Become a Star

Practical problems, conflicts caused by each others’ values, and hurtful words towards each other were some things that would never be erased. However, the previously existing love between father and daughter had rooted itself deeply into both their lives, and it continued to remain even now.

Hatred and love existed simultaneously. Because they loved each other, they were apologetic and they couldn’t deny that they felt both worry and longing.

[Do you still hate me?]

The father’s question to his silent daughter put her deep in thought. Eventually, she just decided to be honest.

[Yes, I hated you, and truthfully, I still hate you. All the hard times I experienced made me resentful, thinking it was all your fault. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love you. I…still do.]

There was so much she wanted to say.

Parents can’t always be right. This was a realization Park Eun-Soo had come to understand as she raised her children. What she wanted of her children didn’t necessarily mean her children wanted the same for themselves either. She tried her hardest to live her life so that she wouldn’t become like her father. All so that she wouldn’t end up hurting her children like she had been hurt by her father, but as time went on, she began to understand him.

‘I must have given father a hard time as well.’

Every parent loved their child differently, and she now realized that her father loved his children in a different way from her. So even though she still resented him, she couldn’t help but continue to love him.

However, she still lacked the courage to see her father face to face and was too embarrassed to sit in front of him and speak these words. While it was unclear how well the words would be understood, she could, at the very least, be honest with him.

[It’s okay however much you hate and resent me. It was my fault. I’m sorry.]

Park Eun-Soo was not the only one that became honest. The man who rarely apologized on his own took the initiative to apologize first. As she read her father’s curt reply, Park Eun-Soo began to flounder in a sea of her own emotions.

She wondered whether it was really this easy to make amends. For a moment, she questioned whether they could have had a good relationship if they had been this honest in the past and regretted the lost opportunity. But she also knew that the two of them could never have understood one another like this if enough time hadn’t passed.

Unable to formulate an answer, Park Eun-Soo ended up lying facedown on her desk. She tried to calm her emotions and hold in her tears, but it wasn’t easy. The last 12 years of bottled-up emotions ended up bursting out like a flooded dam.

However, the team members viewing this scene trembled in their shoes as they glanced at one another.

‘Were our designs that sh*tty?’

Their imaginations ballooned in misunderstanding as all of them trembled in fear.

While Park Eun-Soo was a shoe designer, she was extremely famous in that area and had had many hit designs, so her illustrious career was not one to be mocked. After winning various awards in different competitions and such, she was treasured as a top designer for many years now.

With a talented and able team leader appearing in a severe dilemma, what could the team members do besides try to sense her reaction? After only a few months, they knew that team leader Park Eun-Soo was both warm and upfront. She could not be placed at the same level as the other extremely irritable team leaders.

And so, they thought there must be a reason if someone like her was showing such a defeated reaction. And what else could it be but an issue with the designs they had turned in, right?

A quota of 10 designs was needed to be approved by the 15th of this month, but most of the team hadn’t achieved even half of that goal. If the good-natured Park Eun-Soo was unable to get angry and could only self-reflect like this, then how terrible were their designs?

The team, which had been slacking a little until now, started moving rapidly. As the designers used their own methods to bring their artistic potential to the fullest, Ryu Na-Ye began making gifs of Chae Woo-Jin.

In an empty cafe, Louie slowly raised his head and stared around blankly. As he raised his head, he was thrown into slow motion, and light particles started falling all around him. Like this, a design was created with every gif, and Na-Ye was the only one in design team 3 to achieve this month’s goal.

***

The last part of episode 8, where Lee Yoo-Ra learned the truth about Louie and Chae Woo-Jin’s version of “A Wind that Blows from You,” flowed through the scene. Right after they had spent a wonderful and happy time at the amusement park, Lee Yoo-Ra found out the truth and collapsed.

Whatever I do, I can’t feel the wind that comes from you.

We walk the same path, but the wind that comes from me pushes you away.

We can bury the dark and twisted truth.

The path towards you is not the happiest path for me.

There was just no other way for me to go.

Whatever I do, the wind that comes from you doesn’t linger around me.

We look toward the same destination, but the wind that comes from me hurts you instead.

Don’t ask me about the hurtful and tiring present.

I don’t have the courage to lie to you.

I’m sorry, I don’t see any other paths for you either.

The low, calmly sung lyrics, as if being whispered in one’s ear, spoke of a dark, depressing future for the duo. The “Wind that Blows from You” was released at midnight and climbed straight to the top of the music charts.

“Such a song ranks first too, huh?”

Woo-Jin was amazed that a song he had sung was leading on the music charts. Of course, the song itself was good, and he had endeavored to sing it well, so he had some confidence. But as he viewed the results, all that was left was a sense of bewilderment.

“Such a song!?”

Kang Min-Ho glared darkly at Woo-Jin as his mouth twitched.

“You know ‘such a song’ is really good, right? It matches well with the mood of the drama and makes the main characters so much more relatable. Not to mention the subdued aura of autumn that comes from it! It’s SOOOO freaking good!!!!”

As Kang Min-Ho went on with compliments as if his song was the one being insulted, Woo-Jin was more realistic.

“Isn’t it a little too depressing? The lyrics just mean no hope for us at all, and it’s so hard to be sung by other people.”

“Since it’s autumn, this type of feeling isn’t necessarily bad. But, I do acknowledge that it’s hard to sing along. Since it’s so low in pitch, I thought it would be easy at first, but there’s no space to breathe. I realized how ridiculously difficult the song was after I tried singing it.”

