“Who…?”
A strange man suddenly spoke to us.
My father tightened his grip on my hand and looked at him warily.
“Ah, no, sir. I’m this kind of person.”
As if to show he wasn’t suspicious, the man waved his hand, then took a business card from his pocket and handed it to my father.
“YU Entertainment…?”
“Yes. You may or may not have heard of us but at YU Entertainment I hold the title of casting manager. It’s just that, even from a good distance, your child looked so handsome and pretty. I wondered if you might like to have them come in for an audition with our company, so I came over to say hello.”
“Ah, we’re fine. My kid is…, ahem. No. We’re not interested.”
My father firmly waved it off and returned the card.
It seemed he’d stopped himself from saying we were already active.
There were people gathered around, and it could get more bothersome if this person from YU Entertainment kept pestering us.
I just stood there blankly, watching the two of them talk without saying a word.
What was it again? I’d seen a scene like this in a TV drama…
A scene where someone randomly asks you on the street if you want to be a celebrity.
It seemed like I was the one getting hit with that right now.
“Siwoo, let’s go.”
“Mmm.”
Maybe my father thought there was no need to hear more, because he pulled on my hand.
Just a sec, Dad.
We haven’t gotten our drink from the vending machine yet?!
I hesitated, staring at the vending machine with lingering eyes.
Seeing that, the man’s eyes lit up.
“Oh my, it looks like your child might be a bit interested in becoming a celebrity. I won’t take long. Just hear me out for a moment before you go.”
Well now, he’d clearly gotten the wrong idea.
“Our YU Entertainment is by no means a small company, you know? We’ve produced idol groups like ‘Sprinton’ and ‘Taerin Yoo,’ and you’ve heard of Lee Young-gil, right? He’s an actor with our company as well.”
Planting himself squarely in our path, the man began rattling off words like a machine gun without a break.
It was dizzying.
My father paused and looked at the man as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing, and I tilted my head, increasingly curious about what exactly this ‘entertainment’ thing he kept talking about was.
“Kiddo, wouldn’t you like to meet celebrity big brothers and sisters? You know TV, right, TV? We’ll get you on there.”
I couldn’t exactly say I was already meeting them.
I was a little curious how he’d react if I connected a call to Moon Heeseong right here on the spot.
I set that curiosity aside and asked because I genuinely wanted to know.
“How does the ‘entertainment’ place do that for you?”
“Oh, so our kiddo is interested, huh. Look here. Your child seems quite interested. Our YU Entertainment can provide systematic training to become a star from a young age. We have our own curriculum and know-how. You just follow it as is, and after debut we take care of schedule management, script choices, choosing a record label… everything from top to bottom. Just like that.”
Hmm. So he meant they connect jobs for the actors and singers affiliated with the company.
Listening to him, a person naturally came to mind.
It was Kim Sangcheol, the troupe leader of “Bisangcheol-777.”
If what he’d just described was what an agency did, then I was already essentially inside one.
Having sorted my thoughts that far, I called out to the man, who was babbling on without end.
“Excuse me, mister.”
“Mis—! Ahem, kiddo. I’m still a bachelor, not even married yet…”
“I’m already in an entertainment company. An agency or entertainment. It’s the same thing, right?”
“Huh?”
Muttering, “What are you talking about,” the man asked my father again if that was true.
My father glanced down at me for a moment, then politely said yes, and that since our child already had an affiliation, it would be best if he stopped here.
After thinking a moment, the man ended up offering his business card back to my father.
“Don’t be like that. Please take this and give it another good think. In the industry, we carry quite a bit of weight. Just in case, if you change your mind, give me a call.”
At the man’s words, he didn’t seem like he would give up easily. I shook my head and spoke firmly.
“Just in case? Don’t get your hopes up for nothing, please.”
“H-huh?”
“Let’s go, Dad.”
“Okay.”
I tugged my father’s hand and turned away.
Because of that guy, we couldn’t even get a drink from the vending machine.
Stomping my feet in frustration as I started toward my mother, I spotted a familiar face.
“Mmm…?”
Why is he here?
“Siwoo…”
There stood Kim Sangcheol, holding his daughter’s hand, standing stock-still.
With a deeply moved expression on his face.
“I never imagined I’d run into you in a place like this, Troupe Leader.”
“Haha, I was the one who was so startled, suddenly seeing Siwoo like that.”
My father and I returned to the table where my mother was waiting, together with Kim Sangcheol and his daughter.
The five of us sat around and chatted away.
“She’s your daughter? She’s so pretty.”
Seeing the little girl, who hid behind Kim Sangcheol as if very shy, my mother smiled and asked.
“Haha, right? It’s such a relief she doesn’t resemble me. I married late… so my daughter is still very young.”
Exactly.
For someone with a toad-like face—downright scary if he just sits still—how could she not resemble him at all!
With pale, neat, delicate features, Kim Sangcheol’s daughter was adorable.
She truly looked nothing like him. It was hard to believe.
I found it so astonishing that I ended up staring at her a bit too intently.
Isn’t this the sort of thing you should have to report to someone?
How could a face like his have a daughter like that?
“Looks like she’s about the same age as our Siwoo, right?”
“Yes. Yuna, greet them. She’s one year older than Siwoo.”
“…Hello.”
She didn’t resemble him in personality either.
Unlike the easygoing Kim Sangcheol, who was smooth even with strangers, she was extremely shy.
But from the way she kept sneaking glances at me, it looked like she had an eye for things.
“I see. then you’re a big sister to our Siwoo!”
