In This Life, I Want an Oscar, Not a Husband - Chapter 6

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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 6

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Hong Jong-ho. Twenty-five years old.
After graduating from a junior college with a degree in sports science, he worked two jobs—a fitness trainer by day and a designated driver by night.
Money was always the problem.
It had been that way ever since leaving the orphanage.
Only then did I realize how impossibly difficult it was to scrape together ten million won for a deposit.
With no other choice, I started working as a designated driver at night too, and that was the beginning of a vicious cycle.
After spending entire nights enduring drunk and belligerent passengers, I’d find myself nodding off at the gym, only to get scolded for it more times than I could count.
That was why.
“The new member who registered today—let’s have Hong Jong-ho handle their complimentary personal training session.”
I always ended up assigned the unprofitable free sessions.
But I always taught those sessions with genuine dedication.
After all, if I worked hard at anything, opportunities might come my way.
My only weapon was sincerity.
“New Member, if you keep living like this, your body will waste away. Right now, your body is made of nothing but bone and skin. Without muscle like this, your cancer risk increases later on…!”
And that was when it happened.
“Such a nag….”
The new member who’d just signed up for a month of gym membership and come in for the free personal training session muttered this to me.
She said she was twenty-one.
She had a pretty face.
Actually, to be honest….
‘She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen in my life.’
But I shook my head internally and thought to myself.
‘Still, Yang Mi-jung is the best!’
I recalled Yang Mi-jung, whom I’d been secretly in love with for eight years.
Yet this woman transcended mere prettiness. There was something about her atmosphere, an aura that overwhelmed those around her.
“People tell you that you nag a lot, don’t they?”
“Well…. A little…?”
At that answer, the woman let out a soft laugh and said to me.
“That’s your charm.”
“…?”
What?

“Driver, please take me to Guui-dong.”
That evening, as he sat in the back seat of the car he’d been called to drive as a substitute chauffeur, he found himself thinking once more about that New Member sitting behind him.
‘What on earth is going on???’
Even more bewildering—after that free PT session ended, the New Member had swiped her credit card and purchased ten PT sessions on the spot.
With a six-month payment plan, no less.
And now, just hours later, he was meeting her again as a substitute driver.
“Um… New Member. Is this a coincidence?”
He asked.
By now, Hong Jong-ho had committed the member’s name to memory.
Ha Eun-rae.
Even her name was distinctive.
The kind that lingers in your mind.
“It’s fate.”
“…!”
Ha Eun-rae leaned her face forward between the passenger seat and driver’s seat—her expression showing no trace of alcohol—and spoke to him.
“You drive well, don’t you?”
“I hear that pretty often…”
…or rather, I don’t!
What is this situation, anyway?
“You must be a conscientious person.”
“I hear that often too…”
…except I’m not.
He ran his hands through his hair in frustration.
Watching him, Ha Eun-rae let out another soft laugh.
Every time this woman laughed, there was something oddly feline about her.
“Oh, I’m quite pretty, aren’t I? I hear that often too.”
“Listen.”
“Yes?”
“I have a woman I like.”
He said it with genuine seriousness, and Ha Eun-rae stiffened for a moment.
‘Did I… hurt her feelings?’
Well, with looks like that, there wouldn’t be a man alive who wouldn’t fall for her.
Should I have softened my words?
He was worrying about this when—
“Puhahahaha!”
Violent laughter erupted from Ha Eun-rae’s lips.
His expression twisted in response.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I’m sorry… but, well…”
She held out her open palm and spoke.
“Seriously, you really don’t need to worry about that. I’m genuinely not interested in you? Or wait, am I interested?”
“Pardon?”
What is it with this strange woman?
That was when it happened.
Ha Eun-rae’s expression suddenly turned serious.
With that shift came an inexplicable atmosphere—the kind that draws you in like watching a pivotal scene at a Movie Theater, captivated by an actor’s performance.
“I’m an actress, you see.”
Perhaps that was why.
Her words didn’t feel strange at all.
“But I really like you, Hong Jong-ho.”
What does being an actress have to do with whether she likes me?
“I saw you at the Gym, teaching exercises so diligently to customers who don’t even pay much. Working day and night like that—it’s remarkable. Honestly, at this age, having this much sense of responsibility is rare.”
“….”
I couldn’t even think to ask how she knew that.
Responsibility?
I had always believed I lacked responsibility, traumatized by parents who abandoned me without a care.
But she was saying I had responsibility?
“Oh, and you seem to drive well too? So here’s the thing.”
She suddenly thrust a Talent Agency business card at me.

