Chapter 88
Chapter 88
What’s Next?
“Is it working?”
[LIVE] Korea University Festival with SeonuSeonwoo
After confirming that the viewer count was rapidly climbing and the chat was buzzing, Park Seon-woo stood in front of the camera.
“Hello, everyone!”
The cameraman filming him was a fellow student in his department and a Korea University attendee, lured in by the pay Park Seon-woo was offering.
“Just so you know, we’ll be visiting the Department of Business Administration, which you’re all waiting for, at the very end.”
- Aww, what the heck?
- Cya
- I’ll come back later
- Oppa, just go to the business department first
- No one’s here because they’re curious about the Korea University festival lol
- Raise your hand if you’re here for Yu Yeon-seo!
- Me
- Me me
As Park Seon-woo feigned a pout, someone in the membership chat encouraged him, saying, ‘I’m here to see our Seon-woo.’ In truth, the viewers were enjoying his reaction and teasing him even more.
“Whoa, whoa! Wait, wait! Don’t leave! Look, Seven Jewel is performing over there!”
Seven female idols were dancing and singing energetically on stage. However, the viewers didn’t stop teasing Park Seon-woo.
- Not really curious about Seven Jewel
- Seon-woo, show us our boy
- When are you going to the business department?
- Seon-woo, have you lost your touch?
The main event should always come last. Park Seon-woo staunchly ignored them and wandered around the Korea University campus, introducing the festival.
“Alright! Finally! The moment you’ve all been waiting for! The man himself!”
- Oh, finally
- Let’s go quick
- go go go go go
Park Seon-woo started walking. They were still far from their destination, but a large crowd had already gathered. And this crowd was heading in one direction.
“Yeon-seo said his department was running a food stall… Surely all these people aren’t heading there, right?”
“I think they are,” the cameraman, his classmate, replied.
Park Seon-woo glanced around. As a MyTuber with a million subscribers, he often ran into viewers, and he had a feeling there would be at least one here.
“Hello, are you perhaps heading to the business department’s food stall?” he asked, sidling up to a person who started tapping their feet excitedly the moment their eyes met.
“Yes! I’m a fan!”
“Thank you. Are all these people…?”
“Probably, don’t you think?”
“Wow…”
After taking a picture with the fan who had answered him, Park Seon-woo followed the crowd and arrived at the business department’s food stall.
- Wow, look at that crowd
- Holy crap
“Yeon-seo is always in the middle of a crowd.”
Yu Yeon-seo was sitting on a chair in front of the stall. While everyone else sat on backless plastic stools, the chair he occupied had a backrest.
As if accustomed to the people surrounding him and taking pictures, Yeon-seo casually held a picket sign standing on the ground with one hand to keep it from falling, while looking at his phone with the other.
“Hyung!”
Park Seon-woo, who had given up trying to weave through the dense crowd, waved his hand high in the air. Yu Yeon-seo looked up. As if word had spread, the number of viewers on Park Seon-woo’s live stream skyrocketed. The chat flew by so fast it was impossible to read.
“You’re here?”
“Whoa, what’s going on? Why are there so many people here?”
“Because I’m here.”
Park Seon-woo was speechless at his cousin’s shameless grin. He couldn’t argue with that. Besides, the moment Yu Yeon-seo smiled, a collective gasp of admiration rippled through the crowd.
It seemed like even more people had gathered than for the Seven Jewel performance earlier. Of course, the key difference was that while the audience before had been mostly men, here it was predominantly women.
- Wow, his face
- So handsome
- Wow
- Holy crap
Yu Yeon-seo stood up and gestured inside with his head.
“Come on in. I saved a spot for you.”
Park Seon-woo naturally went inside, but the cameraman filming him hesitated for a moment. He felt guilty that they were getting special treatment while so many people were waiting. In fact, many in the waiting crowd were glaring at them with hostile eyes.
‘He must be used to this.’
The cameraman smiled bitterly, suddenly reminded of the gap between himself and the friend he thought he knew so well.
“So, don’t you have anything to do?”
“They said I could just sit there quietly. And help with serving sometimes.”
“Ah…”
Of course people would flock here if this guy was in charge of serving and attracting customers… As expected of the business department, they knew exactly how to utilize the celebrity Yu Yeon-seo.
