed his temples and called the manager team leader.
“Yeah. He grumbled and then quit. I didn’t even bring up the dashcam footage of him abandoning Tae-san.”
—If we hadn’t checked the accident footage, we never would’ve known. Good thing it happened.
“Are there any available managers right now? What about Tae-san’s schedule?”
—I’ll take him for now. I’ll also look for anyone worth recommending.
“All right. Thanks.”
If an actor got caught up in an ugly incident and his face ended up exposed, the damage would be enormous.
Moon immediately contacted HR to process Gong Jin-su’s resignation for his irresponsible behavior toward a company talent.
In Moon’s experience, ordinary people placed next to someone extraordinary tended to drop like flies.
Still, knowing Team Leader Kim was stepping in was a relief. He planned to keep a closer eye on Actor Kang until he was properly settled.
Ring ring—
A call came from Team Leader Kim.
“Yeah, Team Leader Kim.”
—I spoke with Kang Tae-san. He asked if he could recommend a manager himself. Should I tell him to send a resume?
“His own manager? Sure. Tell him to send one.”
—Understood.
He looked like a complete outsider to the entertainment world, yet he apparently knew a manager.
Moon tilted his head in mild surprise.