Chapter 49
“Noona, do you remember the girlfriend of Chang-soo, the youngest member of the production department whom we met back then?
The one who used to work as a manager.”
—Of course I do.
“How about asking her to work as our manager for just one day?”
At my sudden suggestion, Gil Bo-young's voice on the other end of the phone stopped abruptly, as if she was caught off guard, before continuing.
—We'd be more than happy to, but...
Would the manager agree?
“I'll somehow convince her.”
—Really?
Then I'd be really grateful.
Ah, but why did you call me in the first place?
‘Ah, right.
The audition.’
I had gotten so excited about connecting Ma Sang-hee and Gil Bo-young that I had completely forgotten what I was actually supposed to tell her.
“Noona, I'll tell you about that when we talk again.
First, I'll talk to the manager and contact you again.”
Just as I was hanging up, I saw Moon Chang-soo entering the emergency staircase while talking to someone on his phone.
“Okay.
I'll head over there after work too.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
I love you.
Mwah!
No, you have to do it too~
Mmm, no, no.
I want one too.”
Since I was half a floor below him, Moon Chang-soo hadn't noticed that I was there and continued his conversation.
‘What the hell...
“Mmm, no, no”...?’
For a moment, I wondered if I should just kill that bastard and go to prison.
The goosebumps covering my entire body from Moon Chang-soo's unbelievably cute behavior made me unconsciously let out a small sound.
“Ugh...”
Perhaps hearing the noise, Moon Chang-soo poked his head out from the stairs half a floor above.
‘Ah, I should have made my presence known from the beginning...’
I pretended to be calm and walked toward Moon Chang-soo.
Seeing me, Moon Chang-soo widened his eyes in surprise.
“What are you doing?
Why are you coming out of there?”
“Ah, I was on the phone too until just now...
Ahem...”
“D-did you hear me?”
“Well, it's not that I heard you.
It just happened to reach my ears.”
“Gasp...”
As if he had just remembered what he had been doing, Moon Chang-soo's face turned bright red with embarrassment.
“It's okay.
Everyone's like that when they're dating.
Besides, you're younger than your girlfriend, so you're probably even more affectionate than—”
Moon Chang-soo glared at me with eyes so fierce that it looked like he might cover my mouth at any moment.
I immediately realized it would be better for my own health to stop talking and quickly changed the subject.
“Ah, actually, I wanted to talk to your girlfriend anyway...”
“Why do you want to talk to my girlfriend?”
“There's something I wanted to ask her about Bo-young noona.”
“Something about Bo-young noona?
Then talk to her.
Wait a moment.”
Moon Chang-soo called her again.
“Hey, honey.
No, it's nothing.
Remember that hyung from our production department who was doing the accounting when we had udon together that time?
He wants to talk to you for a moment.
I don't know the details either, but apparently it's about Bo-young noona.
Yeah, okay.
I'll hand the phone over.”
I took the phone and quickly explained the situation.
“So I wanted to ask if you could act as their manager for just one day, on the day of the interview...”
After thinking for a moment, Ma Sang-hee said that she wanted to meet first and hear the details of the interview schedule.
“Ah, then shall we do that?
Yes, I'll go with Bo-young noona.
Okay.
I'll see you tonight.”
‘Oh.
This is going much more smoothly than I expected.’
Ever since I had returned from 2024 to 2004, many things had been unfolding differently from the future I remembered.
But somehow, I didn't think that was a bad thing.
No, rather, I was so excited to see what kind of synergy these changed circumstances would create and how they would alter the future that I sometimes couldn't even sleep at night.
In that sense, my connection with Ma Sang-hee had also become another source of anticipation for me.
Just as I happily shrugged my shoulders, Moon Chang-soo tilted his head to one side and glared at me with an expression full of dissatisfaction.
“Are you meeting my girlfriend today?”
“Yeah, with Bo-young noona.
You were meeting her today anyway, weren't you?
You can come with us.”
“Ha.
It's my first time seeing her since we went to the theater that time, and you're going to interrupt our date like this?”
“Fine.
I'll pay today.
Happy?”
“I'm going to eat something expensive.”
Only then did Moon Chang-soo chuckle.
The bar was quiet.
By the time Moon Chang-soo and I arrived, Gil Bo-young and Ma Sang-hee had already finished about half of a kettle of makgeolli.
“Oh, you two got here first?”
“Yeah.
We came about thirty minutes early.
What do you want to drink?
The lady here makes really good pajeon, so we ordered makgeolli.”
“I like makgeolli too.
By the way, did you talk about it?”
I brought up the temporary manager position we had discussed over the phone.
“Yeah.
Unnie said she'd gladly help us.
It's all thanks to you, Gibaek.
You introduced us.”
“Oh~
Really?
That's great.”
“Well, I'm not doing anything right now anyway...
Ahem...”
Ma Sang-hee awkwardly looked around.
“What?
If it was going to be settled this quickly, hyung didn't even need to come.”
Moon Chang-soo pouted, clearly thinking his date had been interrupted.
‘This bastard...’
I calmly tried to placate him.
“Even so, I made the connection.
Shouldn't I come out of a sense of duty as the matchmaker?
Ahem...”
“Oh, right.
Gibaek, didn't you have something else to tell me?
Why did you call earlier?”
Only then did I suddenly remember the other reason I had come here.
