Chapter 33

Chairman Ryu hadn’t left the set, watching the filming the whole way through, and the moment the cut sign came down, he was the first to clap.

With the man at the top applauding, the rest of the crew followed suit at once. Of course, all of it was for Joo Sae-i.

By the time the camera team had mostly finished packing up their gear, Sae-i had changed back into her own clothes and walked over to Chairman Ryu.

“I know exactly how rare a chance like this is. Thank you for calling me in for the ad. Please get home safely, Chairman.”

“You did well. I see now why my grandson wanted to see you so badly.”

At the sound of Chairman Ryu’s voice, Sae-i’s face brightened and her head came up sharply. Even after watching the shoot for so long, there wasn’t a trace of fatigue in him — his eyes were clear.

To be this good already…

Chairman Ryu had staked the rest of his life on the Lunatic series. It was a product he meant to launch with that much care riding on it, so even for his friend’s granddaughter, he hadn’t planned to simply go easy on her.

A student barely a year younger than his own grandson. Could a child like that really act in a way that moved a consumer’s heart? Right up until Sae-i started acting, Chairman Ryu had been half-convinced she couldn’t.

He’d meant to watch the shoot, and if it really seemed like a lost cause, swap her out for an experienced actress.

“I’d only ever heard about it — never seen your acting with my own eyes — so I came to see for myself.”

Unlike Chairman Joo Tae-baek, Chairman Ryu understood the currents money moved in, but he had no gift for reading the talent in a performer.

Still, the moment Joo Sae-i began acting, Chairman Ryu had known it.

That this ad, built around that girl, was going to be an enormous success for Lunatic.

“…Well then. That calculating old man wasn’t pushing you forward for nothing.”

Acknowledging the eye of his rival, Chairman Joo Tae-baek, was the highest praise Chairman Ryu knew how to give.

“When you opened your mouth, it felt like even the air went quiet. The way you pulled that delivery out — that’s talent. Pure talent.”

“……”

“I’ll have to tell Joo Tae-baek. Tell him his granddaughter did a wonderful job.”

After a few rounds of praise disguised as commentary, the corner of Sae-i’s mouth lifted slightly. It was a bashful sort of smile.

“Well then, good work today. I’ll have Do-gyeong pass along the finished cut next time.”

He wanted to hold onto Joo Sae-i a little longer and tell her more about the talent she had, but it was time to look after his own grandson, who was off at the back now, too far outside the conversation to join in, too busy stealing glances to do anything else.

That fool… anyone with eyes could see he’s completely smitten, and he keeps insisting it’s not that.

His gaze had been fixed on Sae-i the entire time, yet Do-gyeong — he didn’t know who he took after — was busy denying it. He didn’t even seem to have noticed why that girl, Sae-i, kept catching his attention.

His grandson had come all the way to the studio just to watch her act once, and still couldn’t bring himself to say he’d enjoyed it — it was like looking at his own past self.

After seeing Sae-i off, Chairman Ryu walked toward his grandson, turning over Joo Sae-i’s performance from moments before in his mind.

Joo Sae-i wasn’t some kid throwing herself at fame on a whim. She was an actress with the potential to shake the hearts of everyone watching.

Chairman Joo’s face is going to keep getting rosier by the day. A treasure rolled right into his lap on its own.

To think he’d end up envying his old friend over how his grandchild had turned out, when he’d never once envied him in business. Chairman Ryu laughed, loud and hearty.

Finally, off work!

I’d stumbled once during filming after my eyes met Ryu Do-gyeong’s, but apart from that, there hadn’t been a single retake.

They said ads for major corporations were hard to pass on the first try, but with even Chairman Ryu complimenting me and saying it went well, nothing should go wrong. With a relieved heart, I opened the car door.

Chattering on to my dad, who had the wheel, about everything that had happened on set, we arrived at Jaedamjae in no time.

Just as we slowed to pass through the gate.

With a flash, my dad’s phone screen, which had gone dark, lit up with a text notification. I happened to catch a glimpse of the message.

—Sister-in-law Joo Jeong-hui

[Brother-in-law, is Sae-i’s shoot not done yet?]

[The Chairman says since Su-deok oppa is back from his trip, we should all have a meal together.]

News that my uncle, who’d been away on a short business trip overseas, was back in the country.

“Ah……”

At the name of my enemy, a sigh slipped out of me reflexively.

