Bedroom Genius Actor - Chapter 33

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 33

“Ji-hu, are you okay? You look a bit troubled.”

“Ahaha… Yes, I’m fine.”

Kim Ji-hu came to a studio near Hanbit Entertainment to shoot profile photos.

However, Kim Ji-hu’s mind was filled only with thoughts about the blog from earlier.

‘What should I do? Should I just tell them I was Kim Ji-hu?’

If things continued like this, he would obviously get caught.

Kim Ji-hu’s face wasn’t yet widely known enough for every passerby to recognize, but people in the same industry would definitely notice.

‘Then what should I do…?’

He even considered saying he didn’t have time and couldn’t meet, but he couldn’t do that.

Until now, receiving this kind of advertisement while running his blog had been Kim Ji-hu’s goal.

If he kicked away such an opportunity that had finally come, he would regret it terribly.

‘Then…’

At that moment, Choi Tae-geon spoke.

“Ji-hu, I think you should start changing clothes soon.”

“Ah, yes.”

Then the filming director who was preparing for the shoot spoke up.

“We’ve prepared the outfits, so you can put them on one by one.”

Kim Ji-hu nodded and soon entered the dressing room.

There, just as the filming director had explained, the outfits Kim Ji-hu would wear were laid out.

“Huh…?”

But what caught his eye first weren’t those outfits, but the props around them.

Kim Ji-hu kept looking at them while changing clothes, lost in thought. Eventually, after finishing changing, he came out of the dressing room.

“Ji-hu, you’ve changed clothes. It’s been a while, Ji-hu.”

Outside the dressing room was Baek Do-kyung. He seemed to have arrived while Kim Ji-hu was changing in the dressing room.

“Oh… Hello, President.”

“Haha! The clothes really make the man. You look like a completely different person dressed like that.”

A neat suit with an expensive-looking watch. With his hair neatly styled too, he looked much different than usual.

However, Kim Ji-hu was more concerned about something else than such praise.

“President, is this studio our entertainment company’s studio by any chance?”

“Ah, it’s not ours, but it’s a studio owned by our partner company. Is there something wrong?”

Kim Ji-hu pointed to the dressing room and said.

“Could I possibly borrow just one thing for today…?”

***

Cafe near MBS Broadcasting Station.

“It’s about time for them to arrive.”

Hwang Eun-seok, a writer for MBS Drama Department and the main writer of this work, checked the time on his phone.

1:55 PM. It was almost time to meet the ‘Armchair Reviewer’.

Hwang Eun-seok waited for him with a secretly excited heart.

‘What kind of person could they be? Since they’ve been blogging for a long time, they’re probably quite old.’

The ‘Armchair Reviewer’ started their activities almost 15 years ago.

They were active even before Hwang Eun-seok became a writer.

Even then, though not as much as now, they analyzed with very sharp insight. If anything, that era was more cynical and cutting.

Seeing how they now leave reviews with a more gentle atmosphere, he thought they must be at least middle-aged.

People tend to become softer as they age.

‘Age aside, are they a woman or a man? What do they do for a living…? Could it be a team? Well, how could one person review over 10,000 works alone?’

While having all sorts of thoughts, he heard some murmuring sounds from around him.

“What’s with that person…?”

“Should we call the police?”

Hwang Eun-seok looked up with a slightly puzzled expression.

Then there was a person who immediately caught his eye.

“…A mask?”

One person wearing a mask that covered their entire face, looking around the cafe.

Their outfit was certainly ordinary, but wearing that strange black mask made them look extremely suspicious.

‘What, some kind of robber?’

Could such a robber really appear in broad daylight in South Korea?

Hwang Eun-seok was dumbfounded seeing something he’d only seen in dramas, and American dramas at that, happening right before his eyes.

Then the cafe part-timer, trembling while holding a broom, said.

“Wh-who are you…?”

The part-timer’s question about receiving customers was unfamiliar, but there was no situation more fitting for those words.

