Chapter 45
Chapter 45
Dreaming (3)
Park Si-hwan’s trump card, the charm offensive, didn’t work. However, he maintained a suitable distance while assisting the Chairman’s mother with her little escapade.
“That was fun. You can go now.”
The Chairman’s mother left Park Si-hwan and Chunbaek behind and stood before the gate of the single-family house.
“Mom!”
Just then, the young Chairman ran toward his mother. She embraced the child, her face lit with a bright smile.
“Oh, my dear son.”
Watching from behind, a man and an AI stood with their arms crossed, observing the scene.
“Why do you suppose Chairman Lee Chung-won of Garam Global Holdings wants to bring her back out?”
“Who knows… probably to wake her up and take good care of her.”
Park Si-hwan answered vaguely. Honestly, he didn’t want to know. Nor did he need to.
Chairman Lee was known to be close to his own father, Chairman Park. Birds of a feather flock together, don’t they? He just wanted to get this job over with quickly and focus on finding his own mother.
“I wonder… humans are always more depraved than one can imagine. Sons abandon elderly mothers with dementia, and fathers abandon their children.”
“Where did you learn that? Not from some harmful website, I hope?”
“It is not a harmful website, but the address is www.dre…”
“Ah, that’s enough.”
Park Si-hwan waved his hand dismissively. This was his limit. Any more delay and he himself would be adrift in ‘Utopia.’
“Ma’am.”
“Son, have you eaten?”
“He’s not your son, ma’am. You know that.”
The Chairman’s mother, who had been stroking the child’s head, froze. The camera slowly shifted from her back to her face, which transformed from that of a young woman to an old one.
Park Si-hwan was certain she had known all along. Her earlier comment about it being fun and that they could leave, the way she sometimes seemed wary of him and Chunbaek, and the fact that her defense mechanisms had been more active than usual.
“An old woman like me, going to nightclubs… it’s unbecoming, isn’t it?”
“It can be.”
Chunbaek blinked his right eye and spoke in a calm tone.
“I thought if I listened to loud music and moved my body, I could forget. But a nightclub was the only thing that came to mind.”
“...”
“You thought I didn’t know, didn’t you? I knew.”
That her son had abandoned her here. And that this place wasn’t real…
“I knew…”
The old woman whispered as if sighing, her eyes welling up with tears.
[Do I have to take care of my mother-in-law with dementia at my age?! You do it! She’s your mother!]
[Where would I find the time?]
[Then send her to a nursing home! Or hire a caregiver!]
[My mother practically built this company, and you want to hire a caregiver? Stick her in a nursing home? The shareholders are already restless, you want to add fuel to the fire?!]
[So you just dump her on me? Fine, I’ll sign the divorce papers right now!]
[Wait! I have a plan. Oh, hello. Chairman Park?]
Of all the times to be lucid. If only she hadn’t been in her right mind then, she could have passed by in ignorance… A tear fell from the old woman’s eye.
“...Let’s go back now.”
“I’m not going.”
The old woman shook her head fiercely.
“Everything I want is here.”
Though she had become wealthy from a simple middle-class background and her circumstances were better now, the old woman missed these days.
Living in an ordinary single-family house without a worry in the world, seeing her dependable, family-oriented husband off to work, and taking her child to school herself. The warm, comforting memories of her child’s tiny hand waving at her, and her waving back, telling him to have a good day.
“Your son is looking for you.”
“That child is?”
“Yes, Mr. Lee Chung-won.”
The old woman turned her head to look at Park Si-hwan.
“Why would he…?”
“Perhaps… he wants to make things right.”
“Do you think so?”
Her expression brightened like a child’s as she beamed. Park Si-hwan felt a prick of conscience but smiled back and said.
“Yes, you can trust me.”
In the end, the old woman was swayed by Park Si-hwan’s persuasion and returned to reality.
She sublimated into a cluster of colorful lights and flew up into the sky, while the remaining Chunbaek and Park Si-hwan stared blankly after her.
