Variety show.
It was the offer he had heard out of the blue from Kang Chaheon not long ago.
At the same time, it was the thing Rowoon had not believed.
“Did you mean that seriously?”
“Didn’t you hear it from Kang Chaheon-ssi?”
“I did hear it, but…”
Caught by Rowoon’s and the PD’s eyes, Kang Chaheon lifted his shoulders.
“I told you properly. You are the one who did not believe it. Why, do you not want to?”
“No, I am really grateful for your offer, PD Han.”
It was a good opportunity.
It was tempting, too.
But it was also true that something snagged for him.
“Then what is the problem?”
“It is just… there are many people better than me, so I was wondering why me.”
There were plenty of actors he had worked with on Gwiro.
For example, Shim Saero.
Or he could pick from the middle-aged line.
Anyway, the shooting atmosphere on Gwiro had been good, and even now the cast occasionally exchanged greetings in a group chat.
“I understand that Mr. Kang Chaheon does not have many friends so it is hard to cast the lineup, but if you put me in just for appearances, it could end up causing trouble for you, PD, and for Kang Chaheon. So maybe someone else would be better…?”
At that, a peculiar silence descended over the cafe.
What broke that delicate mood was a sigh from Kang Chaheon.
“He is digging in the wrong place again.”
“Kang Chaheon-ssi, have you by any chance been scolding Rowoon or anything like that?”
Under PD Han’s suspicious gaze, Kang Chaheon muttered,
“This is driving me crazy.”
“Rowoon-ssi? I do not know why you came to think that, but no. Whatever doubts you are holding right now, my answer to all of them is no. So please throw away that awful idea.”
PD Han said,
“The person I need is not someone else, it is you, Lee Rowoon. Of course I need Kang Chaheon-ssi too. I need both of you. It must be the two of you. It must. It absolutely must.”
She repeated the word “must” three times.
Emphasis piled on emphasis.
“This program depends on the chemistry between you two. If it is not the two of you, it absolutely will not work. Do you understand? Not someone else, it has to be Lee Rowoon-ssi and Kang Chaheon-ssi.”
Insisting it was definitely not for show, PD Han widened her eyes and put strength into her gaze.
“The chemistry between you two is what matters.”
“Chemistry?”
Rowoon was puzzled.
He understood even less.
‘What chemistry do I have with that man? The part where I go crazy?’
As an actor, Kang Chaheon was in many ways someone to emulate and learn from, but beyond that…
“Your eyes look impudent. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“You should not talk about someone’s looks, Kang Chaheon-ssi.”
“…Unbelievable. He is suddenly turning a person into trash.”
“I never did that.”
As Rowoon took another sip of his drink, he felt a stare.
He lifted his head slightly to find PD Han watching him with sparkling eyes.
Beyond the large lenses of her glasses there was a strange glint of mania in her gaze.
“That is exactly it, it is perfect. Yes, this is it. This right here! Please keep doing just that.”
What is it?
In any case, he did not quite understand, but…
“Is there something she sees that I do not?”
From a star PD’s viewpoint, it seemed there was something visible only to her.
“Mr. Rowoon, would you at least hear me out? Listening is free, right? We met like this, that is a kind of fate, so at least hear me out so I can feel a little less wronged, right? If you walk away like this I might regret it so much it will haunt me. I might not even sleep at night and develop insomnia. If that happens my social life collapses, I get fired, and eventually I become unemployed and cannot even pay rent and end up kicked out of my place. Is that not so pitiable? So you will listen, right?”
“Sorry? Yes…”
It felt like a storm was sweeping through.
He had the feeling that if he did not listen, he would become a criminal of the highest order.
When Rowoon nodded without thinking, a sigh sounded.
A glance showed Kang Chaheon covering his face with one hand and shaking his head.
As if to recapture Rowoon’s attention, PD Han grabbed his hand and, smiling brightly, began to speak at length.
“The program I want to invite you two onto is, in a word, a healing project. We leave the city, go out to a quiet suburb, eat good food with nature as our companion, and heal. Ah, just imagine it. Where can busy modern people get that healing? Right?”
“Right…”
“We will provide that healing through our show.”
Saying so, PD Han took a tablet PC out of her large bag.
“The aim is good too. For regional development, we are collaborating with local governments. Did you know? Over 50 percent of the nation’s infrastructure is concentrated in the capital area. And it is not just infrastructure. Population as well. Wage income in the capital area is as much as nine times higher compared to other regions. What do you think that means?”
“In the provinces… there are no people?”