What else would you say to someone who entered a cafe wearing a mask?

Seeing the look that suggested they might call the police immediately, the masked man waved both hands.

“I-I’m not a strange person, so you can feel safe…!”

How many people would feel safe when a masked person says they’re not strange?

Thinking he had to do something, the masked man took out his phone and called somewhere.

Ring-

Then a phone rang. It was Hwang Eun-seok’s phone.

“Huh…?”

This number was definitely the ‘Armchair Reviewer’s’ number, wasn’t it?

Hwang Eun-seok looked at the masked man with wide eyes.

‘No way…’

Then the masked man slowly walked over and said to Hwang Eun-seok.

“MBS… that’s right, isn’t it…?”

This robber seemed to be the ‘Armchair Reviewer’.

***

“…”

“Um… may I ask you one thing?”

“…Yes.”

“Why are you wearing that mask…?”

“I-I have some circumstances.”

Hwang Eun-seok was very flustered.

Wouldn’t anyone be flustered if the person they were supposed to meet suddenly appeared wearing a mask?

Moreover, being in an open cafe, it felt like surrounding gazes kept focusing on them.

‘If they had at least told me they’d come out like this, I would have rather met at the broadcasting station…’

In any case, Hwang Eun-seok professionally recalled what he originally intended to do.

Hwang Eun-seok looked over the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ in front of him.

‘But judging by the voice and overall appearance, don’t they look quite young…?’

The ‘Armchair Reviewer’ was basically wearing a hoodie that would be suitable for someone in their early thirties at most.

Moreover, looking at their voice, way of speaking, and behavior, they definitely seemed young.

So some suspicion arose.

‘Isn’t this person not the Armchair Reviewer?’

Wasn’t that right?

They weren’t properly revealing their face either, and a reviewer who had been posting works for over 10 years was only in their late twenties to early thirties?

Thinking about how they had sharp insight from the early days of the blog made him even more suspicious.

‘I should test this.’

Hwang Eun-seok smiled skillfully and said to the ‘Armchair Reviewer’.

“So you are the real Armchair Reviewer, right?”

“Ah, yes yes. It’s me.”

“But you haven’t been posting reviews much lately. Is there something going on?”

The ‘Armchair Reviewer’ spoke as if somewhat troubled.

“I’ve been too busy with work lately… I’d like to post more, but I haven’t had the time…”

“Work… do you have a separate main job? What kind of work do you do?”

The ‘Armchair Reviewer’ hesitated for a moment at those words, then quietly spoke up.

“I work in… broadcasting.”

Hwang Eun-seok let out a small “ooh” at that response.

‘Broadcasting? Are you really the Armchair Reviewer?’

If this person was truly the genius reviewer, it made sense they’d work in broadcasting. There’s no way the people around them would leave such talent alone.

Hwang Eun-seok continued the conversation.

“Ah, I see. Then what works have you enjoyed watching recently, or what memorable works come to mind lately?”

“Huh? Um… ‘Trauma’… maybe? Oh, I also enjoyed watching Director Park Sang-pil’s work.”

Both works had been reviewed by the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ recently. Plus, they were popular with the general public at the time, so it made sense.

“Then among older works, are there any that come to mind recently? Something you’d want to watch again?”

The ‘Armchair Reviewer’ became quite serious at that question and said,

“Recently… I think it would be ‘Cheongsol Daycare’.”

“‘Cheongsol Daycare’?”

As a broadcasting station writer, Hwang Eun-seok remembered most old movies and dramas, but he had never heard of a work called ‘Cheongsol Daycare’.

But the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ scratched their head.

“That… it’s Director Park Sang-pil’s debut work. I’ve been wanting to watch that work again lately.”

“Wasn’t Director Park Sang-pil’s debut work ‘Faded Tree’?”

“Ah, there was one more work before that. It probably won’t be on sites like Wikipedia though…”

Hwang Eun-seok searched for ‘Cheongsol Daycare’ on his phone with a slightly surprised expression. There were hardly any records left, but he could see one or two short reviews.

