SDM 31
by Soraii“I was worried because you’re a rookie, but you did the best. It’s been a while since I’ve shot something so openly cute, I really enjoyed it.”
“Yes…”
Openly cute… He was worried about how the commercial would turn out later, but he could just not look for it. The real concern was that his family, who had placed a 120-inch smart TV in the living room of their family home, would undoubtedly play this video on it.
“Good work, young master.”
“…It wasn’t much.”
Honestly, it was hard work. Hearing that he would record the narration right away in the recording studio next door, Seong-woon took the script and moved in that direction.
“Can’t I change clothes?”
“Ah, we’re still following with the behind-the-scenes camera. You can change after the recording.”
No wonder the ENG camera kept following. Seong-woon glanced at the camera and quickly erased it from his senses.
On the stairs going up to the recording studio, Seong-woon encountered Baek Sang-hyun.
“Hello.”
He was going to just greet him and pass by, but Baek Sang-hyun changed direction and started following Seong-woon. Feeling a bit uncomfortable, he moved to the side and rolled his eyes as if to say “go ahead first,” but Baek Sang-hyun just stopped in that spot.
“…Are you going to the recording studio too, sunbae-nim?”
“No.”
“Then where are you going?”
“Why?”
“…Are you following me?”
“Maybe.”
What’s he saying?
For a moment, Seong-woon almost raised the corner of his mouth sarcastically, but remembering the camera following behind, he smiled brightly instead. He’d have to ask them to edit out that conversation just now. Then he decided to go on his way whether Baek Sang-hyun followed or not.
“How many selfies have you taken to make those expressions so naturally?”
“I wonder.”
“Did you practice?”
“It’s my first commercial, so of course, I practised.”
Seong-woon, who answered lightly as if conscious of the camera but also as if not, sat on the sofa when told to wait a moment as the previous recording session wasn’t finished yet, and Baek Sang-hyun took the seat right next to him.
“…Don’t you have a shoot, sunbae-nim?”
“I’m two turns after.”
“I see…”
Seong-woon, who had answered awkwardly, just looked down at his script. This time too, there were quite a few lines that required some resistance to embarrassment, but fortunately, he didn’t have to make those overly cute expressions like before.
“Who taught you acting?”
“No one.”
“Then what did you watch a lot?”
“……”
“You’re so similar to someone I know.”
When Seong-woon quickly turned his head to look at him, Sang-hyun whispered in his ear.
“I know that Ryu Chae-yoon likes me, so why does the person that comes through in your acting seem different?”
* * *
Wait… how does he know that Ryu Chae-yoon liked Baek Sang-hyun? Did he confess or something?
Seong-woon now felt that he really needed to know what had happened between Baek Sang-hyun and Ryu Chae-yoon.
Seong-woon swallowed dryly once and, with a face that showed no sign of bewilderment, asked back as if he didn’t understand.
“…I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Your acting is so similar to someone as if it came from the same mold. No, rather than the acting… it’s when you come back to reality after acting that I get the strongest sense of déjà vu.”
“Ah, I see…”
Whether he knew something and was talking about it, or just guessing, Seong-woon wasn’t sure… He just smiled with an ambiguous expression. Sang-hyun, who had been staring at Seong-woon for a while, tapped the tip of Seong-woon’s chin.
“Isn’t it like that even now?”
“…What is?”
“Shouldn’t you be flustered or annoyed when someone picks on you with such nonsense?”
“…I’m sure you have a reason for saying that, sunbae-nim. It doesn’t seem like you’re saying anything particularly bad either.”
Seong-woon met the gaze that was piercing his pupils head-on. Without particularly avoiding eye contact or turning his head away, he stared back as if in a staring contest until Sang-hyun looked away first.
“Chae-yoon-ssi, let’s go record right away.”
“Okay.”
