After Story 271

“Have you seen this?”

Head manager Choi turned his laptop around and showed him the screen. The title of the article in a large font caught his eye: Bold display of affection – We are really dating.

“How are the responses?” Junmin asked as he took off his glasses.

“As they went public with the relationship early on, there’s no one who sees them in a bad light. Well, the malicious comments were always there, so we don’t need to worry about that, and looking at the fans of each person, they’re all saying that they suit each other.”

“After all that about hiding it, they’re the ones making it easy for people to start rumors.”

“I’d say they’re being smart. If you watch them closely, they act like they already know what the public’s reactions are going to be like. Usually, people around their age need care from agencies like us, but these two do everything by themselves. It’s been a while since I have seen kids who don’t cause problems when left alone.”

Junmin took out his phone. As these two had already declared their relationship to the public, the media did not ask about the opinion of the agency and were pouring out one article after another.

“Contact the ones who are posting bad rumors and tell them to take it down. I can see some that have crossed the line.”

In an era where anyone could become a journalist online, there were all sorts of useless trashy articles everywhere. He had to root these problems out early on so that his cherished actors did not get hurt.

“I already sent an email around under the company name. There are a lot of fellas who became a lot more daring these days, seeing as how they want to toy around with actors under you.”

Head manager Choi closed the laptop and stood up.

“Oh, and also, there is a flood of advertisement requests. They want Haneul and Maru as a set. One’s a travel agency and the other is a theme park. I thought they both suited their images and was thinking about proceeding with them. What do you think?”

“If they’re similar to the ads they had shot until now, then they shouldn’t be bad. Ask for their opinions and set a date.”

“Okay.”

Head manager Choi closed the door and left. Junmin leaned back against the chair and had a look at the faces of the two people.

“Interesting lives you’re living there.”

He felt good seeing the two people smile. Junmin put down his phone and took out his notepad.

He put on his glasses and licked the tip of his pen before flipping the page over. The words he wrote down as an officiating message entered his eyes.

“That was a bad decision to accept that.”

He scratched his head before adding some lines, thinking that writing this was harder than most company work.

* * *

“There should be one that’s a little thinner than this. Can you have a look?”

“Please wait a moment.”

While Haneul was browsing through other fabrics while waiting, the owner of the store brought two more samples. Haneul had a close look at the fabric of the samples.

“I’ll go with this.”

The store owner nodded and closed the sample book.

“But are you really going to hand-make it?”

“Yes. I did see a few dresses to my liking, but there were a few parts I didn’t like. That’s why I was going to try my hand at it after a long time.”

“It’ll be very difficult. For a dressing, fitting it will be very hard. It’ll be better if you just order it from us. I’ll pay close attention to it.”

“I’ll come back and ask you if I can’t do it myself.”

That probably won’t happen though — she smiled before leaving the store. She opened the door and got in, but she couldn’t see Maru. She wondered where he went when he said he was going to be waiting in the car.

She turned her head around when she heard a knock. Maru was knocking on the window of the passenger seat with his elbow. Both of his hands were holding a cup of coffee.

“I searched around while waiting, and apparently, the café here is famous,” Maru said as he handed her a coffee.

“We should’ve gone together.”

“No, if you came with me, things would’ve become noisier.”

Her husband sat in the driver’s seat and stirred the coffee a few times with the straw before taking a sip. She also took a sniff before drinking it. She could detect a faint taste of cocoa after the thick coffee.

“This is pretty good.”

The coffee was just to her taste.

“Is it okay?”

“Yeah. We should come again and try out some other things on the menu.”

“Looks like this place is really good seeing as how our picky mistress is satisfied. There were so many customers that I didn’t even get to buy any of the bread on the menu.”

“You should have,” she said as she gave him a glance.

“I’ll buy some next time, so don’t look at me like that. It makes my heart sink whenever you give me that look.”

“Maybe you’ve sinned a lot in the past life? Seeing as how just me looking at you makes you feel like that.”

Her husband smiled and started the car. She sneakily took the coffee he was drinking and had a sip. It was coffee with a thick caramel scent.

“That’s mine.”

“What’s yours is mine, and what’s mine is mine.”

She placed the mocha she was drinking in her husband’s mouth. Her husband grabbed the straw with his mouth before drinking the coffee like he was testing his lung capacity. Before she realized it, half of the coffee had disappeared.

“This is why you get scolded by Gaeul every time, honey. You act naggy about taking just one sip or having just one bite, but then you eat all of it, so it’s no wonder that she sulks.”

“I couldn’t help it because Gaeul staring at me is so cute. She’s so cute when she glares at me with her round eyes like that.”

“That’s how you get a smack on the nose and tear up.”

“Gaeul’s punches are pretty spicy, thanks to getting it from a certain someone.”

She shrugged under her husband’s gaze.

“The photos we took at the university are floating around a lot,” Haneul said as she looked at her phone.

The photos that spread around on social media kept being shared and spread around everywhere.

“Here, have a look at this. They blurred your face.”

Her husband’s face was mosaiced, while her own face was photoshopped to look prettier. When the car stopped at a traffic light, Maru had a look at the photo.

“They must have censored it because I looked too handsome. I understand.”