Most of the content was critical. However, Director ‘Park Sang-pil’s’ name was clearly mentioned there.

‘There was a work like this…?’

Director Park Sang-pil was known as a genius director who hit it big from the start with ‘Faded Tree’.

But to think that such a Director Park Sang-pil had this kind of debut work.

It was something he, being in the same industry, didn’t know about.

‘This… aren’t you really the Armchair Reviewer?’

Hwang Eun-seok continued asking more questions after that.

“Then, do you happen to know about this work…?”

“Then what about this one…”

“Gasp…”

The person in front of him was answering questions about works the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ had reviewed, which he’d thrown out as a test, as if it were completely natural.

‘This person really is the Armchair Reviewer…!’

Unless it was the person themselves, how could they know everything?

Hwang Eun-seok acknowledged his mistake and bowed his head to the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ in front of him.

“Huh? Why are you suddenly doing that?”

“I’m sorry. I was a bit suspicious. I wondered if you might not actually be the ‘Armchair Reviewer’.”

“Ah…”

“You seemed a bit different from the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ I had imagined… You seem too young, and that mask…”

The ‘Armchair Reviewer’ touched their mask and laughed awkwardly.

“That, that’s understandable…”

Seeing the understanding response, Hwang Eun-seok placed a tablet on the desk.

“First, the reason we called you, ‘Armchair Reviewer’, is to ask you to handle the promotional review for our new work.”

“Ah, I know from the email.”

“But it’s not exactly just for promotion.”

“Huh?”

Hwang Eun-seok spoke with a serious expression.

“Our drama will air in a month, and we’d like you to watch the currently completed drama in advance and give us an evaluation. Would that be possible?”

“Would it… be okay for me to do that?”

“Yes, everyone knows about you, ‘Armchair Reviewer’, so they’ll accept whatever evaluation comes out. You’re a legendary figure in our industry.”

“Le-legendary? Me?”

“That’s right.”

“No matter how I look at it… I don’t think I’m at that level…”

Though the expression was hidden by the mask, he could roughly tell it was a look of incomprehension.

Seeing that, Hwang Eun-seok elaborated on his explanation.

“You probably don’t believe it because of the low view counts and visitor numbers, but actually your blog lacks mass appeal. There are many difficult terms, and parts that would be hard to understand without trying creative work yourself.”

“…Huh?”

“So it’s a blog that people currently working in the field use regularly. Even that isn’t known to many people. It’s like a blog that only those in the know are aware of.”

In short, the ‘Armchair Reviewer’ blog was a hidden gem restaurant itself.

And one so profound that it would be hard to properly enjoy unless you were a real connoisseur.

“So, may we ask you for a review?”

***

“Phew…”

Kim Ji-hu, who had returned home, immediately took off his mask. As Baek Do-kyung had said, he hid his face as much as possible and returned home.

Of course, he received even stranger looks because of the mask.

The timid Kim Ji-hu had become so distracted that he couldn’t care about such gazes.

‘My blog was like that?’

Kim Ji-hu, who had returned home, was simply flabbergasted.

Actually, he had noticed that his popularity was rising lately, but he hadn’t expected it to be among people working in the industry.

‘Whatever the case, getting work from a terrestrial broadcasting station is incredibly good news.’

Kim Ji-hu had accepted Hwang Eun-seok’s proposal.

Since the filming of ‘My Little House’ was probably finished now and he had time, he was thinking of focusing on blog work for a while.

‘I have to do this job perfectly. This is a test! A test to debut as a professional blogger!’

Kim Ji-hu clenched his fist, determined to handle this job well.

Of course, even while doing so.

‘But… they said I have to go directly to the broadcasting station to watch it…’

Kim Ji-hu stared intently at the mask in his hand.

‘Do I have to keep wearing this around…?’

It seemed like he had somehow established an irreversible character trait by himself.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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