Chae Woo-Jin looked cluelessly at Choi Yi-Geon in anticipation as he blinked. Looking at Woo-Jin’s face, Choi Yi-Geon could not bear to tell him that they were going to eat pork ribs.
As he was grilling the meat, Woo-Jin told them that he had eaten beef while he was in the military, but had never had the chance to eat beef after being discharged. Little by little, meat began to pile up on the plate in front of him.
During the second round [1], they went to a Korean bar, and Woo-Jin looked very excited. He had mentioned that he and his friends were both not the greatest fans of alcohol, and so most of the time, they would hang out at cafes. He also said that when he was a freshman in college, he rarely went to drink with his classmates because he was busy with part-time tutoring and a bunch of other things.
“Are you a college student?”
“Yes, I am currently on a leave of absence as I had to complete my military service. I plan to return to school in my second semester.”
“Which school?”
“Korea University.” [2]
“...You’re smart.”
As Korea University was one of the best colleges in Korea, everyone was momentarily caught off guard. It was not that there weren’t any celebrities who went to Korea University, but it was true that if one went to that school, they would get a huge advantage. Everybody was surprised by his academic proficiency. However, Woo-Jin pulled a long face after he took a few sips of beer.
“I am not good at academics.”
They wanted to refute, but after seeing the depressed look on Woo-Jin’s face, they decided to keep their mouths shut and wait for him to continue speaking.
“I have a few classmates who went to Ivy League schools in America. One of my relatives had passed the bar exam and is now a prosecutor, and another relative, who is the same age as me, had also passed the LEET and is now at law school.”
Woo-Jin did not bother to mention that his grades were better than his friends who went to Ivy League schools. It didn’t matter anyway, since it was a world where the ultimate outcome was everything. He glossed over his cousins Yi-Yeon and Hee-Yeon’s identities and kept it vague by referring to them as his relatives. Even when he was drunk, he did not want to seem like he was bragging about his connections, and thus referred to his cousins as “relatives” to keep his distance from them.
“I feel so sorry towards my mother…”
After drinking a bottle of beer, Woo-Jin became slightly tipsy.. In order to comfort Woo-Jin, who mentally digressed from being a capable student of Korea University to being a son who caused distress to his parents for not being able to excel academically, they continued drinking. After drinking some more, Woo-Jin’s mood changed once more.
“Wow~! So this is chimaek. It’s just as delicious as the rumors make it out to be.. However, I heard that eating a lot of chimaek can cause gout. What would I do if I got it? I heard that it hurts a lot.” [3]
Woo-Jin, tempted into eating chimaek, managed to overcome his fear of gout. His eyes sparkled as he set the mood of the drinking party, continuously smiling and talking to people. Whenever he saw an empty glass, he would sidle up to them and pour them a drink, telling them to consider their health and drink moderately. Despite saying that, whenever he saw an empty glass, he would steadily pour drinks into it.
At some point, somebody told him that they did not want a man to pour any drinks for them. When he heard this, Woo-Jin shook his head.
“I was told that women should not pour drinks for anyone,” said Woo-Jin.
“Who taught you such a weird custom?” they asked.
“When I was little, my maternal grandfather told me that when I start to learn drinking etiquette, I should not let women pour any drinks for me. It’s not right!”
“In that case, let me pour myself a drink,” one female staff said
“It’s kind of sad for you to pour yourself a drink though,” Woo-Jin retorted.
Because Woo-Jin was shaking his head in such a pitiful manner, the staff ultimately gave in and drank the glass he poured her. Even though Woo-Jin was polite, some of the female staff acted extremely aloof, which made it hard to approach them easily. However, after Woo-Jin poured them a few drinks and acted cute in front of them, they started to grow fond of him. Since such drinking behavior lightened the mood, people secretly welcomed it, and the atmosphere became better.
The get-together peaked in the third round of the night, at karaoke. When Woo-Jin tried to sing Yim Jae-Beom’s Confession [4], everybody, especially Choi Yi-Geon, tried to stop him. Based on their past experiences, whenever someone sang Yim Jae-Beom’s song at karaoke, it rarely ended well, and they pleaded with him not to ruin the night, saying that everything had been going well so far.
