Episode 159: An Unexpected Encounter (3)
How long had she been holding her breath in the dark shadows?
Click, click.
The sound of approaching footsteps faintly reached her pricked-up ears.
At the same time, the corners of her mouth rose.
“Gulp.”
It wasn’t anything grand, but the sweat droplets forming between her palms somehow doubled the tension.
And then,
Beep beep beep beep beep beep.
The moment the familiar mechanical sound rang through the dark house, her hand moved faster than ever.
She quickly lit the candles with a lighter.
She tossed the now-useless lighter aside.
Then she grabbed the firecracker that had been placed next to it,
“What? Did Yujin go out somewhere?”
And pulled the string toward the direction of that voice, but with the angle aimed strictly above the head!
Bang!
“Kyaaak!”
Unlike the grand scream, flower petals shot out with extremely weak force and gently settled on Zia’s head.
In the meantime, she threw away the remains of the firecracker that had done its job, just like she had done with the lighter, picked up the cake with candles shaped like the numbers 5 and 7, and started singing.
“Congratulations on the 5.7% viewership rating.”
The base was the birthday song.
But it was a song where the singer had completely abandoned any sense of rhythm by ridiculously stretching the beats just to insert the words “5.7% viewership rating” into the spots where only the two syllables for “birthday” originally fit.
“No, what are you doing.”
A laugh close to a giggle escaped from Zia’s mouth, which had been frozen in shock at the sudden appearance of the cake.
Of course, her song didn’t stop just because of that.
“Congratulations on the 5.7% viewership rating of our beloved Zia~ Hoo~!”
There was no other way.
The average viewership rating of 1 Hit Lover was a whopping 3.4%.
Some might think it was only a single digit, but considering that the average viewership rating for such short dramas was around 1%, 1 Hit Lover’s performance could only be called a massive hit, even taking the Chuseok holiday special into account.
The reason Zia had come home so late after the broadcast ended was exactly because of this.
What was originally supposed to be just a monitoring session and then disband had continued into a dinner party due to the unexpectedly good results.
“Was that because of me? It was thanks to Sunbae-nim Choi Si-yeon and the other sunbaes.”
Of course, as Zia said, most of the favorable reviews pouring in for 1 Hit Lover were directed at the passionate performance of the next-generation rom-com queen Choi Si-yeon.
But that didn’t mean he had nothing to say.
“But the peak viewership rating of 5.7% was from our actress Woo Zia’s appearance scene, right?”
That was exactly why he had chosen the numbers 5 and 7 for the candles on this cake.
No matter what anyone said, the scene that recorded 1 Hit Lover’s highest viewership rating of 5.7% was Zia’s scene.
“You were in that scene too! Han Yujin, you’re teasing me!”
Of course, the counterpart in that scene was him.
‘Probably my fans turned on the TV late…’
Anyway, the actress who caught the eyes of the most people in 1 Hit Lover was not Choi Si-yeon but Zia.
In fact, among the articles about 1 Hit Lover, the second-largest share after Choi Si-yeon belonged to Zia, not the male lead Choi Do-hoon.
‘Well, half of it overlaps with me though…’
It was a world where one had to receive attention in some way or another.
If Zia was sick of this world, that would be one thing, but since she was enjoying it to some extent right now, this was clearly close to good news.
There was no way this hurriedly prepared cake felt wasteful at all.
“Blow out the candles quickly. My arms hurt.”
Was it because of the playful complaint mixed with exaggeration?
Zia relaxed her pouty expression at his teasing tone and blew out the small flickering flames.
“Sigh, really. I can’t live because of this precious Han Yujin. Wait, why did you turn off all the lights? Where do I turn them on?”
She quickly went back to pouting after that.
But now it was obvious to anyone that she wasn’t really angry but embarrassed.
Of course, even that wouldn’t last long.
The sight of this space with the lights back on was more than enough to easily lift the corners of Zia’s mouth that she was trying hard to pull down.
“What? Did you do a big cleaning?”
“Yeah. I was bored staying alone. Am I still your precious one?”
“Well… precious one canceled.”
As expected, his choice was excellent.
He had cleared away useless thoughts, made the living environment more comfortable, and even got the precious one comment canceled.
This was more than enough compensation for the sweat he had shed.
“Let’s eat first.”
“I should have eaten less for dinner if I knew this was coming.”
“Did you eat something good?”
Well, no matter how big the hit was, the PD’s corporate card limit for a first-time director’s debut work couldn’t be that high.
Did the director come down and give out bonuses?
“Yeah. Sunbae-nim Choi Si-yeon paid. Hanwoo beef. She said she wouldn’t let us leave until we ate until we were full…”
Oh, Choi Si-yeon paid the bill?
Then the story changes.
“Hanwoo beef has to be eaten. Of course.”
Well, and there was no particular problem.
“Still, ice cream should be fine, right?”
After all, there is a separate stomach for food and one for dessert.
Just in case, he had bought an ice cream cake that was easy to store.
“Hmm…”
Of course Zia glanced down at her stomach for a moment,
“Then I’ll go wash up first.”
But she left a 100% positive answer and disappeared with light steps.
And a short while later, the moment Zia came back to the living room with her hair twisted up and wrapped in a towel.
“‘Who is the rookie actress who did not lose to the next-generation rom-com queen, Choi Si-yeon?’”
His full-scale flattery toward Zia began in earnest.
‘Since the precious one comment was withdrawn too.’
