Chapter 122: Beauty Trap (1)
Kang Ra-Eun’s shoot schedule had finished early yet again thanks to her spartan training on Hwang Seung-Beom. As time went by, the staff members were losing the feeling that they were in Director Yoon’s infamous shoots.
Director Yoon’s shoots were known to be extremely long compared to those of other directors. Each staff member used to come to the set with the resolve to work overtime, but it had been completely different for the shoots of One of a Kind of Girl.
Even compared to the average duration of a film shoot, it was showing a trend of ending considerably faster. This was all thanks to Ra-Eun. Not only that, the addition of the awakened Seung-Beom accelerated the shooting speed even more.
Ra-Eun loved nothing more than to end shoots early by extracting only its essence as quickly as possible. She couldn’t be happier because everything was going exactly as she wanted, and it was the case for today as well.
“Thank you for all your hard work!” Ra-Eun exclaimed to the staff members.
Seung-Beom replied with a ninety-degree bow, “Great job today, sunbae!”
“You too. Go home and get some rest. I’ll see you next week.”
“Understood!”
Seung-Beom was treating Ra-Eun like how a soldier would treat a battalion commander; the only thing missing was a salute. Seeing this, Shin Yu-Bin smiled bitterly. She couldn’t help but give Ra-Eun a thumbs-up in admiration of her.
Ra-Eun quickly left the set and stretched her torso by twisting it to relieve as much of the fatigue accumulated from the shoot as possible.
Yu-Bin asked, “Do you want to go straight home?”
“Yes, but I think I’ll have to go right back out in the evening.”
“Why?”
“I promised to go shopping for some clothes with friends.”
“By friends, do you mean Yi-Seo?”
Since the two were roommates, Ra-Eun and Seo Yi-Seo hung out a lot together. However, that was not the case today.
“No, I’m going to meet Gyu-Rin and Ro-Mi today,” Ra-Eun answered.
“Oh, the glasses girl and the girl with big breasts.”
Yu-Bin remembered the exact characteristics of the two. Since she was a manager as well as in sales, she met an enormous number of people. Hence, she saved an image of a person along with one of their physical characteristics in her head. She would immediately recall who it was with just that. It was a Shin Yu-Bin-exclusive tip.
“Have fun. Oh, and avoid crowded places. I’m sure there are still tons of paparazzis following you around,” Yu-Bin advised.
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Huh? Why not?”
“Because I took care of them all.”
There were countless paparazzi trying to dig into Ra-Eun’s private life. She had thought of just ignoring them at first, but decided to take measures since it would be extremely annoying if an article like the dating scandal of her and Ji Han-Seok were to be published again.
Ra-Eun left it to a specialist in such jobs, Ma Yeong-Jun. She told him to pick a fight with and keep harassing any paparazzi that he found. There were a few of them who had quit being paparazzi because they were continuously being harassed by gangsters. Thanks to this, the paparazzi aiming for Ra-Eun had all disappeared.
‘But I should still be careful.’
Even if the paparazzi presently around her had all disappeared, new paparazzi would flock around her soon enough.
‘It’s so hard being a celebrity.’
It was a hassle being so famous.
***
It had been a while since Ra-Eun had gone shopping with Na Gyu-Rin and Choi Ro-Mi. Ro-Mi aside...
“You’ve changed so much, Gyu-Rin,” Ra-Eun remarked.
Since it had been so long, Gyu-Rin was like a different person compared to the high school girl image of Gyu-Rin that Ra-Eun had in her head. The biggest change was that she no longer wore glasses.
“I got laser eye surgery done,” Gyu-Rin said.
“Oh, really?’
“Yeah. It’s so nice and comfortable not having to wear glasses.”
Gyu-Rin looked completely different without glasses. She was the only one in Ra-Eun’s group of high school girl friends who had worn glasses, but she had now moved on from glasses.
‘I guess Miss Manager will have to memorize a different characteristic of Gyu-Rin.’
Yu-Bin had remembered Gyu-Rin from her glasses, but that had now become obsolete. Gyu-Rin and Ro-Mi had both gotten to the age where they paid great attention to their appearance, so they looked far more beautiful compared to last year.
However, no matter how hard they worked, they wouldn’t be able to surpass Ra-Eun. Not only was she a celebrity, her looks were on the top tier even among celebrities; she couldn’t help but be leagues above ordinary people.
But despite this, Gyu-Rin and Ro-Mi were not jealous of Ra-Eun in the slightest. Rather, they were getting vicarious satisfaction as Ra-Eun’s beauty grew day by day.
“Ra-Eun, come here for a sec,” Ro-Mi hurriedly called Ra-Eun over.
“What is it?”
“I want you to try this on.”
What Ro-Mi had in her hands was... a white miniskirt. Like the name suggested, it was an extremely short skirt.
Ra-Eun frowned. “I don’t wear skirts that short.”