Entering the recording studio and putting on the headphones, Seong-woon gestured with his eyes as if to ask Sang-hyun if he wasn’t going to leave, but he completely ignored it. Ah, how annoying. He briefly considered whether he should do the narration in a different tone than usual, but since this man had heard his voice before, it seemed pointless to change it now.
“Please read through it once first.”
At this request without much expectation, Seong-woon quickly scanned the script with his eyes before opening his mouth. Without particularly paying attention to Sang-hyun, he acted out the script in his original voice and tone.
“Oh…”
At the slightly surprised reaction of the engineer and director, Seong-woon just twitched his eyebrows. He glanced at Sang-hyun too, but that was all. Is he suggesting that Jin Seong-woon is showing through Ryu Chae-yoon’s acting? Does Baek Sang-hyun even know Jin Seong-woon that well to begin with?
Carefully managing his expression to not let his tangled thoughts show, Seong-woon finished the narration recording and came out of the booth. By then, Baek Sang-hyun seemed to have left the recording studio.
“Your pronunciation is very clear. Your vocalization is good too.”
“Yes, thank you.”
Smoothly accepting the compliment, Seong-woon headed to the waiting room to change clothes. It seemed a cycle had passed while he was recording, as Baek Sang-hyun was now standing in the middle of the set.
“Would you like to watch?”
“……”
Well, let’s see how good he is. Nodding his head, Seong-woon took off his hat, handed it to the stylist, and quietly walked over to stand behind the director. Peeking at the storyboard, he saw that Sang-hyun didn’t really have to act. He just had to walk in sync with the camera as it moved quickly along the complexly set-up rails. Sang-hyun’s face, wearing a maxi-length trench coat, had much more shading than usual. Were they going for an autumn feel? If so, they succeeded.
“Sang-hyun-ssi. Just look straight ahead and walk in sync with the camera movement.”
“Okay.”
They made Ryu Chae-yoon do all sorts of cute acts, but they only gave Baek Sang-hyun these cool roles? Did that guy (his brother) just approve this concept? No, the ad agency probably came up with the storyboard, right? Seong-woon couldn’t imagine that his brother had personally approved the storyboard and was probably excited at the thought of seeing Chae-yoon’s cute acts.
Sang-hyun slightly lifted one side of his trench coat, lightly put his hand in his pants pocket, and walked steadily. The surroundings were filled with silence. Only the sound of the camera following Sang-hyun’s movements as it ran along the rails, and the flashing of the lights could be heard.
Perhaps because he was so tall, Sang-hyun had already reached the end after just a few steps. The silence was maintained until he completely stopped and turned around.
“Shall we go again?”
“…Yes, yes! Let’s do one more. This time we’ll use the Ronin.”
After seeing a person with large equipment enter the set, Seong-woon quickly turned around. Well, he does it well. It’s not particularly difficult acting, but… it’s the kind of acting that can only be done by someone who can already picture in their mind how the final product will turn out.
“I think you do it better, young master.”
“What… the acting?”
“Yes.”
“…These days, hyung, your doting is no less than the family’s.”
“It’s true though. There’s someone it reminds me of… I’ll tell you if I remember.”
After changing clothes in the waiting room and coming out, Hyeong-seok sent a few photos to his phone. There were photos of him acting and recording, and in one of them, he was even blowing a kiss.
“I thought it would get a good response if posted on SNS.”
Seong-woon looked at the refreshing expression that he could hardly believe was his own with a sour face, then reluctantly opened the SNS app.
“…Hyung, you caught the moment well.”
“Ah, I really struggled to take that. I took so many burst shots.”
“Is it okay to post it?”
“Yes. I’ve confirmed it.”
Selecting three photos to upload, Seong-woon wrote a brief comment.
(Photo) (Photo) (Photo)
cherryR I worked hard today.
Closing the SNS app, Seong-woon got in the car in the parking lot and after confirming that no one was around, he casually asked Hyeong-seok.