“Ah, right.
About the profile you submitted this time, noona...”
At the word ‘profile,’ Gil Bo-young blinked nervously as she looked at me.
“Did I fail to get the role?”
‘Ah.
I must have looked too serious.’
After quickly studying my expression, Gil Bo-young forced a calm smile.
“Gibaek, if that's what happened, I'm fine.
It's not like I've only failed one or two auditions.
Hoho.”
“No, it's not that.
Actually...
The director said he would choose between the two final candidates through an audition.”
“An audition?
I thought it was something serious.
Auditions are nothing to me.
No, I'm just grateful to have the chance to audition.
Your expression was so serious that I thought I'd already failed.
Haha.”
Gil Bo-young laughed cheerfully, but I still couldn't smile.
“But there's something else, noona.
Your competitor for the audition is Han Hye-joo.”
At that moment, Gil Bo-young's laughter abruptly stopped.
Her eyes began to waver in surprise.
“Han Hye-joo?”
I quickly explained the situation to the flustered Gil Bo-young.
“I knew Han Hye-joo had submitted her profile, but I didn't know the director would actually make the two of you compete in an audition like this...”
Then Ma Sang-hee, who had been listening beside us, spoke.
“If you're talking about Han Hye-joo, didn't you and Bo-young appear in the same drama when you were young?
I thought you two were close.
Are you not on good terms with Han Hye-joo?”
At Ma Sang-hee's blunt question, Gil Bo-young hesitated for a moment before breaking her silence.
“It's not really that we're on bad terms.
It's more accurate to say that I'm the one who feels uncomfortable around Hye-joo...”
“You, Bo-young?”
After hesitating again, Gil Bo-young continued.
“When we were young, Hye-joo and I were in the same agency...”
‘Wait.
Han Hye-joo and Gil Bo-young were in the same agency?
Then could it be...?’
At that moment, Ma Sang-hee, who seemed to have figured something out, looked at Gil Bo-young with a serious gaze and spoke.
“By any chance, does Han Hye-joo know about the problem you had with the CEO of your former agency?”
Gil Bo-young still hesitated before slowly nodding.
The atmosphere suddenly became heavy.
‘As I thought...
So that's what it was...’
Only then did I understand why Gil Bo-young had looked so tense and wary whenever she encountered Han Hye-joo.
“Of course, I know better than anyone that Hye-joo isn't the kind of person who would go around telling everyone about something like that.
But...
I get nervous for no reason whenever I'm around her...
So I've been avoiding running into Hye-joo whenever possible.”
After a short silence, Moon Chang-soo was the first to speak.
“Noona, if that's the situation, shouldn't you knock Han Hye-joo's confidence down hard at the audition?”
“Honey, just stay quiet.
What if Han Hye-joo gets angry after losing the audition and digs up something from the past just to get revenge?”
“So what if she brings it up?
Looking at the situation, it's obvious that Bo-young noona is the victim.”
“Victim?
Don't say it so easily.
For an actor, being labeled as either a perpetrator or a victim can itself be fatal to their career.
You don't avoid shit because you're afraid of it.
You avoid it because it's dirty.”
Ma Sang-hee was clearly putting the actor's position first as a manager.
But I thought differently.
You couldn't keep running away forever just because something was dirty.
If you kept running away from it, the smell would eventually spread, and flies would start gathering around it.
“Noona, I think I understand why you're uncomfortable.
But I don't think you can keep avoiding it forever.
And if you're only worried that Han Hye-joo might bring up something about Bo-young noona out of revenge...
Like Bo-young noona said earlier, I also don't think Han Hye-joo is the kind of person who lacks basic decency enough to go around spreading something like that.”
Most of them seemed to agree with what I said.
However, Gil Bo-young, who had been looking at me with a slightly puzzled expression, soon spoke.
“Gibaek is right.
I hate feeling uncomfortable around Hye-joo, and I don't want to run into her, but I can't avoid her forever.
And I really want this role.
At first, I only submitted my profile because of you, Gibaek.
But the more I look at it, the more attractive the character seems.
As an actress, I want this role.
I'll audition.
I don't want to hide or run away anymore.”
Unlike before, there wasn't the slightest hesitation in Gil Bo-young's eyes.
The day of the audition arrived.
After lunchtime, the ninth-floor conference room became busy with people setting up cameras, monitors, and other equipment for the audition.
Seeing all that somehow made me even more nervous, so I headed to the rooftop to get some fresh air.
However, the elevator I got into to go to the rooftop already had Han Hye-joo inside.
“Oh, it's still early...”
The auditions were scheduled at one-hour intervals starting at 3 p.m.
Han Hye-joo was scheduled for 3 p.m., while Gil Bo-young was scheduled for 4 p.m.
That meant Han Hye-joo had arrived almost an hour before her scheduled audition.
When Han Hye-joo saw me, the corners of her mouth lifted slightly before she spoke to me calmly.
“I know.
Since I was already here, I wanted to talk to my uncle for a bit, so I came early before the audition.”
“Ah...
Yes...”
I awkwardly nodded and pressed the button for the thirteenth floor, where the rooftop garden was located.
After a brief, awkward silence, Han Hye-joo opened her mouth.
“By the way, I heard that the actress I'm competing against in today's audition is Bo-young unnie.”