- Destroyer of local businesses hahaha
- Wow, this is too much
- They crossed a line;;
- I’m a Korea University student running another stall and the business department is being too unfair. No one is coming to our stallㅠㅠ
- This is a case for the Fair Trade Commission for real
- What are we supposed to do if a major corporation shows upㄷㄷ
The complaints were pouring in. When Yu Yeon-seo, who had been effortlessly attracting customers just by sitting outside, came inside, all eyes in the stall turned to him. Everyone fell silent, their gazes fixed on his face, and for a moment, a hush fell over the stall.
His influence is truly incredible, Park Seon-woo chuckled.
“Hyung, did a customer arrive?”
“My cousin.”
“Wow, hello.”
The person who greeted them was Gu Hyo-shin, one of the students who had received a million won from Yu Yeon-seo during a group project. He was also one of the victors in the fierce competition to be in the same group as Yu Yeon-seo again.
“I’m live right now, is it okay if you’re on camera?”
“I don’t mind. What are the viewers saying?”
“They’re asking if the business department is run by Satan.”
Other business students who overheard this burst out laughing.
“Honestly, it would be a waste to have him cooking in the kitchen, right? Right?”
“Everyone came here to see Yeon-seo, so we have to meet their expectations.”
Park Seon-woo stared blankly at the warm atmosphere. What is this? They seem super close?
The pre-accident Yu Yeon-seo would never have come to a place like this, and those around him would have been busy avoiding him, wary of getting caught in the crossfire.
“Oh… this is unexpected.”
Park Seon-woo muttered quietly. Was he hit by a personality-altering truck, not an amnesia truck? He slapped his own head. It was a life-or-death situation; it was disrespectful to think so lightly of it.
“What’s with him all of a sudden?”
“He’s like that sometimes,” the cameraman answered instead.
Yu Yeon-seo was attending school by taking one semester on and one semester off each year. In reality, he attended classes sporadically due to filming, but he made up for it with alternative assignments. Still, he wasn’t an outsider. People constantly flocked to him, so he naturally made friends with underclassmen.
“What do you want to eat?”
Park Seon-woo watched his cousin, who was now naturally taking his order, with a sense of wonder. To think that the Yu Yeon-seo would participate in a university festival and blend in with people like this… It was a novel sight.
“…Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Oh, it’s just fascinating. I’ll have the green onion pancake! What about you?”
After placing an order for his cameraman as well, Park Seon-woo declared that he didn’t need to be on camera anymore. His ruthless friend immediately swung the camera around to film Yu Yeon-seo’s back as he entered the kitchen.
- Seon-woo’s channel has been stolenㅠㅠ
- His face is amazing
- Wow
- A broadcast where only the guest is on screen lol
- What’s with his body proportions?
- He’s just wearing a white shirt and black pants but he looks insane hahaha
The chat was still in the midst of praising Yu Yeon-seo’s looks.
“So what have you been up to, hyung? Aren’t you busy?”
“I’m taking a break after finishing filming.”
“Oh, I see your hair is short again. That’s a shame… it suited you well.”
“It was a hassle.”
Yu Yeon-seo had removed the hair extensions he got for his role as Lee Tae-o in ‘People Who Lack’ and returned to his short hair.
“So you’re just going to keep resting? Then come on my channel again.”
“I don’t have time for that.”
“Huh? Why? Don’t you usually take a few months off?”
Park Seon-woo’s eyes widened. Yu Yeon-seo ignored the question, took a photo with a student who asked, and then returned.
“I’m not resting for long, just this week. I need to start on my next project soon.”
“This guy looks like he’d hate working, but he really works like an ox, doesn’t he?” Park Seon-woo said to the camera. The chat sped up.
- Next project??? Did he say next project????
- What’s his next role?
- Seon-woo, ask him to spoil the next project for us!
More than half the comments were from excited members of Yu Yeon-seo’s fan club, Love Letter, who had heard the news, but Park Seon-woo didn’t mind. The reason his subscriber count had exploded was because Yu Yeon-seo had appeared as a guest.
“So, what’s the next project?”
Yu Yeon-seo just smiled faintly and didn’t answer.
“Yu Yeon-seo, Yu Yeon-seo…”
Director Choi Sang-hoon of ‘Demon,’ the highly anticipated drama for the second half of 2020, hung up the phone with the production company and fell into thought.
