NIS Agent Reincarnated as a Genius Actor - Chapter 259

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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 259. Return Home

Unlike the departure day when fans and reporters had crowded together, the day of entering the country through Incheon Airport was relatively quiet.

 

Although Okinawa was only about a two-hour journey away, as always, the day of returning from a trip is tiring.

 

After arriving at Incheon Airport, I immediately got into the car sent by Saebyeol and headed to Seoul.

 

Looking at the back seat, Lee Ye-eun and Hong A-yoon, who had somehow become close during this trip, were fast asleep in identical poses, shaking their heads back and forth.

 

“Actor Ryu, get some good rest.”

“Mmm, we’re already here. Yeon-woo, go on in!”

“Yes. I’ll go in first. Everyone rest well.”

 

I got out of the car with farewells from Hong A-yoon, who was struggling to open her eyes in a half-asleep state, and the other staff, then went straight into my house.

 

Deciding to organize my suitcase later, Yeon-woo lay on the sofa for a moment to recover from travel fatigue, then soon entered his studio and put on his headset.

 

Each agent was connected to the secure line, and post-operation processing was in full swing.

 

“Has anything come up?”

 

Opening a private channel, when Yeon-woo asked Han Hae-woon, an immediate response came through.

 

– Ah, you’re back. There haven’t been any particular movements domestically yet, but two Baeksol personnel who were on standby in Okinawa are moving around busily. They seem to be erasing all traces of their activities in Okinawa.

 

Although it was a simple rescue operation, since the US military was involved, they would naturally lay low for now.

It was behavior within the expected range.

 

“Who’s tailing those two guys?”

– Lee Kyu-jin is tailing them. He’s following slowly from a considerable distance, just tracking their movements.

 

Yeon-woo nodded at Han Hae-woon’s answer.

Then he looked at the camera feed from Kim Su-hyeok connected to the secure line.

 

Kim Su-hyeok seemed to be meeting someone at a cafe, as a rough-looking man was earnestly talking to Kim Su-hyeok through the camera.

 

“Is Kim Su-hyeok interviewing for the security company?”

– That’s right. We’ve built up quite a personnel pool now, so we should be able to operate as early as next month.

 

Establishing the security company was something I had ordered immediately after returning from Brazil.

 

Since Han Hae-woon and Kim Su-hyeok selected the personnel together, they would be completely flawless in terms of connections to Baeksol and other security aspects.

 

“It’ll be difficult to deploy them immediately in operations related to Baeksol, but if we distribute and delegate some of the various tasks you and the agents are currently handling…”

– Yes. Then we can focus solely on Baeksol-related matters.

 

Hearing Han Hae-woon’s response to his words, Yeon-woo scratched his cheek.

 

“Hmm, I was going to say you’d have more time to rest?”

– Hey, we’ll rest for a lifetime when we die anyway.

“That’s a typical workaholic’s line. You need to take breaks too.”

– What? That doesn’t seem like something Team Leader should be saying.

 

At Han Hae-woon’s words, Yeon-woo had nothing to refute and could only smile awkwardly.

He himself was juggling between actor and agent without rest, maintaining a packed schedule, and more than half the reason the agents were moving busily was due to Yeon-woo’s orders anyway.

 

“Anyway, let’s keep a close eye on domestic movements. Since their financial lifeline has hardened, if they want to survive, they’ll move hastily while leaving plenty of traces.”

– Understood.

 

***

 

From the next morning, Kim Min-su drove to Yeon-woo’s house parking lot.

Yeon-woo, who had come down after receiving the call, got in the car and greeted Kim Min-su.

 

“Min-su hyung. You must be tired having to work immediately the day after returning from a trip?”

“Not at all. I’ll just drop you off and rest in the car, so you’re probably the one who’s tired.”

 

Kim Min-su’s words weren’t wrong.

The schedule Yeon-woo was heading to was none other than basketball practice.

