#022
Leaving the bewildered Grace behind, Lee Yeonwoo dragged Han Taegu, who was hiding among the staff. He had exploded at an absolutely intolerable outrage.
“What is this? You keep calling people over without saying anything since last time, is it over once filming goes well? And how are we supposed to fit all five people sleeping at our house?”
“That… Yeonwoo-ssi. I’m sorry for not telling you in advance. Since there are five people, we’ve arranged separate accommodations for them, so you don’t need to worry about that.”
‘Is that the problem right now?’
He was furious at Han Taegu, who had kept his mouth shut and not given him a single hint that guests were coming.
“Yeon hyung, stop it. If PD-nim wants to pursue entertainment, surprise appearances are unavoidable.”
So it was a surprise appearance along with a surprise fake house owner. Grace was surprised, and the real house owner was surprised too.
Who exactly was this broadcast for? Ah right, it was for the viewers.
Lee Yeonwoo struck Kim Cheolsu’s back hard as he calmly made coffee and acted as the house owner.
“You’re the same, man. Why are you making coffee from someone else’s house? Do you know how hard it was to get that?”
“It’s just instant coffee, isn’t it?”
Speaking of the coffee Grace was holding, those were the coffee packets that Kang Dojun had brought from Grandma Kyeong-i’s house for him.
“…This is okay to drink, right?”
Grace, a rookie boy group from DH Entertainment, the same agency as Kang Dojun. DH Entertainment had inserted them into Kang Dojun’s variety show to replace a suddenly canceled schedule. They were lucky to have the honor of filming their first variety show with Kang Dojun, but a bewildering situation occurred as soon as they arrived.
Having overheard Lee Yeonwoo’s conversation, they whispered among themselves and discussed whether to drink the coffee or not.
“It’s fine. We can just get more.”
After telling Grace to drink comfortably, Kang Dojun approached Lee Yeonwoo, who was getting agitated.
“Yeonwoo, that’s enough.”
He grabbed Lee Yeonwoo’s shoulders from behind and pulled him toward himself.
When Shin Gihyeon came, Han Taegu had deliberately hidden it for a surprise appearance, but today he felt a bit wronged too. It was a schedule that had been suddenly changed due to pressure from DH Entertainment. Accordingly, today’s schedule of working at Uncle Cheolsu’s side dish shop had also been disrupted, leaving Han Taegu in a difficult position.
Kang Dojun had also received urgent contact through his agency yesterday, so he knew it wasn’t Han Taegu’s fault.
‘I should have told Yeonwoo in advance.’
Seeing Lee Yeonwoo raging, he felt sorry.
Still, if Kim Cheolsu was acting as the house owner, he should have stopped him. How shocked the kid must have been.
He glared fiercely at Han Taegu and said.
“What are you doing in someone else’s house by calling people over when the house owner isn’t even here?”
Finally, proper moral textbook-like words came out in this strange rural village.
However, everyone was too far gone to be reformed by hearing moral textbook words.
‘If it’s entertaining, it’s okay!’
The problem was Han Taegu’s dirty inner thoughts that he couldn’t say in front of Kang Dojun.
The only one reformed by his words was Kim Cheolsu, who was still a high school student. He offered an apology while feeling intimidated.
“Dojun-nim, I’m sorry. I won’t do it again next time. I guess I unconsciously did something strange because of this rural atmosphere.”
‘Something strange…’
There was one thing he realized from Kim Cheolsu’s words.
‘Ah, I was doing it too.’
He recalled the unconscious things he had done, acting on instinctive revenge. Entering Grandma Kyeong-i’s house without permission to get coffee packets, or looking for disinfectant…
When Lee Yeonwoo noticed that Kang Dojun was frowning slightly, he kicked Kim Cheolsu’s shin and said.
“Kim Cheolsu, you’re giving hyung a headache. Hurry up and go home… mmph.”
“Aaaah! Who, who is Cheolsu!”
Kim Cheolsu covered Lee Yeonwoo’s mouth while gauging Grace’s reactions. Earlier, while exchanging greetings and figuring out personal information, he had met a friend his age.
He might not know in the countryside, but he absolutely didn’t want to be called by a textbook-like name like Kim Yeong-hui’s boyfriend to his peers.
‘They didn’t hear, did they?’
“Cheolsu-ssi, the kid is suffocating.”
“Aaah! Dojun-nim. Did, did Sehyeon make Yeonwoo suffocate? I’m sorry.”
Kim Cheolsu, though a bit cringey, described himself in third person, wanting to somehow appeal to people that his name was Kim Sehyeon. Eventually, he released the hand covering the mouth and glanced at Grace, feeling the murmuring.
“Are you okay?”
When Kang Dojun asked worriedly, Lee Yeonwoo stuck out his tongue and grimaced.
“It’s salty.”
“…Did you lick his hand?”
“It just touched by accident.”
“Should I get you water? Let’s rinse your mouth.”
While they were unintentionally having their own world, from Grace’s current perspective, it was no different from experiencing The Truman Show.
With nervous hearts for their first variety show, and filming with actor Kang Dojun no less, the kind house owner they first met wasn’t even the real house owner, and even his name was fake.
They whispered with confident voices.
“Is this a hidden camera?”
“Yeah, seems like it.”
“But there was no mention of that.”
Would the agency execute a hidden camera on rookie like them without any measures? The leader shook his head, saying the agency would never do such experimental thinking.
To somehow understand the situation, they looked for their manager with the desperate feeling of grasping at straws. However, he was currently away following the production crew.
Among them, the 18-year-old youngest member Hanjin, who was the same age as Kim Cheolsu, pointed at Lee Yeonwoo and asked the members.
“Isn’t that person’s hair a wig?”