“Hyung. I need to know what happened with Baek Sang-hyun.”
“Pardon?”
“Something that definitely happened, even if they didn’t meet.”
“That… there’s no need for you to know about that, young master…”
“Baek Sang-hyun asked me if I like him. It’s already a problem how he knows that, but his tone was really strange.”
There was a hint of contempt mixed in when he said ‘like’. As if… he had been asked for sponsorship or something. As Seong-woon stared at him for a long time, Hyeong-seok let out a long sigh, rubbed his face several times, and then reluctantly answered.
“…I’ll tell you when we get home.”
“Okay. Don’t hide anything.”
* * *
Seong-woon and Hyeong-seok sat facing each other with a teapot of hot caffeine-free herbal tea in front of them. Contrary to his promise to tell everything when they got home, Hyeong-seok couldn’t easily open his mouth, and Seong-woon had already emptied his small teacup twice.
“Hyung. I’m about to burst from all this water.”
“Haah… I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about if you just tell me.”
Hyeong-seok hesitated, his lips moving without sound. What on earth happened that makes it so difficult for him to speak? Did they really ask for something like physical favors?
“A few days before you collapsed…”
He started with his eyes tightly shut, but Hyeong-seok closed his mouth again. Seong-woon, who had been quietly staring at him, responded as if to urge him on.
“A few days before I collapsed, and then?”
“…Do you really have to hear this?”
“Yes.”
“If you’re reluctant to clash with actor Baek Sang-hyun, I can find another way…”
“I’ll decide after hearing what happened.”
Hitting Seong-woon’s solid defense wall, Hyeong-seok took another long moment before finally starting his story.
“A few days before you collapsed, you said you wanted to meet actor Baek Sang-hyun privately.”
This much was as expected. Seong-woon had guessed that the ‘greed’ written in the diary he found in that ‘fan room’ recently was probably the same as this request.
“So I was going to talk to President Ryu of RBS, but you said you wanted to keep it a secret from your family.”
“Yes…”
She wouldn’t have wanted to tell her family. These overprotective family members wouldn’t ignore Ryu Chae-yoon’s request, but they would certainly have overreacted.
“So I connected with Ryu Shin’s secretarial office. They have a separate organization there that handles confidential requests from family members.”
“Really? What kind of confidential requests?”
“Things like buying artwork before auctions without others knowing, or purchasing villas. Sometimes they even arrange meetings with people.”
Wasn’t it handed over to the right people then? This doubt of Seong-woon was shattered by Hyeong-seok’s next words. His expression gradually distorted.
“…You didn’t say why you wanted to meet him. So the secretarial office seems to have guessed the purpose… They thought you wanted to sexually possess actor Baek Sang-hyun.”
“…What did you say?”
“What they said was, if you had wanted to meet Baek Sang-hyun casually, you would have gone through President Ryu Young-joo or other routes, but since you requested through them, they thought your intention must have been different…”
Seong-woon held his rapidly heating forehead. Wow, how could things get so twisted? So they thought Ryu Chae-yoon had asked Baek Sang-hyun for sponsorship… Is that what Baek Sang-hyun believes?
“There’s no way Baek Sang-hyun would have agreed to that.”
“Yes, so… there seems to have been some blackmail as well.”
“…Blackmail?”
“They said Baek Sang-hyun’s father’s business is related to Ryu Shin Electronics’ factory in the US.”
Now at a loss for words, Seong-woon covered his face with both hands. He couldn’t tell if his face was hot from embarrassment or anger.
“I never imagined things would turn out like this either. When the secretarial office sent the meeting place as a hotel, I thought it was because he was an actor and wanted a place where privacy was guaranteed.”
“…And then?”
“A problem arose with you before the appointed time, so that matter fizzled out. Although I later grasped the situation and made it all as if it never happened… but since we couldn’t erase Baek Sang-hyun’s memory, he probably doesn’t have a good impression of you…”