“Gaeul’s uselessly high self-confidence and egoism must’ve come from you.”

“I don’t think that’s the whole story, you know?”

She went to the fan café and checked the latest posts. The photos that were taken with her husband were filling up the majority of the posts.

Thankfully, no one seemed to hate it. In fact, many of them were telling them to get married.

“They want us to get married quickly.”

“Who does?”

“The members of my fan café.”

“People are kind over there, huh.”

“What are people saying on your side?”

“If you’re curious, you can have a look.”

She visited her husband’s fan café. The banner at the top was totally different from before. It was supposed to be Han Maru’s fan café, but the photo on it was of her. She giggled before having a look at the latest posts.

“They’re opposed to the marriage?”

“They can support the actor Han Maru, but not the husband Han Maru. They say you’re wasted on me. How could they say that? Are they really my fans?”

“They’re your true fans. Wait a sec.”

Haneul lifted up her phone and captured her own face and her husband’s driving face. After taking the photo, she started a new post on the café. Thanks to having certified her identity before, she could use the ‘notification’ category that only her husband could use.

She quickly tapped away to write a title — Hello, I’ve got some photos of the landlord here.

She attached the photo she just took before writing some things down. She started off by thanking everyone for their support of the relationship and then wrote that she hoped they’d continue supporting her husband in the future.

She read what she wrote out loud so that her husband could hear it. Maru responded immediately,

“If you post that, I think they’ll say something to me again.”

“That’s the whole point. I’ll make Han Maru’s fan café members into my fan café members.”

As soon as she posted it, there were numerous notifications of comments. Half of them were cheering on their relationship, and the other half were joking comments, such as Our sister-in-law, please run away; Our big brother shines when he’s an actor who’s single.

“They’re telling me to run away.”

“I knew what they were like since the fan meeting. Their joy in life is to tease me.”

She laughed and checked the comments that were being uploaded in real-time. The tendency of the members in her husband’s café was that the actor treated them comfortably, so the fans did so as well. As long as that was maintained well, they would last a really long time as fans.

“Now that I think about it, many of your fans were like this. Kind and mischievous.”

“That’s one of the few blessings I have, having good people support me.”

“I want my fan café to be like this as well. I’m too much of a goddess in my café.”

“I almost blurted out a swear word.”

“Why? Did I say something wrong?”

Her husband twitched his eyes. He displayed that he was suppressing what he wanted to say. She teased him until they went home.

“Maybe this is why I’m living with you, sweetie,” she said as she got out of the car.

Her husband laughed before standing next to her.

“Fine, tease me all your life. While you’re caught up with teasing me, I’ll have Gaeul join my side. I’ll have her say daddy instead of mommy first in this life.”

“That probably won’t happen.”

Her husband twitched his nose, saying that he would definitely make it happen. She watched him walk ahead at a fast pace before laughing loudly and quickly catching up and grabbing his arm. He grumbled but did not pull his arm away.

* * *

“Senior, have you seen this?”

“I have.”

“If you add up what you have to pay for all the actors in the appearing friends list, it’ll probably be the budget of most movies, huh?”

The senior looked at him indifferently.

“It’s just a rumor. Do you think all those actors will really appear in it? They’re all lead actors.”

“You never know. JA might be giving them support.”

“It looks like you don’t know how things work around here. The actors in JA are known to have high pride. Do you know how hard it is for lead actors to appear in other works as special appearances? Above all, the CEO there doesn’t do that sort of thing.”

“Really?”

“To that guy, the agency is just a hobby and because it’s a hobby, it’s really cleanly operated. Above all, do you think it makes sense that Sir Yoon Moonjoong is appearing? Numerous famous film directors visited him in Cheongjoo to do that, but he rejected all of them, yet is making a special appearance? It’s just not true.”

“So it’s just a rumor after all?”

“It’s a crude rumor too. It’s just clickbait. Don’t you get it after working for so long in this industry?”

The senior, who was looking at the monitor, tapped on his watch.

“We should get ready now. Get the camera and let’s go.”

Journalist Ahn picked up the camera and followed his senior out. The place they went to was a film festival in Busan. Before getting out of the car, he got his jacket. The October nights in Busan were chilly after all.

After sunset, journalists with cameras flocked to the red carpet photo zone. Actors started appearing one by one as well.

Popular actors were given a flood of questions. Many journalists shouted at the top of their lungs in order to get a single commentary, but there were very few who managed to get a response.

Journalist Ahn also shouted like crazy but didn’t get any responses. His senior had no luck either.

As he was pressing the shutter, the two hottest actors stepped onto the red carpet. They were Han Maru and Han Haneul, who were leisurely strolling their way across the red carpet with their arms hooked.

“Mr. Maru! Miss Haneul! Is it true that Sir Yoon is appearing in the film you’re preparing to make?”

It wasn’t just him. Many journalists asked a similar question. Going past journalist Ahn, Han Haneul stopped in front of him. Journalist Ahn had seen many celebrities up close until now, but he had never seen someone with such charming facial features.

“I’m not sure.”

Han Haneul smiled before walking past him. Journalist Ahn stood in a daze before ripping his hair out.

“I… should’ve taken photos.”

He muttered to himself in pity and zoomed in his lens towards Haneul, who had become distant.