Chapter 635
There was a single focal point in the party where people had gathered in a dense crowd. Seo Eden noticed who was standing at the center before Kwon Junhyeok did.
“Hyung wasn’t the problem.”
“Why am I the problem...?”
“I’ve been a depressed frog all this time.”
“Don’t you mean a frog in a well?”
“That’s exactly what I said.”
Far in the distance, surrounded by people, was none other than Han Yeoreum.
Pop stars soaring across the Billboard charts, along with actors from global media giants like HBQ, NetHolics, and D-zny, were all focused on Han Yeoreum.
Seeing Han Yeoreum—who had endured all kinds of miserable conditions alongside him while filming —now wearing a diamond necklace and earrings, holding a champagne glass among Hollywood stars, made Kwon Junhyeok’s eyes grow hot.
He was just about to shed tears from the overwhelming combination of pride, emotion, and admiration when—
“Huh? Myeongdo!”
“Wow!!!”
“Look who’s here! It’s Myeongdo!”
The people nearby recognized Kwon Junhyeok immediately.
His plan to make a quick exit shattered completely. He was forcibly swept along by the crowd until he ended up right beside Han Yeoreum.
One of the K-Dramas currently settled comfortably on the NetHolics global chart.
It seemed there was no one here who didn’t know .
“Junhyeok! It’s been so long!”
“Y-Yeah... sob....”
“Why are you crying again?”
“I’m just glad to see you’re doing well....”
The people who misinterpreted Kwon Junhyeok’s tearful eyes immediately went wild.
“They definitely dated and broke up.”
“It would actually be stranger if they didn’t fall in love on set. It was !”
“I’ve been waiting for you two to get married. How can you sacrifice your life for someone without even kissing them once? It’s... it’s perfect love.”
Apparently finished discussing , the increasingly drunk partygoers now enthusiastically launched into .
Sweat poured down Kwon Junhyeok’s back as he fought back tears. He had seen her face now, so all he needed to do was congratulate her and leave.
But then he noticed something wrong with the way Han Yeoreum was looking up at him.
It was the look of someone thinking, Got you.
That radiant smile he had seen so many times on the set of .
“Perfect timing. You’re good at English, right?”
“I-I wouldn’t say I’m bad at it...?”
Having mastered both English and Japanese through years of grueling training at his agency, Kwon Junhyeok was helplessly captured.
“You’re my interpreter from now on.”
“Sob... what...?”
“Tell them I’ve had too much champagne and can’t understand them very well anymore. Okay?”
There was no escape for Kwon Junhyeok.
* * *
Myeong Jeha left the VIP dinner with Erno and headed toward the after-party.
Unlike the stars, the investment executives held their own private finale party instead of attending the after-party. It wasn’t easy to gather so many people of their stature in the same place at the same time.
Once dinner ended, they would leave Erno’s mansion and move to a nearby private penthouse.
Myeong Jeha shook his head even when someone from Winner Brothers suggested that he come along.
Ji Haebeom had invested in a Korean drama, so apparently he still had matters to discuss with the D-zny people.
Their eyes met.
“Don’t we still have something left to talk about?”
At Ji Haebeom’s words, Myeong Jeha experienced an emotion he hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Something that had become unfamiliar and foreign now that the world had grown so easy for him.
Right.
He was irritating.
But Myeong Jeha raised the corners of his lips. Skillfully controlling his expression was hardly difficult.
He had no intention of giving him an answer anyway.
“Ask me later.”
“When?”
“After you make it this far.”
The arrogance of telling him to speak only after he made it to Hollywood caused Ji Haebeom to turn his head away.
Even the motion of tilting his chin carried a trace of irritation. His perfectly styled pomade had become slightly disheveled.
“Wow. You really have a nasty personality.... I never knew.”
“This is a good opportunity to find out.”
“It’s not good. Not good at all.”
Ji Haebeom turned away. Apparently, he had immediately realized there was no way he would get the answer he wanted.
“I’m seriously coming, you know?”
“Go ahead.”
“With Yeoreum.”
“...Sure.”
Myeong Jeha watched Ji Haebeom walk away, then turned in the opposite direction himself. He got into the waiting car.
Once again, everything became peaceful and boring.
A life filled entirely with familiar things.
A life he could no longer be clumsy at even if he tried.
Myeong Jeha went around and around the orbit from which he had eliminated every inconvenience.
Once he left Erno’s familiar mansion, there was the road he could navigate with his eyes closed, the same tiresome music inside the limousine, and the nightscape he already knew.
New York at night unfolded beyond the window.
And then.
Among it all was Han Yeoreum.
When Myeong Jeha noticed footage from playing across the side of a building, he unconsciously turned his head to keep watching Han Yeoreum.
It was strange.
Just having Han Yeoreum’s face appear there made the endlessly tedious New York look different.
As it happened, the Fashion Week after-party venue wasn’t far away.
Myeong Jeha was seized by an impulse.
He unfastened the seat belt restraining his body.
“Stop here, please.”
“We haven’t reached the destination yet.”
“It’s fine.”
Myeong Jeha got out of the car and immediately broke into a run.
He left countless billboards behind and looked only ahead.
New York.
In this dizzying world where everything seemed to scream, Look at me.
Everything blurred away until only one thing remained clear.
The building displaying Han Yeoreum grew closer and closer.
The February air of New York swept coldly across his cheeks.
It felt pleasantly cool.
Neither suffocating nor stifling.
A world unfamiliar to Myeong Jeha.
Even if he lived this same life countless more times, even if he listened to songs he had memorized in places he knew completely, met people he was tired of, and repeated familiar conversations—
He somehow felt that this emotion, the one making Myeong Jeha act unlike himself right now, could never become tiresome.
