Become a Star
chapter-63

“Yeah, you better hold onto that connection of yours for as long as possible. You sure are lucky. As someone who I used to cherish and care about, I hope your good luck lasts for a long time.” Seol Moon-Young appeared to have said everything he wanted to. He walked off after saying, ‘See you later,’ in a flat voice. He showed some courtesy by greeting Kang Min-Ho and Park Yeon-Ah, who were standing at a distance, before getting into the car that had arrived just in time and driving off.

“Are you not on good terms with him?” Park Yeon-Ah asked doubtfully. Regardless of how much Woo-Jin and Seol Moon-Young were smiling, she could sense the tension between the two.

“Be on good terms with that person? No way.” Woo-Jin answered more firmly than ever as he dusted off his left shoulder where Seol Moon-Young had touched with his palm. Woo-Jin was explicitly showing that he would be in a foul mood if Seol Moon-Young left even a speck of dust on him.

“Oh, right – about the idol starring in our drama. He’s Lee Min-Soo from Blue Fit.”

“Lee Min-Soo?” Woo-Jin disregarded Park Yeon-Ah, who was delighted for some reason, and asked Kang Min-Ho how he felt about him.

“I know he’s been in a couple of dramas before, but I don’t think he was bad.”

“He wasn’t great in the beginning, but he started to improve more and more over time. He’s hard-working, and people can see that his acting has gotten better, so the public’s reactions were positive on the whole. He took on roles regardless of how insignificant they were, saying he wanted to start his acting career in a slow and steady manner, and work his way up, thus creating a good impression.”

Because of Blue Fit’s immense popularity, there was nothing strange about Lee Min-Soo taking on lead roles, and yet, he took on minor and supporting roles, earning him a lot of brownie points.

“Besides, isn’t it good that he’ll be portraying Choi Kang? I think he would be a good fit for the role of a rebellious teen who couldn’t fulfill his dreams of becoming a singer because of his family’s opposition.” Park Yeon-Ah had been resentful about an idol being cast in their drama but was now smiling brightly in approval.

When Kang Min-Ho pointed that out, she replied proudly, “Even if I object, they’ll still cast an idol in our drama anyway, so it’s good that they picked Lee Min-Soo. He’s the best choice out of all the idols. In fact, he’s the best at acting.”

After the press conference ended, there wasn’t anything scheduled for the evening. It was already late, but their remaining free time was like a dream for those who had been exhausted from the recent hectic schedule. On his way home in the car, Woo-Jin saw the for City of Shadows on one of the buildings of SBC’s headquarters. Even though he had heard about it before, it was his first time seeing it today as he hadn’t gotten a chance to pass by the broadcasting station till now.

Woo-Jin felt his heart pounding hard after seeing Louie’s face on the enormous billboard. If this had happened sometime back, he would have felt embarrassed and overwhelmed, but now, there was a subtle change in his emotions. Without realizing it, the pleasant excitement had boosted his confidence.

Having come this far, he had no intention of losing his place to anyone anymore, regardless of who they were. Woo-Jin was well-aware of the reason behind his unprecedented thirst for victory. He thought he no longer harbored any resentment towards those people, and his residual feelings for them were well-hidden. He had hoped those feelings would stay buried deep within himself and never come up again, but it had been wishful thinking on his part.

As soon as Woo-Jin got home, instead of studying or taking a break, he went to research clips from all the dramas Lee Min-Soo had acted in so far. From Woo-Jin’s perspective, Lee Min-Soo’s acting in the beginning was very hard to watch. However, Lee Min-Soo had made visible improvements over time, and Woo-Jin could see that he had grown enough to be called an actor.

According to Kang Min-Ho, Lee Min-Soo was earnestly taking acting classes, so it was clear that his acting would improve over time. And his ability to learn how to act was unmatched. Once Woo-Jin realized he couldn’t make a judgment based on Lee Min-Soo’s past performances, he stopped looking at old clips after watching Min-Soo’s most recent work.

