A few days after the interview aired, I turned on my phone out of habit and went to the portal site.
When I started to type the two syllables 'Cha Eun-yul' into the search bar, autocomplete surfaced 'Cha Eun-yul interview' first.
One touch.
I slowly began scanning the article list.
- 'Cha Eun-yul, first official appearance in five years... an honest conversation with the public'
- "I'll accept the public's gaze too" Cha Eun-yul's mature attitude draws notice
- Cha Eun-yul breaks a five-year gap to return... ready to stand as an actor again.
Going by the headlines alone, it wasn't bad. If anything, it was a fairly positive current.
I let out a long breath, then tapped into the comments.
– Wow, he's really good with words... answering honestly and cleanly like that was so cool
– I was surprised how composed he was. Now he just has to act well, right?
The corner of my mouth lifted slightly.
It was a simple smile of relief.
But then other comments came into view.
– Being cleared doesn't automatically make you clean. Didn't everyone just forget?
– An image-laundering interview if I ever saw one. Looked like he was acting.
My hand stopped.
There were plenty of positive reactions, but the suspicion and preconceptions were still there.
That was reality.
'Right... it isn't a problem that ends easily.'
But the real problem was somewhere else.
– Look at oppa's cup lolol he must've been nervous, there are sweat marks lol cute
– Seriously; his voice and expression weren't shaking, but hands can't lie lol
I reflexively zoomed in on the screen. The clear glass cup I'd been holding during the interview.
On its surface, my handprints were captured, plain as day.
'Ah... caught.'
The camera anxiety was still there.
I'd memorized the script well and kept my words clear, but inside I'd been steadying my breath the whole time.
Honestly... it had been a stretch of time I got through on willpower alone.
And the traces of it had been left, intact, on that cup.
My palms suddenly felt damp again. Without thinking, I rubbed my hands on my pants to wipe off the moisture.
"Haha... I should've just asked for a white mug."
A laugh slipped out, half to myself. If it had been a matte cup, marks like that wouldn't have shown.
Ji-ho hyung, in the driver's seat, glanced over at me.
The corner of his mouth twitched, wearing the expression of a man timing exactly when to start teasing.
'Hoo... I'm going to catch it for weeks over this.'
In that moment, Ji-ho hyung hit the brakes and said,
"Eun-yul, we're here."
I turned my head toward the window. Beyond the glass, staff were already moving busily.
Camera equipment was arranged neatly, and the makeup and lighting teams were bustling.
At last, the first day of shooting.
I opened the car door and drew a short breath.
"So it's finally the first shoot."
My tone came out soaked in nerves.
At that, manager hyung glanced at me, then pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and held it out.
"Wipe up if you get nervous. Figured you'd need it."
But the second I saw his expression, a sigh came out on its own. The twitching corner of his mouth, the laughter he was holding back. The face of a man desperate to tease.
I could see him waving the handkerchief slightly, playing it up.
"Hoo......"
I shook my head and took the handkerchief.
'I'm getting teased for this after the shoot.'
But right now the shoot was what mattered, so I decided to shelve thoughts of Ji-ho hyung for the moment.
And so, the set.
The moment I stepped onto it, the air felt strangely different.
The staff's movements were awkward, and several of them kept glancing around even while arranging the display shelves.
The lighting team repeated minute position adjustments while whispering, and the cinematographer was looking at his monitor letting out short sighs.
'...What's going on?'
I stopped walking and looked around.
Just then Ji-ho hyung let out a small huff of a laugh and muttered,
"Oh boy... it's already started, of course."
That gave me the sense of it.
CEO Kim Myeong-jun.
The man who had invested an enormous sum in this drama.
So the talk about the director and the writer both watching his mood hadn't been idle chatter.
'The bigger the investment, the stronger the say......'
The lighting team fiddled needlessly with the equipment in their hands, trading glances, and the makeup staff kept looking back over their shoulders even while standing beside the actors.
An inexplicable tension and silently stiffened faces drifted through the set.
This awkward air right now was probably the signal that his influence had begun.
***
PD Lee Woo-seok finished preparations for the next day's 'The Temperature of a Meal' shoot and leaned back in his office chair.
Just as he was about to catch his breath, his phone rang.
The name on the screen was [PNA Networks CEO Kim Myeong-jun].
He was the head of the company that had made a massive investment in this drama, and the man running CN, the country's largest convenience store brand.
"Haa......"
PD Lee Woo-seok let out a short sigh.
Calls with Kim Myeong-jun were never comfortable.
The ringtone kept going. In the end, he took the call.
"Yes, this is Lee Woo-seok."
[About that actor playing our convenience store part-timer. What kind of person is he?]
It was Kim Myeong-jun's characteristically blunt manner.
PD Lee Woo-seok steadied himself quietly at a situation he'd anticipated.
'Cha Eun-yul, of course.'
"Yes, CEO-nim. You mean the actor playing the part-timer role?"
[That's right. My staff tell me the man had a controversy? Career break and everything? Is that true?]
Lee Woo-seok took a beat.
It was a question he'd expected, but it was still an uncomfortable subject every time he faced it.
"Yes, that's correct. But it was concluded that there was no case, and both his acting ability and his sync with the role are excellent."
[...Even so, there could be damage to our brand image.]
Lee Woo-seok pushed back calmly.
"You'll have seen the interview video, CEO-nim. The negative image has been resolved sufficiently, and the response to the MZ Vitamin commercial is very good. The positive current is far larger right now."
But Kim Myeong-jun's voice was still cold.
[Image isn't something that recovers that easily.]
"However, this was pre-agreed with the HR lead on the New World side, so......"
Before he'd even finished, Lee Woo-seok sensed instinctively that he'd made a mistake.
'...Damn.'
For a moment the air in the call settled heavily.
