The first filming set of *Rental Lover* was utter chaos, like pandemonium. All thanks to an article that had suddenly gone up.
《[Exclusive] The Writer of the One-Act Drama *Rental Lover*, the Work Top Actress Choe Rina Chose Out of Nowhere, Was "Number 1" of *Geubaekpeu*》
The ones who reacted fastest were the key staff clustered around the assistant director, staring holes into their phones.
“Th-this article!! No! How is this article up right now?!”
“What? Which outlet?? What’s the reporter’s name?”
“What does the article say?! Is it official?? It’s not just speculation they scribbled together?!”
“Official or speculation, the problem is that something top-secret is suddenly an article right now!!”
“Where the hell did this reporter get his info to pump out an article?!”
Beyond excitement, they were frenzied, shouting and screaming at the top of their lungs.
“Who is it! Who leaked it?!”
At first glance, it was reasonable to think the leak had come from inside the *Rental Lover* team. Though it was a one-act drama with fewer staff than a feature-length production, there were still dozens of people. However, this was a somewhat ambiguous guess. The key staff, including PD Jeong Suryeong, had known about the “Writer Gang Cheolsu” matter first, while the minor staff had only heard about it roughly this morning.
If it had leaked from the staff, the timing was far too tight, and if the key staff had blabbed, it meant they had violated the confidentiality clause in their contracts.
“Oh! Similar articles are starting to pop up!”
“Rina and the writer are the source!! For a story this big, any media outlet would obviously pump out an article first!”
The gradually overheated atmosphere spread across the entire *Rental Lover* set. Dozens of staff members who had been preparing for filming also gathered around the key staff who were running about frantically.
The first filming of *Rental Lover* was proceeding in an unusual manner.
At this, worry clouded the eyes of top actress Choe Rina, and she glanced at Gang Rojun, who was nearby.
*I-is this okay? Fortunately, it seems the article didn’t mention that the writer is “Lover Number 4”—but isn’t it too soon for him to be outed as the writer of Rental Lover???*
She hadn’t been explicitly told PD Jeong Suryeong’s plans, but Choe Rina had instinctively judged that this matter would be revealed only after filming had finished at the earliest.
The interesting thing was.
*But why is the writer so calm??*
Everyone was in an uproar, yet the very person at the center of the topic, Gang Rojun, was.
“······”
He was the picture of composure. It even seemed like a faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. It was strange. Wasn’t he the person who should be the most flustered on this set? Choe Rina knew that Gang Rojun usually had a refreshingly understated feel. But given the situation.
*Shouldn’t he at least give some tiny reaction??? He’s too quiet.*
Rojun needed to give some kind of reaction.
But he simply kept looking at PD Jeong Suryeong.
Thanks to that, the gazes of all the key staff who had been watching Gang Rojun shifted onto PD Jeong Suryeong.
“PD! Is this okay?!”
“You need to do something, whether it’s calling the outlets right now to get them to take the articles down, or issuing a correction saying it’s baseless speculation!”
“Sh-shall we start by identifying which outlets fired off the articles???”
PD Jeong Suryeong wasn’t particularly excited either.
“The timing exploded perfectly. Why?”
The key staff blinked.
“······Excuse me?”
At the same time.
On various portal sites, articles related to Gang Rojun that had just exploded began pouring out by the second.
《Is the Writer of *Rental Lover*, Starring Choe Rina, "Number 1," the Face of *Geubaekpeu*?》
《*Geubaekpeu* Contestant Number 1, Its Most Popular Figure, Is the Writer of *Rental Lover*; Netizens Stir at the Sudden News》
The articles had similar content, only the headlines changed slightly.
They fired them off so quickly that the update speed was immense. You didn’t need to see the newsrooms to know what was going on there.
“*Rental Lover*??! Isn’t this the one-act drama Choe Rina signed on as the female lead for??”
“That’s right! The one-act drama that got hot because Choe Rina jumped into it out of nowhere!!”
“But what do you mean the writer of *Rental Lover* is *Geubaekpeu* Number 1??! He’s flying high in *Geubaekpeu* right now!!”
“I-I don’t know!”
“Argh—damn it, just get the articles out! It’s not too late to figure out the situation later!!”
Major, mid-sized, and minor outlets—regardless of scale—were busy swallowing the massive bait whole. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter. The core was to churn out more articles than others, more than rival outlets.
They had to get as many clicks from the public as possible.
Thus, articles multiplied exponentially and blanketed the internet in an instant.
Around the time an hour had passed.
