Chapter 40: Can You Stand This?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 40: Can You Stand This?
Two sons, aged nineteen and eighteen.
Han Ji-woo was deeply dissatisfied, wondering if they had truly taken her warning to heart.
“Don’t you dare touch it. This isn’t a work you two can handle. I’ll be watching you.”
“Yes, Mother…”
“I understand.”
The youngest was still a child, so he hadn’t been summoned to this meeting.
Only then did Han Ji-woo break into a bright smile, standing up to hug and pat her two sons on the back.
“My sons, you know Mother trusts you, right?”
She would have to keep a close eye on them, but she considered this just another part of parenting. It was a child’s habit to fiddle with their parents’ belongings and knock them over.
I’ll just have to put it somewhere they can never reach.
*
“Yu-jin, Yu-jin, can I sleep over at your place tonight?”
“Suddenly?”
“I just… I don’t want to say goodbye while I’m in such a good mood. Please?”
“Well, fine. Let’s do that.”
“You know that acting all cold while giving in to everything is exactly how you lead people on, right?”
“Just go home.”
One way or another, I ended up bringing Jang Ji-hye to our humble apartment, which still had a massive mortgage left on it.
As we passed through the entrance, I caught a glimpse of her eyes; she couldn’t hide her shock.
The moment we stepped into my room, she asked urgently, “Is this really your room?”
“Yeah. Is there a problem?”
“No, it’s just…”
“I guess it’s a bit smaller than the bathroom attached to your room, huh?”
“No, no, it’s not that bad…”
“This is what a twenty-four-pyeong apartment looks like.”
“No, really, I didn’t mean it like that…”
The reaction of someone who had lived their entire life in a detached house with a garden in Cheongdam-dong was quite cute.
Still, a house this size was the most luxurious palace I’d ever lived in across all my past lives.
“You take the bed. I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No, no! I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“Forget it. You’re the guest.”
I used my strength and authority to shut down her protests, and then my younger brother called out from outside.
“Sis, Sis! The people who drove you here brought up a ton of stuff.”
“Huh? They haven’t left yet?”
“I think you need to come out and see.”
When I went out to the living room, it was filled with orange paper boxes.
“What is all this?”
“Whoa, Yu-jin. I’ve never seen this many Hermès boxes stacked up before.”
The escort secretary, who had been in the passenger seat of the limousine, bowed politely.
“These are gifts from the Curator. She noticed you looking at them earlier and purchased them, so she would be grateful if you would accept them with a kind heart.”
I was just dazed.
Only my brother and Jang Ji-hye were excited.
“Wow, Yu-jin. Hurry up and try this on. It’ll look damn good on you.”
“I don’t wear women’s clothes like that.”
“My sister never wears women’s clothes except for her school uniform top. Weird, right?”
“Then how on earth did she wear the Yeon Si-ho costume?”
“I forced myself because it was work. Why?”
When I told Jang Ji-hye to pick one, she looked startled. I gave her a gentle nudge.
“Jang Ji-hye, you’ve worked hard lately. I didn’t buy it with my own money, but anyway, take something if you like it. Honestly, you could take it all, but…”
“No, no. I’m really okay.”
She refused adamantly, so I had to coax and threaten her until she finally accepted a watch.
“But the Curator bought these for you to use…”
“Since she gave them to me, I can do whatever I want with them now.”
I tried to give some to my mom too, but her hands trembled as she flatly refused.
I’d prefer Nike sneakers, though.
I was waiting for the day my dad would return to the country, as we eventually had to move into the house my grandfather bought for us.
*
I went to the filming set after a long time. It was because of a group call from PD Jang Hyun-soo.
“Sis!”
“Unnie!”
“Hey, hey. Did you two grow this much in the short time I didn’t see you? I won’t even be able to hug you anymore.”
“Liar! You never hugged us even once!”
“Boys are supposed to be raised tough.”
The two child actors were happy to see me.
“You became a total star just by showing your face for a few seconds, Yu-jin. Congratulations.”
Park Seong-gu, the veteran action actor I’d had the most sword fights with, offered his congratulations.
“I didn’t know I’d get this much hate as soon as I debuted. Yu-jin, what do I do now?”
The male lead, Kang Seok-won, who died with me in the show, started with a joke and a smile.
