In This Life, I Want an Oscar, Not a Husband - Chapter 27

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

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This life, I choose The Oscars over a husband.
Chapter 27

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Oh Ji-young, a devoted MillionX fan and university student, had been living in a whirlwind lately.
MillionX’s new song release had blessed her with an endless stream of content to obsess over.
She wasn’t just dissecting the music video frame by frame—she was frantically saving every GIF and photograph of MillionX from music broadcasts.
And that was just the beginning.

Kang Ye-reum, Class of XX
Everyone’s graduation projects are coming along..? Looking for models?
People whose projects are actually progressing exist? Models? I can’t even find fabric for my own piece right now.

After leaving that reply in the group chat with her classmates, Oh Ji-young dragged herself toward her bed.
The scraps of fabric she’d hauled back from Euljiro all day for her graduation collection—destined for the fashion show—lay scattered haphazardly across the floor.
She pressed a cold pack against her throbbing feet and opened YouTube.
The algorithm naturally guided her toward MillionX.
‘I’ve already seen all of this content….’
Oh Ji-young had already watched every MillionX video and even rewatched them multiple times.
She’d even followed Ha Eun-rae, the actress who appeared in the MillionX music video, on StarGram.
‘I absolutely, definitely didn’t become a fan or anything…!’
I just wanted to see if there was any new content, that’s all….
Though it was true that her heart had been captured a little ever since seeing her in the music video.
How could it not have been?
How could anyone not find an inexperienced actress who completely fell apart in the making film adorable…?
She’d even searched through Ha Eun-rae’s modeling photos on search portals and saved the pretty ones.
But!
She absolutely had no intention of becoming an actress fan.
Her friends who were actress fans all said the same thing in unison.

“There’s a drought of content here. Don’t come.”
“Actresses have actress syndrome—you’ll get hit with reality too fast.”

…So being a fan of an actor isn’t something I can do.
Having learned that lesson from my friends, I had absolutely, absolutely no intention of becoming a fan of Ha Eun-rae.
That’s when it happened.
As I scrolled down, a familiar face appeared.
“…?”
It was Ha Eun-rae’s commercial.
And honestly, with a title like that, how could I not click on it?

[What Happens When Capital I Gets a Deposit]

A three-minute advertisement with Ha Eun-rae’s broken expression plastered across it.
For someone like me, currently suffering from dopamine deficiency, it was an irresistible temptation.
In the end, I clicked the video, and the moment it started, Ha Eun-rae’s face filled the entire screen.

【Hello, this is Gyodong Chicken.】

Ha Eun-rae’s awkwardly smiling face.
Completely different from the decadent charm she had in the music video.

【Could I get a menu, please?】
【Oh, a menu you say… ?】

Ha Eun-rae, the malfunctioning employee.
And the anxious-eyed manager watching over such an employee.
That sight made me burst out laughing.
Below, YouTube comments appeared through a semi-transparent window.

– Great slice-of-life acting.

She looks like a proud cat but has the personality of a capital I.
‘So cute…!!’
I clutched my heart.

【Here’s the menu. Oh, it’s upside down… I’m sorry….】

Ha Eun-rae hands over the menu upside down, then corrects herself and apologizes.
‘It’s upside down!’
That’s definitely ad-libbed.
The other actor was visibly struggling not to laugh.
She bit her lip with such conviction.
For someone with a capital I personality, she acts incredibly well…!

【What menu items are delicious here?】

When the actor playing the customer asks, Ha Eun-rae’s expression freezes in place.
Her rigid face is captured in close-up.
‘So beautiful.’
Actually, the music video was mostly wide shots, so her face wasn’t fully visible, but seeing it like this—her face was absolutely striking.
As if to prove it, another comment section appeared below.

– Your face.. is so explosively gorgeous. Isn’t attacking with a face like that against the rules?

She survives a close-up like this?
Not just survives—she tears through the screen?
And with that face—

【Gyodong Chicken…. It’s really delicious.】

She pulls off robotic acting that well?!
Is this allowed?
Wait, is this allowed? For me?!
Then the screen cuts to Ha Eun-rae glancing to the side with an awkward smile.
Ha Eun-rae even gives a thumbs up.
‘My Eun-rae finds the camera better than idols do…!’
Even though it was already a planned camera movement, I felt an inexplicable sense of pride.
Soon the screen shifts again, followed by the signature close-up of chicken typical of commercials.

