In the HK Entertainment director's office, Hong Ah-Yoon's head spun as she stared at Ha Ill-Kwon's phone.

At Weekly Star, the number one paper in the entertainment industry, a reporter named Jang Moon-Ki had been pouring out malicious articles about HK Entertainment.

[HK Entertainment, branded the axis of evil the moment it was founded.]

[HK Entertainment's core business model isn't overseas expansion, but poaching celebrities from small and mid-sized companies?]

[A conglomerate entering the entertainment industry. Stumbling from the start. Supposed to be a sports car, but actually a cart?]

[The real power behind HK Entertainment, Director H of the 'Royal Family.' Rumor has it her high-handed moves that ignore experts have caused so much trouble that executives secretly call them the 'Trash Family.']

...

As if he had a personal vendetta, Jang Moon-Ki kept uploading countless articles with headlines designed to drag HK Entertainment's image straight into the abyss. From axis of evil, stacked-deck swindlers, cart, to trash family, every single headline was packed with provocative phrases.

"Jang Moon-Ki, is that bastard out of his mind? What kind of grudge does he have against me to pull this crap!" Hong Ah-Yoon shouted.

Ha Ill-Kwon swallowed hard as he spoke. "That reporter is quite close with Chief Jung."

Hong Ah-Yoon realized then that what Jung Yoon-Ho had mentioned was this very tabloid-style media war.

"Why aren't those articles taken down yet!"

"I-I'll get to work right away."

"And we're not just going to sit here. Flood them with articles too. Does it make sense that we're losing a media war to a single talent agent?"

"He's got connections everywhere. It won't be easy."

"Just do it!"

"Y-Yes, understood."

After taking his phone back from Hong Ah-Yoon, Ha Ill-Kwon started making calls somewhere. At that moment, the intercom with the chipped corner started ringing.

Ring, ring.

Wondering what it was this time, Hong Ah-Yoon picked it up. "Who is it?"

-Ms. Hong. This is the HK Department Store PR Office.

"Why are you calling? I said I'd be busy focusing only on the entertainment division for a while."

-Um, well, the HK Department Store stock price is plummeting.

"What? Why?"

-Um... because of a post uploaded to Haru's Instargem, Haru's older female fans have started a boycott of the HK Department Store.

"Older female fans?"

-Yes. Among Haru's fans, the older women are claiming that HK Entertainment tried to forcibly take Haru away. We're actively responding, but we'd appreciate it if HK Entertainment could also pay attention to this.

Hong Ah-Yoon snapped. "Fuck. Handle your own damn mess! Do I look like I have the bandwidth to deal with that too? Huh?"

The sharp string of curses in Hong Ah-Yoon's voice must have startled them, because they hurriedly hung up.

Click.

For the price of touching a single celebrity, the damage was far beyond anything Hong Ah-Yoon had imagined. With HK Entertainment's image shattered, she had never expected that it would drag down HK Department Store's stock along with it.

Barely steadying herself, Hong Ah-Yoon turned to the stiffened Ha Ill-Kwon. "Did you check Haru's Instargram account?"

Ha Ill-Kwon quickly pulled up Haru's Instargem on his phone and held it out to her. "Here."

[@HARUHARU]

I will always be a Hoop Entertainment celebrity.

#NeverGoingToHKEnter #HoopIsTheBest #HKEnterIsNotCool

(Comments)

-HK_diediedie: Haru, just ignore HK. We'll take care of boycotting them.

-ohyes: Haru, this must be hard for you, right? Don't worry. Our entire fan club decided that starting today we're boycotting the HK Department Store and moving to Daecheon and Jinseong instead.

...

"Why the hell are they dragging the HK Department Store into this!"

"Because they're... fans?"

"Damn it!"

Furious to the core, Hong Ah-Yoon called Jung Yoon-Ho again. However, the message that came back was infuriatingly familiar.

-The person you are calling cannot answer. Please leave a message after the tone...

"Jung Yoon-Ho!! How dare you block me!"

Unable to contain her anger, Hong Ah-Yoon hurled her phone.

Crash.

HK Entertainment's losses increased just a little more.

