Just Five Minutes
Han Yu-na: "Just five minutes. That's all."
Ten minutes earlier.
Han-seok stepped out of the car in front of Han Yu-na's residence. His phone rang. The caller ID read Han Dong-jin. Han-seok answered, and profanity came pouring through the speaker before he could say a word.
"Hey, you son of a bitch! What the hell do you think you're doing? What's your angle! You said you were a drama producer. Was the building electrical work a lie too? Ha Kyeong-sik's suicide — that had something to do with you, didn't it!"
"This call is being recorded."
[...]
Han Dong-jin stayed silent for a moment, then his voice softened.
"...Han-seok. What do you want, huh? You tell me the truth about what's going on, and then I can actually do something for you."
"Why should I?"
"Isn't this going too far? And why drag innocent Yu-na into it? If you lay a hand on her, I will really kill you!"
"Don't get the wrong idea. All I want from your daughter is for her to know your past — to know what kind of person you really are. That's all. Remember what you did to Jin-ah? Your daughter deserves to know too."
"...What kind of lie are you trying to spin now? Han-seok. Is that persecution delusion of yours flaring up again?"
A remark clearly calculated with the recording in mind.
"Fine. Keep living like that. All I have to do is show the evidence. Your daughter will find out exactly what you did. That's the whole extent of what I want."
"That's all? Don't lie to me, you fucking bastard. You threatened Yu-na. Said you'd expose her on the internet."
"Not exposure — a legitimate accusation. Not a threat — advance notice. If your daughter takes damage because of the garbage you pulled, that's not my fault, it's yours from the very start — does that thought just never occur to you? And a delusion, you say? Then it should be perfectly fine if I post it all online, shouldn't it? Huh?"
[...]
"To hell with your delusions. You got scared the moment I said I'm holding evidence, didn't you."
"What evidence? What evidence could you possibly have?"
"None. Your parents made sure it was all destroyed. But I did just record the sound of you taking a very sudden interest in that evidence."
Realizing his mistake, Han Dong-jin hurriedly changed course.
"...You— you told Yu-na to propose a solution! Why are you blackmailing my daughter, you fucking son of a bitch!"
"I think the story's getting a little distorted. 'Propose a solution' meant that since I'd be working with your daughter and things had turned awkward, she was asking me what she should do about it. Seems to me the delusion is on your end."
"*Haa*... What do you want, Han-seok? I'll give you anything. Just please make sure no harm comes to Yu-na. ...I'm begging you here. Okay?"
"Dong-jin. Are you stupid? How does a bank branch manager have a brain that turns this slowly?"
"Fuck, what—"
"This is a drama I'm producing with my own very expensive money. Would I let the lead actress get caught up in a scandal? Try using your head."
[...]
"Now. Let me lay it out for you. All I need is for your daughter to know that you were trash. You quit every public activity and live like a dead mouse. Don't breathe so much as a word to the others, either. They're all being watched too. The moment anything seems off, it goes straight onto the internet."
"Really? That's all it takes?"
Han Dong-jin let himself believe this might just blow over. Even if Han-seok told Yu-na about the past, he could simply claim the bastard had exaggerated and lied. 'Yu-na will obviously take my side. I'll say I quit broadcasting because this lunatic wouldn't stop hounding me.'
"Fine. I'll quit broadcasting and take down my Tube channel. I'll keep quiet. That works, right?"
"Hang up. Never call me again. I'm blocking this number."
"Looks like you were working out."
Han-seok said, eyeing the mat spread across the living room floor.
"Yes. Please, have a seat."
Han-seok settled onto the sofa. Han Yu-na took the sofa catty-corner to him, crossing her legs with practiced elegance. Her smooth legs went on forever.
"Would you like some tea?"
"I'm quite alright. I'd prefer to get straight to the matter at hand."
Yu-na squared her shoulders, and the aggressive swell of her chest — the kind no man could resist glancing at — thrust forward all the more. She spoke.
"My father's past wrongdoings are not my fault. They're a burden he alone must carry. And yet you, Director, demanded compensation from me. So here is my proposed solution. First, I will hear out whatever it is you wish to ask of me. And if it's within my power, I'll help. Go ahead. Tell me what it is you want."
Yu-na deliberately pretended to check a text on her phone — to lull him into believing she wasn't recording. Beneath the table, taped out of sight, the recorder's red light glowed steadily.