Naru Stage

Wait, is this a casting offer?
Like a road manager or something….
Her face isn’t familiar, but could this woman actually be a successful actress? Is that why he’s suggesting she come work at his talent agency?
At his question, Ha Eun-rae tilted her head.
“No, that’s not it. I haven’t joined yet. I couldn’t get my profile photos taken. I’ll do it once money comes in. The photography studio won’t do installment payments, you see?”
“…Excuse me?”
“But by the time Hong Jong-ho joins, I’ll probably be in there too. And once I’m in-”
Ha Eun-rae’s eyes sparkled with light.
“We’ll work together all the time.”
It made no sense.
That’s what his reason was telling him.
Yet strangely, his heart beat in a peculiar rhythm.
As if someone had finally recognized his sincerity and his desperation—things no one had ever acknowledged before.
The first person to recognize him after his own parents had abandoned him.
The fact that it was this woman shook him to his core.
Soon after, she got out at Guui-dong and handed him cash while speaking.
“Thank you for your hard work….”
Then her phone vibrated.
“Ah, time’s up.”
“What do you mean time’s up….”
“This is a rental car.”
“…???”
What is this.
This woman really….
Something seems off about her.
At that moment, Ha Eun-rae held out her phone.
“If you save your number in my phone, I’ll invite you to my film premiere later. Shooting starts next week, so you can come visit the film set if you’d like.”
He couldn’t possibly give his phone number to another woman besides Yang Mi-jung…!

But he was sitting on the Film Set the following week.
And—
“Action!”
The moment the Director called action, Ha Eun-rae began performing in front of the camera.
“Ehehe… this is fun… no humans here…”
With a face I’d never seen before, she had become an utterly adorable ‘ghost.’
His jaw dropped.
I heard murmuring from behind.
“Is that woman really still without a Talent Agency?”
“This is her first acting role?”
In that moment, he thought this might be an opportunity that had come his way.

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Hong Jong-ho, who had insisted he didn’t have time, showed up at the first Film Set without warning.
‘He was curious after all, wasn’t he?’
I suppressed my laughter inwardly.
The Hong Jong-ho I knew quite enjoyed being on film and drama sets.
Even I, an actress, would grow weary of the endless waiting periods, yet there he was—crunching chicken breast or picking up and putting down filming equipment nearby, building his strength through sheer persistence.
And above all else—

“I love watching you act. You don’t know this, but your eyes sparkle when you perform? They shine so brightly that people can see them from far away?”

He loved my acting.
I couldn’t know for certain whether Hong Jong-ho would move according to my words right now.
But planting the name Naru Stage in Hong Jong-ho’s mind was enough.
Naru Stage was the company Hong Jong-ho would eventually transfer to—small now, but destined to become far larger than Kanna later on.
‘Above all, it was a company with an honest representative whom actors loved. Unlike that doomed Kanna.’
Soon, Hong Jong-ho would receive an offer from Kanna to work as a manager.
The Kanna president had been Hong Jong-ho’s senior from his hometown.
Even if Hong Jong-ho were swayed by sentiment and joined Kanna in this life as well, that would be his choice and I couldn’t help it.
Still, I wanted to give Hong Jong-ho an opportunity.
A chance for him, who always took pride in his work, to work somewhere he could maintain that pride in this life.
And above all, I wanted to give myself an opportunity too.
…The chance to work with Hong Jong-ho again.
Every time I saw him on set, not staying in the cool van but coming out to monitor my performance, I gained tremendous strength.

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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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