However, to their surprise, it went much better than they had expected. Woo-Jin sang so well that even the people who were in favor of the age-old rule which dictated that only Yim Jae-Beom himself could sing his own songs, were listening to Woo-Jin with their mouths wide open.
After that, their karaoke session turned into a Chae Woo-Jin concert. He took their song requests and sang everything without hesitation, even songs by girl groups that had been suggested as a joke. That was not all - he had even copied the dances from the same girl group that he had seen in the military seemingly without difficulty. In fact, he danced and sang so perfectly that it made the audience wonder what kind of army allowed them to do nothing else but chase girl groups.
However, he did not know anything about the girl groups or songs that had come out after he had been discharged, so he quietly slipped the microphone to the person next to him. When somebody criticized him for that, Woo-Jin replied with a bright smile.
“Girl idol groups are the dreams and hopes of soldiers."
“So you don’t like them now?”
“I am not a soldier anymore. I have found my dreams and hopes elsewhere.”
He was very blatant about his affection that had lasted for a limited time period. It was as if to say that they were going their separate ways after their business relationship was over, but he would not forget them because of their past ties. As if he was trying to prove that, Woo-Jin went back to the stage without hesitation as a familiar melody was heard. He shamelessly did a cute dance that was once popular without any hesitation, which required one to put both fists on their cheeks. Woo-Jin happily complied with any and all singing or dance routines, as if to show that not everybody was cut out to train to be an idol. It had been a long time since he had a place to sing to his heart’s content, and there was no reason for him to save face.
From the lows to the highs, his clear voice moved freely through his vocal range. His perfect singing skills captured people’s hearts, making them request more songs. Despite getting many song requests from those who wanted to hear him sing, Woo-Jin readily agreed regardless, with a bright smile on his face. That was more than enough to ease their boundaries, allowing him to win them over. Even when people whipped out cameras and recorded him, he did not hesitate to be filmed.
As such, everybody assumed that Woo-Jin was the youngest child in his family without him having to say anything. They thought that Chae Woo-Jin was an atmospheric person who grew up loved.
‘Perhaps an eldest son who’s like the youngest child?’
Ultimately, after coming to a compromise on his own, Choi Yi-Geon glanced at Woo-Jin and asked, “You don’t remember what happened yesterday, right?”
“I did drink a lot, but fortunately, I remember everything, including all the titles of the songs I sang at karaoke yesterday,” Woo-Jin humbly bragged about how he had never blacked out before after drinking alcohol.
“In that case, you must have kicked the covers when you woke up this morning,” said Choi Yi-Geon. [5]
If Chae Woo-Jin did not feel embarrassed recalling all those memories, Choi Yi-Geon was ready to affirm that he was a shameless man.
“I did not kick the covers, but I did get some stretching in,” replied Woo-Jin.
Choi Yi-Geon, who had finally realized that Chae Woo-Jin was shameless AND confident, grunted and went to the director’s chair. Even though his face was rough and looked lackluster, his outfit was on par with a model’s, what with his suit and shiny shoes.
Even though Woo-Jin did not have any scenes to shoot today, he was still observing others act on set. Studying the script alone was insufficient for him, as it could not capture the flow of the scenes, as well as the constantly changing emotions between the characters. Even Woo-Jin deviated away from the script with regards to emotion, so he paid great attention to how the other actors portrayed their characters. In that way, he would then be able to understand the emotions between the characters and act accordingly.
During a short break in shooting, a voice suddenly sounded out next to Woo-Jin.
“Mr. Woo-Jin, you said you’re 23, right?”
Song Jae-Hee, the female lead, approached Woo-Jin amicably. In order to keep a distance from Kwon Sung-Min, she had been distancing herself from the other actors and production crew. Eventually, Song Jae-Hee had finally caved in to boredom and approached Woo-Jin first. It also helped that she was more comfortable talking to him because she was three years older than Woo-Jin.
“Please speak casually to me. I am younger than you and also your junior in this field,” said Woo-Jin.