Since Lee Min-Soo was the first person to be cast in the drama, it meant that he had not expected Woo-Jin to be cast in City of Shadows. Like Woo-Jin, he must have been taken aback by the current situation.

For some reason, Woo-Jin was able to empathize with Lee Min-Soo and understood his reasons for delaying the shoot and instead focused on acting classes. Perhaps, Lee Min-Soo was not that different from himself, so it was clear that he was fiercely determined. Lee Min-Soo was very ambitious and was someone never to miss an opportunity. It was evident that he wanted to act well this time and use it as a stepping stone to take on leading roles.

“But you’re not the only person in the world who works hard.”

Woo-Jin thought about Lee Min-Soo’s face when he had yelled, ‘Why is everything so easy for you?’ while clenching his teeth. He hadn’t considered the efforts Woo-Jin had put into making the execution of his tasks look easy. Lee Min-Soo had always only looked at the final results and chalked his skills off as natural talent. Woo-Jin had even admitted to his lack of talent, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t try. And in Woo-Jin’s eyes, Lee Min-Soo was a friend who was very talented. He wasn’t satisfied with where he was back then and worked even harder to get to where he was today.

Recalling the look in Lee Min-Soo’s eyes the last time he saw him, Woo-Jin subconsciously clenched his fists. Strangely enough, he didn’t want to lose to Lee Min-Soo. No, more precisely, he wanted to beat them all. He didn’t want to be left behind, looking at their backs, anymore.

***

Huntsman’s recent viewership rating was low. From that alone, it meant that the publicity efforts via the program were insignificant. Still, considering its popularity abroad, it was worth it. When Huntsman was airing in the afternoon on Sunday, Woo-Jin was busy shooting. He had experienced a strange mix of feelings about wanting to watch it while simultaneously not wanting to watch it. Kang Min-Ho was on a break at that time and asked Park Yeon-Ah to watch it together with him, but she ran away in disgust.

“I can’t look at my face on TV!”

“That’s coming from somebody who’s acting in a drama?”

Kang Min-Ho had asked Park Yeon-Ah to watch the episode with him, but even he ended up skipping it. It wasn’t his first time appearing on a variety TV show, but it was his first time going on a variety program to promote his drama as the main lead. Even though he didn’t know how it would turn out, for some reason, a sense of embarrassment took away his courage.

The people appearing in the show missed it when it was aired, but many other people watched it on their behalf from start to end, without missing a single second. As soon as Huntsman was over, the faithful barags [1] gathered at Wish Baragi Fancafe’s page and flooded it with their reviews in real-time.

— How can Genie oppa be so unlucky? I mean, how did he pick the only defective gun out of ten guns? Furthermore, he looked so cool when he picked out the gun first after saying, ‘Worrying doesn’t change anything,’ but he ended up picking the defective one and couldn’t even complete the mission as a result. T.T

└ Instead, Yeon-Ah unnie had missed the target(doll), so he becomes a black knight. Oh my gosh, I almost fainted when I saw him knock down the doll in one shot. He had the perfect form! He must have practiced a lot for his role as a contract killer.

— There’s also the part where they had to climb up a rope – everyone else slipped and couldn’t climb, but he climbed all the way up by himself. However, he picked the piñata with flour instead of the one with colored paper confetti… ;; He had a 1 in 5 chance of picking the flour one, and he sure knew which one to pick!

Chae Woo-Jin had shown the viewers his ability to cleverly complete all the Huntsman missions. However, when it came to games involving luck, all the options he had picked decisively turned out to be the wrong ones, making all his efforts go down the drain. The barags felt sorry for him but were excited at the same time because it was fun.

— That’s not all. He answered all the questions in the quiz correctly by himself, but he swapped the envelope with the hints he had received because Hahwa asked him to, and the word inside the new envelope was ‘Blank!’ The envelope that Hahwa got contained conclusive evidence. Why the hell did you swap the envelopes, oppa!!