Yu Yeon-seo had confirmed his appearance in the exorcism drama that he had previously deemed refreshing. In ‘Demon,’ Yu Yeon-seo was slated to play the role of an exorcist priest dispatched from the Vatican to Korea to solve a spiritual incident occurring within a pseudo-religious cult.
“Why the long face?”
“It’s bringing back some trauma.”
“Trauma?”
“Yu Yeon-seo.”
“Ah…”
Director Choi Sang-hoon gulped down the iced coffee his assistant director had brought him. He had directed ‘Doll,’ the drama where Yu Yeon-seo and Lee Seon-ja played mother and son.
“Do you have any idea how much I suffered during ‘Doll’?”
“That’s because you were too ambitious back then, Director.”
“That’s…”
“You have nothing to say, do you?”
Back when he was a rookie director who had just shed his newcomer status, he had reacted differently from other directors upon hearing that Yu Yeon-seo was interested in his drama.
[Yu Yeon-seo? Tell him we’ll do it, right now!]
First, there was the joy of securing a much-needed production budget. Then, there was the ambition to completely transform the notoriously bad actor with his own directing.
An actor’s performance can be hidden or highlighted depending on the director’s guidance. There were directors who received high praise for skillfully managing idol-turned-actors with no experience or rookies who weren’t good at acting, and Choi Sang-hoon, aiming to emulate them, had been fired up with the passion to change the terrible actor Yu Yeon-seo himself.
[Yeon-seo, how about you try it like this in this scene?]
[Yeon-seo… not like that…]
[Cut! One moment, Yeon-seo. A little more pathos here… Let me show you first.]
But no matter how he directed him, Yu Yeon-seo’s terrible acting didn’t improve. If anything, it became even weirder. As the director’s demands grew, Yu Yeon-seo got annoyed.
[Director, can’t we just do it like this? Why are you, the director, the one with the acting bug, not the actor?]
[Even the writer isn’t saying anything, so why are you stepping in, Director? It’s annoying.]
[Ugh, I said I don’t want to! This is good enough, why are we shooting again? You must have a lot of time on your hands.]
In films, investors hold a lot of sway, but in dramas, the writer’s influence is stronger. Of course, this only applied to famous writers. The writer for ‘Doll’ was a rookie at the time, so she didn’t have much say. She rarely even came to the set, busy writing the script for the next episode.
Moreover, it wasn’t a pre-produced drama, so the filming schedule was tight. If they got a decent shot, they had to move on to the next scene immediately, so in the end, he had to reluctantly back down.
[To think I failed…!]
‘Doll’ was immortalized on MyTube for Yu Yeon-seo’s all-time worst performance. Choi Sang-hoon’s high pride was shattered, and since then, he had lived with a newfound sense of humility.
“Honestly, I was relieved. Back then, you were a bit… of a jerk, Director.”
“Hey.”
“But you’re not going to refuse, are you?”
“Refuse? Who would dare refuse Yu Yeon-seo? We should be rolling out the red carpet for the meeting.”
Personal feelings were one thing, but Yu Yeon-seo, with his now-competent acting skills, was the hottest commodity in the casting market. He was so popular that even Jin Su-ho’s fame seemed to have waned slightly in comparison.
“How’s the reaction to the press release?”
“It’s insane. It’s the combination of Yu Yeon-seo and a priest. The visuals are killer.”
The assistant director made a throat-slitting gesture.
“Fans are already making things like this.”
He showed Choi Sang-hoon his phone screen. It was a composite photo of Yu Yeon-seo’s face on a priest’s cassock.
“…It does suit him.”
“He looks holy.”
Yu Yeon-seo and holiness… considering his time on ‘Doll,’ it was a rather unfitting word, but thanks to his surreal good looks, it worked perfectly.
Director Choi Sang-hoon reviewed the synopsis of the drama he was about to direct. ‘Demon’ had three main characters. With one settled, he had to choose the remaining two leads carefully.
“Then the problem is the other actors…”
“Ah, that shouldn’t be a problem either.”
“Why?”
“They say they’re getting a flood of calls now that Yu Yeon-seo is on board.”
“…Huh.”
In the past, everyone would have been trying to avoid him, but now, the situation had completely changed.