Chapter 60: Encouragement (1)
The additional shoot of Reaper?was to be held today. The director and cast came to the studio as if their previous final shoot and dinner party never happened. They were disappointed that it had ended when it was over, but now that the additional shoot was taking place, their faces expressed their desire for it to be over already.
Kang Ra-Eun was also one of them. Not only that, but since she had the largest part in the additional shoot, she had to suffer the most out of them.
‘They’re not gonna hold yet another shoot after this, are they?’?Ra-Eun worried.
On the other hand, Je-Woon did not have as much to do as Ra-Eun. The only scene that he had was grabbing Ra-Eun by the wrist and embracing her.
“I can’t let you go. Do you understand?” Je-Woon said.
“...”
Even with their impending farewell slowly approaching, the male lead that Je-Woon was acting did not acknowledge having to part with Jin Seo-Yu. However, not even his stubbornness was able to stop their farewell. Ra-Eun pushed against Je-Woon’s wide chest with both hands, and looked up at him with a faint smile.
“You’re as foolish as when I first met you.”
The camera focused on Ra-Eun’s face full of sorrow.
“Okay! Let’s move onto the next scene!” Director Park exclaimed.
The staff members moved busily. The next scene was the actual final one. Ra-Eun would be the only one in the scene. Before jumping into the filming, she went to get her make-up fixed. Je-Woon thanked her in the middle of it.
“Thanks, Ra-Eun. We reached the top of the music chart thanks to you.”
“Wouldn’t it be thanks to the effort that you and your group members put into it instead of me? All I did was appear in the music video,” Ra-Eun expressed.
“The public can’t get enough of that music video, you know?”
Ra-Eun’s appearance in another music video after Rita’s became a huge story. One could say that she played a massive part in the music video’s success, but she herself did not dwell on such things since she simply starred in it because she was asked to. However, she wanted to make something certain.
“Sunbae. Since I starred in your music video, you have to fulfill a favor of mine next time.”
“A favor? What is it?” Je-Woon asked.
“My older brother is going to be starting his business soon. It’s a clothing business, so I was wondering if I could entrust you to be the model for our menswear products?”
Ra-Eun had gladly accepted to star in Bex’s music video to ask this favor to Je-Woon. Since he was a very righteous person, he always repaid a favor.
“Okay. That’s not too difficult to do,” Je-Woon answered.
It all went as Ra-Eun had planned. She had fulfilled her goal. She felt like humming a tune right here, but decided to hold it in for now.
***
She wore the modernized hanbok that she had worn back in the filming of episode 1. Jin Seo-Yu often wore this attire as a grim reaper. Ra-Eun felt very weird wearing something that she had worn back at the very first shoot.
‘It really feels like the end.’
She strongly felt mixed emotions. She wanted nothing more than for the drama to end as soon as possible in the beginning, but it looked like she had gotten attached in that short of a time.
However, if there was a beginning, then there also had to be an end. She raised her sword once again to bring the journey to a beautiful conclusion.
Swing—!
The camera crew moved the camera as dynamically as possible to film Ra-Eun swinging her sword. She switched to a reverse grip and stuck the sword into the ground. And then, she looked down at a surprised young woman who had fallen on her butt.
The corners of her mouth curled up.
“You can see me as well?”
The story of Reaper?came to an end after Ra-Eun’s last line that possibly signified a new beginning. Director Park’s “Cut!” brought today’s shoot... no, the final shoot of Reaper?to an end.
“Thank you for your hard work!”
“Thank you for everything!”
The staff members cheered to enjoy the drama’s final moments once again. Ra-Eun also congratulated everyone for their hard work. Meanwhile, screenwriter Hwang Yo-Rin said in disappointment, “I still had around eighty more outfits that I wanted Ra-Eun to wear. The drama ended way too soon!”
“I’m not sure what to say to that...” Ra-Eun replied.
It looked like there was a very high chance for her to fall into attire-changing hell if a new season was announced. She had gotten somewhat used to it, but it was still an absolute hassle.
‘I should put a limit on the number of attires next time.’
There was a chance that she could collapse if she didn’t. Her solitary battle against the clothes had come to an end with the drama’s finale. The production team would usually hold a dinner party after such a long journey had ended, but they decided not to since they already had one last time. Since there was no dinner party, Ra-Eun decided to go home and rest as soon as possible.
Shin Yu-Bin who had been waiting for Ra-Eun and the stylist said as they got in the car, “Good work, Ra-Eun. You want to go straight home, right?”