“Hello. I’m Siwoo’s dad.”
“…”
Kim Sangcheol’s daughter, Kim Yuna, only managed the tiniest of nods at my parents’ friendly words.
But Kim Sangcheol didn’t seem to have the energy to pay attention to his daughter just then.
Ever since that YU Entertainment guy left and he joined up with us, his eyes had been glistening with tears the whole time.
You’d think it was a bit much to be moved to tears over something like this, but I couldn’t say I didn’t understand.
In my previous life I’d also belonged to a troupe, so I understood this side of the world well.
When actors do well, they naturally move on to bigger, better troupes.
That was common back then too, so in a time like this, where the kinds of troupes are even more numerous and specialized, it would be even more so.
But if you look at it another way, I was the one who owed the gratitude.
There was a favor I’d received.
Putting a five-year-old on stage—no matter how much Kang Yonghwi had argued for it—couldn’t have been an easy decision for Kim Sangcheol.
In the end, he was the one who trusted me and put me on stage.
Leaving for somewhere else before he cast me out would be a betrayal.
Just because hundreds of years had passed didn’t mean the basic duty between people had changed.
I picked up some remaining fruit to eat, then slid it over toward Kim Sangcheol.
They were Shine Muscat grapes I’d been rationing because I loved them lately.
“Gasp…!”
“Siwoo…!”
Seeing that, my mother and father called my name in surprise.
Well, Kim Sangcheol deserved to receive them.
“These are tasty. Please have some.”
“Sniff. Thank you, Siwoo.”
Just because I gave him some grapes, he grew even more moved and now looked about ready to cry outright.
“These are our Siwoo’s favorite fruit right now.”
“He always wants to save them. If we eat any, he gets so regretful…”
At my parents’ follow-up, Kim Sangcheol’s eyes finally turned bright red.
Above our heads, the late spring breeze fluttered softly.
A rowdy indoor pocha.
“Auntie! Two more makgeollis over here!”
“Add one oden soup on this side!”
The ceiling was low and the space between tables was narrow.
Even so, the cheap, tasty side dishes came in many varieties and the portions were generous, so it was a regular spot for the poor theater folks around Daehak-ro.
Raucous laughter burst out here and there, and everyone chattered away to their heart’s content.
At a table in the corner sat Kang Yonghwi and Kim Sangcheol, facing each other over drinks.
“So, listen… Do you know how moved I was? Huh?”
“…That kid Siwoo—he’s always been a deep one.”
Kim Sangcheol had called out Kang Yonghwi, saying he had something to say.
He then told him the story of running into Han Siwoo at Happy Land.
It was surprising enough that they’d run into each other in such a big park, but what came after was even more surprising.
He was only six.
At an age where other kids would think only of running around excitedly and tormenting adults enough to make you call them brats, he’d said something like that to other people.
“The kid already has loyalty—loyalty—at that age.”
“Guess some of that you’re just born with?”
“I’m telling you, he’s a strange one.”
Watching Kim Sangcheol shake his head, as if he just couldn’t make sense of the kid no matter how he thought about it, Kang Yonghwi grinned and asked,
“I placed him well, didn’t I?”
“…Sheesh. Neither you nor Siwoo are normal, that’s for sure.”
Kim Sangcheol couldn’t quite bring himself to say “you did well,” so he knocked back a swig of soju instead.
In terms of the outcome, it had been a hundred—no, a thousand times the right thing, but when he thought of how much he’d fretted back then, he strangely didn’t feel like telling Kang Yonghwi he’d done well.
“Anyway, I’ve been thinking it over.”
“What are you always thinking about? Hyung, take a break sometimes.”
“You little punk. Hey, if Siwoo thinks of us that much, shouldn’t I give something back to him?”
“So what did you come up with?”
He wasn’t wrong.
Kang Yonghwi nodded as if to say, go on.
“…I saw it with my own two eyes. Even if Siwoo stands still now, the entertainment side will latch onto him. He’s not just a little kid anymore.”
“That’s true.”
That face, as he grew older, would only stand out more.
Getting scouted on the street meant they’d made the offer without even knowing Han Siwoo’s ability, so going forward it would only happen more, not less.
“Once Siwoo’s acting ability becomes clear and his name recognition rises, better agencies will show up.”
“Sure. There won’t be another kid like Siwoo.”
“…But seeing it that day, I felt it keenly. Siwoo isn’t ordinary. He might not go, because he’ll want to keep faith with us. Even if they offer the best terms.”
Having spent a long time in show business, Kim Sangcheol knew better than anyone how important an agency was.
He couldn’t just sit there and let Han Siwoo miss such chances because of them.
“And then?”
“Just look at his mother. You can tell at a glance she’s a good person. There’s no way she’d be the one to bring it up first, to move Siwoo to the side with better terms. But we’re a troupe, not an agency, right? For now we’re keeping Siwoo with us, but we can’t keep looking after a kid like this forever with no system, can we?”
“You really did think a lot.”
At Kang Yonghwi’s admiring remark, Kim Sangcheol narrowed his eyes.
“You little—”
“I mean you did well.”
“…Anyway, we can’t just sit on our hands because he’s still young. I’m thinking I’ll find him a proper, good agency.”
“True. Kids grow in a blink. Feels like he was five just the other day. They’re not like us.”
“Exactly… so before he gets any bigger, I should find a place that would suit him.”
Speaking in a tone like a parent sending a child out on their own, Kim Sangcheol sounded a little bitter.
Quietly, Kang Yonghwi refilled his glass.
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