"Ugh."
A blonde girl groaned while clutching her side.
Youngbin, who had been staring at her face, suddenly felt as if a bolt of lightning had flashed through his mind.
Stella Baldwin.
As someone who frequently watched foreign films, Youngbin couldn't help but recognize the actress.
But the lead actress from those movies.
Would anyone normally think that a famous foreign actress would be in their own home?
Having struck the side of such an actress, Youngbin's mind inevitably went blank.
Didn't foreign actors commonly insure every part of their bodies?
If Stella were to make an issue out of this……
'I haven't even finished paying off my car installments yet.'
Youngbin naturally looked for his daughter.
If it were his daughter, couldn't she somehow handle a insurance company CEO?
"Phew, hehe, um, hello?"
"Ah, h-hello?"
"Your side is fine, so could you stop making that face?"
"D-don't speaking English."
"……Um, I'm speaking in Korean?"
Anyway, Stella did her best to manage her image and smiled softly.
The problem was that it wasn't conveyed to the other party at all.
'Joo Seoyeon's parents?'
That was the impression.
She couldn't see their faces clearly.
So she didn't know whether they looked alike or not.
But who else but Seoyeon's parents would show such an attitude in Seoyeon's house?
Three people.
A father, a mother, and a younger sister.
A harmonious family.
'……That's strange.'
She had definitely felt a vibe similar to herself.
So she thought Seoyeon might have a similar family environment to Stella's…… but was it different?
What could it be?
As Stella pondered like that and moved her eyes to properly confirm Seoyeon's parents.
"……."
Her eyes stopped at one particular place.
She couldn't clearly distinguish their faces, but something stood out.
"Honey, don't be like that, look properly. This girl speaks Korean well."
"Huh? Ko-Korean?"
"More than that, she speaks English well too, what can't she do?"
"No, my English is business English……."
Stella thought.
Even if she was sandwiched among other women, she felt she could distinguish Seoyeon's mother.
Even among Americans who were generally larger in size, her chest would stand out, and Stella momentarily looked down at her own.
Honestly speaking, she wasn't on the small side.
But she wasn't on the large side either—just average.
'……Come to think of it.'
Joo Seoyeon also felt a bit large compared to her figure.
To think she'd end up distinguishing people by something other than their faces.
Moreover, looking at Seoyeon's face, her mother must definitely be a beauty.
With a figure like that, was she an actress too?
"What are you two doing?"
"Oh my, daughter! Y-you waited?"
"Why is Stella clutching her side? Did you hit her like you did to me?"
"……Ah, well."
Seeing Youngbin's pale face, Seoyeon immediately realized that he had struck Stella's side just as he had done to her.
'Isn't she going to get sued?'
He must have hit her quite hard, yet Stella's face showed no sign of discomfort.
Seeing that, Seoyeon felt a bit relieved.
'More importantly, you didn't catch the boss.'
The fact that he looked like he was dying the entire time until she arrived.
That was more important to Seoyeon than anything else.
"……."
Looking at Stella again, Stella was quietly watching her bickering parents and Sooyeon caught between them.
At this point, Seoyeon hadn't yet properly learned that Stella couldn't distinguish faces.
However, on Stella's face, which was usually hard to read, a hint of emotion seemed to surface at this moment.
With the situation somewhat settled, it was time for dinner.
"The situation suddenly turned out like this, so thank you for taking care of me."
Stella smiling brightly looked truly angelic.
Seoyeon looked at such a Stella and roughly cut some meat before putting it in her mouth.
'Isn't it exhausting to act like that every time?'
Anyway, thanks to Stella, tonight's dinner wasn't pointlessly healthy and tasteless, but steak, so it was a gain.
"Did you come from Japan to meet Seoyeon?"
"Yes, the acting I saw in Japan was very impressive."
"If you came alone, your parents must have been worried."
When Sooah said that, Stella just smiled gently rather than answering.
Seeing that, Youngbin stopped enthusiastically cutting his steak and opened his mouth.
"Ah, why ask about something like that?"
"I-I can ask, can't I?"
"She might have wanted to come alone. Did we always go around getting our parents' permission? We even secretly went to Seoul before."
"S-Seoul and Japan are different."
"What's different, the travel time is roughly similar."
Though the mode of transportation was a bit different.
At Youngbin's sudden words, Sooah sulked for no reason.
It seemed Sooah was curious about Stella's parent, Asher Baldwin.
So she probably wanted to talk about things related to parents.
"Cough, more importantly, I saw it. The movie."
