Chapter 18: Pathetic Joo Tae-gang (5)

3rd Arc.

Scene 13.

Hospital Rooftop.

Cha Hae-jun, panting heavily, bursts through the rooftop door and rushes inside.

As he catches his breath by the railing, two men in black suits appear.

Cha Hae-jun grips the USB in his hand even tighter.

[Hold on, hold on. Let’s all calm down for a moment, guys.]

Between the two men who chased after Cha Hae-jun, a bespectacled man steps forward.

[Well, look at this, making things so complicated. All because of one damn brat?]

An official ID hangs around his neck.

As soon as the word “Prosecutor” on the ID catches Cha Hae-jun’s eye, a hollow laugh escapes him.

[Ha. This is why nobody in my family ever…]

[Now, now. Mr. Cha Hae-jun, every action you’ve taken just now can be punished as theft and obstruction of official duties.]

Theft? Obstruction of official duties?

Cha Hae-jun slowly backs away.

He finally stops only when his body hits the railing.

As the men move closer, the prosecutor gestures for them to stay back, then walks up to Cha Hae-jun himself.

[If you just hand over the USB in your hand, we’ll act as if none of your crimes ever happened. Think carefully. You’re in Law School, you have a bright future ahead of you.]

A sneer escapes.

[After graduation, won’t I have to work with people like you anyway?]

He laughs along.

The look in his eyes is one of disregard, as if mocking a naive child who knows nothing of the world.

[Student, you must not understand. There are plenty of juniors out there who dream of working with people like me. And among those juniors, I’m saying I’ll give you special treatment, Cha Hae-jun. I’m offering you special treatment. Besides… you’re not exactly clean yourself, are you? Hmm?]

He grips the railing behind him tightly and looks down.

Shit, this is terrifying.

Mom, I’m really scared.

‘Should I stop here? Just… forget everything and live well like everyone else? Isn’t that what you wanted, Mom?’

Cha Hae-jun clenches the USB.

But, Mom, for that to happen, you had to be by my side.

[Student!!!!]

As the man shouts, the men guarding his sides charge at Cha Hae-jun.

His emotions surge so violently that the blood vessels in his eyes threaten to burst.

[There’s no going back now.]

Gulp.

Cha Hae-jun shoves the USB into his mouth and swallows it whole.

As the USB goes down his throat, the men reach for him but are a step too late.

[Let’s meet again someday.]

And Yoon Seong-a, I’m sorry.

Gripping the railing, Cha Hae-jun grins, climbs on top, and flips off everyone below as he plunges toward the ground.

The camera zooms in on Cha Hae-jun’s falling face in slow motion.

Cha Hae-jun keeps his middle finger raised, grinning widely until his heart stops and his life ends.

[Damn it!]

The prosecutor, who rushed to the railing, grabs hold and looks down, yelling at the fallen Cha Hae-jun.

[What are you doing, you idiots! Go get the body! The body!!]

*****

“Cut!!!”

As the director calls “Cut,” the production team comes in to prepare for another take.

I had landed on the cushion that was set up, and the staff hurried over to check on me.

“That was your first fall stunt, right? Are you okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

I’d fallen from all sorts of places before the regression, after all.

It was much easier than falling off a horse with no safety gear.

The USB prop was tastier than expected, so I could’ve eaten it a few more times without getting tired of it. After redoing my makeup, we shot the scene about five more times.

We had to film the fall from several angles, after all.

“Cut! That’s a wrap for this scene!”

“Thank you!”

Falling onto a cushion six times in a row—never want to do that again.

I ruffled my hair, which was a mess from the wind, as I stood up from the cushion, when suddenly someone ran over

and smacked me on the head.

I was so dumbfounded, I couldn’t even speak.

What the hell?

“Jeon Yeohu, you annoying junior!”

“Sunbae?”

“Joo Tae-gang-nim?!”

“It’s Joo Tae-gang the actor, right?”

Am I seeing things?

I’m utterly flabbergasted.

No, wait, the top of my head hurts like hell, so… no, this isn’t a hallucination.

