How a Loan Shark Survives as an Actor Chapter 11

Chapter 11

 

I checked the email from the private investigation agency.

The investigation results weren’t attached directly to the email. Instead, there was a website address and a password that had to be entered upon entry.

When I accessed the site, there was far more information than I had expected.

‘Oh.’

Honestly, I hadn’t expected much since it hadn’t been long since I commissioned the investigation.

‘The boys haven’t lost their touch.’

While I browsed the site with satisfaction, the agency seemed to be nervously watching my reaction and had attached a long-winded message.

 

[As the investigation into Yoo Seulho’s father, Yoo Taeho, and mother, Lee Seulmyung, has not yet been completed, that portion will be included in a follow-up report.

Resources deployed in the field are currently undergoing information consolidation, so if you could kindly bear with us, we will provide more detailed materials.]

 

They went around and around to say it, but I understood immediately.

‘So they still haven’t recovered the bugging devices.’

Unlike Haru Finance, which dealt exclusively with celebrity clients, Mindo Detective Agency was a more public-facing operation that also accepted ordinary customers.

Because they operated in the open, they actually had stricter constraints than Haru Finance.

If they made a mistake, they could become entangled in legal issues with clients, so they had to be especially cautious about anything that left a paper trail.

‘They can’t exactly write that they’re using illegal methods to investigate people.’

They probably wrote the message as humbly as possible because they were worried I’d make a fuss.

But I knew the detective business better than anyone, and I had known from the start that this wouldn’t be the kind of job finished in one go.

‘It’s not as simple as stealing a document or two.’

Sneaking into someone’s home or car to plant and later retrieve a listening device carried far more risk than most people imagined.

If days passed without obtaining the desired information, they would sometimes place someone nearby to get close to the target.

Depending on the situation, that process could take up to half a year.

‘Still, this amount of information is already pretty good, isn’t it?’

A little relief washed over me.

I had worried everyone had turned into idiots after I disappeared.

‘Looks like all the feeding and training I gave them wasn’t for nothing.’

Feeling satisfied, I began reviewing the report carefully.

 

[Yoo Seulho]

– Date of Birth: 20XX.04.21 (Age 25)

– Family: Yoo Taeho (Father), Lee Seulmyung (Mother)

– Background: Worked as a child model from age two. Officially debuted as an actor at age five and has remained actively employed since.

– Notable Physical Characteristics: Listed as 180 cm on portal sites, but a 20XX health examination recorded him at 181.2 cm. Has dimples when he smiles.

 

I quickly skimmed past the basic information I already knew.

The real content began on the next page.

 

– Age 16: Middle school homeroom teacher submitted a report expressing suspicion of child abuse by Yoo Seulho’s parents. The report was dropped during processing by the school administration. The teacher was later demoted.

– Age 17: Dropped out of OO High School. Subsequently prepared for the GED through homeschooling.

– Age 18: Hospitalized at OO Psychiatric Hospital for three months (strictly confidential). The facility operated a closed ward and has since shut down. Confirmed to have been involuntarily admitted with parental consent. No official records remain, so a confidential interview was conducted with a former nurse from the hospital.

– Ages 20–24: Multiple diagnoses and prescriptions for depression and anxiety disorders confirmed.

– Age 25: Confirmed record of preparing an injunction to restrict or suspend parental rights, later withdrawn.

 

‘Wow.’

The contents were even more shocking than I had expected.

The prescription history wasn’t entirely surprising.

When I first woke up in Yoo Seulho’s body, I had already suspected something.

Besides sleeping pills, there had been piles of antidepressants left untouched beside the bed.

‘But I never imagined he had actually been hospitalized.’

I stared carefully at the words parental consent and involuntary admission.

‘Having depression isn’t unusual…’

Especially for celebrities.

Even ordinary people suffered from it all the time.

But preparing to legally restrict one’s parents’ rights was anything but ordinary.

‘Hmm.’

The next page contained the information I was most curious about:

How Yoo Seulho ended up joining Star Actors.

The moment he became an adult, Yoo Seulho had enlisted in the military almost as if he were fleeing.

Afterward, he declined to renew his contract with his original agency… the one shared with his parents.

While meeting with various agencies in search of a new home, his parents found out.

Because they held influence in the entertainment industry, they intervened.

As a result, most agencies rejected Yoo Seulho.

There was even an incident where a representative who had been conducting a meeting in a positive atmosphere received a phone call and immediately rushed him out.

The place he barely managed to join afterward was Trash Actors… No, Star Actors.

Reading the note:

“Estimated ongoing conflict with parents after transferring to current agency (last public mention of their son was over a year ago)”

made me think.

He transferred agencies at the beginning of last year, when he was twenty-four.

So the conflict must have intensified after that, eventually leading him to consider limiting their parental rights earlier this year.

‘What made him give up on the petition and ultimately make such an extreme choice?’

The final section contained information I hadn’t even requested… details about Yoo Seulho’s school relationships.

I had only asked whether there had been notable changes in his social circle over the last three years.

Apparently there hadn’t been much to investigate, so they had gone all the way back to his student days.

The main conclusion was that he had plenty of friends when he was young, but lived almost entirely alone from his late teens onward.