He felt a conviction bordering on blind faith.
How long had he been running?
After racing down streets he didn’t know, he finally arrived.
[Somewhere Nowhere NYC]
Somewhere, and nowhere.
His lungs hurt from his heaving breaths.
Panting, Myeong Jeha slowly savored the name of the place, one word at a time, before murmuring,
“Now here....”
Here, now.
Suddenly, he liked those words.
And once he realized that, he liked them almost unbearably much.
* * *
I took a moment to catch my breath on the balcony.
‘The rate my follower count is growing is insane....’
I’d glanced at it earlier, and I’d gained three million in just a few hours. I hadn’t had a chance to monitor things properly yet, but Korea was probably going crazy too.
‘I got two-shots with everyone from pop stars to all kinds of celebrities.’
It had probably spread far and wide through Trttr, not to mention all those patriotic Intube channels.
‘By now, they’ve probably even heard that Erno gave me jewelry.’
What was it again? Baby Morning Bread?
‘There’s no comparison.’
This right here was the export legend of Baby Melon Bread, proudly bearing the JC certification mark instead of KC.
I wanted to hurry back to Korea and win completely.
, —all of them.
I wanted to prove once again that they couldn’t even compare to .
With the new Ria I had created.
With a story no one had ever seen before.
With acting Do Gyeoul couldn’t pull off.
When one project ended, there was always another.
The thought suddenly filled me with emotion.
I gazed at the nightscape, savoring the future in my mind.
Someday, I wanted to appear on the biggest billboard in Times Square.
My dreams just kept getting bigger.
Suddenly, I thought of Myeong Jeha.
“How could it not be special?”
When it was this good.
I could vividly feel myself climbing higher.
The expressions on those nepo babies’ faces when I’d glimpsed them earlier—unable to say anything, only glaring at me—had been exhilarating.
And I couldn’t help feeling happy that I was now standing in the same place as people who had established themselves in America long ago.
“First thing when I get back to Korea, I’m seriously studying English.”
Thank goodness Kwon Junhyeok had shown up and interpreted so well for me. It would’ve been difficult alone.
‘After finishes airing, I’m supposed to start doing schedules in Japan, so while I’m studying Japanese, I should squeeze in some English too.’
If Do Gyeoul’s movie got released while KBC still refused to put its shows on NetHolics, I might get pushed back again.
“After everything I did to get this far.”
Saying it aloud made it hit me all over again.
Just how I had gotten this far.
Even while people looked down on me for coming from web dramas.
Even while people told me television wasn’t film.
And now I was here.
In New York.
My heart raced at the thought of cementing my lead while I was still ahead of Do Gyeoul.
Once I gained recognition in America, the reaction in Korea would change too. If I could do just one serious film and then enter Hollywood, I might even attend international film awards ceremonies.
And then, someday....
‘The lead in a movie.’
The thought that my name might someday appear first on a screenplay made my head spin.
My heart was pounding so violently that all the sounds around me seemed to disappear.
Every conversation around me faded away, leaving only the DJ’s music transmitted through the vibrations of the speakers.
𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎
“Here you are.”
And then, as though the real protagonist had just appeared, I heard a familiar voice.
Myeong Jeha.
“....”
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
So everyone had gone quiet because they were too busy staring at Myeong Jeha the moment he walked in.
‘No wonder I couldn’t hear anyone talking.’
I found myself impressed all over again.
Myeong Jeha had changed out of what he’d worn at the M Jacobs show earlier. Now, dressed in a neat suit and bow tie, he looked almost like the main character at a wedding.
“Having fun?”
“It’s insane. By tomorrow, I’m probably going to break twenty million followers.”
Perfect timing.
I had so much to brag about.
I eagerly told him everything—from the necklace I was wearing now, to the magazine interviews I’d done as soon as I arrived, to how I’d properly put the nepo babies in their place in the powder room, then meeting Selena and hitting a million viewers on her TinTok Live, becoming friends with Riley, and even Kwon Junhyeok showing up to help interpret for me.
“America is this amazing, so what exactly is there not to like? I seriously don’t understand.”
I became intoxicated with America all over again.
Myeong Jeha, who had been listening attentively, smiled.
“Exactly.”
It had only been a few hours since I’d last seen him, but somehow his smile seemed a little different.
“When it’s this good.”
Had I overdone it with the champagne?
I was starting to feel a little tipsy.
For now, I nodded.
“I’m seriously going to make it in America.”
“Haha. When?”
“First I’ll make a success, and should be coming to NetHol soon too... Or maybe not? Do I have to wait longer? Ah. I hate waiting.”
And as it happened, I had acquired some new information earlier.
Kwon Junhyeok had told me.
“Senior Ji Haebeom is making a movie with Director Eom Gyun.”
“...You heard?”
“A loooong time ago. Remember? The reward vacation we went on together.”
“Yeah. I remember.”
“Senior Ji Haebeom asked me to work with him back then. Could this be what he meant? It’d be incredible if they actually brought me in.”
Ji Haebeom and Eom Gyun?
That was guaranteed to hit ten million admissions.
If I got into this one too, I’d go beyond three ten-million-viewer films and become someone whose every single film appearance had drawn ten million....
A legend.
“And since it’s Eom Gyun, we’d get invited to international awards ceremonies too, right? And if the movie goes to NetHol....”
“You don’t have to go through all that trouble to get here.”
“What trouble? There’s literally no downside!”
“Why don’t you just come now?”
Myeong Jeha made an absurd proposal.
“Not with Ji Haebeom. Want to make a movie in America with me?”