You Want Me on a Variety Show? (1) — Kang Minhyuk Gets Hooked... and Kim Si-a's Anticipation
Leaving Chief Oh behind as he broke down sobbing, overwhelmed by emotion, I quietly slipped off the rooftop.
At times like that, it was better to give a man space alone than to offer some hollow word of comfort or encouragement.
So then, Chief Oh… Team Three is in your hands.
A man who could shed hot tears for someone else like that was someone I could respect without reservation. It was a noble kind of act that a selfish, calculating bastard like me could never pull off.
Starting tomorrow, I hope those lights look like hope to you too, Chief Oh…
Not lonely little glimmers, but lights of hope bright enough to illuminate his future.
Still half-drowned in that sentimental mood, I left the rooftop and started for home—only for another urgent call to come in from yet another man. And not just any man: an older guy whose voice was so thick with tears it sounded ready to burst at any second.
"Hey, Minhyuk… hyung needs you to save him…"
"What's going on? Talk so I can actually understand you."
The voice belonged to none other than PD Park Ji-ho.
After wrapping the legal drama that had starred Si-a, he had left the drama department entirely and settled into the variety division—the man who would one day become the main PD of a JBC music program. Privately, he was close enough to me to feel like a real older brother, and he was also the husband of Writer Kim Hye-kyeong, who owed me a considerable debt over everything that had happened with Si-a.
Why does this hyung sound like he's dying…
He was normally so easygoing and full of leisure that this lifeless voice felt completely foreign coming from him.
"Minhyuk… hyung is fucked."
"Then say it so I can understand. What's fucked?"
"I got put on a pilot program, and that crazy bastard Park Min-jun went and blew everything up…"
"Park Min-jun?"
Park Min-jun… Park Min-jun…
If I couldn't even place the name, he was either a complete nobody or one of those flash-in-the-pan types who burned bright for a second and vanished.
Wasn't that around the time he tanked his career over an affair…?
The memory that finally surfaced was of a decent-looking model who'd slept with a married woman right around this period and walked himself straight into career hell. The Park Min-jun PD Park Ji-ho was talking about had to be that guy.
"What, did Park Min-jun sleep with some married woman or something?"
At my teasing question, PD Park Ji-ho let out a long sigh and fell silent for a moment.
"Haa… it's already spread that far?"
"Well, we're pretty sensitive about that kind of thing on our end."
That famous line that always showed up in entertainment gossip pieces—according to a reliable source—yeah. I was that reliable source, so of course the news reached me fast. Not that it mattered this time; I'd already known from my past life.
Still, this hyung did variety too…?
As far as I remembered, after spectacularly tanking the legal drama he'd shot with Si-a this year, he wouldn't land in the music-show PD seat until around 2018, when he'd run into me while I was looking after Crack. I hadn't tracked every single thing he'd done in between, so this was news even to me.
"Minhyuk, hyung's begging you here. Without someone at Park Min-jun's level, we can't even launch this thing…"
Even if the scandal was about to send Park Min-jun into freefall, he was still a rising model-turned-actor at the peak of his momentum. The only celebrities at our company who could match that kind of draw were Lee Sa-rang and Kim Si-a.
In other words, what PD Park Ji-ho really wanted was for me to slot in our Si-a—who was currently raking in insane amounts of buzz.
If he's coming to me with a request like this, he must've gotten shut down everywhere else…
The utterly defeated tone of his voice told me everything I needed to know. His situation was desperate, and he was desperate enough to come begging his little brother for help.
Except I don't really have a reason to help him…
Being close was one thing. Business was another.
What if I helped PD Park Ji-ho now and he ended up sticking with this program for the long haul? What if, instead of becoming the main PD of a music show, he settled in as a variety PD instead? Then the entire reason I'd gotten close to the man in the first place would evaporate.
Just turn him down. I've got plenty of excuses, don't I?
It was a JBC program—a completely different network from the one airing Lovely Lady. That alone was more than enough justification to refuse.
Just say no, dammit!
So why couldn't I bring myself to coldly hang up the phone?
In a situation where the future I knew was clearly about to change completely, what the hell was I hesitating over?
"Minhyuk, hyung really wants to make this one a success…"
This hyung, Chief Oh—why is everyone coming at me like this?!
That look of a man crushed under the weight of repeated failure—the very thing I hated most in the world. Seeing it on them felt too much like looking at my past-life self. I simply couldn't ignore it.
Goddamn it! This is the last time. Getting swept up by sentiment ends here, for real…
In the end, I let out a deep sigh and accepted his request anyway.
"Hyung-nim, you are confident though, right? You know how insanely busy Si-a is right now…"
"You're seriously going to do this for me…?"