“Ding dong dang! My, our Mr. Rowoon is smart too. Exactly. Why else would people say ‘Republic of Seoul’? People will continue to flock to the capital region, and local communities will keep facing the crisis of extinction. At this rate, the territorial imbalance will become drastically worse. It is already bad, but if it gets worse, various social problems will intensify. Look at this.”
Tap tap tap.
Nimbly manipulating the tablet with her fingertips, PD Han brought up a screen and held it out to Rowoon.
Even at a glance, it was packed with dizzyingly complicated graphs.
“Among them, the situation in these farming and fishing villages is already serious. They are on the brink of disappearing. But as you know, our country is a nation with high food self-sufficiency, right? Our rice self-sufficiency is as high as 70 percent. But look. If the young population keeps draining into the capital area and the population in rural and fishing areas keeps dropping sharply like this, that self-sufficiency will also decline. Then the proportion of people engaged in primary industries will decrease, and food self-sufficiency will fall. When that happens, we will become dependent on imports, and the problem there is…”
A complicated discussion unfolded.
Rowoon tried to understand PD Han’s words, but all he really grasped was:
“Ah. Too many people pack into Seoul, so there are no people in the countryside, and that is the problem…”
Of course, that was the core.
“…With that in mind, I started this plan. I do not know how much our program can change things. We are thinking of running it as a seasonal series, right? So we will select different regions in turn and, by creating and offering a kind of tour product and tourist destination, we will draw people to visit.”
Like how people visit filming locations of dramas or films as a memento.
PD Han said she would aim the first breakthrough in the direction of tour-product vibes.
“Of course, me doing this will not magically improve population imbalance or suddenly make territorial imbalance go away. But they say even a thousand-mile journey begins with a single step. People’s perceptions also need to change. No matter how many times you show charts and blow it up in articles and the news, it does not really hit home. That is natural, because they do not see it. On top of that, you cannot easily erase a mindset that has taken root. So I think it is important to gradually change that perception first.”
His head started to swim.
“Not every rural area is underdeveloped, you know? Ah, relatively speaking, development has been less, that is true. Now if we try to chase down the root cause of that we will waste a lot of breath arguing about chicken and egg, so let us skip that. Anyway, you remember the trend of ‘well-being,’ right? Eating well and living well.”
“Yes… yes.”
“That is actually hard to do in the city. It is not even comparable. With a few little parks, what sort of well-being can you do? A well-being life is something you enjoy in nature.”
The dizziness showed no sign of lifting.
“Anyway, we decided to partner with local farmers to procure all ingredients on site. That is mutual survival and symbiosis. A small step that is big. We have already asked the agricultural and fisheries direct-sales centers for cooperation, too. The residents in the area have all agreed. Now if only Rowoon-ssi and Chaheon-ssi come, everything is perfect. How about it? It is a very good thing, right?”
Though the flood of words still made his head spin,
Rowoon was sure of one thing.
“It is a good thing.”
“Right?”
PD Han smiled with satisfaction.
“I do not know what is what, but it is definitely a good deed.”
It was a problem he had never thought about.
Yet from the graphs she showed and the story she told, it was clearly too serious to ignore.
“I do not know how much help I will be…”
As PD Han said, even a thousand-mile journey begins with one step.
He was someone who had once desperately needed help.
So Rowoon could not help but answer as if spellbound.
“Then we should do it.”
If he could contribute even a little to something this good, then it was something he ought to do.
“I told you to keep your head on straight.”
Tsk tsk.
He heard a tongue-click next to him.
But Rowoon also felt wronged.
“If I did not do something this good, would that not make me actual human trash?”
Even if the original owner of this body were here, he would have nodded along to PD Han’s words.
“Mr. Rowoon is saying this too. What will you do, Kang Chaheon-ssi?”
Smiling broadly like an angler who had landed a whopper, PD Han asked Kang Chaheon.
“Hooo…”
Instead of answering, Kang Chaheon let out a deep sigh.
Somehow that sigh felt deep and gloomy, as if foretelling what lay ahead.
And a few hours later, Rowoon learned exactly what that sigh had been about.
“…What is this?”
Rowoon thought with a dazed head.
Chirp, chirp.
Somewhere in the peaceful, quiet nature, birds chirped.
Crisp air burrowed deep into his lungs.
This place, green in every direction.
This place was nature itself.
Standing in the middle of it, Rowoon thought,
“That is strange. Did she not say it was a healing program?”
He had no idea how things had turned out like this.
What kind of healing program starts with a kidnapping…?
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