Become A Star

Chapter 15

It was fascinating to see layers of social walls between people get torn down via the get-together. They had done nothing but eat, drink, and sing together, but it felt like people had entered the first stage of interpersonal relationships already.

Whenever Woo-Jin was face-to-face with the staff who had grown friendlier to him, he would smile awkwardly and bow. As he did so, a middle-aged veteran actor tapped him on the shoulder and spoke to him in a friendly manner. When Woo-Jin greeted him as politely as he could, the veteran actor gestured it away.

"You don't have to greet me so stiffly. You said that your name is Woo-Jin, right? Let's have some drinks together the next time we're free."

The veteran actor smiled as he gestured in the manner of drinking from a shot glass in the air. The actor was not the first who had asked Woo-Jin to be his drinking partner today. It made Woo-Jin wonder whether he made a good drinking buddy. He had never liked alcohol to begin with, and most of his friends shared similar tastes as him. Yesterday's drunkenness had been an isolated event, as far as he knew. Even if it wasn't, everybody who was there was too bad at holding their liquor, and they were not in a position to tell anyone what had happened later on. He did not even know much about his drinking habits, so when he did look back on yesterday's event, he did not exactly remember having any weird drunk behavior. Thus, he was skeptical as to why other people wanted to drink with him at all.

Even though he drank and sang till dawn, he felt refreshed when he woke up in the morning. His body was getting healthier and feeling lighter with each passing day, as he had been practicing the inner energy mental cultivation technique. Hence, he later approached the staff who were moving the audio equipment and started helping out.

"Hey, we said we're fine here.You overexerted yourself yesterday too, shouldn't you be conserving your energy?" asked one of the staff.

"I felt oddly energetic when I woke up this morning. Besides, I don't have many scenes to shoot today, so I don't have anything to do," answered Woo-Jin.

"Well, you did sing with all your might till dawn yesterday, but how is it that your skin looks better?"

Hearing the words of a staff member, the rest of them turned to look at Woo-Jin. It was not an overly tight schedule, but since the shooting schedule was crammed into one month, days of continuous shooting were frequent. Even if actors were energetic in the beginning, their skin became drier and drier as the days went by, making it more difficult to do their makeup. However, strangely enough, Woo-Jin's skin was becoming clearer and healthier. The makeup artist in charge of doing Woo-Jin's makeup even said that it was better for him to go without any makeup.

"It's good to be young," said one of the staff.

"When I was his age...no, not even then," another staff member added.

Regardless of how much the staff member thought about it, she realized that youth might not be the answer to everything, and scratched her head awkwardly.

"Looking at you, Mr. Woo-Jin, I can tell that you're polite and kind. But still, out of curiosity, you weren't a bully or delinquent back when you were in school, right?"

"I'm sorry?"

"Recently, people have been talking about how a popular singer bullied a classmate back in high school, causing the victim to commit suicide." Having taken a liking to Woo-Jin, the staff had asked as he seemed to be worried that Woo-Jin's past mistakes might come back to haunt him.

"Something like that happened?" asked Woo-Jin.

Even when Woo-Jin was done with shooting, he did not have the time to take a proper break, what with analyzing characters or watching how other people acted. Whenever he returned to his room, he would be busy doing exercises and practicing the cultivation technique to maintain his health, and would pass out right after. It was like he had built a wall around him, keeping worldly affairs out of his life. As a result, he did not know much about recent entertainment news.