***

[Call Rejected]

[Blocked: Hong Ah-Yoon]

At the Yeongtong Branch of Daeheung Savings Bank, while Director Kim Chul-Soo was refinancing a loan, I finished my call with Hong Ah-Yoon out in the hallway. The moment I saw Jang Moon-Ki's article go up, I blocked her number. If I answered, she would definitely just curse me out.

After that, I alternated between checking Jang Moon-Ki's articles and Haru's Instargem.

'This was what you called a media war.'

For the past few weeks, Jang Moon-Ki had milked the article "The Man Actresses Want to Marry, Jung Yoon-Ho" for every last drop, racking up views like simmering bone broth. Because of that, my face had unintentionally become widely known, and I had been going through quite a bit of trouble.

Since Jang Moon-Ki felt somewhat apologetic about that, I had called him and told him that if he didn't write the article the way I requested, I would never give him information again. As a result, Jang Moon-Ki accepted my proposal.

I just hadn't expected him to trash HK Entertainment's image this thoroughly in less than a day. It was as expected of a master of incitement and fabrication. Still, I was a little surprised the article had passed the desk and been uploaded. Weekly Star usually watched the mood of the conglomerates, so I hadn't expected the tone to go this far.

Just then, my phone buzzed.

Buzz.

Jang Moon-Ki was calling. When I answered, he immediately started shouting between ragged breaths.

-Hey, Chief Jung. You saw the article, right? I kept my promise. Huff, huff, huff.

"Yes, I checked. But why are you so out of breath?"

-I had to run to avoid the head editor chasing me down to kill me. I just made it to the lobby. I'm dying here. Huff, huff, huff.

Since Jang Moon-Ki was a team lead, he could upload online articles without the editor-in-chief's permission. But apparently, after belatedly seeing the article, the editor-in-chief had come all the way down to the office to catch him.

"Are you all right?"

Jang Moon-Ki snapped back.

-Of course I'm not all right! But you said if I didn't bash HK Entertainment, you wouldn't deal with me anymore. Why are you acting like you don't know now?

"Well, I didn't expect it to go this far."

At that moment, there was a flustered voice on the other end.

-Hey, Chief Jung. You're not planning to use me and then toss me aside, right? I burned bridges with HK Entertainment riding your line. I'm really going to be hurt, okay?

"Why would I toss you aside? Aren't we kkangbu?"[1]

Only then did Jang Moon-Ki burst into laughter.

-Kehehe. Yeah, of course we're kkangbu. But the article won't stay up long. The editor's obviously going to take it down soon.

"That's fine. Even if it stirs things up just once like this, the big online communities will turn it into memes and keep reproducing it."

-But will you be okay? If this keeps up, it's going to turn into an all-out war with HK.

"The war already began the moment they tried to take Haru."

-Then make sure you win this war, all right? Huh? You absolutely can't lose. If you do, then I...

That was when the booming voice of Weekly Star's editor rang out from beyond the phone.

-Hey! You! Don't you run! Let's see whether you die today or I do!

-Ah, seriously. Has he lost his mind? Instead of revising the article, he's chasing me around. Hey, Chief Jung. I'm hanging up. I think I need to clock out on my own today.

Thud, thud.

With the sound of hurried footsteps, the call abruptly ended.

"At this point, I guess I should forgive him."

Because of Jang Moon-Ki, my name had become widely known, and I had been put in a difficult position for a while. The documentary program The Human Story had even approached me about making a documentary about my life.

Now, I figured I should let it go.

'Please don't get caught.'

Just then, the door to the branch manager's office clicked open, and Yeongtong Branch Manager Oh Jung-Gyun of Daeheung Savings Bank came out with Kim Chul-Soo and Haru.

"Then we'll be in your care from now on."

"Yes, sir."

Thankfully, the refinancing of the nursing hospital loan had wrapped up smoothly.

***

After finishing up in Suwon, I headed back to Seoul with Haru to meet Writer Jung Na-Mi, who had written the screenplay for the film Happy & Happy.

Screech.

I stopped the car at a traffic light in the intersection.

Haru, sitting in the passenger seat, was looking at his phone and humming to himself. "Hmm, hmm, hmm~"

"Are you that happy?"

Haru smiled brightly. "Yes. Thanks to you, hyung, I was able to lend Dad 10 billion won."

When Kim Chul-Soo was trying to borrow money from Daeheung Savings Bank, Haru had stubbornly insisted on lending him the money himself. Kim Chul-Soo opposed it, but Haru even got permission from his mother, Natalia, and pleaded.