"Just answer the question. Are you actually confident you can make it a hit?"
"Of course I am. If I take Kim Si-a and still tank the show, I don't even deserve to call myself a PD, do I?"
"Fine. Not like I've got much choice. It's your ask, after all…"
"Thank you, thank you, you bastard Kang Minhyuk! Hyung will never forget this debt!"
"You can forget it. I'd just like to see you strutting around in front of Writer Kim for once after you succeed."
PD Park Ji-ho, who had taken every kind of scolding and contempt from Writer Kim throughout Lovely Lady… Because of all the big talk he'd spouted before the drama even started, he hadn't been able to open his mouth once under that brutal treatment.
That's why they say you never know how life will turn out…
Of course, that applied just as much to me as it did to PD Park Ji-ho.
Back then, I still had no idea.
What PD Park Ji-ho wanted wasn't just the actress Kim Si-a—it was her manager, me, Kang Minhyuk, right along with her.
"Thanks, man! Then I'll take that as a yes from both you and Si-a and send our writers over!"
"Sure… So what kind of shoot is it, anyway?"
"Nothing special. The usual stuff. Head out to the countryside, cook some food, that kind of thing…"
Nothing particularly new, but a guaranteed solid performer—a countryside healing show where you cooked and ate together. For Si-a, worn down body and soul from back-to-back drama shoots and commercial work, it might have been exactly the kind of program she needed most right now. Her hometown had been a tiny village in the middle of nowhere so remote even the name barely registered.
Even setting that aside, it looked like a pretty solid move strategically. The timing was right to dilute, at least a little, that runaway image of her as some chaebol family's youngest daughter that people had been slapping on her lately.
"Sounds fine. So when does filming start?"
"We're going to have to run a pretty tight schedule."
"You know Si-a's ridiculously busy right now. She won't have time until next weekend at the earliest…"
"Of course we'll work around that on our end! We're just grateful she's coming on at all…"
"Alright. I'll talk to her and let her know."
"Thanks, man! I'll have my wife put in a word with Si-a too."
I'd braced myself to get milked half to death that night trying to persuade Si-a—but to my surprise, she accepted the proposal without the slightest resistance.
"I'll do it~ I think that sounds fun!"
"…Huh?"
She was so eager I was the one left feeling awkward for even asking.
"Hye-kyeong unnie already called me anyway. I heard all about what kind of show it is."
"Did you? But it's your first real day off in months… Are you sure you're okay with this?"
From Lovely Lady straight into a nonstop run of commercial shoots—and even though this was the first rest day she'd gotten in months, she didn't show so much as a flicker of reluctance.
"That is rest. I've been wanting to go somewhere rural like that with you anyway~"
"Yeah, me too, honestly."
"Right~? She said it's super remote out there… Almost nobody even passes through."
Somehow, the look in her eyes was turning distinctly suggestive.
"I-Is that so?"
"Yeah. I'm getting all excited just thinking about it…"
I had no idea exactly what she was so excited about—but she insisted she had to conserve my stamina for that day, and so she didn't milk me that night.
And it wasn't until the writers came to interview me that I finally understood.
Why every other manager had turned down PD Park Ji-ho's casting call. Why Si-a had been so giddy with anticipation about that day.
"It must have been a hard decision… Thank you so much for being brave enough to do this, Chief."
"Ahahaha… Yeah."
"Our PD said that if Chief Kang appears on the show, it's guaranteed to be a massive hit… and I really think he's right!"
You should be an actor, dammit! With a face like that, what the hell are you doing as a manager…?
That line PD Park Ji-ho always bellowed at me whenever he got flushed and drunk… I could almost hear it now, drifting past my ear with a mocking little laugh.
So from the very beginning… this whole program was built with me in mind?
Kim Si-a was just a bonus—nice if she came, fine if she didn't. From the start, that hyung's real target hadn't been the actress Kim Si-a at all. It had been her manager. Me. Kang Minhyuk.
This wasn't some simple one-night, two-day countryside healing trip. It was one night and two days spent with the manager who watched a celebrity closer than anyone else alive.
"Our PD said he got the inspiration from watching Chief Kang's YouTube, and he just kept praising you and praising you…"
I couldn't hear a word of the young writer's excited chatter. The only thing filling my chest was pure rage at having been completely reeled in by that conniving bastard PD Park Ji-ho's fishing hook.
"I became a fan of yours after watching it too, Chief~!"
"Ah, yes. Thank you."
"Everyone's going to be so shocked, you know? Nobody's going to expect a manager to be this handsome…"
"…Right."
And that was how I ended up showing my face on a variety program I never once imagined I'd be part of.