But Youngbin lightly changed the subject of the conversation.
Along with looking at Stella who was smiling as if it was fine.
"And, you can speak comfortably."
"Huh?"
"Ah, well. How should I put it, you seem a bit tense."
He said while turning his gaze away.
At those words, Seoyeon saw Stella's eyes narrow for a brief moment.
"Hmm, it's not particularly like that."
For a moment, a look of displeasure.
It wasn't so much discomfort toward Youngbin, but rather a reaction like a child whose secret had been discovered.
'She must have noticed that she's acting in her daily life.'
Seoyeon looked at Youngbin with intrigued eyes.
He was like that sometimes.
Her father had a sharp side in strange places.
Thanks to that, Stella also seemed to have been caught off guard, and after that, she couldn't easily smile.
She also seemed a bit flustered.
So, Seoyeon found it a bit funny.
It felt like Stella, who had been relaxed the whole time, was getting a taste of her own medicine.
'Of course, I never did find out what Stella had laid out in her heart.'
Looking at Seoyeon's house, she seemed to have strangely many thoughts.
And…….
"What are you thinking about?"
Seoyeon, who had been reminiscing about that time, snapped out of it at Jo Seohee's words.
It seemed she had been too absorbed in her thoughts.
Jo Seohee, who had already changed into light pajamas, was sitting on the opposite bed and looking at Seoyeon.
"It's nothing. I just remembered letting Stella stay at my house in Korea."
"Ah, her."
Jo Seohee answered冷淡ly as if she didn't like Stella.
There weren't many people who showed such a reaction from Jo Seohee, who generally got along well with most people.
Because of that, Jo Seohee had barely spoken during this filming.
That much showed how much Stella didn't appeal to her.
By this point, Seoyeon became curious too.
"What kind of conversation did you two have?"
The fact that they had talked at the end also bothered her.
It was clear that after that, Jo Seohee seemed to avoid Stella even more.
"It's nothing. I just asked about something that was on my mind."
"Something on your mind?"
"Well, something like that."
No, she's not telling again.
Seoyeon's eyes narrowed.
On top of that, Seoyeon was currently full of grievances toward Jo Seohee.
After all, at the filming set……
"Ugh."
"Huh? Hey, what's wrong?"
"A-ah, no. I just had a memory I needed to erase for a moment."
"W-what, that's scary."
Anyway, that was that, and Seoyeon glared at Jo Seohee.
She just wanted to glare at her.
"P-please don't glare at me even as a joke."
"It's not a joke."
"No, why. D-did I do something wrong?"
"Hmph."
For some reason, seeing Seoyeon sulking, Jo Seohee was flustered.
No, she was the one who was wronged, so why was the other party sulking?
'Could she be sulking because I didn't tell her about Stella?'
Honestly, she didn't even think Seoyeon would be that interested in Stella.
She hadn't seemed to care much either.
In the first place, aside from herself, no one had paid that much attention to Stella.
'It's not like we'll meet again anyway.'
Honestly, Jo Seohee was disappointed in Stella this time.
The Stella she had seen in the movies was truly like starlight, so she thought she might get to see that kind of radiance again that she had seen in Seoyeon.
However.
'She doesn't like acting.'
The worst for an actress.
For Stella, acting was merely a means.
But she couldn't say she didn't understand the reason.
'Still, what I don't like, I don't like.'
Anyway, what was important right now wasn't the unlikable Stella, but the sulking Seoyeon.
She had no idea why she was sulking, though.
After coaxing her for a long time and seeing Seoyeon fall asleep making purring sounds, Seohee finally realized.
'Ah, right. I forgot to tell her about the contact from the Japanese broadcasting station today.'
Thinking that, Seohee quietly fell asleep.
After all, it was something she could tell her tomorrow.
***
"This is footage of actor Joo Seoyeon when she went to an uninhabited island on a Korean variety show."
Nanzo Katsuo, a PD at Japan's YHJ Broadcasting Station.
He showed the videos of Seoyeon he had recently collected and spoke.
Ever since Seoyeon filmed a drama in Japan and Asher Baldwin showed great interest, he had been collecting various videos of Seoyeon.
He wanted to find not just her aspect as an outstanding actress, but many different sides of her.
"……Uh, is this exaggerated? Is it real?"
"I checked through an acquaintance who works at a Korean broadcasting station…… and they say it's all real."
"Then even poking a hole in a coconut with her fingers?"
"That's…… hard to believe, but they say so."
"Eeh, is this Fist of the North Star?"