 

Even while filming the movie “Moon,” he attended basketball lessons whenever he had spare time.

 

Originally, if the movie filming was delayed, he planned to finish the first round of shooting, prepare for “Parabola” in between, then resume movie filming in winter.

 

However, thanks to the excellent chemistry with Hong A-yoon during “Moon” filming, which allowed them to finish shooting quickly, Director Lee Yong-su decided to end filming early altogether.

 

So the few winter scenes that would be inserted during the 20 years that Cha Su-hyeon, the role Yeon-woo played, spends alone were replaced with sets or special effects.

 

‘In the end, having extra time allowed me to work on more details for “Parabola” before entering full-scale drama filming.’

 

I heard the other members had been consistently attending basketball lessons.

Although Yeon-woo couldn’t attend frequently due to movie filming, the other actors weren’t worried about that.

 

‘Still, I played basketball most recently among them.’

 

Due to his many activities, the time felt relatively long, but in fact, Yeon-woo had only graduated high school a few years ago.

 

Since he was just an ordinary male high school student until a few years ago, he often played basketball with friends during PE class or lunch break.

 

“At this rate, you actors might become basketball players.”

 

At Kim Min-su’s words from the driver’s seat, Yeon-woo chuckled.

 

“That’s true. But we need to do this for the work’s details to come alive.”

 

It wasn’t much different from completing education at an action school before filming an action movie.

 

Of course, since they weren’t trying to become basketball players and this was ultimately a ‘basketball drama,’ the important thing remained acting rather than basketball skills.

 

However, understanding well that the actors themselves needed to have decent basketball skills for the overall picture not to look ridiculous or childish when filming the work, everyone was practicing hard.

 

‘I need to practice hard too to make up for the time I missed during filming…’

 

In fact, compared to other sports, Yeon-woo’s basketball skills weren’t particularly outstanding.

 

Naturally, being an agent didn’t mean excelling in every field, so his basketball was no different from an ordinary high school student’s level.

 

He mainly worked in war zones, and in his later years was stationed mostly in Europe, where there wasn’t much interest in basketball.

 

‘Except for Greece and Turkey, Europe is practically dominated by soccer…’

 

Though his past life had no connection to basketball, he had played it occasionally as a student, and with Yeon-woo’s good basic physical abilities, he quickly absorbed the fundamentals in the few lessons he attended.

 

“We’ve arrived, sir.”

 

While having these various thoughts, Kim Min-su’s car arrived at the indoor gymnasium where the actors were receiving basketball lessons.

 

Yeon-woo got out of the car and entered the gymnasium with Kim Min-su.

 

From the characteristic squeaking sounds of the wooden floor, it seemed everyone was already out practicing.

 

As he entered the gymnasium with its slightly musty smell of sweat, Jeong Cheol-min, who spotted Yeon-woo first, waved his hand.

 

“Hey, you’re here. Did you have a good time in Okinawa? I heard you really wanted to go there.”

“Mm.”

 

He had no idea how far this ‘Okinawa enthusiast’ story had spread.

 

“You seem to have lost weight in the meantime, teacher.”

“Don’t even mention it. I’ve been greasing my creaky body with sweat to bring it back to life.”

 

Unlike Jeong Cheol-min’s boastful claims of being the ‘Hyehwa-dong Flying Squirrel’ during the preliminary meeting attended by Director Kim Han-su and the cast, he had clearly shown himself to be the basketball team’s weak link during the first practice.

 

Of course, regardless of how good he might have been in his prime, it had been at least twenty years since Jeong Cheol-min last touched a basketball.

 

It was natural that he couldn’t play well.

 

“But during the last practice I attended, you seemed to have recovered quite a bit of your old skills?”

“Not even close. I really was the Hyehwa-dong Flying Squirrel, you know?”

“You’re at least a chipmunk level now. That’s good enough.”

 

Yeon-woo nodded casually and played along with Jeong Cheol-min’s words.

