Chapter 196: Ideal Woman (3)
Min Se-Min was taken aback by Kang Ra-Eun’s comment. Even Ra-Eun was surprised by what she had uttered in spite of herself.
‘Oh shit, I spoke before I knew it...’
Her thoughts had come out of her mouth completely unfiltered. Ra-Eun sometimes made mistakes like this because she was fully aware of what would happen in the future. Most people thought little of the secrets that Ra-Eun leaked and let it slide, but that was not the case for Se-Min since he was highly interested in Ra-Eun.
“What do you mean by that?” he asked.
“I didn’t mean much by it. I just...”
“Just what?”
She went through all sorts of excuses that she could make, but couldn’t find one that made sense. She had no choice.
‘Now that it has come to this, I need to use my trump card!’
Ra-Eun had earned something that she could consider her trump card the moment she became a woman.
“You could say it’s... female intuition.”
It was a term that many other women besides Ra-Eun often used. There were times when women’s intuition was sharper than a canine fang, so Ra-Eun would fall back to that whenever she couldn’t for the life of her figure out a good excuse. It was now up to Se-Min whether or not he would believe Ra-Eun.
‘That aside, I really hope he doesn’t go.’
Ra-Eun was sincerely hoping that Se-Min would listen to her. Park Hyeong-Jun would soon cause a massive incident in the entertainment industry. He would fall into complete ruin due to narcotics. It would have been less of a problem if he had taken full responsibility for his actions, but he had not done that in the future that Ra-Eun knew.
Hyeong-Jun had offered narcotics to his acquaintances as well, which had left a huge impact in the entertainment industry for a long time. Several celebrities became subject to criminal investigations due to this incident, and Se-Min had been one of them. He was of course acquitted, but simply being part of that incident had left an enormously negative impact on his image, as well as the film that he would be starring in.
‘Why was I only reminded of the Park Hyeong-Jun incident just now?’
No, she was relieved just from the fact that she had been reminded of it.
Meanwhile, Se-Min fell into deep thought after hearing something meaningful from Ra-Eun. She had simply told him not to attend the party since she had a bad feeling about it; although she had absolutely no scientific reason nor proof, her words continued to bother him.
“Do you know something about Hyeong-Jun?” Se-Min asked.
He wondered if she had purposefully been vague because it was a difficult subject to bring up despite her knowing exactly what it was. Now that things had progressed this far, Ra-Eun decided to be aggressive to get Se-Min out from Hyeong-Jun’s clutches with certainty.
“Yes. I’ve heard some bad rumors,” she remarked.
“What kind of rumors?”
“I can’t really say. I’m not completely sure whether it’s true or not.”
Not just that, Ra-Eun did not want to slander Hyeong-Jun since he and Se-Min were apparently very close.
“But I already told Hyeong-Jun that I would go...”
“Can’t you tell him that you can’t come because you forgot that you had a prior engagement?”
“A prior engagement, huh? Then I guess I should call some of my acquaintances to see if any of them are free.”
“There’s no need for that,” Ra-Eun remarked while pointing at herself. “You can make plans with me.”
Her plan was to keep Se-Min from associating with Hyeong-Jun as much as possible, and she had absolutely no problem with giving Se-Min at least a day of her time to do that. There was no need to even ask if Se-Min would rather go to Hyeong-Jun’s party or spend time with Ra-Eun.
“Okay. I’ll do as you say, Ra-Eun.”
Se-Min did as Ra-Eun wanted, allowing her to sigh in relief.
***
Ra-Eun woke up the next morning and got ready to go out. She unconsciously complained as she was drying her hair with a hairdryer.
“I’ll be spending all day just drying this goddamn hair.”
Ra-Eun had short hair back when she was a man, so it had taken an extremely short amount of time to dry. However, that was not the case for women with long hair. She had to dry, dry, and dry again; she even needed to comb through her hair with her fingers multiple times to see if she had left any areas undried. She had no choice but to take all these steps because she hated the uncomfortable feeling of moisture still remaining on her hair.
Seo Yi-Seo, who had gotten up to prepare breakfast, asked as she saw Ra-Eun sitting in front of her makeup table, “Do you have plans today, Ra-Eun?”
“Yeah. I have to leave soon.”
“Oh, you’re leaving pretty early.”
“Yeah. I’ll be recognized from all over the place if I leave when lots of people are walking around.”
This was why Ra-Eun mainly went around in early mornings and late evenings. It was one of the hardships of a popular celebrity.
“Who do you have plans with?” Yi-Seo asked.
“Min Se-Min sunbae.”
“Really? Ro-Mi would be super jealous.”
