Chapter 35: The Company Dinner and Unforeseen Revelations

Seo Yeon-ho stared at Han Tae-young, looking as though he’d been struck in the back of the head.

Meanwhile, a staff member from another seat approached the back of the bus. Kneeling on the seat in front of Han Tae-young, the staff member, eyes alight with curiosity and anticipation, addressed him.

“Han Tae-young, are you perhaps planning to ride with us on the bus?”

“Yes.”

“Didn’t you bring your car?”

“It’s not that, but it’s much better to travel together, isn’t it?”

Han Tae-young kindly answered the staff member’s question, then turned his gaze to Seo Yeon-ho.

“It’s not an inconvenience for you that I’m here, is it?”

Though addressed to the staff, it was clearly meant for Seo Yeon-ho to hear.

“No! Not at all!”

“I’m completely in favor!”

“Of course not. Traveling while looking at Han Tae-young’s face isn’t an inconvenience; it’s a privilege.”

Voices approving Han Tae-young’s presence on the bus echoed like a round song from various seats. Han Tae-young grinned triumphantly, as if to say, ‘See?’

‘That annoying jerk.’

Seo Yeon-ho glared at Han Tae-young with a ‘what are you going to do about it?’ look. However, the staff member who had approached to speak with Han Tae-young quickly obscured him from view.

‘There aren’t even curtains in the aisle, so this works out well.’

Seo Yeon-ho stared blankly at the backsides of the staff members, who formed a wall between him and Han Tae-young, before turning his head. He didn’t appreciate strangers’ rear ends hovering nearby, but this arrangement had its advantages.

He had been bothered by Han Tae-young occupying the seat across from him, so he was grateful that people were inadvertently acting as a screen.

“By the way, Han Tae-young, what perfume do you wear? It smells really good.”

“Oh? I’m curious too. I’ve wondered about it for a while.”

“I’ve been trying every sea-salt-based perfume I could find to figure out what the actor’s scent was, but I never found it!”

Han Tae-young’s vicinity was boisterous, which meant Seo Yeon-ho’s vicinity was equally loud. Just moments ago, Seo Yeon-ho had thought it fortunate that people were gathering, but his opinion flipped in an instant.

‘I wish everyone would just go back to their seats.’

He considered moving himself, but then he worried it would look like he was consciously avoiding Han Tae-young. Seo Yeon-ho regretted not bringing his earphones from home and simply waited for the bus to depart.

****

*Sizzle!*

Marbled, fantastic Iberico pork jowl, prime pork neck cut to steak thickness, and pork belly—the flower of pork—sizzled deliciously on the dome-shaped grill.

*Snip, snip.*

Director Go Woo-seung watched in admiration as Han Tae-young expertly sliced the meat and arranged it neatly on the grill.

“Wow, Han Tae-young, you grill meat like a pro!”

“Oh, come on, where are there any professional meat grillers?”

“Junior, don’t talk back to the boss. When are you going to learn some common sense?”

“Kim Jin-woo, you rascal, do you think I don’t know you’re dissing me while pretending to stick up for the junior?”

Director Go Woo-seung lightly smacked Kim Jin-woo on the back of the head and then pointed his chopsticks at an employee grilling meat at another table.

“Look at that employee’s grilling skills. Doesn’t that exude veteran prowess?”

“It does!”

“Are you still going to say there’s no such thing as a pro?”

“No!”

Seo Yeon-ho, who had been spooning up mussel soup, a side dish, looked at the restaurant employee Director Go Woo-seung was pointing to. The employee’s hands, chopping thick cuts of meat with scissors, were so swift they could easily appear on a show seeking masters of their craft.

Seo Yeon-ho turned his head to watch the grill where Han Tae-young was quietly flipping meat. The pieces were so uniformly sized that one might suspect him of having an obsessive-compulsive disorder. The arrangement of the meat was also impeccably neat, suitable for an advertisement.

‘He really does grill well.’

Seo Yeon-ho’s eyes, which had widened before returning to their normal size, took a sip of water, thinking that even a worm has its talents. He had thought Director Go Woo-seung was just making things up to praise Han Tae-young, so he was surprised to find it wasn’t an exaggeration.

‘He said he’d never done housework, so I naturally assumed he’d be terrible at cooking. Though grilling meat isn’t exactly cooking.’

In truth, Seo Yeon-ho found it most surprising that Han Tae-young was proactively grilling the meat, despite no one asking him to. He had expected Han Tae-young to simply pick out and eat the grilled meat, not lift a finger himself. It was truly unexpected.

“Our benefactor! Can we order drinks?”

Someone from a table behind them raised a hand and shouted.

“Of course! A company dinner isn’t lively without alcohol. However, we have filming tomorrow—no, even today—so please drink in moderation.”

*Ding, ding, ding!*

As soon as Han Tae-young gave his permission, the call bells to summon staff rang competitively.

“Don’t press the bell! Just go get your own drinks!”

The employee, who was moving between tables grilling meat, shouted in a high-pitched, sales-voice tinged with irritation.

“Can we really just take them?”

“They’ll check it themselves. There are a lot of places like this these days.”