For reference, not only people from the Japanese broadcasting station were present, but two managers were also there.
Joo Seoyeon's manager Park Eunha, and Jo Seohee's manager Shin Yoogyung.
For reference, since Park Eunha also handled Lee Jiyeon's manager duties, there was no separate manager for Jiyeon.
'Seoyeon, couldn't you have held back a little on variety shows.'
Park Eunha felt a bit embarrassed.
That was inevitable when watching her managed celebrity running around on an uninhabited island.
"Um, at this level, wouldn't it be fine to just do what we usually do?"
She said while watching the scene where Seoyeon climbed a tree and encountered a monkey.
As if the tree was her home ground, when she lightly struck the monkey that was charging at her, it dangled and swayed like clothes hung on a clothesline.
'Did it die?'
Everyone present had such a question.
And after dealing with the monkey and plundering the palm fruit the monkey had, Seoyeon calmly returned.
「Are you Tarzan?」
Park Jungwoo's line, spoken as if it was ridiculous, struck a chord with everyone here.
Indeed, she couldn't help but be the makings of a great actress.
'But what about the monkey?'
Anyway, the cameraman must have been curious about the monkey's life or death too, as he didn't forget to capture the scene of the fainted monkey waking up later.
"Come on, they're Korean celebrities. If we do it like we do, the footage won't even come out properly. Everyone will just act proper and only cry."
The PD who had spat out such words before meeting the Korean managers was now staring intently at the video.
It seemed he couldn't believe it at all.
Full of doubt, he repeatedly played the video several times to determine whether it was fabricated or not.
"Ah, still, there are other actors too, so going too extreme is a bit……"
Manager Park Eunha said that.
Seoyeon currently had an empty schedule, so she had enough time to appear on a variety show.
However, Jo Seohee and Lee Jiyeon had many parts that needed considerable adjustment.
"Yes, if you throw Seohee into a place like that, she'll keep fainting."
Jo Seohee's manager Shin Yoogyung said that seriously.
What could the natural-born lady Jo Seohee do if thrown on an uninhabited island?
In the first place, Jo Seohee couldn't even cook ramen.
If she went, she'd just pick up fallen fruit and eat it, and she was the type to eat poisonous mushrooms because they looked pretty.
……Of course, her intelligence wasn't that low, but in Shin Yoogyung's mind, Jo Seohee was that kind of lady, so it couldn't be helped.
"Then let's give them some appropriate tools to use……"
"Wouldn't a forest near Mount Fuji be good for the location?"
"Eh, you don't mean the Aokigahara forest, do you?"
"Wouldn't it be not bad if it had a slightly horror special feel?"
Strangely, after showing the uninhabited island broadcast, the plan that initially had a simple camping feel was progressing into a true 'survival' feel.
"Where is Aokigahara that they're talking like that?"
"That, isn't it one of the world's weird famous spots?"
Park Eunha and Shin Yoogyung had such a conversation.
When they quickly searched on their smartphones, the term Aokigahara Sea of Trees (青木ヶ原樹海) came up.
"It says people who commit suicide come out of here every year……"
"They say it's one of the world's top 7 eerie places?"
"No, can they film at a place like this? Isn't it a restricted area?"
"It seems it's actually been broadcast a few times as a horror special."
"Wow."
The two whispered and conversed like that.
Of course, the Japanese side also seemed to have discussed the location back and forth.
"We'll give you options from Plan 1 to Plan 3, so would you like to consult with the actors once?"
"Ah, isn't this secretly taking them there?"
"Since it can be dangerous, we need the actors' consent. We're not that much of a disaster of a broadcasting station."
Nanzo Katsuo PD said that, but Park Eunha, who knew to some extent about Japanese variety shows, smiled awkwardly.
'Considering that, there are quite a lot of dangerously extreme ones though?'
Anyway, since Korean actors were involved, it seemed they were being considerate.
Plan 1 through Plan 3.
Among them, the Aokigahara mentioned by one PD was included as Plan 3.
It seemed they thought it would be fun to do a horror special, so it was considered acceptable.
'Well, Plans 1 and 2 have a moderate camping feel, so I should tell them to go with those.'
'Since Seoyeon is easily scared, she'll definitely not choose Plan 3.'
Park Eunha and Shin Yoogyung thought so and exchanged glances.
The location felt just right.
However.
"I want to go here."
"……."
Of course, what Seoyeon chose was Plan 3, which everyone wanted to avoid.
The Aokigahara Sea of Trees.
Japan's famous suicide spot, and one of the world's top 7 eerie locations.