'Go on, then. Say it.'
Han-seok nodded, a disappointed look on his face.
"What I want is for Yu-na to give this drama her very best and make it a success. Naturally, it will be a tremendous opportunity for you as well. That is my request."
Yu-na's eyes went round.
"...I'm sorry?"
Nothing like what she'd imagined — if anything, an almost laughably foolish request. For Yu-na, landing a drama under Director Park Yeon-seong had been a godsend against all odds. If anything, he was the one handing her the chance; bowing to the floor in gratitude would scarcely have been enough.
Han-seok went on.
"And I have to say, hearing what you just said left me a little disappointed."
"..."
"'A father's past wrongs are not the daughter's fault.' Of course, that is perfectly true. What disappointed me was... the unpleasantness I felt at that tone of yours. The tone of someone who seems to have no idea whatsoever what her father's sins actually were. Han Yu-na."
"..."
"Did you ever once ask what Han Dong-jin did?"
"In high school... he... bullied someone... that's..."
The situation was careening far off-script. Both of Yu-na's eyes trembled with unease.
Han-seok spoke in a low voice.
"I had a precious friend. Song Jin-ah. We'd been close since middle school."
Han-seok clutched at his chest as though he couldn't breathe, and took a long, slow breath.
"...A-are you alright?"
"I don't care to relive bad memories either, so I'll keep this brief. Eight of them. Han Dong-jin included. A pack that ran together. Those eight took turns gang-raping Jin-ah."
Han Yu-na covered her mouth with both hands.
"Do you know why they did it?"
"..."
"Because she was close to me. Because it would hurt me."
Yu-na's hands shook uncontrollably.
"That day, Jin-ah became pregnant with one of those eight men's child. After that, all contact ceased. We searched and searched and found nothing. It was as if she had vanished off the face of the earth overnight. All that ever reached us were rumors — she had an abortion, she killed herself, she died in childbirth. Nothing but whispers."
Lee Han-seok took out his phone. He played back the call he'd taken with Han Dong-jin before coming in.
At that moment, Yu-na's head sank low. Her father — keenly aware he was being recorded, scrambling to manufacture excuses on the spot. Then, at the mention of evidence, growing impatient and fishing for details. And at the very end, cowed by the fear of exposure, meekly promising to keep his head down. From that familiar voice, Yu-na grasped the truth.
Han-seok stopped the playback.
"Ever since Jin-ah disappeared, every single night before I sleep, I recite the names of those eight men. Ahn Sung-chul. Jang Min-jun. Kang Jae-hoon. Han Dong-jin. Ban Seok. Lee Jong-man. Choi Won-sung. Jin Hyun-woo."
"..."
"So tell me, Han Yu-na. How does that sound to you?"
"..."
The whites of Lee Han-seok's eyes had burst into red, bloodshot threads.
"Give me one reason — just one — why I shouldn't tear your father apart."
Hot tears spilled down Han Yu-na's cheeks even as the shock of it all crashed over her. And with them came a wave of guilt. She had been sitting there in revealing clothes with a recorder running. And the man called her father suddenly filled her with a revulsion she could barely endure.
When she'd once asked what he had ever done to that man, her father had hemmed and hawed — I just hit him a few times, that's all. Licking his lips with anxious flicks of his tongue. Eyes sliding away from hers. The wrongness she had felt in that moment. If everything Han-seok had just told her were a lie, then this man would have to be acting. And if all of it were fabricated, it was a meticulously engineered operation — built precisely to be believed. Every ounce of genuine emotion was coming through, raw and unfiltered.
Her chest felt tight enough to hurt.
Han-seok spoke.
"Do you know what it is I do for a living?"
"They say... you're a drama producer," Yu-na managed, sniffling.
He shook his head.
"I simply invest, because I have money to invest. People flatter me with the title 'producer' because it pleases them to take my money. Do you know why I have so much of it?"
"...I couldn't say."
"My instincts are extraordinary."
"...I'm sorry?"
"And my instincts are telling me you are going to be a colossal hit in this drama."
"...Thank you. I'll work hard. As for my father's—"
"And."
Han-seok cut her off and drew something from his pocket. A small switch with a single red button.
"My instincts are also telling me this: like father, like daughter."
He pressed the button.
Beep— crackle. Zzzt.
