Even though Woo-Jin could now attend classes normally, he still had reports that he needed to submit. It had been a while since he went to the library to do some research and he was planning on studying hard. After wearing a pair of non-prescription glasses, a hat, and a scarf, Woo-Jin looked in the mirror and smiled. In the past, he had wondered why on earth did celebrities choose to dress like that, but he was doing the same thing now.
It was hard for him to move around campus as freely as he did at the beginning of the semester. Things were fine during classes, but the moment he left the classroom, Woo-Jin no longer had any privacy. When Woo-Jin looked around during lunch, he was constantly taken by surprise whenever he saw phones pointing at him. Even when he was getting coffee from the vending machine, he would hear the sound of camera shutters echoing. [1] Because of that, he felt apologetic towards his friends on more than one occasion.
“Don’t worry about us. They’re not taking photos of us anyway. Even if they happened to capture our faces by accident, they would blur it out.”
Perhaps his friends had already experienced it quite a number of times before, so they were not bothered by it anymore. Woo-Jin was the only one feeling anxious and worried about his friends’ portrait rights and privacy. Even though none of his friends complained, Woo-Jin still did his best to cover up his face as much as he could.
After thoroughly preparing himself, Woo-Jin left the house. He stood outside his house and stared blankly at the sky. The car wasn’t there. To be precise, Kang Ho-Soo was not by his side. Woo-Jin had subconsciously become accustomed to Kang Ho-Soo driving him around over the last couple of months, so he was taken aback for a moment. He was at a loss on how to get to school.
Woo-Jin felt that it was embarrassing to call Kang Ho-Soo just to ask for a ride to the school library, so he couldn’t bring himself to call him. Hence, Woo-Jin took public transportation for the first time in a while. He covered his face with a scarf so that only his eyes were visible. Woo-Jin only texted Kang Ho-Soo after he got on the subway.
[You’re on the subway right now?]
[Yes, I have to do something at the library. I’ve completely covered my face, so nobody will recognize me.]
[You should have taken a taxi.]
[Ah… ;;] [2]
After reading Kang Ho-Soo’s text message, Woo-Jin realized that it didn’t cross his mind that there existed another mode of transport. As an ordinary citizen, Woo-Jin had rarely taken a taxi in the past decade. He was unfamiliar with the luxury of taking a taxi to school. Woo-Jin told Kang Ho-Soo that he would definitely take a taxi home, but Kang Ho-Soo said that he still felt uneasy about it, so he promised Woo-Jin to pick him up on time.
Woo-Jin tapped his head on the pole that he was leaning against and felt pathetic. He thought it was ridiculous how someone like him, who used to think of taxis as a luxury, had become accustomed to being driven around by his manager.
“Is ‘Commander of the Universe’ really Min Si-Hoo?” The girls sitting down in front of Woo-Jin might have gotten tired of the silence because they started talking about the latest celebrity gossip.
“It’s clearly him. Everybody knows it’s him but they’re pretending to not know.”
“That’s true. He’s going to win for the third time this week, right?”
“Of course! The ‘Counter-attack From the Past’ is the best among the contenders, but he’s definitely no match for the Commander,” said the girl confidently. She appeared to be either Blue Fit’s fan or Min Si-Hoo’s fan.
“But who is ‘Counter-attack From the Past’? He sings pretty well but I have absolutely no idea who he is.”
“People have mentioned a few names. But it would be really funny if ‘Counter-attack From the Past’ is Chae Woo-Jin, like what we predicted.” Woo-Jin’s ears perked up after hearing his own name. He didn’t watch last week’s episode of The King of the Masked Singers so he didn’t know who ‘Counterattack From the Past’ was, but there seemed to be some speculation that he was Chae Woo-Jin.
“Why? Even though he doesn’t have the skills to beat Commander, ‘Counter-attack From the Past’ sang surprisingly well. If he really is Chae Woo-Jin, then wouldn’t he be considered quite skilled for an actor?” Towards the end of her sentence, the other girl quietly sided with ‘Counter-attack From the Past,’ saying that she really liked 'The Wind that Blows from You' by Chae Woo-Jin.