In the end, I stepped in to mediate. Combining Haru's contract renewal bonus and his commercial fees, we put together a total of 10 billion won and lent it to his father. Thanks to that, Kim Chul-Soo only had to borrow 20 billion won from the bank.

Just then, Haru held his phone out to me. "Oh, and look at this. It turned out well, right?"

On the screen was a photo the three of them had taken earlier that day on the living room sofa. Kim Chul-Soo was sitting on the left, Natalia on the right, and Haru in the middle, holding both of their hands tightly and smiling brightly. As if they were truly a family now, there wasn't a trace of awkwardness between the three of them.

Still, there was one thing I was curious about.

"Haru. Aren't you scared?" I asked.

"Of what?"

"If Mr. Kim's nursing hospital fails, the money you lent him could all disappear."

Haru shook his head. "No. You said it yourself, hyung. That there's something more important than money in life."

Haru had always been by my side. And he had been watching closely how I valued people over money. Until now, the person Haru valued so much had been his mother.

"Right. You said that was your mom."

Haru shook his head again. "Now I think it's family."

He had fully accepted Kim Chul-Soo as his own family.

'You've really grown up, Haru.'

Haru, who used to run errands for his father's drinks in Sae-Ri's neighborhood just to get a meal, had now become a star born from TVM's mukbang program. And before I knew it, he had even become part of a happy family like this.

Seeing such a happy ending as the result of my effort to change one person's life filled my chest with quiet pride.

Just then, Haru smirked at me as I drifted off in thought. "And even if Dad goes bankrupt and I lose all my money... won't you take care of it somehow, hyung?"

"Hey, is your talent agent a Superman or something? You think I can handle everything?"

"You are Superman, hyung."

For a moment, I had no reply. Just like Haru said, I had solved every problem that came his way.

I let out a small laugh and asked him, "Haru, are you happy?"

Haru smiled with his eyes. "Yes. The happiest I've ever been in my life!"

"Good. That's all that matters."

At that moment, the traffic light changed. As I stepped on the accelerator, Haru, still wearing that blissful smile, uploaded a new family photo to Instargem.

As we passed through the intersection, I glanced sideways and saw the post had just gone up.

[@HARUHARU]

My family. (Dad, Mom, Me)

(FamilyPhoto.JPEG)

#HaruFamily #HoopEntertainmentIsFamilyToo #HaruDay #HappyHaru #ThankYouYoonHoHyung #MyHyungIsSuperman

For Haru, today was the day Kim Chul-Soo was engraved into his heart as a real family. Maybe that was why his face shone brighter than ever as he read the comments. And in the Instargem tags, there was something about me too.

'Haru. I'm the one who's grateful that you became happy.'

Today meant something big to me as well.

***

I drove toward the back street near Exit 3 of Gangnam Station. Soon, I spotted the small five-story building where the film production company Fireworks was located.

Its president, Park Han-Yi, was a seasoned producer with considerable connections in the film industry. And this was where Jung Na-Mi, who had written the screenplay for Haru's upcoming film Happy & Happy, worked as a staff writer.

Since the building didn't have an underground parking lot, we parked in a nearby vacant lot.

Screech.

As Haru unbuckled his seatbelt, he asked, "Hyung, what kind of person is the writer? The script was incredible. The emotional depth was insane."

Happy & Happy was a youth drama about a high school boy who raised a dog named Happy and met a visually impaired girl who also had a guide dog named Happy. The two met, grew together, and laughed and cried side by side.

Jung Na-Mi, who wrote the story, had low vision herself. Because of that, she understood the struggles of the visually impaired better than anyone. More than anything, the story's motif came from her own first love with the boy next door, which gave the script overwhelming realism.

"That story is actually based on her own experience," I explained.

"Really? Then is Ms. Jung Na-Mi visually impaired?"

"Yeah. Not to the point of total blindness, but she has low vision. She enlarges the text on her laptop about five times. She can live without a guide dog."

"I thought so. When I read the script, it felt so vivid like it was her own story."

"Right. That realism is its biggest strength."

"Yeah. Then who's directing it?"

"I'm thinking about letting Ms. Jung direct it herself."