The real Joo Tae-gang—not a hallucination—casually slings an arm over my shoulder.

“Let’s talk inside, you little punk.”

I thought hard about it.

No matter how I looked at it, I hadn’t done anything wrong to Joo Tae-gang, so why did I suddenly get smacked on the head, and why did he show up on set when he said he wasn’t coming?

‘Should I smack him back?’

Joo Tae-gang herded me into a black van and locked me inside. He rummaged through something in the seat next to me and tossed a script onto my lap.

Turned out it was one of the two scripts I’d used for practice.

“This is my script? Did you come all the way here just to return it?”

“You told me to give it back.”

Oh……

Didn’t think he’d actually listen to that.

It was a cliché move, but still.

Joo Tae-gang nodded toward the script.

“Check all the marked parts.”

“The marked parts?”

Looking closely, I saw index tabs all over the script.

This…

→ You slurred your pronunciation here.

→ Emotional clash between Yoon Seong-a and Cha Hae-jun. Both need to nail it, but… as it is, it’ll be tough.

Thud.

I closed the script and spoke.

“I wonder which rude bastard wrote these notes.”

“You did.”

“Did I?”

This guy…

He put index tabs everywhere I’d criticized him, is that it?

Now I know why he flicked my forehead.

Of course, a junior nitpicking a senior’s acting would be annoying.

But if you think about it, I’m actually his senior.

My acting career is way longer than his.

And this time around, I had to relearn all the basics after losing my memory and even majoring in acting.

But I know.

On the surface, I’m Joo Tae-gang’s junior now, so it’s right for me to apologize.

While I was hesitating, Joo Tae-gang looked at me with a sulky expression.

I bet the only reason he puts up with me this much is thanks to the advice writer Kim Hye-mi gave him before.

• Sometimes Yeohu spaces out. When he does, it means he’s deep in thought. Director Min-tae and I call that “Jeon Yeohu Time.”

“But… should I apologize for this?”

After a long internal debate, I finally asked, and Joo Tae-gang let out a snort of laughter.

“You think I’m that petty? I didn’t come here to get an apology from you.”

“It really felt like it though, didn’t it?”

“Read the rest.”

The rest?

Did I curse him out even more?

I’m not the kind to leave crude insults as evidence…

→ Might sound better if you use a lower voice. Strength.

→ The way you wrap up the scene. Want to learn it.

→ Perfect control of tone. Who taught you? Self-taught?

→ To be able to act together with you… no, never mind.

Ah, damn it.

I really need to quit this habit.

Now that I’ve regained my memories, it seems note-taking has become second nature to me.

Before regression, I couldn’t remember faces, so I became obsessed with memorizing my scene partners’ acting.

If I remembered people by their acting traits, memorizing their faces became easier.

So whenever there was something to learn, I always left notes or impressions in the script.

And for some reason, this script also had something written in Jeong Yun-woo’s handwriting.

→ I really like your acting, Joo Tae-gang sunbae! I hope you feel better and we can act together. Please teach me a lot!

→ I’ll be waiting. Fighting! (I wrote this on behalf of Han Se-rang sunbae!)

Did Jeong Yun-woo mistake this for a rolling paper?

“…I finished reading.”

“Yeah, you read it all?”

Joo Tae-gang lowered his voice.

I thought he was about to say something serious, so I looked at him with a deliberately solemn expression.

Honestly, I wanted to tell him to hurry up and just say what he wanted, but I couldn’t, not in front of his fragile, sunfish-like mentality.

“My dad still follows me everywhere, even now.”

“……”

Well, it’s not like he’d recover completely in just a few days.

Joo Tae-gang looked down at the script in my hands.

“To be honest, I thought about retiring. I figured I’d never be able to act again. I always thought acting was something you did alone. But then… this little bastard comes along who says he wants to act with trash like me.”

So… is he talking about me?

“This punk even has my bad temper. Always pestering me, calling me a nuisance lead every time you show up.”

“Well, that’s actually……”

“It’s true, I know. That’s why I have to do better now.”

“Are you coming back?”

I asked.