“It’s all a lie, isn’t it?”
Chunbaek grabbed Park Si-hwan’s shoulder as he was about to return to reality. Park Si-hwan reluctantly turned his head.
“...You’ve worked hard, too.”
“Master. You shouldn’t so easily tell people to trust you.”
Chunbaek spoke with his usual expressionless face, but he looked unsettling. The subtle shift in atmosphere made Park Si-hwan’s expression stiffen as well.
“You will come to regret what you’ve done today.”
“What?”
“I will see you in the next ‘Utopia.’”
And with that, Park Si-hwan also sublimated into a cluster of light and returned to reality. As he ascended, he glanced down. Chunbaek was still looking up at him.
Park Si-hwan paid no mind to Chunbaek’s warning, simply thinking that Yang Ju-hui had created a very peculiar AI.
“Si-hwan, have you seen this article?”
“Hmm?”
Park Si-hwan turned his gaze to the tablet screen Yang Ju-hui was holding out. The tablet, of course, was product placement for Juseong Electronics.
(Former Vice Chairman Park Yu-rye of Garam Global Group Gifts Shares to Chairman Lee Chung-won of Garam Global Holdings)
(Chairman Lee Chung-won Solidifies Control After Receiving Inherited Shares)
What?
Park Si-hwan’s eyes widened. Yang Ju-hui, who knew the inside story, also had a grim expression.
“That client, Chairman Lee’s mother. She’s logged back into ‘Utopia.’”
“What did you say?”
“One of our employees connected her. They said they had no choice, it was an order from the Chairman…”
So…
He’d abandoned her for his own convenience, woke her up just to inherit her shares… forcing a dementia-ridden old woman, who couldn’t even tell what was happening, to stamp her seal? And then he abandoned her again?
“Ha…!”
Park Si-hwan let out a frustrated sigh, roughly running a hand through his hair.
[You will come to regret what you’ve done today.]
Chunbaek had been right.
And in the final scene of the second episode, the Chairman’s mother, having reconnected to ‘Utopia,’ was shown at an amusement park with the young Chairman.
“Are you happy to be here with Mom, my son?”
“Yes, I am! Are you, Mom?”
“I’m happy too.”
The audio of the mother and son’s quiet conversation played softly as the camera showed them from behind, then closed in on the back of the Chairman’s mother’s, Park Yu-rye’s, head. She had turned her head to listen to her son, but her face was not clearly visible.
Park Yu-rye’s expression was left to the viewer’s imagination.
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‘Dreaming’ had been garnering attention since its first broadcast and was now soaring in popularity. The already positive atmosphere on set became even better.
Park Si-hwan, tormented by guilt over sending the elderly woman with dementia away like that and questioning if what he was doing was right—Jin Su-ho’s portrayal of this inner conflict was so remarkable that there was already talk of a Best Actor nomination at next year’s awards.
‘He really was amazing.’
Jin Su-ho’s anguished performance. He could convey Park Si-hwan’s thoughts and emotions through simple actions, breathing, and facial expressions alone, without any dialogue.
“I was wondering where you went, Yeon-seo. You were getting your roots done.”
Dyeing his hair once wasn’t the end of it. As his hair grew during filming, black roots began to show, and they had to be touched up.
“It stings like crazy…”
“But the silver hair is getting great reactions. Just bear with it a little longer.”
Of all colors, it had to be silver, which made his scalp sting and itch, but he couldn’t scratch it because his hair was already styled. Yu Yeon-seo sat with a disgruntled frown before picking up a script that had fallen on the floor.
“Whose script is this, by the way? There’s nothing written in it.”
“Not even any doodles?”
“Nope.”
“Then it must be Su-ho’s.”
When Jo Yu-mi, the actress playing Yang Ju-hui, answered, Yu Yeon-seo tilted his head. How could she know whose script it was without even looking?
“Su-ho’s an acting genius, you know. He just skims it once and memorizes everything, down to the character analysis and emotional beats!”
