Damn Hunter Life Chapter 81
* * *
A few days ago, on the day the illusion gate raid ended.
Sa Ye-ho hummed “la-la-la” as he opened the door to Woo Sae-geon’s office.
“Hyung, Ye-ho’s here…”
And then he gasped at the dark aura emanating from the desk.
Hyung looks like he’s in a shitty mood.
But having already opened the door, he couldn’t just close it and leave. Sa Ye-ho slunk in and sat obediently on the sofa.
Of course, Sa Ye-ho was sharp enough to guess what had gotten Woo Sae-geon’s temper running so deep underground…
“You—I told you to keep track of Gyeon Gang-hyeon’s every move.”
However, he hadn’t expected the man to come straight for his throat as if he’d been waiting for this moment.
In this moment of crisis, Sa Ye-ho tried his best to look pitiful by rounding his naturally sharp eyes as much as possible and making his voice sound cute.
“Hiiing. Gang-hyeon bounces around here and there so much… I had no idea he’d suddenly rush off to run gates like that.”
But his opponent was merciless.
“You should have known.”
Cold eyes without a trace of mercy glared at Sa Ye-ho as if they could kill him.
Sa Ye-ho, who had straightened his expression to look proper, suddenly nodded as if he understood.
“Right. I should have known. …He must have followed Ja Hyeong-woo.”
Woo Sae-geon’s sharp-edged eyes immediately turned in another direction. Phew… is this going to pass? Sa Ye-ho was secretly letting out a sigh of relief while glancing at Woo Sae-geon out of the corner of his eye when—
Bzzzz. Sa Ye-ho’s phone on the table vibrated. The name “Kang Rat-hyeon” appeared on the screen.
‘Fuck—’
Sa Ye-ho hurriedly tried to cover it with his hand, but Woo Sae-geon’s eyes moved faster.
‘He saw the text. Ah, fuck, Sae-geon hyung’s eyesight is annoyingly good…’
The vibration continued. He tried to play dumb and pretend it was someone else’s phone, but Woo Sae-geon gestured with his chin.
Sa Ye-ho reluctantly answered the call in front of him.
“Hi…”
[“Is someone next to you?”]
It can be heard. Gang-hyeon’s voice, all the way to Woo Sae-geon at the desk.
Woo Sae-geon rested his chin on his hand at the desk, watching indifferently as if to see what he would do.
“Nope. I’m alone?”
A dizzy feeling he’d never experienced even in front of monsters. Sa Ye-ho’s back became damp with sweat.
[“What’s Woo Sae-geon’s TMI today.”]
…Sae-geon hyung is in a fucking terrible mood right now. And it’s because of you.
Sa Ye-ho instinctively sensed it.
Now is not the time to act nonchalant. Acting shameless is as easy as breathing for me, but right now I need to throw all that away.
I need to make a proper appeal that I’m reading hyung’s mood by rolling my eyes around with all kinds of servile attitudes. That’s the only way I’ll survive.
“…Sae-geon hyung doesn’t like pizza. He threw away everything that came out for lunch today.”
But there was no way Gang-hyeon would obediently hang up and save Sa Ye-ho.
[“Attack him with pizza? Not that kind of useless stuff—don’t you have something useful? Like a weakness.”]
“Hey, hey, are you saying that outright? Stop asking about it. Do you really like Sae-geon hyung?”
His attempt to get him to hang up quickly by joking around backfired.
An incredible stream of curses poured out of Sa Ye-ho’s phone at breakneck speed without pause.
[“You crazy bastard, fuck, want to fight? I hate even the fucking sight of Woo Sae-geon and seeing that bastard fall is my life’s wish, and saying that shit twice means you just want to fight, so apologize properly while I’m giving you a chance.”]
“Ah, ah, sorry, I got it, hanging up. I’m taking a shit right now so call me later.”
Since it was already royally fucked and couldn’t get any worse, Sa Ye-ho hung up as urgently as possible.
Only silence and Sa Ye-ho’s cold sweat remained in the room. A sigh of “Life…” naturally escaped him. Sa Ye-ho endured the quiet reality check choking his throat, and as soon as his eyes met Woo Sae-geon’s emotionless gaze, he flopped down on the sofa.
What remained at the end was lamentation.
“Why am I stuck between you and Gang-hyeon dealing with this bullshit!”
Woo Sae-geon switched from resting his chin on his knuckles to his palm. The shadows cast on his face tilted diagonally.
“Do you like Gang-hyeon?”
Sa Ye-ho lay down with his legs up and made an exaggerated sniffling sound.
“You know what, he’s the only bastard whose code matches mine. He did have some stupid blunders, but it’s not like he got drunk and hit someone. He didn’t drink and drive either.”
His playful attitude gradually melted away.
On his face, now devoid of laughter, only snake-like quietly slithering eye movements remained.
“…I don’t know either. Looking at Gang-hyeon now, he doesn’t look like the bastard who was just drinking and getting wasted a few months ago. I should have met Gang-hyeon back then. I’m good at reading people.”
Woo Sae-geon turned his head, not refuting Sa Ye-ho’s self-praise.
“No, wait. Back then I was too busy following hyung around to have time to look at other kids…”
* * *
A broadcasting company building in South Korea.
<The Hero> had filmed up to episode 8, and episode 6 had been released recently.
And the PD and writers on the team handling this program were feeling a career crisis.
