How a Loan Shark Survives as an Actor – Chapter 69

Author: Cireng

Chapter 69

“Why are ‘you’ showing up here, Woo Junseo?”

‘Ha.’

Seriously, I was sick of him.

Shouldn’t we stop seeing each other by now?

‘…No, this won’t do.’

The moment I ended my call with Bae Dain, I immediately got to my feet.

Still furious, I headed straight to Director Baek’s office.

Bang!

“I’m coming in!”

I flung open the door and shouted loudly.

The rude entrance startled Director Baek.

“Gah! You scared me!! Wh-what… Seulho?”

“Yes. It’s me.”

“No, what is this? You should’ve called before coming!”

Director Baek frowned slightly, clearly displeased.

I looked at him expressionlessly and spoke.

“Why should I?”

“What?”

“You didn’t call me either. About Woo Junseo possibly becoming the male lead.”

“……”

Director Baek flinched and immediately changed his attitude.

“Haha, you heard?”

His brows relaxed, and he forced a smile.

“The news reached you already? Amazing~ As expected of Wooyeon Entertainment! Or maybe Seulho is amaz–”

“Is it confirmed, or is it still under discussion?”

“…Still under discussion. But it’s practically confirmed.”

Director Baek glanced at me cautiously.

Seeing him squirm like a child who had done something wrong, I sighed.

“Director, I know casting is your prerogative, and I know it’s not my place to interfere. But I asked you last time, didn’t I? I said anyone was fine, just please avoid Woo Junseo.”

“Yeah. I know….”

“I didn’t say that because we don’t get along personally. I can separate work and personal matters. But ‘Woo Junseo can’t’.”

He was a lunatic who couldn’t resist picking fights whenever he saw me.

And what exactly was I supposed to do about that? How much more was I supposed to tolerate?

“How are you planning to manage the atmosphere on set? Forget me… what about the other actors? What did the staff ever do to deserve that?”

“I know….”

“You know PD Jang is still hiding in the mountains because of Woo Junseo, right? I called him recently, and he said he didn’t need another project or anything.”

What good was a successful production when the man’s mentality had been shattered?

PD Jang’s voice, saying he never wanted to see another human being again, still echoed in my ears.

I lightly scraped at Director Baek.

Did he want to end up the same way?

After I pressed him relentlessly for quite a while, Director Baek finally exploded.

“I KNOW! I KNOW TOO!! BUT WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO?! THE INVESTORS ARE GOING CRAZY OVER HIM!!”

Sniffling as though his nose stung, he shouted.

“I KNOW HIS REPUTATION IS FILTHY! Why would I protect some guy who ignored a perfectly fine production company and pressured us through investors?!”

“Huh. He didn’t even call you personally?”

“NO!!!”

Director Baek trembled in anger.

“We were practically done with another actor! We were one step away from signing! Then out of nowhere, Woo Junseo’s name popped up!”

And the recommendation had come from the biggest investor, so he had been completely blindsided.

While Director Baek was panicking, more and more investors called, pressuring him to cast Woo Junseo as the male lead.

It was so coordinated that he looked into it.

And…

“Don’t be surprised. That big investor… turns out that lady is Woo Junseo’s sponsor!”

“Chairwoman Park of Woolgeon Group?”

“Huh?! How do you know that?!”

Director Baek gasped.

His expression was one of genuine shock.

‘How could I not know?’

From the moment Woo Junseo became one of the loan shark’s VIP clients, I’d known everything about him.

I’d spent years hearing reports about the things he did behind the scenes, but I never cared.

Why would I?

It wasn’t my business.

But now that I was directly affected while living as Yoo Seulho, rage boiled inside me.

‘So you thought I was easy prey?’

Fine.

‘Let’s see this through to the end, Woo Junseo.’

Completely unaware of what I was thinking, Director Baek wiped sweat from his forehead and said,

“But if Woo Junseo becomes the male lead, they’ll let me choose the female lead however I want. Isn’t that good for you too? Dain can be the heroine and–”

“I think you’re mistaken. I’ve met Bae Dain once. We’re not close.”

“Th-then what about acting? Whatever his personality, Woo Junseo is still a good actor. It’d be nice acting opposite him.”

“Director.”

He was another victim in all this.

I didn’t want to vent my anger on an innocent person, so I spoke calmly.

“The actress you were discussing before, Bae Dain… the one you didn’t sign because she was a ticking time bomb, remember?”

“Hm? Yeah.”

“You avoided that disaster. What’s the point if you can’t avoid one on the male lead side?”

“…Huh?”

Director Baek’s face instantly turned serious.

“What do you mean? Did you hear something?”

He grabbed me anxiously.

I considered explaining further but decided against it.

“You’ll find out soon enough. So don’t sign anything. Stall however you can. If you can’t hold out and stamp the contract, the entire movie will go down with it.”

“Why?! What is it?! Tell me!”

“No.”

“You didn’t tell me either, Director.”

Of course I knew.

Director Baek was a victim too.

‘But he still could’ve told me beforehand.’

If not for Bae Dain, when would I have found out?

If I had only learned after everything was finalized, I swore I’d be several times angrier than I was now.

“Ah, seriously! Are you really going to do this, Seulho?!”

“Yes. See you.”

I left the office without hesitation.

‘Let’s see.’

‘Our Space’ had ended long ago.

The rights had sold safely, and the OTT contract had gone through under favorable terms.