It was one of those songs where even trying to take a breather in the middle would mean missing a stanza. The breath would be harsh on the mic, and there was a high chance of messing up the song itself. While it was a good song to listen to, it wasn’t a song that could be easily sung by anyone.

“I don’t know about anything else, but as I sang it, I realized how good you are at singing. Others probably think the same thing.” Kang Min-ho then showed Woo-Jin a news article published around ten minutes ago. With Woo-Jin’s detached nature, there was no way he’d especially make time to look for articles about him.

<TM lost Chae Woo-Jin, Blue Fit’s original member>

The title of the article summarized the content. It analyzed why TM had discarded Chae Woo-Jin, and mockingly questioned what gains TM had made by discarding him in the first place. Furthermore, the last paragraph went on to mention the author’s opinion that Woo-Jin had a much better future at DS than TM.

“This is…….”

Sketchy. That was the only word that came to mind.

TM’s CEO Kim Seok-Hyung had a little bit of a complex regarding DS’ CEO Jang Su-Hwan. They both had different starting points, their tastes were completely different, and both were often compared in the entertainment industry in particular. Kim Seok-Hyung always had comments saying he was a salesman for his people, and he absolutely abhorred it. Truthfully, being compared to Jang Su-Hwan in the first place was extremely harsh.

In the first place, both had different purposes for operating entertainment companies, so it was truly unfair to compare both parties—like comparing apples to oranges. But criticism and biases pushed Kim Seok-Hyung over the line, and this way, Jang Su-Hwan became a trigger for him.

By now, Chae Woo-Jin had stopped reacting to the articles that compared the two CEOs, but unfortunately, the problem was that this time, the comparing factor was himself. At this point, he didn’t want to be associated with TM any more than possible and was extremely frustrated that the reporters continued to connect him with them.

Woo-Jin didn’t usually read comments under the online articles, but this time he couldn’t suppress his curiosity and began reading them one by one. Blue Fit fans might have thought the article lacked taste, but contrary to expectations, Chae Woo-Jin garnered quite a bit of support.

Most fans were sad that Chae Woo-Jin had not debuted with Blue Fit, while some said his low tones wouldn’t have fit with Blue Fit’s style. However, the majority did say that with his skills, he wouldn’t have stood out like a sore thumb in the group and might have even created a different mood for the group. Based on his singing and appearance, there was no reason for him to be removed, so the only reason they could think of was his dancing skills.

Woo-Jin witnessed his fans’ live reactions when they responded to an unaware commenter who expressed that Woo-Jin probably wouldn’t have been a good dancer, especially with Blue Fit’s reputation of clean, synchronized dancing.

“But I do dance well….”

“What?”

Kang Min-Ho widened his eyes at Woo-Jin’s words that had an undertone of being unjustly accused. Apparently, he had thought the same thing as he read the comments.

“If you’re saying that for yourself, you must really dance well, huh?”

Woo-Jin had always been the type to be harsh to himself but generous to others. So, if he was complimenting himself, there was no way he was a terrible dancer. And this was a fact as Woo-Jin had extremely high standards, especially with his knowledge of past lives.

Compared to all the beautiful people he had seen in his past lives, he and the people around him were just average in their appearance, if not below average. But, thanks to his previous lives, his standards had needlessly become higher, and that included how he assessed his own skills and abilities.

More than anything, compared to some of his past lives where he was considered a master of the field, currently, he was extremely lacking. It was not an exaggeration to say that Woo-Jin had only just started walking. So to reach the level of mastery from his past lives, he was always very harsh with himself.

He always complimented others who couldn’t remember their past lives because, according to Woo-Jin, they were already good, considering their handicap of not remembering their past lives. But he also never used the same standards on himself given his knowledge of his past lives. To make it fair on others, he always pegged himself down a notch because his starting conditions were very different from others.

However, even compared with his past lives, he had confidence in dancing. While he was talented in other fields during his past lives, he believed himself talented in dancing in this life. He hadn’t decided to be an idol for nothing.

“I don’t think I’d be a detriment to others’ eyes.”

He wasn’t a braggart and thus gave a modest answer. However, he couldn’t hide the slight hint of pride in his voice, and Kang Min-ho picked up on that and interpreted it as such: “Just because I left due to not fitting in, people are assuming way too much.”

“That’s because people like assuming things. This time, both parties are being praised because both did well. But if one side collapses, everyone will be divided in their opinions as they choose one side. If something went wrong, they wouldn’t stop giving their opinions on all the happenings, even going so far as to say that was expected. They won’t hesitate to even step on the loser, so you should be careful.” Kang Min-ho cautioned Woo-Jin.

The public’s scale of what was right was never fair. One mistake or loss of fame, and the people would take sides immediately. Justice and fairness never existed in the entertainment industry.

“So, don’t become like a certain someone. He’s a little too touchy nowadays.” Kang Min-ho was obviously referring to Lee Min-Soo. He had seemingly turned into a venomous snake after today’s filming. Lee Min-Soo had not requested a retake, but with his and TM’s request, Production Director Park had promised to cover up the scene in question with CG.

As of episode 6, City of Shadows had surpassed The Blue Castle’s Master and even achieved 20% viewership on television networks, making Production Director Park extremely generous in nature. He was happy to the extent that even being insulted couldn't dampen his feeling of joy.

Thus, Lee Min-Soo’s request that would have earned a flat-out refusal only received a mild response of, “Eh, yeah, I’ll allow it.” Releasing evidence of Lee Min-Soo’s mistake on the screen would pose a problem was a concern raised by the CG/Art design team, but that was only an afterthought.