Chapter 73
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ace
Chapter: 73
Chapter Title: The Actress Who Stole Diet Pills
-----------------------------------------------------------------
I contacted Park Seseon to ask when she had time for a call.
Park Seseon called me back soon after.
"Director, hello? What's the occasion for you to call first?"
"What occasion?!"
I cut straight to the chase. What did she mean by giving my prescribed pills to a friend?
The prescription I'd given her was a Korean medicine formula for dieting.
After Park Seseon returned to Seoul, she'd wanted an additional prescription to prevent rebound weight gain, so I'd sent her easy-to-dose pills. I'd instructed her to start with about 20 pills, then taper down to 15, then 10.
Decoctions aren't convenient to divide up, after all.
So I'd assumed she'd followed my instructions, finished her diet successfully, but then she gave them to a friend and problems arose.
'I emphasized so strongly that they weren't just any medicine!'
Of course, the person I'd ranted to was my cousin Park Seonyun, but common sense dictates that medicine tailored to one person shouldn't be taken by someone else!
"I'm sorry. I see pills traded on secondhand sites sometimes, so I thought it was fine."
"That's all illegal! You don't need to apologize to me—what about your friend? Is she okay? What happened?"
If it was just the common side effects I'd warned about initially—like temporary constipation or insomnia that resolved right after stopping the medicine—Park Seonyun probably wouldn't have worried so much.
"Well, that friend actually has panic disorder?"
"......Yes."
"She said her symptoms got worse. Not just a racing heart, but like she couldn't breathe...... Haha, I've never experienced anything like that myself......"
She had some nerve, really.
Panic disorder is fundamentally linked to sympathetic nervous system overactivity.
Excessive stress, fear, or anxiety keeps the sympathetic nervous system constantly activated, while the parasympathetic nervous system—which acts as the brake—weakens, unable to calm things down. That's when panic attacks occur.
And on top of that, she'd taken ephedra, which stimulates the sympathetic nervous system. Of course problems would arise!
"Of course it would. It's medicine tailored to stimulate your metabolism. Basically, it's poison for anyone with high blood pressure, heart disease, or autonomic nervous dysfunction."
"I suppose so......"
"How is she now? You're in Seoul, so is it hard for her to visit a clinic?"
"I talked to her about it yesterday. She probably has no schedule for a while, so she should be fine. Sigh, I'm really sorry. I never should have given them to her."
Park Seseon sounded deeply apologetic. From what she described, it seemed her friend had nagged her a lot, so I didn't scold her too harshly and ended the call.
Three days later.
"Hellooo~!"
Actress Hyun Jumi visited the clinic.
She was a celebrity too, so to avoid acting like I had no idea who she was, I'd asked Park Seseon for her name and looked her up beforehand.
She was an actress who'd debuted from an idol group. There'd been major controversy over her acting skills early on, and she still had quite a few antis.
'Hmm...... Panic attacks from stress over malicious comments, maybe.'
I'd offered to see her after hours if she was uncomfortable with her identity being exposed, but Hyun Jumi said she didn't need any special treatment.
She walked into the clinic wearing a highly conspicuous orange dress.
"Uh, could you be......?"
"Hello! It's Jumi~."
She didn't mind at all signing autographs for patients in the waiting room or posing for photos with them.
"Hehe, sorry. I caused trouble, right? I stole them on my own, so don't scold Seseon unnie~!"
The moment she entered the exam room, Hyun Jumi clasped her hands together in a pleading gesture and winked.
"Hello, Ms. Hyun Jumi. I've heard about it from Ms. Park Seseon. I didn't scold her, so rest easy."
"Yup, that's a relief!"
She tossed her permed hair, which fell to her waist, and flashed a bright smile.
At least on the surface, she didn't look like someone with a mental illness at all.
Amid all the controversies—poor acting, bad dancing, chubby thighs, weird taste in men—the word "panic" never came up.
"Why did you take those pills? You don't look like you need dieting at all."
I asked Hyun Jumi.
Even if she was one of those skinny-fat types with high body fat despite looking slim, she wasn't. If anything, wasn't she underweight? Her arms and legs were stick-thin, down to the bones, and her waist was tiny. No excess fat on her face, naturally.
"Ahaha, yeah. I searched movie reviews on a whim and got obsessed with dieting."
"An impulse after seeing bad comments about your figure?"
"Yes! The last project had some exposure scenes that showed my thighs, and that's my complex!"
Hyun Jumi hiked up her skirt to show her thighs.
......Those are muscles?
No need to explain the importance of thigh muscles from a murim expert's perspective, but even judging by celebrity beauty standards, keeping them would be far better.
Forcibly reducing thigh muscles would mess up her qi flow and actually make her gain weight.
Whether I freaked out or not, Hyun Jumi beamed as she launched into her story.
Hyun Jumi was innately optimistic and cheerful.
With her likable looks and friendly personality, she'd been popular with everyone in school, boys and girls alike.