Walking back into Jaedamjae had never felt this unpleasant.

Once we’d passed through the gate and pulled into the parking area inside Jaedamjae, there was a car I didn’t recognize parked there. No doubt it was my uncle’s personal vehicle.

I sent my dad ahead to the annex with all my things, and circled around the grounds myself. Even a little, I wanted to put off the moment I’d run into my uncle.

But that only lasted a moment. From somewhere in the distance, my uncle’s irritable voice carried over.

I turned my eyes toward the sound. My uncle, the gardener, and Secretary Park Cheol-won were in the middle of some back-and-forth in front of the trumpet vines in bloom.

“Argh, I told you to get rid of this eyesore!”

“I—I’m sorry…”

“My sister’s been dead for ages now, and you’re still leaving this thing up, what is—”

My uncle jabbed a finger at the trumpet vines. From the look of things, he was chewing out the gardener for not doing what he’d asked.

Leaving the gardener bowing over and over in apology, my uncle stormed off. It seemed he hadn’t just complained — the flower bushes where he’d been standing were left in disarray.

That’s supposed to be Grandfather’s order, though.

The trumpet vines in the garden were, after all, Grandfather’s way of thinking of Mom. No matter how much my uncle griped, he couldn’t go against Grandfather’s command.

Guess it’s just the poor gardener who suffers for it.

Anyway, why hadn’t Secretary Park gone off with him right away — why was he still standing there?

Secretary Park was talent I’d been eyeing for a while regardless, so I quietly hid and watched his expression.

He was trying to keep a calm, unreadable face, but the corners of his mouth trembled faintly. Even though he tried to smooth it over with a smile, the feeling underneath showed through.

The face of someone grinding through their working life serving a boss who barely qualified as a person. That was exactly the impression it gave.

The meal with the Joo family, which I’d been dragged into against my will, was terrible from the very start.

The moment my dad sat down at the table, my uncle started clearing his throat loudly. It was a way of signaling his displeasure that an outsider who hadn’t been given the Joo family name dared to sit at the table.

He did that sometimes in my last life, too.

My uncle used to make a show of disregarding my dad. Back then, we had no power, and to survive, we’d had to grit our teeth and hang on to even a rotten rope like my uncle. So we endured it.

This time, I’m not just going to take it lying down.

Having made up my mind to that much, right as I was about to step in and shield my dad.

“Leave Sae-i’s father be, Su-deok. At the table, we eat, nothing more.”

It was Grandfather who made my dad, half out of his seat, sit back down.

With just that one line, my uncle’s tail dropped immediately. He still looked plenty unhappy, but he didn’t dare talk back to Grandfather, and seemed to be swallowing it.

Once all the food was laid out, the conversation that followed was dry, in an atmosphere far too solemn to really be called a family meal.

“While I was away, I hear Sae-i’s family moved back in, Father.”

“I called them back.”

“Ah, I see… So, what’s Sae-i filming these days?”

My uncle, disguising himself with a pleasant face, asked me. He’d apparently forgotten snapping at me in a fit of temper and calling it “clowning around” when I’d said I wanted to try acting, back at the dinner party.

Still, I met him without showing any hostility either. I put on an act of being careful not to rub my uncle the wrong way, the way I used to, and he quickly lost interest in me.

“Father, about our Su-yeon and Do-gyeong. Don’t you think it might be worth arranging an engagement…”

With his attention off my dad and me, my uncle’s eyes lit up as he brought up an engagement between Ryu Do-gyeong and Joo Su-yeon. A rumor that had circulated in my last life too, but that relationship had never actually come together in the end.

So this is when he started pushing the engagement talk.

Before any talk of engagement, did he even know his daughter had bullied a classmate at school? Then again, my uncle was the type who’d have known and buried it anyway.

Feeling my appetite drop out from under me all at once, I set my spoon down slowly.

“I’m feeling a little unwell, so I’ll excuse myself first, Chairman.”

Leaving Grandfather and my dad looking at me with worried eyes behind me, I rose from my seat and stepped outside the building.

My destination was the trumpet vine bushes in the garden. I’d been bothered by how disheveled they’d looked earlier, and I was heading over to tidy them up, when—

Why is that man still here…

Secretary Park Cheol-won, drenched in sweat, was busy fixing up the trumpet vines my uncle had wrecked with his own hands.