Become A Star

Chapter 20

In the beginning, everybody could not hide their bitter feelings. It was true that they had felt as though they had sold themselves for money when they were casted in a movie they did not want to be in. But after the framework of the movie had been properly established, the actors immersed themselves in the acting and the negative ambience was reversed. Everyone started to feel a sense of accomplishment that stemmed from working on the movie. For the sake of the movie, Choi Yi-Geon firmly toughed it out and stayed focused, doing what needed to be done.

However, nobody could deny that Chae Woo-Jin was the one who had kickstarted everything. He used his amazing acting skills, which overwhelmed the main leads, to create beautiful scenes that fulfilled Choi Yi-Geon's aesthetics standards. This ended up motivating the main leads to take their job seriously.

"Great job!"

As they looked at each other, exchanging words of consolation and gratitude, their gazes naturally shifted towards Choi Yi-Geon.

"Why are all of you looking at me?"

"Aren't we going to have a get-together today?"

Now that they were done with the last shooting, and that they had come all the way to Busan, it would be such a waste if they went back to Seoul right away. It was time for them to enjoy their final party, spending the night in Busan. In general, that was what most people did.

"A get-together? Didn't I say that there will not be any more get-togethers ever again in my life?!"

These get-togethers were not elegant. He hated how helpless he felt whenever he drank, losing control of his body, not being able to distinguish whether the world was spinning or if he was out of his mind.

"Oh, we won't be having a get-together? I thought that I would get to eat hweh [1] and eel while looking at Gwangan Bridge in the evening when I came to Busan. Are we just going to go back to Seoul?"

Woo-Jin already had high expectations for gatherings. As it was his first time visiting Busan, he decided to look up famous restaurants and places of interest on the internet, which raised his expectations even further. They did not have a lot to shoot at Busan, but he thought that they would get to stay the night there, and had already kept all the places that were famous for their beautiful night views in mind.

"It ended up becoming futile huh..."

Seeing Woo-Jin's sad, slightly disappointed smile, Choi Yi-Geon was immediately hit by a strange sense of guilt. He was clearly smiling, but it did not look like he was genuinely smiling. Over the past month, that was the look he had seen on Woo-Jin's face the most when he acted as Cha Hyun-Seung. There was something about that expression that made one emotional; it was a crossover between the smiling face of someone who had given up, and a smiling face with hidden disappointment.

"What if you don't drink..." said Song Jae-Hee.

Yeah, it wasn't that Choi Yi-Geon did not like get-togethers, he just did not like the drinking culture that came hand in hand with them. Surprisingly, Song Jae-Hee was the first person to react to Choi Yi-Geon's remarks. The lady, who still looked beautiful despite being dressed in cheap clothes and given a tacky-looking perm, took a credit card from her manager and yelled.

"Dinner and drinks are on me today!"

To be accurate, it was a corporate card given to her by her agency's CEO, but perhaps, the headline of the article would be along the lines of 'Song Jae-Hee generously buys her crew members food and drinks after shooting had ended!'.

With Song Jae-Hee taking a step forward like this, Choi Yi-Geon could no longer turn them down. In any case, the excessive money they were given for the production was more than enough to cover their accomodation fees for one night. It was the first time he did not have to worry about money at all when shooting a movie. It would be hard for him to enjoy this kind of welfare again, so he felt that it might not be a bad thing to enjoy it while he could.