‘At this point…’

‘It should be fine if it blows up.’

Nodding to myself, I sighed.

‘He should’ve just stayed quiet.’

I even felt pity for Woo Junseo’s stupidity.

‘If he’d left me alone, I would’ve let him off for a few more months.’

Why provoke someone who was minding his own business?

‘Regret won’t help you now.’

There was no reason left to go easy on him.

Yoo Seulho wasn’t prey that Woo Junseo could look down on.

***

“Junseo, did you hear?”

“What.”

“About Yoo Seulho. I heard he filmed a beer commercial….”

At Park Sangin’s careful words, Woo Junseo’s lips stiffened.

But he quickly forced a relaxed smile.

“Man, you’re talking about ancient history. That’ll probably go live soon. Seriously, why are you so slow? Missing a few screws or something?”

“Huh? So it was true? Amazing. As expected, you knew already.”

Park Sangin showered him with praise, but it wasn’t enough to improve Woo Junseo’s mood.

Suppressing his irritation, Woo Junseo gulped down his beer.

‘Damn it. Even I haven’t filmed a beer commercial….’

His pride had been deeply wounded.

Near the end of the drama, the manager incident had placed all public attention on him.

At last, the lead actor had become the center of attention.

But not long afterward, Yoo Seulho stole all of it.

‘…Son of a bitch.’

Even forgiving a depressed manager couldn’t compete with a hero who solved a decade-old cold case.

Yoo Seulho gained several times more popularity and goodwill than him.

Then he joined Wooyeon Entertainment.

And now he’d even filmed a beer commercial.

‘I hate seeing his face.’

He hated watching Yoo Seulho continue to rise.

He wanted the public to know Yoo Seulho’s true colors and hate him again.

But he couldn’t simply fabricate lies.

So Woo Junseo used subtler methods to undermine him.

For several days now, he’d been dropping bait on the fan communication app.

“I miss Seulho so much, but he’s not answering my callsㅠㅠ”

Naturally, his fans reacted exactly as he intended.

They cursed Yoo Seulho as an ungrateful bastard who abandoned fellow actors and even his agency after tasting a little success.

Some more reasonable fans responded with:

[“Why do you keep starting fights with Seulho’s fans?”]

[“Those lunatics are scary. Can we just stop mentioning him? This is exhausting.”]

But it didn’t matter.

Instead, people began saying those fans didn’t love Woo Junseo enough.

The movement to distinguish true fans from fake fans began.

As the sensible people were systematically driven out, only those trapped in distorted thinking remained.

➝ But doesn’t Yoo Seulho kinda seem like a womanizer? LOL

↳ Agreed, Guys know, right? Guys with faces like that are definitely womanizers

↳ What do guys know? You’re not even a guy, are you?

↳ This person’s definitely a Woo Junseo fan…

↳ LOL

➝ Not a Woo Junseo fan, I swear on my dog Poppy, but Yoo Seulho really seems like a womanizer.

↳ Why?

↳ In Woo Junseo’s recent interview, he kept whining about Seulho not answering his calls. He wouldn’t say stuff like that for no reason, right? Maybe something really happened.

↳ True… In the behind-the-scenes videos, Seulho is always with Choi Ran while Junseo’s alone. Maybe they were bullying him;;

Perhaps because he had repeated the same thing so consistently, bad rumors about Yoo Seulho were beginning to spread throughout various communities.

But even that wasn’t enough for Woo Junseo.

‘Curse him more! More!’

He searched Yoo Seulho’s name more often than his own.

And the person who witnessed him wasting his days most often was…

Park Sangin.

“Junseo, are you really doing Director Baek’s movie?”

“What now?”

“No… Yoo Seulho is in it.”

“Why should I care about him? I’m doing it because I like the project. Nothing to do with Yoo Seulho.”

Woo Junseo shamelessly lied.

Naturally, it was a decision made one hundred percent because of Yoo Seulho.

Since his agency wasn’t taking his side this time, he’d even used his sponsor’s influence to force the casting.

‘Those bastards collect all the commission fees and….’

His agency used to bend over backward for him.

But after spending enormous amounts of money silencing his former manager, they hadn’t treated him as well.

‘I can pay that money back anyway.’

A few movies and it’d all be paid off.

It was ridiculous that they treated him like a troublemaker over a few billion won.

‘They’ll realize they lost a goose that lays golden eggs.’

Woo Junseo genuinely believed that.

And Park Sangin knew it.

‘He’s insane.’

He’d never been normal, but after getting tangled up with Yoo Seulho, he’d become completely uncontrollable.

Most importantly, Park Sangin had once fallen out with Woo Junseo because of Yoo Seulho.

He was uneasy.

“But you just worked together… doing another project together again is a bit… weird, isn’t it? Of course I know you’re a good actor, but from the audience’s perspective, the images might overlap–”

“Hey, don’t cross the line. What the fuck are you, some movie critic?”

Woo Junseo finally snapped.

Watching Park Sangin shrink back, Woo Junseo steeled his resolve.

‘Just you wait.’

This time, he’d make that bastard understand who the real lead was.

No matter what people said…

‘Yoo Seulho is a supporting actor. I’m the lead.’

He wouldn’t miss this chance to show the entire world.

And on the very day he made that resolution…

Yoo Seulho’s beer commercial was released.

➝ This commercial is insane

↳ Who makes a beer commercial like this? I’m dying