“I heard you’re about to die of happiness because of all the CF offers pouring in. Why the acting?”
“Come to think of it, Yu-jin, you must have received a ton of CF offers too.”
“None at all.”
“What? How does that make sense?”
Everyone thought I was lying and looked baffled, so I kindly told them the truth.
“I don’t have an agency.”
“Ah…”
“Still, people usually find a way to get a number and make an offer.”
Just then, PD Jang Hyun-soo clapped his hands to change the atmosphere.
“Alright, alright, it’s been a while. Doesn’t it feel great to gather like this after the work became a huge hit and we’re preparing for a spin-off? I’m stoked too.”
Everyone responded with light laughter.
“Actually, we’re not doing anything today. I just called you all here to see your faces.”
“Huh? I thought we were starting the spin-off filming today.”
“How can we start when nothing is ready? To be honest, Netscreen kept begging me to at least pretend we started filming, so I set this up.”
“What? Netscreen? Why?”
“I guess they thought pretending to start filming was the only way to suppress the over-invested fans who are threatening to shoot people.”
The reason was somewhat funny, but also desperate. It was a fact that the CEO of Netscreen had actually been shot.
“If we’re not filming, what are we doing from now on?”
“Think of it as a meet-and-greet. I’ve prepared plenty of alcohol, meat, and giveaways.”
“Whoa! PD-nim, you’re the best!”
“We got some very, very strong sponsorships. It’s all thanks to our Lady Elf Sword Spirit.”
I tried to turn around and slip away without hesitation, but Jang Ji-hye caught me.
“I’ll apologize on behalf of my dad! I’m sorry!”
“I’m just going to get my power bank.”
*
A party disguised as a meet-and-greet broke out.
Amidst the alcohol, meat, singing, and dancing, I enjoyed watching the fierce competition for the giveaways.
My brother also entered the fray and proudly won the latest flagship model of the Baekhyun Phone.
“I won this for you, Sis. Take it.”
“Forget it, you use it. If I change phones, I have to redo all the settings from scratch, and it’s a pain.”
That was the reason I’d been using a budget Baekhyun Phone for four years. Redoing settings was too much work.
Kim Yu-jung, the child actor who was munching on the meat I’d grilled, asked, “Unnie, why do you use a Baekhyun Phone instead of an Apple Phone? Everyone around me uses Apple Phones.”
Curator Han Ji-woo said she poured in the sponsorships, right?
Recalling the mountain of orange Hermès boxes in my living room, I squeezed out a comment that was as considerate of the sponsor as possible.
“The Baekhyun Phone is great. The after-sales service is excellent. You’ll know if you ever go to get an Apple Phone repaired. You can’t tell if you’re the customer or if the employee is the customer. They act like they’re kings.”
“Then I’m going to use a Baekhyun Phone from now on too!”
“Sure, take this.”
I handed the prize my brother had won to the child actor, Kim Yu-jung.
“Oh? Breaking news about the Netscreen CEO! It says he reconciled with the shooter?”
“What? What does that mean?”
Everyone was confused by the shout. Wondering what kind of nonsense this was, I quickly searched for web articles.
[Shot Netscreen CEO Forgives Perpetrator, Asks for Leniency]
[Likely to End with a Fine and Probation]
[Considered an Impulsive Crime; Victim’s Forgiveness Taken into Account…]
[Netscreen CEO: “Actually, I was taunting them quite a bit. I did something to get shot. Meanwhile, since he’s a veteran, he aimed precisely at a spot that wouldn’t kill me… Anyway, Korean war heroes are amazing.”]
“…”
“…”
My head spun as I saw a two-shot of the CEO smiling brightly with his arm around the released Korean-American Texas rancher.
Beside me, Writer Jung Yoon-ah nodded seriously.
“Truly amazing Americans. This isn’t even surprising anymore.”
[Rancher: “Do I regret shooting him? Thanks to that, I got to see the Elf’s happy days, so why would I regret it? Even if I went back to that moment…”
CEO: “Hey, hey, bro! If you talk like that, the prosecutor will take you back in, saying there’s a risk of recidivism! Please, listen to my lawyer!”]
[Viewers who were suffering from collective depression at the news that the Hwan’s Torch spin-off had begun filming are now…]
Jang Ji-hye, covering her mouth, rolled her eyes toward me.