└ He came first place in the quiz, but the people in the first three places were given an envelope at random, one of them being a blank one. Genie was so shaken up after receiving the blank one, and he kept receiving the blank ones, so he wasn’t confident in his choice of envelopes. Did you see Genie’s eyes tremble when he heard the host say it was a blank envelope? The production crew probably thought that Genie would win the quiz, so out of fairness(?), they might have randomly shuffled the envelopes with the hint and picked the blank ones for him themselves? Oh my, it’s pointless!

└ But it was really funny when Genie made a deal with Mr. Kang Min-Ho to exchange information, even though he didn’t have any hints. The original killer tried to convince the client that they were on the same side, so Mr. Kang Min-Ho was deluded for a moment and gave him an important hint before realizing that Genie had nothing. Hahahaha.

— Kang Min-Ho is actually quite a goofy person. He’s played so many unique characters in films, so I thought he had a domineering personality, but he’s rather cute. Seeing him laugh and getting so flustered, not knowing what to do after being fooled by Genie, I can really tell they have a good relationship.

└ I’ve heard about it but judging from their interactions on Huntsman, I can tell the three of them are very close. The ambiance on set must really be wonderful. The three of them had good chemistry even though they were on different teams.

The way they teased each other was very natural, and they looked comfortable around one another, meaning they were close to each other, so the barags were very relieved. As fans, they were just happy to see Woo-Jin doing well at work and in his social life.

— When he went to the store to complete a mission, I kind of expected Genie to perform well, but I had no idea that he could speak both English and Chinese so well. He sounded exactly like a native. It was so cool to see him reply to the Chinese person, who had recognized him as the loan shark from Death Hill, in their native language. Even though the Chinese tourist didn’t understand Korean and had watched the movie because of ‘someone else,’ I’m so proud to hear that they’ve become Genie’s fan!

└ When they aired that segment, they censored the actor’s name with a ‘beep.’ The caption read ‘someone else,’ but we all know who he is.

— I like the part where the British person asked him for directions! The conversation between the two as Genie searched for the directions on his phone was so natural. Wow~! How did they go from talking about the clear autumn sky in Korea to air pollution and global warming? Both of them sounded so serious that it was really funny.

As they had been given a mission in an area frequented by tourists, Woo-Jin had several conversations with the foreigners who had either recognized him or asked him for directions. They had aired the scenes without censoring anything, allowing Woo-Jin’s foreign language skills to stand out even more. It was an opportunity to show off his linguistic skills naturally, which Kang Ho-Soo had wanted him to brag about in the past without coming off as being pretentious.

— Even though Genie was very unlucky and kept picking the wrong choices, he ultimately won. The missions aren’t important; after all, the contestants only have to be good at tearing off their opponents’ name tags in Huntsman. They haven’t made their contestants do that lately, so it’s not as exciting as before, but didn’t they manage to revive the element of excitement today?

└ I thought I was going to die from laughter when Yeon-Ah unnie said, ‘Woo-Jin, think about it carefully,’ when Genie was going to rip off her name tag. She’s so charismatic and amazing! When Genie ripped off her name tag after letting her go three times, the way she went, ‘Darn it, X~!’ and scoffed as she flipped her bangs to the back. I was so charmed by her at that moment; she totally became my girl crush.

└ And also the part where Ji Sung-Jin asked what X meant, to which Genie replied, ‘She’s saying I look like a flower.’

└ Seriously, why was Ji Sung-Jin the only killer in Huntsman today when Genie was in a state of total mess? Genie had to carry the entire team by himself.

In today’s episode of Huntsman, the guests and members were divided into three teams – the client, the killer, and the victim. The client and the killer each teamed up with one Huntsman member, and the rest of the members were victims along with Park Yeon-Ah. However, except for the three guests, the Huntsman members didn’t know which team they belonged to, while the guests didn’t know which members were assigned to their teams. The guests and Huntsman members had to look for their allies using the hints they had received during the missions. With only one hint from Kang Min-Ho, Woo-Jin was able to find the other killer. However, that was Ji Sung-Jin, the person known to be incompetent.

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1. Members of Wish Baragi <i class="far fa-hand-point-left">