‘I don’t want to work…’
The pervasive lethargy drew the same cry from their souls.
‘It’s not fun!’
This was all because the program they were handling this time—a program dealing with successors—was different from other broadcasts they’d done before.
<The Hero> was not entertaining.
The first reason for this was an internal factor. The problem with the cast members.
After the first broadcast, main PD Hong Jeong-hyeok hung up his call with talk show host Bae Eun-soo and immediately called someone else. It was Sa Ye-ho, who could be called the program’s honorary host.
[“Yes~”]
Since Successor Sa Ye-ho’s former profession was what it was, and he himself was more interested in broadcasting than combat, he was someone they could at least expect cooperation from.
In short, he was the only cast member Hong Jeong-hyeok could convey broadcasting direction to.
It was difficult for the main PD to even make one phone call to the broadcast cast.
“Successor Ye-ho, could you somehow get Successor Woo Sae-geon to give even a few short answers to questions…”
An experienced PD had to make a tearful request to a young cast member. Hunters called successors were that kind of existence in Korea.
[“Hmm~ You think Sae-geon hyung listens to what I say.”]
A relaxed, sly voice came back.
[“Who said that? I feel really good hearing that. Hahahaha.”]
Then he hung up abruptly.
Only Hong Jeong-hyeok was left behind, getting angry belatedly and downing his coffee in one shot.
‘So are you saying you’ll ask Successor Woo Sae-geon or not?!’
It was obvious. Though he brushed it off with laughter, Successor Sa Ye-ho had not the slightest intention of persuading Woo Sae-geon to cooperate with the broadcast. He probably wouldn’t even pass along that Hong Jeong-hyeok had said such a thing. What a cunning snake…
But this Sa Ye-ho was an angel among the cast.
Hong Jeong-hyeok thought of the other successors one by one. Their problems too.
First, quite a number of them didn’t know how to look at the camera. Especially young ones like Yang Pyo and Hae Mi-jun.
They were so awkward that the PDs still couldn’t shake the feeling they’d just brought regular people and sat them down, making them suffer.
They should learn if they don’t know, but they’re too busy with training and whatnot, with no room for improvement at all.
Moreover, that wasn’t all. Some didn’t even realize this was a broadcast! In the PD’s eyes, these people were beyond lacking as cast members—they made his stomach churn every time he saw them.
This case applied to the taciturn personalities—Woo Sae-geon and Ja Hyeong-woo were examples.
Not understanding what variety shows were about at all, with no effort to understand, they were just ruining the screen with sullen faces that clearly showed their inner thoughts of ‘I hate even sitting here.’
Especially Woo Sae-geon—if he were a celebrity, they would have forced him to drop out midway. He had that severe of an attitude problem.
[“Hyung, will I come out okay…?”]
[“Yes, you’re fine. That’s enough.”]
There was a time when they thought maybe Jin Seol-woon, who had idol experience, might lead well. But at some point he seemed to have compromised appropriately. Then he chose to just make sure he alone looked good on screen. Hong Jeong-hyeok gave up hope.
Nevertheless, the reason this broadcast continued to be maintained was…
Because people treated even that as a characteristic of successors and made it into content. As a result, the ratings and profits of this broadcast were among the top for domestic public broadcasting. Since the broadcast was doing well, PD Hong Jeong-hyeok even lost things to complain about.
The successors themselves didn’t care. Even viewers didn’t demand broadcast sense from them. The dominant public opinion was ‘Those guys should train and fight, what’s the point of being good at talk shows.’
In this world where everyone was satisfied, only the PDs and writers who had to demonstrate professional spirit felt lonely.
This alone was painful, but there was one more factor tormenting them. The second factor making <The Hero> difficult for them came from outside.
[Narration: However, a body that won’t listen]
“They said to cut this out because it got caught in review too?”
Almost all the wordplay subtitles the writers created were filtered out. Only subtitles that literally transcribed what the cast said were getting through.
[Reason for rejection: Phrases with nuances evaluating successors’ physical abilities cannot be included.]
Besides that, the review guidelines were strict. Broadcasting anyone giving anyone else a hard time was prohibited, subtitles that could create taking sides were prohibited, even if the cast were just joking with each other, subtitle expressions emphasizing teasing tones were not allowed…
“Should we all just quit…”
The dejected writers held their heads. The tearful comment “Do we even need writers if it’s going to be like this?” was a bonus.
Even if inappropriate comments went out, it wasn’t the successors but the PD who got criticized. For ruining the heroes’ image.
There were rumors that government officials were subtly putting in words to the broadcasting company’s executives about this program.
Hong Jeong-hyeok wanted to cry. He regretted agreeing to take on this program in the first place. Without editing, there was less work to do, but too much to think about.
====
‘The kids are cute but the broadcast is boring’
‘Let’s just watch shorts’
====
‘People are cutting up the videos and adding exactly the edits we wanted anyway!’
As a PD, he couldn’t be like this. He’d rather be cursed at for ‘devil’s editing’ than hear that he wasn’t doing anything…
While feeling deep skepticism, Hong Jeong-hyeok encountered the proposal for episode 9 that they would film next, which detailed newly changing situations.
New successors Won Ha-ri and Gyeon Gang-hyeon had joined <The Hero>.
‘This time it’s even a cast member with a scandal…’
Until then, Hong Jeong-hyeok had given up all expectations.
At least until he saw Gang-hyeon’s first recording.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