The staff members collectively rose from their seats and rushed to the commercial refrigerator, which was filled with beer and soju.

“You’ll have a drink too, won’t you, junior who stepped in? What’s your poison? Soju? Beer? Or mixed from the start? Do you drink baijiu, junior?”

Park Chan-jong, who played Jang Hee-jun in the drama, asked as he turned his body sideways to stand up. Seo Yeon-ho and Park Chan-jong were sitting at the very end of the line of production team tables.

Seo Yeon-ho ended up at the table line for the cast and production team because of Kim Jin-woo and Park Chan-jong. When they first arrived at the restaurant, the two had herded Seo Yeon-ho over, telling him to sit there. Seo Yeon-ho had assumed it was the spot for extras.

He only realized that wasn’t the case when he saw Director Go Woo-seung and Han Tae-young sitting in the center of the tables.

“I’m sorry, but I’ll have to decline alcohol. I need to drive back.”

“You can just call a designated driver. If you’re worried about the fee, I’ll pay for it.”

Park Chan-jong looked as though he was about to pull out his wallet, so Seo Yeon-ho hastily grabbed his arm.

“It’s not a car; it’s a scooter.”

“Oh, really? Then you can’t call a designated driver. Got it. Nothing we can do about that.”

Park Chan-jong clicked his tongue regretfully, then brought back cola and soju.

“You drink cola, right?”

“Yes, thank you. I should have gone myself, I apologize.”

“It’s fine. It’s okay. The person who wants to drink should go.”

Park Chan-jong repeatedly emphasized that he knew young people these days disliked being ordered around, and that he was far from being an old-fashioned “boomer.”

“From what I hear, you didn’t come as an extra, but through an assistant director’s connection, right?”

Seo Yeon-ho paused, his hand on the soju bottle cap he was twisting open.

“Don’t be surprised. The assistant director told me.”

Park Chan-jong patted Seo Yeon-ho’s arm as if to tell him to relax.

“The lighting team’s first assistant came over earlier and asked why the director knew you as an extra when you’re supposedly the assistant director’s errand boy.”

“Ah…”

Seo Yeon-ho remembered Kim Jin-woo lying to the lighting team staff. It was natural for them to be puzzled, thinking he was a production assistant but then seeing him act as an extra.

‘One lie led to another.’

Seo Yeon-ho couldn’t blame or resent Kim Jin-woo, as he had been the origin of the lie. He now understood why he had been placed at this table, rather than with the extras.

If he were far away, it would be difficult to handle suspicions raised by someone like the lighting team’s first assistant, as lies required coordination.

“Are you the assistant director’s junior from school?”

“No.”

“Then how do you two know each other? To call someone to the set, they can’t just be casual acquaintances.”

“We just have a mutual acquaintance. We are indeed just casual acquaintances.”

Seo Yeon-ho glanced sideways at Han Tae-young as he replied. Han Tae-young was clinking glasses with staff members from other tables, looking incredibly cheerful and pleased.

‘He’s pretending to have a good personality. How fake.’

Seo Yeon-ho turned his head with a disgruntled expression, then poured alcohol into Park Chan-jong’s glass. This was not the image he had expected.

Until now, Seo Yeon-ho had naturally assumed Han Tae-young had a poor relationship with the staff. Han Tae-young’s arrogance was beyond doubt, and recalling the posts staff members had anonymously written about him in the future, he couldn’t imagine them having a good relationship.

‘He’s only respectful to high-ranking staff like the lighting or cinematography directors,’ ‘He doesn’t make them run small errands, but he gets terrifyingly angry over minor mistakes,’ ‘He’s prickly,’ ‘He’s always angry and never smiles on set,’ ‘He doesn’t return greetings well,’ and so on. The Han Tae-young described by the staff was the epitome of a rude top star.

However, the Han Tae-young he saw at today’s company dinner bore no resemblance whatsoever to the person described in the staff’s posts. Like someone running for election, a smile never left his face, he returned greetings with kind eyes, and he wasn’t just respectful to team leaders.

He even engaged in lighthearted banter with staff members who appeared to be his peers. Earlier on the bus, he had been chattering and laughing so boisterously with the staff that Seo Yeon-ho had even wondered if he had mistakenly boarded a club’s MT bus instead of one going to a company dinner.

‘Was he originally nice, but only acted like a jerk to me?’

Even though he knew it couldn’t be true, a flush of anger surged through Seo Yeon-ho. The fact that Han Tae-young got along better with the staff than he had known didn’t change his past actions. One of Han Tae-young’s nicknames was the personification of ‘male against male.’

Gossip like ‘What makes that bastard so confident with such a terrible personality?’ had followed him since his debut. And how many videos and memes circulated showing him putting down juniors and colleagues on variety shows, challenging industry seniors, and saying whatever he wanted?

“Kya! Wait, Han Tae-young oppa, go easy! That really hurt just now!”

At the shrill scream, Seo Yeon-ho instinctively turned his head. A short-haired staff member groaned, clutching her forehead, as if she’d been flicked. Judging by her gaze, which was directed at Han Tae-young, it seemed they had been playing a drinking game.