Se-Min was number one on the lookist Choi Ro-Mi’s list of hottest male actors. Ra-Eun could tell how much Ro-Mi loved Se-Min from the number of calls that she had gotten from her once news had spread that she would be working together on a production with him. Ro-Mi’s interest in Se-Min proved just how handsome he was.
‘Well, he’s handsome even to a man like me.’
Ra-Eun couldn’t not admit it. She hurried to get ready to leave in her stretch jeans, green long sleeve shirt with a cardigan on top, and a small handbag. Se-Min called her just in time.
- I’m almost there, so you can come down if you’re ready.
“Okay. I’ll be right down.”
Ra-Eun got on the elevator after saying goodbye to Yi-Seo. She could see Se-Min’s car as soon as she came out of the lobby. He had pulled up on a foreign brand vehicle that was rare to see even in Seoul.
Ra-Eun asked while looking around the inside of the car, “Did you have a car like this, sunbae? I think it’s different from the one that I saw last time...”
“This is my #1 most valued car. The one that I drove last time is around #5.”
Se-Min was well known even in the entertainment industry as an avid car collector, which was why he and Ji Han-Seok got along so well.
“Where would you like to go?” Se-Min asked.
Ra-Eun already had a place in mind.
“Let’s go to a bookstore first.”
***
Ra-Eun thought before becoming an actress that all she needed to do to succeed in the acting industry was to just be good at acting. However, she couldn’t have been more wrong. An actor needed to know as much as possible about the character they played as well as the production they would be in.
.
In the case of Spokesperson, it was closely related to politics and law. Hence, Ra-Eun had been planning on reading through and purchasing books related to those subjects. The rise of e-books would come over time, but there weren’t many available since she was still far from the future that she used to be in.
That was why Ra-Eun had decided to come to an offline bookstore first with Se-Min. It was so early in the morning that there weren’t many people. The employees also did their best not to bother Ra-Eun and Se-Min, allowing them to look through the books in peace.
Se-Min laughed awkwardly as they were walking around the bookstore.
“It’s been a really long time since I’ve been to a bookstore.”
“Were you not good at studying, sunbae?”
“Not at all. I wasn’t really interested in my studies. My grades were also pretty average. Han-Seok hyung apparently always used to place in the top ten of his school, but... Oh, I’ve heard you were also very good at studying, Ra-Eun.”
Ra-Eun had much better grades than Han-Seok, excluding the grades before her second semester of second year.
“You really can do anything, Ra-Eun.”
“Not at all. There are things that I can’t do. For example...”
Ra-Eun stretched her right arm out upward while tiptoeing. She was trying to take out a book on the topmost shelf.
“I can’t reach it.”
She often experienced such inconveniences due to her lack of height compared to when she had been a man. Se-Min smiled widely after seeing a rare scene of Ra-Eun acting cute. Unlike Ra-Eun, who couldn’t reach the book even on tiptoes, Se-Min took the book out all too easily.
“Here you go.”
“Thank you, sunbae.”
Compared to Ra-Eun’s height, which was in the 160 cm range, Se-Min was over 180 cm tall. They were almost twenty centimeters apart in height.
“Are there any other books you’d like? I’ll take them out for you.”
“In that case... Could you get me the one on the far right over there?”
“No problem.”
Ra-Eun had easily acquired the books that she’d wanted thanks to her tall partner. The two of them returned to the car after paying for the books. Se-Min grabbed the steering wheel and looked back at the back seats, amazed to see the pile of books. They were all Ra-Eun’s.
“You must have a lot of love for this production, Ra-Eun.”
It was a given, since this production would help her screw Kim Han-Gyo over. Ra-Eun was planning on making Spokesperson?a hit, whatever it took. And to do that, she needed ample preparations.
“I want to make this film a success no matter what,” Ra-Eun expressed.
Se-Min also made a resolution after seeing Ra-Eun’s firm determination, that he would do his absolute best for the one that he admired and liked.
***
Se-Min came across an article that was hard to believe just one day before the production opened.
“Se-Min! Take a look at this! Hurry!”
Se-Min couldn’t believe the information in the article that his manager had shown him.
[Narcotics detected in the wine? Investigations on the famous celebrity Mr. Park commences.]
[Mr. Park acknowledges the narcotics allegation. Who could he be?]
The article did not include Hyeong-Jun’s name, but people were already mentioning it.
“This is about Hyeong-Jun, right?”
Se-Min could only stay quiet in response to his manager’s question. He had been wondering why he hadn’t been able to get in touch with Hyeong-Jun since a few days ago.
‘So it was because of this.’
The article also included the private party that Hyeong-Jun had invited Se-Min to. If Se-Min had gone to that party, he might have been roped into this incident as well. Ra-Eun had saved Se-Min.
‘Thank God I listened to Ra-Eun.’
Se-min was scared out of his wits despite not even having watched a horror film.
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