“Yes.”
She was rather tired after filming a shoot that was not originally planned. Furthermore, she was not in the best condition around this time of the month, so she just wanted to go home and rest.
Yu-Bin leisurely drove out of the parking lot. After around ten minutes had passed, Ra-Eun got a text from the loan shark Ma Yeong-Jun at this time of night.
[Reporter Ahn is up to something dangerous again.]
Reporter Ahn Su-Jin had scooped up some sort of dangerous story yet again. Ra-Eun already knew what sort of scoop she had.
‘It must be about the tax fraud allegations.’
A storm of tax fraud allegations had been brewing in the political circle lately. Since Reporter Ahn had great interest in the political and financial world, she would never let such a scoop pass by her. Ra-Eun was sure that she had jumped straight into the storm this time as well.
‘The media is going to be in an uproar because of this for a while.’
However, Ra-Eun was only a university student at this time in the past, so she had not been able to observe the allegations from up close. She had just heard about it on the news.
‘I’d only heard about this later down the road, but Congressman Kim was also among the names on the tax fraud list.’
A young congressman had acquired a list of congressmen who had committed tax fraud, but Kim Han-Gyo’s name was cleverly omitted from the list. She had no way of knowing in detail what he had done in the shadows, because she was only a plain university student at the time.
If Congressman Kim was involved in this, then Reporter Ahn would be in danger.
[Make sure that she doesn’t get into any danger.]
Ra-Eun had already given Yeong-Jun plenty of money, so he replied that he would. She had little reason to worry since he and his subordinates were secretly protecting the reporter.
‘Should I subtly steer her into investigating how Kim Han-Gyo was able to remove his name from the tax fraud list later?’
Using Reporter Ahn was also one of the options. Only by gathering as much incriminating evidence against Kim Han-Gyo as possible starting now could she perfectly exact the revenge that she was envisioning in the future.
While she was in deep thought, Yu-Bin’s phone rang.
“Hello? Yes, good evening. Oh, that? I’ll let Ra-Eun know, but... it’ll probably be difficult. Yes. I’m sure you know since you watched the interview, but Ra-Eun is planning on focusing on her studies for the time being.”
Ra-Eun’s ears perked up as soon as her name was mentioned. She asked as Yu-Bin ended the call, “What was that call about?”
“Huh? Oh, they’re casting guests for a show. You know the talk show that’s hosted by Announcer Min Yeong-Seon, right? They’re having a female celebrity guest special, and they called to ask if you’d be willing to appear. They’ve been calling since yesterday, so they must really want you on.”
Announcer Min Yeong-Seon’s talk show. She felt like there was something about it, but it was clouded in fog.
“Who are the other guests?” Ra-Eun asked, hoping to lift the thick fog clouding her mind.
“Let’s see... Rita, Seong-Mi, Yang-Jin, and... Do you know who Miss Hong Oh-Yeon is?”
“Is it Congresswoman Hong Oh-Yeon by any chance?”
“Yeah, that’s right. You sure know your stuff.”
She was the young congresswoman who was awarded a seat through the party-list proportional representation when the opposition party she belonged to came in second.
Ra-Eun said to Yu-Bin as soon as she heard that name, “Call them back please, Miss Manager.”
“What? Why?”
“I’ll go on that talk show.”
Congresswoman Hong Oh-Yeon was one of the pieces necessary for her revenge.
***
Congresswoman Hong would later rise to become a senior member of the National Assembly, and a leading figure who would stand on equal grounds against Congressman Kim Han-Gyo. Ra-Eun still vividly remembered the numerous times Kim Han-Gyo had been disgraced by Congresswoman Hong.
An enemy of Congressman Kim was her friend. Not just that, but...
‘Even if I’m a celebrity, it’s not so easy to meet political figures.’
She needed to make connections with them through appearing on the same show together like this. And like that, she could use Congresswoman Hong to seriously hinder Kim Han-Gyo’s plans.
Yu-Bin was dumbfounded at first when Ra-Eun said that she wanted to appear on the show, because it was the first time that Ra-Eun ever actually wanted to appear on a program. However, she was in no position to say no since Ra-Eun herself wanted to.
Hence, her appearance was established. The show would be filmed on Saturday afternoon. Both the date and time were perfect. Ra-Eun tidied her clothes in front of a full-length mirror before heading to the recording.
‘I should dress as neatly as possible since I’m off to meet a political prospect.’
Her goal today was not to do well on the show, but solely to become friends with Congresswoman Hong.
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