Even before the regression, the director of Happy & Happy had been Jung Na-Mi. Of course, the road to get there had been anything but smooth. Once people learned the director had low vision, there were many attempts to replace her. Most directors wanted to tear the script apart and reshape it to their own tastes.

Jung Na-Mi didn't have much greed for directing itself, but she absolutely hated having her screenplay altered. So in the end, she refused to alter the script until she had no choice but to take on directing it herself.

Of course, since I knew that entire process from before the regression, I had planned from the start to let her direct.

"Got it. Then let's go meet her," Haru answered and reached for the door handle.

"That's it?"

"Yes. Why? Was I supposed to object or something?"

"No, not that. You just accepted it too easily. You're okay with her directing even though she has low vision?"

Haru smiled. "If it's you, hyung, you must have a plan. And when it's Jung Yoon-Ho doing something, of course it'll work out."

He spoke as if my name itself were a brand of success.

"Thanks for trusting me."

"But hyung, doesn't the production company choose the director?"

"They do. But I spoke with the president yesterday, and he said he'd think about it positively."

During yesterday's call, I had carefully brought up the topic of director selection to the president of Fireworks. I told him I wanted Jung Na-Mi to direct. Fortunately, he said he would consider it favorably, so I wasn't too worried about today.

Since the elevator was out of order, Haru and I slowly climbed the stairs.

But when we reached the third floor, we heard whispering from above. I stopped in my tracks and grabbed Haru's arm. The voice coming from upstairs was none other than President Park Han-Yi of Fireworks.

"Hey, Writer Jung. Haru and Chief Jung will be here soon. When they arrive, say you'll only handle the script. You know what I mean, right?"

When we scheduled the meeting, I had clearly said I wanted Jung Na-Mi to direct as well.

'What is going on?'

Then Jung Na-Mi's voice followed. "But Mr. Jung said he wanted me to direct. He said he'd help me debut..."

"Hey, you believe that? It's just lip service to make you feel good so you'll sign the contract."

"But..."

"That's enough. Honestly, who's going to hire a director with bad eyes like you? Don't fall for sweet talk. Just make sure you get paid properly for the script. That's better for you too."

'Why is he twisting my intentions like that?'

Not knowing my true thoughts, Jung Na-Mi answered in a drained voice. "Okay. Then who are you thinking of for a director?"

The way she gave up so quickly showed how many times she must have faced this kind of frustration and how little she trusted people anymore.

Then Park Han-Yi spoke with a light laugh. "Haha. Good choice. I'm thinking of Director Yoo Sang-Jin for now. We'll talk later and I'll try to pick someone you're comfortable with."

Director Yoo Sang-Jin was a popular director whose previous film, Oh! My Brother!, had drawn eight million viewers. Perhaps because of that, Jung Na-Mi responded more readily than I expected.

"Okay. But even Mr. Yoo can't touch my script. You know that, right?"

"Of course. I know better than anyone how much you cherish your script. Anyway, when Chief Jung comes, make it clear you can't direct. Say your eyesight's gotten worse and it'd be difficult."

"I said I got it, so stop talking about my eyes! I know better than anyone how bad they are!"

Clack, clack, clack.

After shouting, Jung Na-Mi stormed back into the office. Then, a moment later, Park Han-Yi began badmouthing both Jung Na-Mi and me.

"What is she... with those messed-up eyes, daring to covet a director's chair? Seriously, every idiot wants to be a director these days. And that Chief Jung too. Just because the young punk made a little name for himself, does he think the world's a joke? How dare he try to pre-appoint a director? Arrogant bastard..."

After grumbling venomously for a while, Park Han-Yi headed back into the office.

Step. Step.

Listening to his footsteps fade away, I clenched my fists. I could brush off what he said about me, but I never expected him to insult his own company's writer like that.

Just as I was about to storm upstairs and grab him by the collar, Haru looked at me with sad eyes.

"Hyung... What do we do now? The production company chooses the director. Does that mean Ms. Jung can't direct anymore?"

I looked at Haru and answered firmly, "No. That won't happen. No matter what, the director of Happy & Happy will be Ms. Jung Na-Mi."

From this moment on, I intended to completely crush Park Han-Yi's rotten way of thinking.

1. Kkangbu is Korean slang for close friends/partners/sidekicks ☜