[It was agreed with New World?]
Kim Myeong-jun's tone turned cold.
Lee Woo-seok gritted his teeth. Kim Myeong-jun was a man who profoundly disliked any mention of New World, the parent company.
He believed he had built CN Convenience Store into what it was, and it wounded his pride for decisions to come down from above.
'And I just poked that pride.'
"The person in charge over there reviewed it positively, and after internal discussion—"
[Enough. What exactly was the controversy?]
Lee Woo-seok steadied his breath. From here, every word would carry weight.
"There was a rumor going around that he had committed power abuse against staff and fellow actors. But there was no actual victim, and the police investigation concluded there was no case."
A brief silence.
And then—
[What did you say?]
A sharp voice came through the phone.
[You're putting an actor who abuses his position on as the face of our convenience store?]
"CEO-nim, this role is a part-timer, nothing more. He isn't a brand model—"
[Does that make sense? Our brand is number one in the industry. An actor like that appearing on screen at all is a risk!]
Lee Woo-seok swallowed a short breath.
The reaction he'd expected.
Which was why he broached it all the more carefully.
"CEO-nim, he's an actor who can prove himself thoroughly through his acting. If you'll just watch once, you'll have nothing to regret."
But Kim Myeong-jun's conclusion was firm.
[Then I'll see for myself. When is the shoot?]
Reluctantly, Lee Woo-seok gave him the convenience store shooting schedule.
After the call ended, he held his head with a deep sigh.
'Now he's coming to the set too......'
The contract on his desk came into view. He looked at it for a moment, then slowly shook his head and muttered,
"If Cha Eun-yul doesn't deliver properly, there won't be a next time."
***
The convenience store shooting day for 'The Temperature of a Meal' arrived.
PD Lee Woo-seok felt as though the uncomfortable feeling running on for days had jammed up inside him.
The largest cause was, of course, the investor's pushback on casting Cha Eun-yul.
The set was busy. While the staff moved around arranging the display shelves, PD Lee Woo-seok stopped in front of one of them as he passed.
"Who arranged this like this? What convenience store displays things this way?"
The same product was repeated excessively on the shelf.
Only certain brands were lined up with no balance, giving the impression of an advertising shoot for the displayed products.
"Well... the investor told us to do it this way......"
One staff member answered carefully. PD Lee Woo-seok let out a deep sigh. This was staging with no sense of reality.
"Please arrange it again. It has to look like a real convenience store."
In that moment, a familiar silhouette came into view at the entrance to the set.
Kim Myeong-jun.
CEO of PNA Networks, and head of the CN Convenience Store franchise, the drama's largest investor.
When he stepped onto the set, the air shifted strangely.
Several staff glanced toward PD Lee Woo-seok, then immediately checked CEO Kim Myeong-jun's expression.
The lighting team stopped with their equipment in hand, moving carefully between the two men and waiting, reading the room.
Kim Myeong-jun paid it no mind. He scanned the convenience store shelves and said with a furrowed face,
"PD-nim, what is this? Displayed like this, will viewers even know what the new product is?"
PD Lee Woo-seok answered calmly without changing his expression at all.
"CEO-nim, this is a drama shoot. We're paying plenty of attention to product exposure, and it all gets caught in the camera angles."
But Kim Myeong-jun moved along and pointed at the shelf again.
"Doing it this way won't promote the new product. The lighting should be set around these products too."
PD Lee Woo-seok lowered his head slightly and spoke quietly.
"CEO-nim, we're people who make dramas. What matters more than the product is the emotional line of the scene and the story of the characters."
Kim Myeong-jun showed a subtle reaction to that.
But he didn't nod. If anything, he narrowed his eyes and slowly looked around the inside of the convenience store.
And then he tossed out a change of subject.
"PD-nim, let's speak frankly. How did you cast an actor with a controversy this easily?"
Lee Woo-seok swallowed a sigh internally.
'This again, in the end.'
He answered without wavering.
"CEO-nim, it was already concluded that there was no case, and the public's reaction has been turning positive. And Cha Eun-yul was the actor who fit this role best."
Kim Myeong-jun shook his head and shot back,
"If I were you, PD-nim, I think there would have been many better options."
Kim Myeong-jun's eyes sharpened further.
"I trusted you and left the casting entirely in your hands... but frankly, I don't really understand why you'd choose, of all people, an actor who had a controversy and lacks name recognition on top of it."
PD Lee Woo-seok answered the CEO's pressure without yielding.
"Name recognition is something a project can build. And writer Yoo Ye-jin is adjusting the script so that actor Cha Eun-yul's image blends naturally for viewers."
"Even so, there was a five-year gap. His career was cut off, and his feel for a set may not be what it was. Isn't that a risk factor?"
PD Lee Woo-seok no longer avoided that gaze.
"He never let go of acting during that time, and he proved it definitively at the audition. The actor I saw was the person who would live and move most convincingly in this drama."
Kim Myeong-jun still wore a look of doubt.
Lee Woo-seok read that expression exactly.
So he spoke quietly, but firmly.
"CEO-nim, I don't think you'll be persuaded by explanation."
Kim Myeong-jun lifted his head slightly.
"Watch actor Cha Eun-yul's acting for yourself."
At that, Kim Myeong-jun folded his arms and looked at Lee Woo-seok. Then he lifted the corner of his mouth slightly and said,
"All right. If you're that confident, let's see it."
Lee Woo-seok immediately asked a staff member to prepare one more chair.
Then he quietly set up a place in front of the monitor.
A short while later.
Cha Eun-yul stepped into the convenience store set.
The staff's eyes moved to him one by one. Hands that had been tidying stopped, and those who'd been talking held their words.
Everyone was carefully watching Cha Eun-yul's expression and movements.