The dark black hair darker than others, the roughly chopped uneven appearance – at first, his gaze went to the cute appearance and he didn’t notice, but now it looked like a wig.
“Why is he wearing a wig?”
“Because it’s a hidden camera?”
When all members were influenced by the youngest’s words and looked at Lee Yeonwoo, the leader scolded them.
“Didn’t you see actor Shin Gihyeon’s StarStar feed today? That’s his original hair.”
While saying this, the leader also glanced at Lee Yeonwoo. He had been too busy lately to touch his phone. It was fortunate that the manager hyung had shown him Shin Gihyeon’s StarStar feed in advance, otherwise he would have almost mistaken him for someone wearing a wig, a strange house owner, and definitely a hidden camera.
‘So that person was the real house owner.’
“Uh… um, the person wearing the wig is coming toward us.”
“Why are you panicking? We need to greet, greet him.”
“We already did that earlier, do we have to do it again?”
The youngest, who was embarrassed by the cheer, muttered with a gloomy expression.
“Hello! We came to dominate Rural Conquest, who are we~? Your stars! Grace!”
“…Yes, I see.”
Lee Yeonwoo answered, startled and stepping back.
‘These kids are having a hard time making money too.’
Suddenly, compassion washed over him.
“I’m Grace’s leader and eldest, I’m called Jaihan.”
“Nice to meet you. I’m Hail.”
“I’m called Jinhyeong.”
“I’m Biyu! Thank you, please take care of us!”
“I’m Grace’s youngest, Hanjin! Please take care of us.”
Lee Yeonwoo blinked at the game character-like names. Suddenly wanting to play a prank, he offered a greeting.
“I’m Beeslover. Please take care of me.”
Kang Dojun and Kim Cheolsu, who had been listening, looked at Lee Yeonwoo with bewildered expressions.
“Yeon hyung, what nonsense are you talking about again?”
“This is Lee Yeonwoo. Please take care of him.”
Kang Dojun pressed down on Lee Yeonwoo’s head and introduced him instead.
“…Please take care of us.”
Now that greetings were over, what should they do? Everyone opened their eyes wide and looked at Han Taegu like meerkats.
“Well…!”
There were simple games hastily prepared for the changed schedule. Seven people including Lee Yeonwoo. Han Taegu glanced at Kim Cheolsu.
‘Isn’t he leaving?’
He didn’t seem to have any intention of leaving at all, opening his eyes wide and watching what Han Taegu would say. It was the innocence of a high school student.
Eight people including Kim Cheolsu. He had helped stop Lee Yeonwoo when he was glaring as if to kill him earlier, and somehow the fake house owner act had made for interesting scenes too.
Since it had come to this, he fell into contemplation about whether to proceed with team games.
“Shall we take a break?”
He temporarily stopped filming to discuss with the writers and check cameras.
Kim Cheolsu quietly approached Grace’s youngest Hanjin to clear up the misunderstanding about his name.
“Um.”
“Ah, …Cheolsu-ssi.”
“Please call me Sehyeon!”
Kim Cheolsu, who was upset at being called Cheolsu, shouted loudly.
‘I’ll definitely change my name when I become an adult!’
“Excuse me.”
Hanjin called Kim Cheolsu. At the address “excuse me,” an inexplicable embarrassment washed over him.
Unable to contain his curiosity, Hanjin pointed at Lee Yeonwoo who was next to Kang Dojun and asked.
“Is that person’s hair a wig?”
“Ah, that?”
Kim Cheolsu looked at Lee Yeonwoo’s hair and chuckled.
“It’s really funny, right? I saw it this morning too and almost died trying not to laugh.”
When Kim Cheolsu returned home from the dormitory after enduring weekdays upon hearing news that actor Kang Dojun would visit his village, his father told him:
‘When you see Yeonwoo’s hair later, pretend not to notice and let it pass. The actor cut it himself.’
Kim Cheolsu, who enjoyed various SNS like StarStar and Facebook and was quick with news as a high school student, had already seen Shin Gihyeon’s feed.
‘So there was something Kang Dojun couldn’t do…’
‘Take a secret photo. I’ll hang it up big calling him a brat.’
“Hyung, what have you been doing since earlier?”
Lee Yeonwoo turned off his phone, which had been ringing continuously for some reason, and watched what Kang Dojun was doing next to him. Usually, he didn’t touch his phone much, but today he couldn’t take his hands off the device.
“It’s nothing.”
Moreover, he didn’t tell him the reason. When Lee Yeonwoo looked up with a sulky expression, Kang Dojun stroked his head once and then went somewhere else.
‘What? Where are you going?’
Like an abandoned puppy, he steadily watched his retreating figure. The place Kang Dojun walked to was none other than Grace’s leader Jaihan.
“Excuse me.”
“…Huh, yes! Dojun sunbae-nim.”
While Jaihan was nervous about why he called him, Kang Dojun asked without taking his eyes off his phone.
“Do you happen to know how to put filters on photos?”
“Which photo are you referring to?”
“This one.”
He held out his phone showing the photo he took of Lee Yeonwoo at the restaurant earlier.
“Yeonwoo suits bright backgrounds well, but it came out a bit dark.”
Jaihan squinted and examined the photo. The protagonist in the photo was definitely Lee Yeonwoo, who was standing far behind Kang Dojun looking at him.
‘Why a photo of this person?’
“Looking at Gihyeon-ssi’s feed, the background came out pretty because of the streetlight, isn’t there a filter like that?”
Though a bit surprised, he answered as sincerely as possible.
“Pretty filters these days are paid features in apps! Or should I choose from free filters for you?”
“Let’s pay. But since I’m going to post it on my feed, please choose the prettiest one.”
Even if he was going to cover the face when posting, it was Kang Dojun’s enormous determination to do his best since it was about Lee Yeonwoo.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
