Superstar From Age 0

Chapter 546:

Translator: MarcTempest

Editor: AgRoseCrystal

Chapter 546

“Congratulations… I heard the drama club is fun…”

Kim Se-yeon looked at the noisy outside with a regretful face, then turned her head back to the table.

The director Hwang Ji-yoon, the assistant director Kim Se-yeon, the filming team Park Woo-jin and a senior in the fourth year, the lighting team, and two friends in the third year of the sound team. 

The six of them, who were the core of the [Fire] team, were gathered together.

“Our first filming is in early November… To be honest, I think it’s a crazy schedule.”

“We have to go before it snows.”

Sighing, Kim Se-yeon looked over the applications that had come in since last week.

Looking at the piled-up papers, she was relieved that there didn’t seem to be a shortage of people. 

They must have been eager to add a line to their resumes, just like her.

“These came in today.”

A friend who was in charge of the lighting team brought in new applications. 

The [Fire] team took the papers and flipped through them one by one, exchanging stories.

“Wow! Ji-yoon, let’s do it with this senior! I saw his exhibition last time and he made great props. Look at this.”

“I agree. It’s pretty.”

“Right?”

“I’ve worked with him before and he always meets the deadline.”

At Park Woo-jin’s words, Hwang Ji-yoon nodded quickly. Kim Se-yeon excitedly drew a big circle on the application.

“Next is… Kwon Se-ah from the music department?”

“I know her. She’s a genius. She entered our school early.”

At the senior’s words, a sigh of admiration came out. The lighting team friend said.

“She sent an original song by email.”

“Really? Then let’s listen to it together later. Next is…”

Hwang Ji-yoon turned the paper and froze. Kim Se-yeon tilted her head and looked at the paper.

“Wow. It’s Do-yoon oppa!”

Park Woo-jin and three others widened their eyes and nodded.

“Hwang Do-yoon is fine. He’s good at acting.”

“Yeah. He’s the top among the drama majors. His image fits too.”

“Isn’t it comfortable and nice to work with someone you know?”

At the flowing atmosphere, Hwang Ji-yoon made a groan.

***

“Are you really going to do it, oppa?”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“Because I like the script?”

Hwang Ji-yoon narrowed her eyes and looked at Hwang Do-yoon.

“Is it because Lee Seo-jun is starring in it?”

“I can’t deny that… To be honest, I liked your script from the first time I read it. But I couldn’t say anything because things kept happening. And then I saw Seo-jun’s acting and I got more interested.”

Hwang Do-yoon said with a serious expression.

“I thought a lot about it too. I know people will talk if the director’s family joins the cast of a work that Seo-jun is in. That’s why I practiced hard to avoid hearing that kind of thing. So just look at the audition and decide. If you don’t like my acting, you can just reject me.”

Somehow, his earnest expression softened her heart.

“…Well, fine.”

“Ha-ha, thank you!”

Hwang Ji-yoon sighed and watched Hwang Do-yoon go into his room with a giggling smile.

***

After the festival of Korea National University of Arts, the audition day for Min-han’s role.

The judging was done by all six members of the [Fire] team.

The drama majors in the third and fourth year came in one by one, and showed their acting as the counterpart of Park Woo-jin, the filming team. There were many familiar people, so it proceeded in a comfortable atmosphere.

“But you didn’t cast the unknown painter role?”

“We already casted that.”

“I see.”

The fourth-year student nodded and left, and the last applicant came in. It was Hwang Do-yoon.

Hwang Ji-yoon sighed without realizing it. The [Fire] team chuckled at the sight of the real siblings.

“Then let’s start.”

Park Woo-jin, who was holding the script, said the first line.

Hwang Do-yoon uttered Min-han’s line. He moved around the room that was prepared as an audition hall. The [Fire] team watched him without blinking.

After a while, Hwang Do-yoon finished his acting and left the audition hall, and Kim Se-yeon opened her mouth with a flustered face.

“Did Do-yoon oppa do that well?”

“He must have been training somewhere since he only did student council activities in the first semester.”

“I know, right.”

Park Woo-jin, who had filmed a short film with Hwang Do-yoon, couldn’t hide his admiration.