【Truly delicious Gyodong Chicken.】

Eun-rae’s voice.
Then Ha Eun-rae is captured in close-up, her eyes widening in surprise as she bites into Gyodong Chicken’s new spicy corn chicken menu.

【But the most delicious thing among them all is….】

Eun-rae hurriedly sought out the customer again.

“Customer! We just launched a new menu. Would you like to try it?”

As I spoke, I smiled brightly.
The robotic demeanor had vanished without a trace.

“This one is really delicious, I promise.”

At the same time, I grinned while looking at the camera.
My cat-like eyes paired with that subtly adorable smile melted the hearts of everyone watching.
Oh Ji-young realized it in that final frame.
That thorny path her friends had warned her against.
She had entered the world of celebrity fandom.
Soon after, she quickly accessed the Gyodong Chicken website.
Seeing Ha Eun-rae’s photograph displayed prominently, Oh Ji-young giggled uncontrollably.
Then she immediately clicked the ‘Order Now’ button.
When you order this, the chicken box comes with Eun-rae’s photo printed on it.
As they say, fandom is not a choice—it is destiny.

* * *

The terrace of a small café in Yeonhui-dong.
Park Seo-woo paused the moment he stepped onto the terrace and saw Ha Eun-rae.
She sat on the terrace, gazing out at the campus scenery.
Looking at her profile, Park Seo-woo recalled an old memory.
I had loved movies since elementary school.
There was a time when I was regularly sent to a villa in the countryside.
It was the one ‘family’ event I attended once a year.

“Since people will talk anyway—bastard child and all that—we should include him in family gatherings from now on. Otherwise, we’ll be seen as stingy.”

It was an order from my grandfather, now deceased.
Thanks to that unnecessary interference, I met my half-siblings there after a very long time.
Different surnames, different appearances—half-siblings who looked like complete strangers to anyone’s eyes—they despised me.
But they were clever and graceful enough not to show it.
Of course, there was always one fool among them.

“Filthy bastard. Your mother’s some two-bit actress, isn’t she?”

Does he know his own father runs a content business and still say such things?
Regardless, that day he was beaten to a pulp by that fool.
He could have fought back, but he didn’t.

“Don’t cause trouble. Don’t stand out too much, and don’t make yourself look too bad. Please. You understand, right?”

It wasn’t just because of Mother’s words.
He knew that if he fought back and left even a scratch on that young master’s face, it would create unnecessary complications.
No one spoke to him when they saw his bruised face.
Instead, subtle gazes followed him constantly.
Disgust, contempt, resentment.
As if looking at a foreign object that shouldn’t exist in this place.
Then came a day when those suffocating stares finally ceased.
It was when all the cousins gathered to watch a film together in the large Home Theater Room in the basement.
The moment darkness enveloped him, no one saw him anymore.
Everyone’s attention was fixed only on the luminous images dancing in the darkness.
He learned later just how famous that film was.
A Hong Kong film starring two handsome men, and its most iconic line was this:

“If you filmed the opposite side of the Earth from here, you’d see Argentina’s Iguazu Falls.”

And then came the inverted landscape of Hong Kong that followed.
Watching it, he understood something.
This is what cinema is.
It flips reality upside down, pierces through to the Earth’s very core, and reveals the opposite of what exists.
And in doing so, it allows you to escape reality far, far away.
That was when it began.
He fell in love with hiding in the darkness of the Movie Theater.
He came to cherish that moment when darkness descended and his own world vanished.
A place without the perpetually anxious Mother, the father who despised him, and the inadequate half-siblings.
A perfect world where the foreign object that was himself—never belonging anywhere—was finally erased. He couldn’t help but love being pulled into that realm.
And now, in that world, she existed.
Watching Ha Eun-rae, he found himself pulling out his camera from his bag without thinking.
He framed Ha Eun-rae in the viewfinder.
Looking at her profile, he thought:
This world without me is perfect.

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

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