Despite working in the entertainment industry, he never attended private gatherings.

After switching agencies last year, he had virtually no contact with anyone besides Hyun Jingae and company employees.

Sigh.

Even through the dry, emotionless wording, I could feel Yoo Seulho’s loneliness.

‘I shouldn’t complain about his weird drink preferences anymore…’

Yeah.

Maybe things like that were what helped him endure.

‘At least now it’s clear that his parents are completely insane.’

There was a high probability he had sought a new agency simply to create distance between himself and them.

He probably never imagined they would go that far.

His parents had already laid the groundwork throughout the industry.

They likely assumed he would eventually give up and crawl back to them.

How could they have imagined he’d end up at a trash company like Star Actors?

‘Is that why their relationship deteriorated so badly?’

Hyun Jingae had told me.

Yoo Seulho had once knelt outside his family home for three days without eating anything, begging, before eventually collapsing.

I still didn’t know the full story.

But it was obvious this wasn’t a normal parent-child relationship.

‘If it were me, I would’ve abandoned my parents.’

Though even as I thought that, I wasn’t sure.

I had never had parents.

Claiming I would have acted differently in a situation I’d never experienced felt foolish.

‘Maybe enduring parents like that was what allowed him to endure a garbage agency too.’

No matter how stupid Star Actors’ employees were, I had initially found it hard to understand why they treated Yoo Seulho, a wealthy celebrity’s son, so terribly.

But now I could see the picture.

They probably treated him well at first.

Then they crossed a line and discovered he did nothing.

From there, they became increasingly abusive.

People always get strangely excited when someone they thought was above them turns out to be beneath them.

Every time they realize that person isn’t as special as they imagined, they become even more emboldened.

‘You’ve suffered a lot.’

I quietly looked at the photograph of Yoo Seulho smiling brightly.

The words ‘child abuse’ and ‘psychiatric hospital’ were terrifying.

The boy in the photo looked anything but.

I felt sorry for him.

At the same time, for a brief moment, I wondered:

‘If Yoo Seulho truly hated acting, is it right for me to make money through acting from now on?’

Only for a moment.

‘What if I’m wrong?’

If he hated that, he shouldn’t have handed me this body.

I wanted no part of complicated thoughts.

 

***

 

“Ahhh, boss! This guy didn’t fall for it!”

“Who?”

“The client who ordered the background investigation on Yoo Seulho. Damn, how did he avoid it?”

“What are you talking about? Avoid what?”

The youngest gang member, Hwang Taejun, scratched his head furiously.

“When someone views the report, they have to enter a password to access the site, right? That’s actually a trap. It lets us gather their IP address and other information. But this guy accessed it without entering the password.”

“That’s possible? How?”

“It is. If you tweak the form a little… but how would a normal person know that? Seriously, this is the first time I’ve seen someone like this.”

A coworker listening nearby tilted his head.

Taejun looked clueless most of the time, but when it came to computers, he was exceptionally skilled.

And someone had bypassed ‘that’?

‘Something’s off.’

The coworker told Taejun to figure out who the client really was no matter what.

“Why? You trying to extort him? I mean, judging by how quickly he pays, he doesn’t seem broke.”

“No, idiot. Think about it. Does this person seem normal? It’s weird enough that he asked us to investigate a celebrity. You know the fake identity I set up for detective work, right?”

“Yes, yes.”

“I used it to check nearly every detective agency around. Not a single one had received an inquiry about Yoo Seulho. Why would someone willing to spend this much money only hire us? Something’s strange. He might know we’re Haru Finance.”

“Gasp.”

Taejun immediately looked alarmed.

“Then what do we do? The contact number he used can’t be traced. The payment was routed through multiple layers. And he even dodged the trap.”

“If he ordered an investigation on Yoo Seulho, then he’s obviously connected to Yoo Seulho somehow. Dig through everyone associated with him and narrow down the candidates. Maybe I’m overthinking it, but it’s better to prepare in advance. Got it? If the detective agency goes under, that’s fine. But Haru Finance can’t go down. This belongs to Big Boss.”

“…Yes, sir. I’ll find out somehow.”

Taejun nodded.

With a solemn determination not to destroy everything Big Boss had built over a lifetime.

 

***

 

It had already been one month since I entered Yoo Seulho’s body.

My first official shoot was fast approaching.

And today, I received the following messages from a contact saved as “Mother.”

 

[I told you not to contact me, and you really stopped contacting me? What kind of person does that? Is that normal? Do you have any idea how hard I worked to raise you? Is this how you repay me?]

[You haven’t forgotten whose efforts made you successful, have you? After sucking us dry and using us, this is how you throw us away.]

[Everything you enjoy is because of us. Our genes, our money, our lives… we sacrificed everything so you could have what you have now. You know that, and yet you ran away.]

[You wouldn’t care even if I died, would you? Fine. I’ll consider my son dead too. Don’t even think about coming to my funeral.]

 

The messages that followed were similarly packed with words designed to provoke guilt in whoever read them.

The moment I finished reading them, I took the following action:

“Hello, PD? This is Yoo Seulho. Would it be okay if I visited the filming set today?”

That’s right.

I left her on read.