“I sang along to that song too. It’s an easy song – anybody can sing it. Chae Woo-Jin only sounded good because of autotune. If he were to sing it live on air while reproducing the same sound, I would acknowledge his vocal skills. But I bet that’s never going to happen. It’s really disgraceful how he manipulated the media into saying that he was an original member of Blue Fit with his meager skills!”
“Oh really? I’ve never seen any articles about that.”
“That’s because you didn’t come across any of them. If you search online, you can find many articles about it. In my opinion, ‘Counter-attack From the Past’ is most likely Chae Woo-Jin. Even their voices are similar in the lower registers. And what is up with the name ‘Counter-attack From the Past’? He might want to live up to his name but he’s going to be crushed by the Commander.”
Then, she prattled on about how she was only watching City of Shadows because of her Min-Soo oppa, and condemning Woo-Jin for thinking he was all that when his acting was just subpar.
“I think Chae Woo-Jin’s acting is pretty great and I like him though…” Perhaps the girl who sided with Chae Woo-Jin was timid by nature – she couldn’t stand her ground or refute what the other girl had said, and ended up beating around the bush.
Her friend clicked her tongue and shook her head. “If he’s actually good at acting, he would have at least won an award at the recent film festivals. He did get nominated for a couple of things here and there, but ultimately it doesn’t matter. He only received that much recognition because the media kept hyping him up. He’s totally overrated. For all we know, he has an influential sponsor backing him since he became that famous in such a short period of time.”
“Hey, that’s not true! Didn’t DS say that they’re against sponsorships?”
“You’re so gullible! Do you believe everything people say?” replied the girl assertively as she looked pitifully at her friend. Woo-Jin subconsciously put more pressure onto the pole he was holding after hearing what she said. In his moment of anger, he wanted to reveal his face and ask her to repeat what she said earlier on. But he held it in, albeit barely.
Woo-Jin did not win any awards at the two film festivals in November. He had been nominated for Best Supporting Actor, Best New Actor, and Most Popular Actor but those awards were given to other people. Kang Min-Ho won the Best Supporting Actor award. That was because he had displayed exemplary acting skills in his movie, which was released in the first half of the year. Kang Min-Ho had received the title – ‘Prestigious Supporting Actor’. [3]
The Best New Actor award went to the actor who had finally won the award after starring in a movie for the third time; he was originally a drama actor. And the Most Popular Actor award went to a Hallyu star. Nonetheless, Woo-Jin had no complaints because they all deserved to win. Woo-Jin wasn’t expecting much after looking at the other nominees, but CEO Jang Soo-Hwan had also commented that it would be difficult for him to win any awards this time around. Hence, he didn’t think much of it but it seemed like people who liked gossiping had interpreted it differently.
Additionally, it was absurd how they had accused him of having a sponsor. He wanted to tell them ‘Tell your favorite oppa the exact same thing to his face’ but he held himself back although it was only after a huge internal struggle. All of a sudden, he wondered if Woo-Hee had been hearing similar comments at school. When he thought about his younger sister being harassed in this manner, it pissed him off. It had been a while since he felt this angry.
Woo-Jin looked at the girls, who were still in the midst of their conversation; it didn’t seem like they were getting off the subway yet. He leaned in slightly towards them. The two girls were shocked and leaned back immediately when a complete stranger leaned in with his face close to them. But they couldn’t exactly scream because he was keeping a reasonable distance away from them.
Woo-Jin looked at both of them intently and lowered the scarf that was covering his face. Even though he was wearing a pair of thick, black-rimmed glasses, both of them recognized Chae Woo-Jin as soon as they saw his face. They immediately replayed their entire conversation in their heads. One of the girls looked a little justified, while the other girl’s face turned red, not knowing what to do. Woo-Jin gathered all the patience he had in him and smiled at them. Yeah, you can’t say harsh things to someone’s face when they’re smiling.
“I enjoyed listening to your conversation.”