Such opportunities didn’t come often.
“Hey, Han Yujin…!”
“‘AZ’s choice, this time together with Choi Si-yeon.’”
“Kyaaak! Stop it!”
This was what hitting the mark felt like.
With a strange thrill, he continued reciting the titles of articles that had focused on Zia.
The more he did so, the more Zia covered her ears,
“You damn Han Yujin precious one…!”
And withdrew the withdrawal of the comment, but in that state, no matter what she said, it didn’t deal even the slightest blow to him.
Around the time he thought that if he continued she might hit him with the fork in Zia’s hand,
“‘This couple’s narrative is curious, 3 minutes and 24 seconds of fluttering heartbeats.’”
Since it was plastic anyway and wouldn’t hurt, just one more as the finishing touch.
But,
“Ah, I saw that article.”
Zia reacted indifferently to the article he thought would be the decisive blow.
Confusing.
“Huh? This one?”
She… saw this…?
That Woo Zia?
The Woo Zia who couldn’t even endure his flattery saw this?
While his complicated mind caused a brief pause,
“Pfft.”
Zia responded with a smile that lifted only one corner of her mouth, completely different from before.
“The reporter who wrote that article is the one who only writes good articles for MyWay.”
“Huh?”
“This time too, it must have been a good article written at the company level.”
Indeed, the writer of this article was Reporter Kwak Su-bin.
It was true that the company had put in a word at the corporate level.
‘Though it wasn’t an unconditional request to write it, but rather to watch and decide whether to write or not.’
No matter how much he was called a trumpet, he was someone with clear pride as a journalist.
The fact that such a strict reporter wrote this kind of article meant he had seen some ‘angle’ in Zia.
But it would be impossible to say that it had no influence at all on the level of goodwill toward our company (or more precisely, toward me).
He was taken aback because he hadn’t expected Zia to know that.
However, the embarrassment did not stop there.
“Han Yujin, why are you looking at me so blankly? Did you think I wouldn’t know something like that? I’ve seen that reporter’s articles several times. I even left a lot of comments on the articles he wrote about you.”
“Eh. Really?! What’s your nickname?”
Even though his voice cracked from surprise, his counter-question continued without stopping, causing the other corner of Zia’s mouth, which had not been raised, to slowly lift upward.
“Why? Are you curious what I wrote?”
At this point, the situation had completely reversed.
‘Well, there’s no way Zia would have written bad comments…’
He was genuinely curious about the flattery Zia might have left hidden behind anonymity.
But,
“Idiot, you? Do you think I’d tell you that?”
Right… of course she wouldn’t tell him…
“Tsk…”
As he clicked his tongue full of regret, Zia wore a smile as if she had pulled off a great reversal and brought another ice cream cube to her mouth.
‘Well, it’s not like there’s no way to find out…’
Their distance was close enough that by simply reaching out a hand, they could peek at each other’s phones.
If he went to Kwak Su-bin’s article on Zia’s phone, he could probably discover the anonymous nickname Zia had hidden.
Naturally, he had no desire to go that far.
“Ugh.”
For now, he had no choice but to accept defeat to that triumphant victorious smile and cleanly retreat.
The dark cocoa-colored cube he brought to his mouth at least slightly soothed the bitter taste in his mouth.
***
Meanwhile, at the same time.
“Ssip…”
Inside a luxury officetel in Seoul, another man was enduring the bitter taste spreading in his mouth.
The cause was a single order that had come down from his superior just a few hours ago.
“The name is Woo Zia. She’s an actress. Look into everything from her birth to where she is now and what she’s doing.”
He had served her, Woo Hye-yeon, for quite a long time, but this was the first time he had received this type of instruction.
It was not a difficult order for him.
On the contrary, it was an extremely simple task for him.
If asked how simple it was, he could say he was ready to report the results right now.
Naturally, digging into a person’s personal information was not something that could be done in just an hour or two.
Nevertheless, the reason the man could report the results immediately was because he had obtained what could be called a product of coincidence while investigating someone else.
“Haa…”
He already knew.
That his VIP had become a fan of a certain singer.
‘After serving her for 19 years, how could I not know that much?’
Because in all that long time, he had never seen her so happy.
To protect the small resting place in her heart that she had barely obtained amid endless heavy workload, the man had already gathered all information about that someone, ‘Han Yujin,’ so that no unpleasant stories would spread about him.
Therefore, the man naturally also knew about the woman living with him, Woo Zia.
In the first place, it was the man himself who had blocked several times the news that had been about to be released as exclusives.
‘However…’
There was one reason the man kept letting out sighs.
If he handed over the data he held right now, she would soon realize that her subordinate had already noticed her secret hobby.
“Sigh…”
But in the end, the man had no choice but to place his hand on the enter key of the keyboard.
Dragging out an already completed order did not suit his nature, and above all, the judgment was not something he made.
And after some time had passed,
Ding-dong.
While he had taken off his glasses and set them down, clasped his hands together as if in prayer, covering his face and pressing firmly on his brow, a small notification sound reached the man’s ears.
[Vice President: Is this certain?]
The message on the monitor was exactly what he had already expected.
[Yes. It is certain.]
Leaving the prepared reply, the man forcibly swallowed the still-lingering bitter taste in his mouth. It was only a little later that he learned the truth.
In other words, the fact that his superior Woo Hye-yeon’s eyes were not directed at the name Han Yujin, but toward the other side.
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