《*Geubaekpeu* Number 1 Is a Drama Writer? Rumors Run Rampant, Befitting the Core of a Sensation》
Most of the ranking news on the entertainment pages was related to Gang Rojun. *Geubaekpeu* had already broken its highest ratings, and right after Episode 7 aired, things were already hot with the surprise performance of Team 1 including Gang Rojun, who was already drawing issues, the round 3 evaluation voting, and so on—so this was like a booster attached.
It was the weekend, so the ripple effect was doubled.
The bait that had struck the media spread everywhere in the blink of an eye. The public’s messengers, SNS, communities, YouTube, and many places besides the official *Geubaekpeu* bulletin board. Beyond the press, large-scale public reaction had started its engine.
Whether offline.
“Wow, look at this article!”
“Huh?? What?”
“You know *Geubaekpeu* Number 1?? They say he’s a drama writer?”
“Huh? What does that mean?”
“You know, that one-act drama Choe Rina is doing! They say Number 1 wrote it!”
Or online.
-So out of left field hahaha but it’s so random it feels true
-No but an idol as a writer hahahaha
-This is blowing up in the articles right now, is it official??
-But Number 1 has been shown writing several times on Geubaekpeu
-Number 1.... with that face... that skill, and he writes well too????
-Daebak!! So Choe Rina is the lead in a drama written by Number 1!
-Srsly if this is real hahaha Number 1 is seriously a proper invasive species hahaha
-An idol as a writer.... it’s my first time seeing it so it’s fresh, not bad....
-ㅠㅜㅠㅠㅜㅜㅜㅠㅜ I want to see Rental Lover quickly
-That’s impossible how is he writing a drama while keeping up with Geubaekpeu schedule
-↑Maybe he wrote it before?
-He’s a villain but freaking handsome and now a writer hahaha what the hell is his true identity
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Everywhere, a snowball containing *Rental Lover*, *Geubaekpeu*, “Number 1,” and Choe Rina rolled, and the already high recognition of these keywords swelled in size. Whether it became tabloid trash or whatever, it generated many effects.
*Geubaekpeu* and even *Rental Lover* were enjoying tremendous promotional effects from being intertwined.
Countless domestic entertainment agencies and broadcasting circles were turned upside down.
So what about the people who knew Gang Rojun—no, “Number 1”? Eliminated contestants like Number 10 or Number 88, who had returned home from the *Geubaekpeu* campus, gaped with their mouths open, and the rookie girl group Raim Sseom, who had been entangled with Rojun during the round 2 evaluations of *Geubaekpeu*, also fell into chaos in their music show waiting room.
Ha Yeong, who had matched breaths with Gang Rojun on the “brake” stage, wore the most shocked expression.
“······Huh?? Really?”
By the time about two hours had passed like that, Gang Rojun and Choe Rina’s faces had taken over everywhere.
However, the *Rental Lover* set, which should have been the biggest battlefield, looked quite orderly. The setup aside from cameras and lighting was finished on the set, and the dozens of staff who had been pushed outside the filming space had calmed down unlike before.
PD Jeong Suryeong was seated at his monitor station.
Top actress Choe Rina, finished with makeup, appeared on the various camera angles. In front of such a woman.
-Swoosh.
Gang Rojun, in a suit, stood. The moment the two briefly made eye contact, PD Jeong Suryeong, who had checked the two figures on the monitors, shouted into a signal megaphone.
“Action!”
The first filming of *Rental Lover* had just started.
Meanwhile, at the *Geubaekpeu* campus in Paju.
All the participants spending time on their own schedules were talking about the same thing. Starting with the Room 105 peers.
“Number 1 is a writer?? What kind of fresh bullshit is this now.”
Everyone was burning hot with the topic of Number 1. Given everything they had seen so far, it would be stranger if they weren’t surprised. It was even more so because Gang Rojun was currently absent from the campus.
Around this time, the meeting room prepared in the production crew’s residential building was also noisy. Gim Sehui, who resembled a hamster, as well as the writing team and key staff including camera and sound, had also checked the articles about Rojun covering the internet.
“What the hell is this!! They’re making a fuss with an article about such absurd nonsense!”
“Ha—really! Their imagination is excessive, excessive! They just threw out anything to get clicks, and since Number 1 is so hot right now, it seems to have spread recklessly.”
“That’s it, that’s it. A scene of Number 1 writing probably aired in the *Geubaekpeu* broadcast, and *Rental Lover* is also an issue lately because of Choe Rina, so they just roughly tied the two together.”
“What should we do?? The articles seem to have multiplied in an instant, so it’s too late to stop them?”
Amid their excitement, the writing team came up with a plan to calm the situation as much as possible.
“Stopping the articles is impossible now. It’s fastest and surest for our side to issue a statement saying it’s groundless.”
“Then should we move immediately?? PD! As you know, there’s no benefit to dragging this out!”
“Fully agree.”