“I- I- …”
“Spreading false information without any evidence is clearly defamation. I am a huge fan of the law. If you don’t want me to be rich, please be careful with your words. Even though I don’t have the patience to put up with this three times or more,[4] I’ll let it go this time. I hope you have a good day, and that you’ll always have good thoughts and say beautiful things.”
After bowing politely to the two girls, Woo-Jin covered his face with the scarf once again and got off the subway. As Woo-Jin walked down the street confidently, he turned into an alley and found a small corner that was hidden from view and stopped there. Woo-Jin pulled his hair with both of his hands. Chae Woo-Jin was having a fierce internal debate - one part of him was telling him he did a good job while the other was saying he should have held back.
“I didn’t say anything bad so why am I being tormented by this?” Woo-Jin ran his fingers through his hair and fixed it. The world would be a strange place if a victim were to be condemned for acting this way.
He had recorded his conversation with the two girls, so even if they were to make allegations against him, he would be safe. Hence, there was no reason to worry. However, Woo-Jin was having heartburn because he didn’t get to say half of what he really wanted to say. Because Chae Woo-Jin the celebrity was projected to be a polite person, the real Chae Woo-Jin didn’t know how to relieve his unresolved anger and that was his regret. It was funny how he couldn’t say what he wanted to say and was worried about the consequences of his actions because he was a celebrity.
When Kang Ho-Soo came to pick Woo-Jin up at the library some time later, the latter confessed to the former about what he had done. Woo-Jin expected Kang Ho-Soo to be embarrassed by what he had done since his primary job was managing artistes, but Kang Ho-Soo’s reaction was unexpected.
“Hahaha, good job! You’ll get sick if you hold it in. You didn’t curse them out and only said nice things. What’s so bad about it?” Kang Ho-Soo heard Woo-Jin’s voice recording and waved his hand, telling him it was okay. Initially, when he heard the insults and false rumors about Woo-Jin, he immediately became furious, so he understood how Woo-Jin felt.
“I don’t think the members of Blue Hole were like this up until a while ago. It seems like they’ve suddenly become very aggressive.” They used to like Chae Woo-Jin a lot – not only during the time when they visited the filming site with the food truck; they still liked him even when there were articles written about Chae Woo-Jin almost debuting with Blue Fit. It was strange that their attitude towards Woo-Jin changed after a couple of weeks.
“Blue Fit belongs to TM after all. It’s clear that they pulled some dirty tricks. Originally, they would have started a smear campaign against you, but because you’re a DS artiste, they can’t do anything to you and so they are using Blue Hole to create flaws. Swaying the fans’ opinions is easier than you think. To fans, their bias [5] is better than any other famous celebrity. If you hurt their pride or sense of superiority even by a little, it’s common for things like that to happen.”
Idol fandoms didn’t fight and speak ill of one another for nothing. If their bias had a rival, the big fans would do anything to destroy them. And Blue Hole was a fandom that was known to have many big fans.
“After hearing you say that, I’m so glad I didn’t debut with Blue Fit. On the other hand, aren’t the members of Wish Baragi kind and good-natured? Oh, are you okay, hyung?” The car swerved for a moment, so Woo-Jin widened his eyes as he looked at Kang Ho-Soo.
“I suddenly lost strength in my hands, I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. It’s my fault for calling you while you were resting.”
“I wasn’t resting because I was working since morning. By the way, did you not see the posts that were directed at Blue Hole? There were quite a number of them.”
Woo-Jin nodded in response to Kang Ho-Soo’s question. “I’ve seen them. I’m thankful they took my side and even showed them all kinds of evidence… I was surprised by how aggressive the posts were. Ah! I’m grateful for my fans who have sided with me, but I’ve also seen the posts where they’re telling everyone to calm down. Aren’t they well-mannered and kind?”
“Yeah…”
1. Camera shutter sounds cannot be disabled on phones that are bought in Korea. ☜
2. The double ; was left as it was in the raw. ☜
3. 명품 조연 is a title given to supporting actors who acted very well. ☜
4. This is most likely a reference to the saying 'Even Buddha may be upset if his face is hit three times.' ☜
5. A fan’s favorite kpop idol or member in a group. ☜