Then one day, she got street-cast by a major entertainment agency.
"Whoa, an idol? Awesome!"
The agency staff showered her with praise. Pretty, lovable personality, great singer too. And so she joined an idol group on the verge of debut.
Maknae debut after a short trainee period.
That was when she first tasted the world's coldness.
Can't sing but gets all that screen time. Talks too much. Too full of herself. Double eyelids look fake. Philtrum's too long. What is that skirt? Cover up those thighs.
At a young age, Hyun Jumi was stabbed by countless knives.
"Short prep time, so what can you do! Better than waiting years—super lucky! I'll work hard and they'll recognize it!"
But the people who'd found joy in bashing her didn't let go easily.
She played the punching bag until the group disbanded, and after switching to acting, she faced concentrated fire from fans of her leading men.
Why film a love scene with trash like her? Saw her giving him sesame leaves in that after-party pic. Have to see it on TV too? Ruins every drama. Hate looking at her.
"Haha, this much is nothing! I'm used to it~ It's like an initiation rite everyone goes through when switching careers!"
Her agency worried about her a lot, but Hyun Jumi was genuinely fine.
Separate from the acting controversies, her debut drama did really well.
Her follow-ups did too. Controversies followed every time, but the results were good.
Fans cheered, and money piled up steadily in her bank account.
Antis? Stars are supposed to drive both fans and haters crazy!
Hyun Jumi truly believed that.
"Gasp!"
So when she was diagnosed with panic disorder, she couldn't believe it.
"Me? There's no one around as positive and upbeat as I am? Comments don't faze me at all!"
It wasn't forced cheerfulness.
Everything was going great at work, and she'd never felt depressed in her life.
On the hundreds of survey questions, she checked "no" for every item on depression, anxiety, fear, etc.
"The problem is that you still remember those comments. Rest for a while—stay off the internet completely."
But the psychiatrist was firm on the diagnosis.
She followed the doctor's advice: no new schedules, cut off from the internet, took the prescribed meds.
Nothing changed much. Hyun Jumi really had never felt depressed or anxious! She traveled happily and lived her daily life.
Whether from the meds or lack of external stimuli, the panic attacks stopped for a while.
Then a movie she'd already filmed was released.
Reactions seemed pretty good.
So she casually opened the reviews.
"......Did I gain that much weight?"
She looked in the mirror. Not thrilled with her body. All the past comments flashed through her mind.
"Liposuction?"
Plastic surgery came to mind first.
But suddenly slimming just one area would probably get her bashed again.
"Something more natural...... Ah! Seseon unnie said Korean medicine dieting was great?"
She looked for a nearby clinic.
But was turned away.
No fat to lose, and it could negatively affect her panic treatment.
The doctor even recommended tonics instead.
"Unnie, unnie! Can't I just try a little?"
"Of course not."
"Just curious if I can handle it! A little!"
Unnie said she was taking 15 pills, so 10 should be fine, right?
Hyun Jumi snatched the pills from Park Seseon like candy.
"Hey! You think these are digestive aids?"
Park Seseon nagged, but Hyun Jumi brushed it off with her signature cute smile.
She just wanted to do something.
"Hah, huff......!"
That night, Hyun Jumi couldn't sleep.
The reviews? Wrong medicine? Or was this her illness all along?
Couldn't pinpoint the cause.
Breathing became hard, terror like she was dying hit her.
The attack lasted 30 minutes, but fear of it returning kept her up all night.
"Unnie...... What do I do?"
Hyun Jumi confessed everything to her trusted senior, Park Seseon.
And three days later, she came down to Busan.
"Ahaha, but I'm fine now! No attacks since that day. I was debating whether to come......"
"Of course you should!"
I gave the head-scratching Hyun Jumi a piece of my mind.
Not just about misusing medicine, but her overly casual attitude toward her own health.
A panic disorder patient with no anticipatory anxiety? How could it be this absent?
Most panic patients suffer more from the fear of when the next attack will hit than the attacks themselves, which subside in tens of minutes.
But she thought her sunny personality made it impossible, so her illness awareness was dim.
"Just to check, you're not here for dieting, right?"
"Dieting aside, I hoped the panic symptoms could improve too. I wanted comprehensive counseling!"
That was a relief.
"I searched clinics after hearing from Seseon unnie, and saw an article by a doctor from Sowon General Hospital. It seemed like they handle mental issues well."
"......A doctor's article?"
No one calls a formal MOU piece an "article."
Sowon General Hospital? Only one person came to mind. Park Younggil.
What had he written?
I opened the internet and searched our clinic's name.
One piece in a general newspaper unrelated to medicine caught my eye.
"Yes! Thanks to you, Director, the doctor's mom's heart palpitations got better! It sounded similar to mine, so I'm simmering some gardenia and beans too!"
And before I could even read it, Hyun Jumi's words made me clutch my neck.
Whenever ingredients are revealed, there's always someone who pulls this stunt!
Truly innocent—and headache-inducing—patient.