“I guess not just anyone can be a CEO.”
“But I think PD Jang would be the same.”
“My dad… probably wouldn’t go that far… right?”
“Jang Ji-hye, even you don’t sound sure.”
Everyone stopped their singing and dancing to frantically check this absurd, almost fabricated-looking breaking news.
The atmosphere shifted as everyone began to feel a bit of the pressure of responsibility.
“We… have to work hard on the spin-off filming, right?”
“Suddenly I feel guilty for playing around. Everyone probably thinks we’re filming right now.”
Writer Jung Yoon-ah looked around with a chic expression and settled the agitated atmosphere.
“Just enjoy it. The script isn’t even out yet anyway.”
*
In the middle of the exciting party, PD Jang Hyun-soo called me out with a serious face. My brother tried to follow, but I laid him out with a back-smash and went alone.
“Yu-jin, you still don’t have an agency, right? When are you going to get one?”
“Pardon? Is there a problem?”
“If we were only filming Hwan’s Torch, there wouldn’t be any problem, but a very good offer came in through me.”
“A good offer? Through you, PD-nim?”
“Since they have no way to contact you, they occasionally come through me. I’ve been cutting off and ignoring the pathetic ones, but I felt I had to tell you about this one.”
Writer Jung Yoon-ah, who was standing nearby, added a word.
“Since Ji-hye is acting as her stylist, people might think the PD is handling things to introduce her to an agency. So, what is this good offer?”
“I didn’t want to get involved in Yu-jin’s activities outside of acting if I could help it, but this is an offer that would make me wake up screaming in the middle of the night if I let it slip by…”
“So, is it Louis Vuitton? Dior? Prada? Which one?”
“…How did you know, Writer Jung?”
I was wondering what they were talking about.
“I can’t think of anything else that would make PD Jang call Yu-jin over instead of just ignoring it. A luxury brand ambassador offer.”
“Damn, Writer Jung knows me better than my own wife.”
PD Jang Hyun-soo chuckled and handed me a business card. It looked expensive even at a glance.
“It’s from Louis Vuitton. The amount is 500 million won a year, for three years. Campaigns, commercials, and promotions are, of course, separate per item. I’ve delivered it, okay? I’m backing out now.”
“You’re the one who dragged her into the acting world, so you should take responsibility until the end. You’re just going to throw this at her and back out? That’s cold.”
“If I try to do anything more here, it’s overkill. What, should I put down the megaphone and start an agency?”
As I took the business card in a daze, PD Jang Hyun-soo returned to the party as if a weight had been lifted.
I was only planning to do the spin-off…
“Honey, you have the look of someone who was planning to quit acting after the spin-off and is now wondering what to do, don’t you?”
“Gasp, did you plant a wiretap in my head?”
“It was just a guess, but I was right.”
Jung Yoon-ah crossed her arms and scanned me up and down with narrowed eyes.
“What are you planning to do? Tell me what you think first.”
“It’s probably impossible to just take the sweet money and dodge the responsibility, right?”
“What a novel way to say you’re not interested. That’s fresh. Can I use that in a script?”
Jung Yoon-ah gave a short laugh and patted my shoulder encouragingly.
“There’s no rush at all, so take your time thinking. The interest is just starting to bite, so be patient. If you’re curious about anything, ask me anytime.”
“Thank you.”
“But keep this in mind. If you accept that, you have to wear their products from head to toe whenever you’re in public—airports, award ceremonies, anywhere.”
Then Jung Yoon-ah showed me some clothes on her phone…
Aaaargh! How could I wear clothes like this? I won’t, I can’t.
Is… is this the abyss of fashion?
They weren’t just simple women’s clothes; they were covered in some kind of insane designs.
Why do rich people walk around wearing things like this?
*
A secretary stood stiffly before Curator Han Ji-woo, who was calmly sipping tea.
Setting her cup down slowly, Han Ji-woo spoke.
“Director Kim, can you stand this?”
“I am lacking, so I do not understand what you mean.”
“They say they’re going to wrap the Mona Lisa in a Dongdaemun wrapping cloth. Can you stand that?”
“Now I understand.”
Han Ji-woo let out a hollow laugh.
“I am truly speechless.”