“At this rate, we can just go with Hwang Do-yoon, right?”

“Right. You can tell the difference…”

As they listened to the [Fire] team’s talk, Hwang Ji-yoon thought so too. He did well. But she wondered if she could really use her oppa.

“We all passed, but what about you, Ji-yoon?”

“I… I’ll think about it more.”

Hwang Ji-yoon sighed lightly and changed the topic.

“How was Kwon Se-ah’s song?”

“It was good. As expected, a genius is different. She’s good at composing too.”

“But she’s still young, aren’t you worried about entrusting her with everything?”

“Hey. We’re not that old either.”

“And if you think about it, Kwon Se-ah, who has been active on the world stage, is much more senior than us. Even if it’s a different field.”

“…That’s true.”

The [Fire] team’s meeting lasted until late.

***

When Hwang Ji-yoon arrived home, she looked at Hwang Do-yoon.

“Did you buy ice cream?”

“Here.”

“Oh. Melon!”

Hwang Do-yoon acted as usual. Hwang Ji-yoon felt comfortable with that. The siblings watched TV while eating ice cream, and the word ‘audition’ didn’t come out of their mouths.

Sigh, Hwang Ji-yoon lay down on the bed.

After solving the unknown painter role, Min-han’s role was the problem.

‘Hwang Do-yoon is not bad at acting, but I feel uneasy somehow.’

She sighed again and closed her eyes.

Maybe because she thought about it all day, [Fire] came to her mind naturally. Since she saw Seo-jun’s acting, the unknown painter appeared with Seo-jun’s face.

As always, the unknown painter drew hard, and next to him was Min-han with a faint image.

A faint image.

It was like that until yesterday.

Hwang Ji-yoon opened her eyes wide. Her big eyes shook without rest. Hwang Ji-yoon covered her face with both hands. Ugh.

“…It’s a nightmare…”

Hwang Do-yoon’s face was there.

***

The next morning.

Hwang Ji-yoon walked out of her room with a weary look. She felt a strange sense of déjà vu and Hwang Do-yoon asked her.

“Did you edit the script again?”

“Your acting is not that impressive, you know?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

She meant that Seo-jun’s acting was so impactful that it required script changes, but Hwang Do-yoon’s acting was not enough to warrant any edits.

But he still secured his role.

She thought of the other actors who auditioned tirelessly, but ‘Min-han’ was already wearing Hwang Do-yoon’s mask. She had nightmares of Hwang Do-yoon’s face all night.

‘…But he did fit the role.’

She gave up quickly after experiencing it once.

Sighing, Hwang Ji-yoon staggered to the kitchen and said.

“…Do well. Seriously.”

Hwang Do-yoon didn’t understand her words for a moment, but soon smiled brightly.

***

Mid-September.

Kim Jong-ho’s supporting role and Lee Ji-seok’s cameo in the Hollywood movie [ONE] were released.

[Actor Kim Jong-ho, his first Hollywood supporting role! ONE is out!]

[Reservation rate 82%! Expectations are rising!]

[Lee Ji-seok’s first Hollywood movie, what is his role in ONE?]

Maybe because it was a Hollywood movie, the promotion was huge, and the Koreans’ interest was high as two Korean actors appeared.

“The reviews are already up.”

“Really? How is it?”

“It’s all good! It’s fun.”

Seo-jun answered Park Do-hoon’s question with a smile.

Seo-jun, Lee Ji-seok, Park Do-hoon, and Lee Da-jin headed to the theater late at night to watch the movie. Kim Jong-ho couldn’t join them because of the promotion schedule.

“It would have been nice if we watched it together.”

“I know, right?”

Seo-jun nodded at Lee Da-jin’s words.

“He went to promote the movie, so we can’t help it.”

“Yeah. I couldn’t even go at all.”

Lee Ji-seok shrugged and said at Park Do-hoon’s words.

He had participated in every promotion event after securing his lead role, but it felt fresh to start from a cameo again.

Seo-jun and Lee Da-jin giggled.

“Shall we go in then?”

They arrived just in time, so they were able to enter the theater quickly.