In the silent living room, a burst of static came from beneath the wooden table in front of the sofa. Han-seok's and Yu-na's eyes both turned to the table. Han-seok flipped it clean over.
Crash.
Beneath the overturned table, the taped-down recorder blinked its red light.
Han-seok glared at Yu-na.
"Ah. This. N-no, no. It's not— I, this is. Um..."
Han Yu-na hastily uncrossed her legs, flustered beyond words. Han-seok exhaled a long sigh and rubbed his forehead.
"What am I supposed to do with people like you? How much — and up to where exactly — am I supposed to endure?"
It was the look of a man forcibly choking down his fury. Yu-na felt something drop heavily in her chest.
'This isn't what I wanted.'
She had become human garbage — recording a true victim to his face.
Despairing, Han Yu-na slid down from the sofa and knelt on the floor before Han-seok.
"I didn't understand the situation at all... I just thought I was the one being blackmailed... I'm so sorry. I was wrong. If I had known what you just told me, I would never — never — have recorded anything. Please believe me. I'm sorry."
She bowed her head to the floor. When Han-seok clenched his jaw, the grind of his teeth was audible.
"Dressing yourself in clothes that show off every line of your body, baiting me into making some indecent request, then recording it all so you could turn the tables and do something to me — that was the plan, wasn't it?"
"..."
Han-seok breathed hard through his nose. He sat lost in thought for a moment, then finally spoke.
"I'll make my request again. Listen carefully. Han Yu-na."
It was condescension he had every right to.
Yu-na lifted her head. It was the face of someone prepared to do anything — grant anything within her power.
"Your father. Han Dong-jin."
"I'll cut ties with him. If a man could do what he did, I don't want to call him my father anyway."
"Don't be ridiculous. Keep everything exactly as it is now. Don't let it show — act as if nothing whatsoever happened between you and me."
"...I'm sorry?"
"What matters most in this world to Han Dong-jin — is you."
"..."
"So I'm going to take you."
Yu-na felt her heart plummet.
So in the end, he wanted her body.
'Still... if it has to be a first time, this man beats trash like Sung-min, doesn't he? I even feel a little sorry for him. And he's handsome. What would those muscles feel like under my hands? With a man like this, maybe once, just once, it wouldn't be so... What am I even thinking. Han Yu-na. Get a grip.'
Lee Han-seok spoke.
"The condition is five minutes."
"...I'm sorry?"
"You keep me inside you for five minutes. Accept, and I'll forgive you for the recorder — and the outfit you wore hoping to bait me. And when I take my revenge on Han Dong-jin, I guarantee not a single hair on your head will come to harm."
"You're asking for my body?"
"What I want is the feeling of having taken the thing most precious to your father. It will also serve as proof — proof that you've thrown him away and chosen to stand with me. I won't move at all. You just stay still for five minutes with me inside you."
"..."
"Han Yu-na. You still have a drama to shoot. I want our relationship to be clean. You know as well as I do — that role was made for you."
"Isn't there... another way?"
"No. But if you accept these terms, I will make you a star."
A star.
Yu-na's clear eyes flashed.
'If I become a star, BD200 injections won't even be a question. A life entirely different from this one...!'
With everything she had earned so far, she had managed a single round of BD40 each for her mother and her father. The variety shows had crowned her a filial daughter. And now, suddenly, the 200-million-won BD40 she'd paid for that father — no, for that human piece of trash — felt unbearably, bitterly wasted.
"Once the concert you're preparing wraps up, I'll have that girl group of yours dismantled. You're better off solo anyway. You want to go solo — don't lie to yourself. And you'll act on the side. You have a gift for it. I'll make everything fall into place. You saw enough through your members last time to know I don't lie."
"...You'll really just put it in and stay perfectly still."
"That's right. I won't lay a finger on your body."
"Still — y-you need to use protection."
Yu-na said it with her eyes averted.
"Stay right there. EX69. Don't misunderstand — I originally bought it as a gift for you. In case you ended up sleeping with Fave's Sung-min. That bastard refuses to take contraceptives. It's why Jung Na-ri had an abortion last year."
"I broke up with that piece of garbage."
"Then you dodged a shit-covered bullet."
"So. What's your answer?"
Han Yu-na stole a glance at the recorder still stuck to the overturned table. Its power light was dark. There was no other way out. She rose from her knees.
"Just five minutes. That's all."