PD U Hanseok, whose dark circles had dropped to his jawline from repeated all-nighters, was quiet compared to the writers.
“······”
He merely read the articles about Gang Rojun on his phone in silence. Perhaps frustrated by that, the high-tension writer Gim Sehui butted in.
“PD!! Did you hear us?! This is no time to zone out!!”
“I hear you, I hear you. My ears hurt, damn it.”
“We need to take action!”
PD U Hanseok, who had been slowly scratching his chin, lowered his phone.
“Hmm—well, you see. There’s no particular need to fire off a statement saying it’s groundless.”
“What?”
PD U Hanseok declared to the frowning writers and key staff.
“Because the article’s content is true.”
Immediately, everyone’s faces except PD U Hanseok’s filled with question marks.
“Huh?”
“······??”
PD U Hanseok, still slowly scratching his chin, answered again.
“I said it’s true. Number 1 really wrote the one-act drama *Rental Lover*.”
As more than 10 seconds of silence passed, writer Gim Sehui barely managed to ask again.
“···PD, are you maybe escaping reality??”
PD U Hanseok let out a small sigh and explained.
“Circumstances forced me to tell you now. Actually, I’ve known since the early days of *Geubaekpeu* that Number 1 wrote *Rental Lover*, and I met with the director from the *Rental Lover* side a few times.”
PD U Hanseok briefly recited the story of Gang Rojun and *Rental Lover*. Of course, excluding “Lover Number 4.”
“The key staff on the *Rental Lover* side, Choe Rina, and the actors probably know Number 1 is the writer. They had a script reading recently, after all.”
“······Holy.”
“Wa—wait a minute.”
The writers’ faces transformed into ones of utter chaos.
“Does that make sense?? An idol being a writer.”
“Th-then... what Number 1 was writing in the lounge was really *Rental Lover*???”
“Probably. Or maybe it was another script. Anyway, he was engaged in writing activities.”
“So the reason he went out frequently.”
“Was for meetings with that side.”
They looked like they still couldn’t believe it even after hearing it.
“So—Number 1 chewed up *Geubaekpeu* while also working as a writer, and the fruit of that labor, *Rental Lover*, has top actress Choe Rina as the female lead?”
“There are some differences in the process—but roughly similar.”
“It’s such a nonsensical career path.”
“Uh... I’m getting goosebumps.”
“No, scriptwriting isn’t something done in a day or two. Even if you write like crazy, it’s questionable whether it’d work. I can’t believe he did it while keeping up with *Geubaekpeu*.”
Because they were broadcast writers, their reactions were even bigger. Among such writers, Gim Sehui, who had been keeping her mouth agape, continued.
“If it’s not a rumor but real—the markets are already saturated, but this would flip things over several more times. Precedent or not, it’s such a dream-like story?”
PD U Hanseok smirked and stroked his chin.
“As an idol, a proper ecosystem disruptor has appeared. Visuals, skill, and even a side job. If I slightly read Number 1’s future—he’ll carve out an unparalleled, unrivaled path. In whatever industry.”
“···Then when is the official announcement? You have to let them know it’s true and not a rumor.”
Without answering the thrown question immediately, PD U Hanseok suddenly recalled a past conversation with PD Jeong Suryeong. It had started with PD Jeong Suryeong.
“First, expanding the scale is certain. After that, throwing the bait that Number 1 is the writer of *Rental Lover* around late August, around the first filming of *Rental Lover*, would be good.”
“Around then would be best for me since it overlaps with the *Geubaekpeu* surprise performance or the Netflix Japan launch. But wouldn’t that be a bit fast?”
“Our side will be quite noisy with Choe Rina confirmed as the female lead too. So as a first bomb drop, the timing is just perfect. Both *Rental Lover* and *Geubaekpeu* will get properly hooked.”
“Hmm. With bait that big, both the press and public opinion will shake. You’ll leave it like that for several days at longest, right? It’s best to draw as much aggro as possible.”
“I think so too.”
In short, this situation was a scheme by PD U Hanseok and PD Jeong Suryeong. Naturally, Gang Rojun, the core of it, also knew.
“Please discuss with the writer and decide around then for the official position announcement.”
“We should.”
“However, for the first bomb, only that Number 1 is the writer of *Rental Lover*. We’ll keep hiding that he’s participating as an actor. Because we need to throw in another drift at the end.”
Returning to reality here, to the meeting room surrounded by writers, PD U Hanseok muttered inwardly, imagining the future.
*The explosion of Rojun’s “Lover Number 4” after the first bomb will be on the day of the Rental Lover production press conference, right before the broadcast...*
“The angle is just right.”
The image of Gang Rojun surrounded by reporters was vivid.