“Shall I do that?”
Even though Song Jae-Hee was only 26, if one added her career as a child actress, she had 15 years of experience under her belt. She immediately dropped any honorifics and began speaking casually to Woo-Jin.
“I only just got the chance to say this, but do you know how frustrated I was when I first saw you?” asked Song Jae-Hee.
“Why?”
“You play an older guy in the movie, but you are clearly younger, in terms of age and appearance. How ridiculous would the audience think when they see us addressing you respectfully throughout the movie? I bet you don’t know that as I’m shooting this movie, I’ve been taking care of my skin more than ever, and that I’ve been obsessing over these reflectors, right?”
At that point, Woo-Jin realized that there were a lot of reflectors laying around on the movie set. Since Woo-Jin didn’t have any other movie sets to compare to apart from Death Hill’s, he didn’t know what was considered ‘normal’, especially since Deah Hill was mainly shot in the dark. The reflector had mainly been used by the female lead, if at all. Because of that, he hadn’t cared much about the presence of an excessive amount of reflectors. He had also speculated that it might have been Choi Yi-Geon’s attempt to pursue visual beauty.
“I specifically asked the director for them. I might even peak in visual appearance with this movie. However, I found out some time ago that Actor Kwon had also requested for reflectors,” continued Song Jae-Hee.
Song Jae-Hee addressed Kwon Sung-Min by the ambiguous title of Actor Kwon because he was older than her, but career-wise, he was way below her in seniority.
“Don’t I look old? My younger sister has been making fun of me every day for being a complete uncle after being discharged from the military,” said Woo-Jin.
“That might be true to young kids. After going to the military, men who looked like children would suddenly look more mature and grown up. The younger people call it looking old, but at our age, all the young people are just youngsters. Well, of course, you give off an aura of maturity for your age, but your face itself is the absolute definition of youth.”
The beautiful actress in her 20s played around and pretended to be depressed, saying that time could not be beaten. However, Woo-Jin was the one who was actually depressed.
“Even so, I still look like a toad,” said Woo-Jin.
It was true that age gave one a competitive advantage over others, but first of all, having good looks and acting skills were the most important prerequisites one needed to survive in the entertainment industry. One thing for sure was that Woo-Jin was very insecure about his looks.
“A toad? You?” asked Song Jae-Hee.
“Yes. Someone said that I look like a toad.”
After meeting with the casting director Kim Sang-Jin, Woo-Jin went to look up the chairman of G&C on the Internet. When he saw the chairman and realized how much he himself resembled a toad, Woo-Jin fell into despair. It was not just his image but also his face that resembled a toad. Because of this, it reminded him of a time when his mother asked him out of concern if he could make it as a celebrity with his face, as celebrities had to be good-looking. Realizing that his mother might have a point, he was now in a deep swamp of misunderstanding.
Moreover, as he recalled his previous lives, Woo-Jin’s confidence plummeted even further.
In his past lives, he remembered that there were many human beings and different races who were very beautiful. Additionally, Woo-Jin also had appearances that were on par with those beings in a few of his past lives, which might have been why he was not confident with his current face. As a result, he had to think deeply about whether or not he could succeed as an actor with his face. In the end, he gave up on his appearance and did his best to achieve his dream in the hope of being recognized as a talented actor, and eventually achieving the peak of his field as an extremely skilled actor.
The biased remark of someone who was blinded by love, saying how a famous actor looked like her son, inadvertently fertilized the seeds of one person’s dream.
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1. When Koreans go out for the night, they go for “rounds”, each round involving a different activity, such as a different food or karaoke. Each round usually involves some form of alcohol. <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">
2. Korea University, also known as Koryeo University (고려대학교), is part of SKY, which is an acronym used to refer to the three most prestigious universities in South Korea. <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">
3. Chimaek is chicken and beer. <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">
4. Yim Jae-Beom, or 임재범, is a famous Korean singer. His song, 고해 (Confession in English) is famous for being difficult to sing. <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">
5. Kicking the covers, or 이불킥, is an idiom in Korean for ‘feeling embarrassed’ <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">
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