 

Still, Jeong Cheol-min had good stamina for his age and decent athletic ability.

 

Since musicals and theater require a lot of physical strength and diaphragmatic breathing as basics, Jeong Cheol-min, who constantly taught students while running a theater company, kept up quite well despite being nearly twenty years older than the other actors.

 

While chatting with Jeong Cheol-min, the other actors approached from the opposite side of the court.

 

“Yeon-woo’s here.”

 

Son Jin-wook, Dong-ha, and Jin Yu-han too.

 

They must have been practicing quite diligently, as they all looked comfortable holding basketballs in the gymnasium.

 

Especially Jin Yu-han, who had said he’d never played basketball before, was skillfully dribbling and had a decent shooting form when Yeon-woo glimpsed him entering the court.

 

‘Well, Yu-han works hard at anything related to acting, so he probably stayed behind every day to practice alone. I just need to do well myself.’

 

Yeon-woo nodded and spoke up.

 

“Did everyone hear the news? They scheduled a friendly match for next week.”

“Oh, I heard. Sounds like it’ll be fun, right?”

 

***

 

Meanwhile, the celebrity basketball team ‘Fast’, which was scheduled for a friendly match against Saebyeol’s basketball team, also gathered their members that evening.

 

However, it wasn’t at a gymnasium but at a private party room located in Gangnam.

 

Team members consisting of idols, actors, and some variety show entertainers sat together, opening bottles of liquor from early evening.

 

“Hyungs. We haven’t played basketball for over a month now, shouldn’t we at least practice a bit?”

 

Honestly, it was true that their basketball meetings had recently been deteriorating into drinking sessions.

 

When Bae Yu-jun, Fast’s youngest member and part of the idol group NK, brought up basketball, broadcaster Choi Jeong-su, who was mainly active in variety shows, chuckled.

 

“Hey, even though we haven’t been playing basketball much lately, it’s not like we’ve only been working together for a day or two. Honestly, they’re actors you rarely see on variety shows, so it might be a bit interesting and different, but do you think those people could beat us at basketball? We’ll just crush them from the start…”

 

Then another man next to him quickly interrupted and chimed in.

 

“Right. Jeong-su hyung doesn’t mean it in a bad way, but those people are busy with acting, so have they even played basketball regularly? They’re just practicing to prepare for their project, right?”

“Still, it won’t be fun if the score gap gets too wide and we completely destroy them, and it won’t look good either, so let’s just lead moderately while going easy on them so they don’t get embarrassed.”

 

Then Bae Yu-jun rolled his eyes.

 

“I heard they’re filming this match to use for Saebyeol Entertainment’s variety show later?”

“Hehe. I can hear our Yu-jun’s brain working from here. Trying to attract some fans with this opportunity? Since we’ll be ahead in score and relaxed anyway, just show off plenty of flashy individual skills for show. Make it easy for the variety team to use.”

 

At Choi Jeong-su’s words, Bae Yu-jun imagined something for a moment and grinned.

 

“Ah, but what if it looks like we’re toying with them too much?”

“Then we can just let them score a few times appropriately. Right?”

 

Meanwhile, there was a man sitting quietly in a corner seat, repeatedly bringing a glass of whiskey to his lips and away, drinking or not drinking.

 

Choi Jeong-su looked at the man in that corner.

 

“Jae-yoon.”

“Huh?”

“Why are you so quiet today?”

“Oh, that’s…”

 

Jae-yoon felt like the current situation was déjà vu.

 

Somehow, it overlapped with the scene where he had talked with the N-Boys members while looking at their opponents XYZS during preparation for the idol sports festival futsal match.

 

Especially the words he had spat out while looking down on their opponents.

 

And the end of that thought connected to Ryu Yeon-woo.

Suddenly feeling chills, Jae-yoon shuddered and shook his head.

 

“Why are you shuddering? Did you catch a cold or something?”

“Ahem, it’s nothing.”

 

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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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