Either way, I still wanted Joo Tae-gang to take the role instead of Park I-won.

No matter how terrible his acting, he was better than Park I-won.

If he came back, he’d probably get cursed out even more, but that wasn’t my problem!

That was Joo Tae-gang’s problem to deal with, not mine.

Joo Tae-gang flashed all his teeth in a grin and messed up my hair.

“The lead has to film the drama, or what’s the point of being the lead? And I should teach acting to a punk who treats his seniors like dirt!”

……

What is this?

It feels a bit…

It’s a feeling I never had before regression.

“Yeohu, thanks. For hanging out with someone like me. If I pull this crap again, smack me right across the face next time.”

“……Do you think I can’t?”

“Hey, I’m asking you because I know you will.”

Back then, there was no way I’d have befriended a poorly reputed actor like Joo Tae-gang.

So this time, I wanted to live a little differently.

If it means I have to die at 35 for starting acting again—

This time, I really want things to change.

I want to trust someone uncertain at least once.

I still don’t know what the right way to live is,

But saving someone’s life doesn’t feel too bad.

“You little punk! Let’s go! I’ll hang out with you during standby!”

“Is that really necessary?”

“Let’s go!”

*****

When I got home, my whole body ached.

Back when I was around 25, I had decent stamina thanks to the muscles I built working a courier job to pay off my family’s debt.

But in this life, I hadn’t exercised at all, so I could definitely feel my basic stamina had dropped.

Still, it’s not like I was ever famous for being a physically fit actor. I could just work out for the next project.

Thinking about this and that, I drifted off to sleep.

The next shoot was in two weeks, so it didn’t matter how long I slept.

I went to bed at 4 a.m. and woke up around 2 p.m. the next day, only to find my phone blowing up.

I’d set it to silent during standby and left the alarm on, so I slept through everything.

Startled, I checked my SNS account and saw my followers had shot up to 100,000.

‘Is it because of the commercial?’

I thought the TAM commercial would do well, but just how well did it do?

Thanks to memberships, not everyone would see the ad, but if my followers increased this much, the views must be huge.

‘2.41 million views?’

Is that even possible in one day?

Plus, it was sitting at number 2 on the trending videos chart, so the views would probably go up even more.

Lee Young-bin and Kim Woon-yul were congratulating me in the group chat. I also got separate messages from Jeong Yun-woo and Director Park Min-tae.

After checking all the comments on my account, I browsed the SNS accounts of the other actors I met in this drama.

There was a post on Joo Tae-gang’s SNS as well.

A set photo and a short statement.

Something about health problems, working hard in the future, blah blah blah.

Well, even if he’s getting cursed out, he’s not the type to explain his circumstances to everyone.

Now that I’d caught up on all the news, I sprawled out on my bed with nothing to do.

The commercial was out, and there weren’t many episodes of the drama left to shoot, so I had to start thinking about my next move.

It’s good that my face is getting known, but before I get typecast, I should try various roles.

‘Maybe it’s time I tried playing a proper villain.’

Villain.

Usually refers to a character involved in crime, like a con artist or murderer.

But in dramas and movies, villains can be more memorable than heroes if they’re charming.

Even if they don’t appear for long, villains can leave a strong impression on the audience.

Around this time, there were a few dramas and films being cast through open auditions on new OTT platforms that hadn’t established exclusive hits yet.

And for the first time in a while, a familiar system window popped up.

[You’ve done something that the Regressor of Your Previous Life would never have done.]

“…?”

[Trusting others! Sacrificing for someone else!]

This crazy system.

[A new quest is generated in accordance with your choice.]

[Additionally, if a specific regressor does not select a main quest after a certain period, a Reverse Quest will be triggered.]

“There’s a thing called a Reverse Quest? Instead of giving me another main quest?”

The system window answered my muttered question.

[Because you abandoned your main quest.]

Well… can’t argue with that.

Guess I should be grateful I wasn’t killed again.

[While the Reverse Quest is being decided, the Regressor-Only Bulletin Board will be unlocked.]

A bulletin board?

[Access to the Regressor Bulletin Board is now available.]