Seo-jun and the three others sat in their seats and looked at the screen with anticipation. Soon, the theater went dark.

[ONE] was a story of bank robbers and police, and the twist was that there were copycats involved.

After the real bank robbers robbed and escaped from three banks, their method was revealed through the news. 

The copycats decided to follow their example and targeted one bank, but coincidentally, that bank was also the one that the real bank robbers were aiming for.

The real bank robbers confronted and guarded against the copycats, the copycats were scared and pretended to be them, and the police were confused by the sudden doubling of the bank robbers’ numbers.

‘What a mess.’

But the director managed to unravel the flow very well, so it was not hard to understand. Rather, there were many stories to tell, and the pace was fast and fun.

The protagonist of [ONE] was the leader of the copycats, and one of the copycat members was Kim Jong-ho, who made a name for himself in Korea (he told the protagonist when he was young, drunk) and was currently working as a locksmith in the US.

“Sigh, I knew this would happen…”

The one who grabbed him and pointed a gun at him was Lee Ji-seok, who played a cop.

“Hey, hands up.”

Of course, he was a cameo, so he soon fainted from the protagonist’s attack, but he still showed his face and spoke his lines quite a bit.

“You looked great in the police uniform, hyung.”

“Yeah, you did.”

Lee Ji-seok groaned at Seo-jun and Lee Da-jin’s words. He was driving them home after watching the movie.

“I thought I was going to die from bulking up.”

Seo-jun, Park Do-hoon, and Lee Da-jin laughed. They knew how hard Lee Ji-seok had prepared for that role.

“The ending was fun too.”

“Yeah.”

The fierce fight between the heavily armed real bank robbers, the novice copycats, and the police SWAT team, who had missed the bank robbers three times, was intense.

‘Well, the copycats were just like shrimps caught in a whale fight.’

It was interesting to see how the protagonist and his members used their skills to escape the danger. He wondered why he gathered such members, but they all had their uses.

During that fierce battle, the real bank robbers all died and the copycats barely escaped.

The scene of the police in a meeting came out. They had missed the bank robbers three times, and they also let the newly appeared copycats escape.

“You want me to say that two gangs of robbers broke in and we let one of them go?!”

“It would be better to say that one gang of robbers used a diversion tactic to break in, and we were briefly confused, but we managed to kill most of them! But unfortunately, we let some of them go!”

When the copycats were cheering with the bills, jewels, and gold, the news came out.

It was news about the copycats, but it was a bit strange. Suddenly, the crimes that the real bank robbers had committed became the deeds of the copycats.

“What!? We didn’t do that!”

But the real bank robbers who could testify were all dead, and the copycats who had followed the real bank robbers’ method exactly had escaped from the bank.

Unless they turned themselves in and said, ‘We didn’t do that.’ there was no way to explain.

‘Of course, I doubt they would listen even if we did.’

That’s how the copycats became real from fake, and the movie ended with their shocked faces.

“Maybe the sequel will be about explaining that?”

Park Do-hoon nodded at Lee Da-jin’s words. Seo-jun opened his mouth.

“Or maybe the protagonist will go rogue and become a real bank robber. The protagonist of the sequel will be a cop.”

“That could be possible too.”

Seo-jun and Lee Da-jin laughed at Park Do-hoon’s words.

“Okay, we’re here.”

They arrived at the apartment where Lee Da-jin lived, talking about the movie. Lee Ji-seok parked the car and Seo-jun and Park Do-hoon greeted Lee Da-jin with a smile as he unbuckled his seat belt.

“Bye. Hyung.”

“Be careful going in.”

Then the phone rang. It was Lee Ji-seok’s cell phone.

“A call at this time… What is it?”

Lee Ji-seok answered the phone. Lee Da-jin, who was about to get out of the car, and Seo-jun and Park Do-hoon looked at Lee Ji-seok with curiosity. 

Lee Ji-seok’s eyes grew bigger as he answered with uh, uh.

“What’s the call, hyung?”

Lee Ji-seok said with a slightly dazed face at Seo-jun’s question.

“…I passed the audition.”

It was Lee Ji-seok’s second Hollywood movie.