“Oh? You wore our school uniform skirt just fine.”
“That’s because it was our uniform. And it wasn’t as short as this.”
As always, Ra-Eun did not like exposing her skin.
“What if I wear leggings or black stockings under the skirt?” Ra-Eun asked.
“Skirts like this are meant to show off your legs. There would be no meaning to wearing this if you did what you just said.”
“Sigh...”
Ra-Eun’s resistance to skirts had not subsided despite having been a woman for four years. Her lower body felt naked whenever she wore a skirt. She thought about wearing bloomers underneath, but she would be better off just wearing hot pants instead.
Because of this, she did not go out of her way to wear skirts. However, she did not completely avoid wearing them. She wore them only when she needed to. She needed a clear objective.
***
Their shopping spree had come to an end. They went to the underground parking lot to go by car to have dinner together. As they were walking to Ra-Eun’s car with a bunch of shopping bags in hand, a certain woman recognized Ra-Eun.
“Oh my! Is that you, Chairwoman?”
Ra-Eun had worn sunglasses and a mask, but she couldn’t fool the eyes of Director Do Hye-Yeong who she had worked with for a long time.
“What are you doing here, Chairwoman?”
“I went shopping with my friends and was about to go have dinner with them. What about you, Director? Shouldn’t you be at the company?”
“I have an important meeting to attend.”
Just in time, Park Seol-Hun and a certain man were walking over to Hye-Yeong. Seol-Hun and the man were also surprised to see Ra-Eun.
Ra-Eun glanced at the man next to Seol-Hun and asked, “And who might this be, Mr. Park?”
She couldn’t be rude to Seol-Hun like usual since there were many eyes on them. Seol-Hun also replied in the formality that he would normally need to show to his company chairwoman.
“Chairwoman Kang, this is Chairman Joo Jae-Eon of Entre Happy.”
“My name is Joo Jae-Eon. I had no idea that I would be meeting you in this way, Miss Kang.”
The clean-cut man extended out his hand, but retrieved it back to his side after realizing that Ra-Eun’s hands were full with shopping bags.
Ra-Eun knew Joo Jae-Eon very well. He had jumped into the clothing industry at the early age of his mid-twenties, and had become famous enough for it to be no exaggeration to say that he had raised the level of Korea’s fashion industry to a whole new level. However, he was not able to keep up with the changing times and could not maintain his former glory to present time. Then, he would slowly go through the process of closing his business and ultimately end up selling it to a different company.
‘I believe he’ll be selling his company sometime around this year.’
Come to think of it, Seol-Hun had told her that he was thinking about focusing on taking over Entre Happy. It would be a huge help for Levanche if they took over Entre Happy; not only did they have very skilled designers, they would be able to absorb all the distribution and infrastructures that they had built since long ago. It was certainly very appealing for Levanche, which was still simply a startup.
Ra-Eun asked for Joo Jae-Eon’s understanding with the brightest smile she could bring out.
“I’m so sorry. I should have been there during the meeting and to have a meal with you, but...” She turned toward Gyu-Rin and Ro-Mi. “I’ve been so busy buying clothes to wear for shoots with my manager and stylist.”
Gyu-Rin and Ro-Mi had become Ra-Eun’s impromptu manager and stylist. They had dumbfounded looks on their faces because they couldn’t follow the flow of the conversation.
“I had planned it for today since I had no other time left on my schedule. Right, Ro-Mi?”
Gyu-Rin had immediately adapted to Ra-Eun’s impromptu setting. Ro-Mi was still a little bewildered, but she couldn’t handle the pressure coming from Ra-Eun and Gyu-Rin, and simply nodded in response.
Jae-Eon laughed at how close the three were and said, “You had already made plans, so it’s quite alright. I’m happy just from seeing you, Miss Kang. I’m happy to have one of my long-cherished dreams fulfilled.”
The mention of it being his dream caught Ra-Eun’s attention. They went about their separate ways after a short farewell. Ra-Eun texted Seol-Hun as soon as she got in the car, to notify her in detail regarding the potential takeover of Entre Happy.
***
The very next day, Ra-Eun visited the Levanche headquarters at 2 PM and heard the gist of what had happened yesterday. The portion of greatest interest was the Entre Happy takeover.
“To sum it up in one sentence, we’re at a huge disadvantage,” Seol-Hun stated.
“Why? Is it a money issue?”
“There’s that too, but the number and scale of our competitors is no joke. We don’t even stand a chance.”
Ra-Eun fell into deep thought. Whether or not they could take over Entre Happy would greatly influence the growth speed of Levanche.
“Mister. Is there anything you know about Joo Jae-Eon? For example, any weaknesses?” Ra-Eun asked.
“Weaknesses, huh...? To tell you the truth, I did discover something during yesterday’s meeting.”
“Really? What?”
Before continuing, Seol-Hun’s eyes were fully fixed on Ra-Eun.
“Well...”
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