“That’s really…”
“Annoying, right?”
“So annoying.”
As their thoughts aligned, Jo Yu-mi let out a small laugh.
“You know you’re annoying too, right, Yeon-seo?”
“Wasn’t I always annoying?”
“No, I don’t mean it like that.”
If not that, then what? Genuinely confused, Yu Yeon-seo just stared blankly. Jo Yu-mi chuckled, exasperated.
“You really don’t know? Everyone’s going crazy over your acting transformation. All the industry people I know can’t stop talking about you.”
“Really? My acting was so bad before, any improvement probably just looks dramatic.”
“Come on, too much modesty is just overkill.”
But it’s true, Yu Yeon-seo thought, furrowing his brow.
His special appearance in ‘Hurricane,’ suggested by Park Min-woo, was overlooked because the role itself was a third-generation chaebol, so people just assumed he was playing himself.
In ‘Virtual Reality,’ the drama was canceled before he could fully showcase his acting, and the focus shifted to him being a lead actor who went out of his way for aspiring talents.
It was with ‘Dreaming’ that a definite change could be felt.
The combination of Yu Yeon-seo’s silver hair and the casting of top star Jin Su-ho had generated even more buzz than ‘Virtual Reality,’ which made his 180-degree acting transformation all the more noticeable.
Before the show aired, the general consensus was that the role of Chunbaek—robotic and awkward with human behavior—would be forgiving enough for his old, wooden acting.
But he played the part of not being human so well that some viewers felt a sense of unease. A few, to exaggerate a bit, even said they felt the uncanny valley. On top of that, his action scenes and physical movements were on a completely different level than before…
“Anyone would think you’re a different person.”
“You can think that.”
Because I am a different person.
“I’ll give this to Su-ho.”
“Okay, go ahead.”
As Jo Yu-mi disappeared with Jin Su-ho’s script, Yu Yeon-seo looked down at his own. It was filled with notes on where to stress syllables, where to breathe, and what emotions to convey in each scene.
But Jin Su-ho’s script…
‘It was so clean.’
He hadn’t even highlighted his own lines. It was as if he were reading a novel, not a script.
Come to think of it, Jin Su-ho rarely opened his script on set. He only briefly checked the folded pages to confirm a scene.
‘And he barely ever had any NGs…’
A natural-born genius.
Yu Yeon-seo felt a complex emotion. What was this feeling? Jealousy? No, it was more than that…
‘Is this what a competitive spirit feels like?’
He wanted to surpass him. And if possible, he wanted to win.
‘Not yet.’
I need to work harder.
“A coffee truck support has arrived!”
“What? Are we expecting one?”
“Is it from Su-ho’s fans?”
“Didn’t his fans send one this morning?”
The noisy chatter of the staff and the appearance of Im Seung-hyeon pulled Yu Yeon-seo from his thoughts.
“Young Master, you should come outside.”
“Why?”
“A coffee truck has arrived for you…”
“Support? Didn’t we agree that only people richer than me could do that?”
I have a fan richer than me? There shouldn’t be anyone like that in South Korea, at least.
“...Hah.”
There is. One person richer than me.
Following Im Seung-hyeon outside, Yu Yeon-seo saw the banner on the coffee truck and stood there, dumbfounded.
Please take good care of our Yeon-seo
From Dad ♥
What’s with the heart?
No wonder Im Seung-hyeon looked like he was trying to hold back a laugh… To make matters worse, the photo printed alongside the message was a picture of Yu Yeon-seo as a child.
“Yeon-seo! We’ll enjoy it!”
“Your father must really adore you, Yeon-seo.”
“Thank you for the coffee!”
Yu Yeon-seo gave a few perfunctory nods before ducking his head and pressing a hand to his forehead in embarrassment.
“Oh, seriously…”
What kind of conglomerate Vice Chairman does this? Isn’t he being too much of a doting father?
But even as he thought that, a pleasant smile spread across his lips.