NIS Agent Reincarnated as a Genius Actor - Chapter 319
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————
Episode 319. Returning Home
Sophia shook her head as she watched Lily suddenly start running.
‘There goes Lily again.’
Lately, both she and her friends sometimes felt incomprehensible impulses suddenly bursting up through their hearts.
She knew well that this was because she was an adolescent girl.
These days, adolescents rarely deny that they’re going through adolescence.
Because then it wouldn’t feel cool.
What else can be done.
Sophia and her friends started running along with Lily, who had suddenly begun to run.
“Right! Let’s go together!”
Whether her friends followed or not, Lily, who had run ahead first, flung open the front door.
Sophia was worried she might make a mistake while greeting Mrs. Monroe, Lily’s mother who would be at home, because she was out of breath.
‘Phew, I should exercise more. I’m gasping for breath after running just a few dozen meters.’
She calmed her heaving chest and tried to catch her breath as much as possible.
But despite her efforts to catch her breath, not only Sophia and Lily but all the other friends had to gasp for air.
“Ah…?”
As soon as they opened the entrance and entered Lily’s house, Sophia’s thoughts stopped for a moment when she saw the face of the guest sitting on the living room sofa beyond the inner door.
“…Why on earth?”
It wasn’t admiration but doubt that came out first.
Faced with the surreal scene before her eyes, her mind was filled with question marks as if she were watching a dove appear from a magic hat.
She had first gotten into it with “White Blood,” then watched “Sketch,” “Master Plan,” and recently even the movie “Moon” which had just gotten a subtitled version.
And Ryu Yeon-woo, the protagonist of all those series, was sitting right before her eyes.
“Lily, it’s been a while? Your friends came along too.”
The Ryu Yeon-woo before her eyes smiled with such a peaceful face and waved his hand naturally as if he were some cousin.
“Aaah! It’s, it’s really him!”
When Lily was surprised, like dominoes, the friends behind her were also surprised in succession and took slight steps backward.
Was it only a few friends who were interested in Korean actors, riding on the trend brought by K-POP?
That wasn’t the case.
Even the boys at school who usually only knew about American football and baseball would watch “Survival Island” and talk about ‘Ryu Yeon-woo’ at tables here and there during lunchtime.
And having such a person right before their eyes was naturally an enormous stimulus for girls who would barely turn fourteen when the year changed.
***
***
If Lily and her friends had been alone, they might have unconsciously screamed at this absurd situation.
They had been spending several hours together at Lily’s house with a star they had only seen on screen, eating meals and having various casual conversations.
Still, perhaps because they were children, their adaptability was quick, so now they had become accustomed to conversing with the star before their eyes.
Now they were bustling around in the dressing room changing clothes while Yeon-woo sat perched on Lily’s bed, then coming out like a fashion show to get his opinion on how their outfits and shoes looked together.
‘Hmm…’
He had seen countless women in dresses.
In his previous life at social gatherings and banquet halls he had infiltrated for missions, and in this life at awards ceremony venues.
‘Still, this is my first time helping kids with dresses.’
Actually, they weren’t quite dresses.
When fourteen-year-old kids tried on dresses for a school dance party, they should be seen as just slightly formal-feeling one-pieces.
Yeon-woo, who had been scratching his cheek, checked the time on his smartphone.
‘It’s 7 PM now, so 11 AM Korean time. Perfect.’
Yeon-woo gazed at the door of the small dressing room where the young friends were still having serious discussions among themselves, then made a video call somewhere.
‘For something like this, I should probably get help from a professional. What meaning would there be in me giving advice?’
He heard the call connection tone, then the video connected shortly after.
– Huh? Yeon-woo? Why the sudden video call?
What appeared on the screen was Lee Ye-eun sitting in what looked like a cafe space.
Since they were on opposite sides of the Earth, there was a slight delay and some cutting out, but there was no problem having a conversation.
“Are you busy? What were you doing?”
“Are you busy? What were you doing?”
– Me? I have a meeting with people from Armani about the outfit for the Korean Arts Awards, so I’m at a cafe near their headquarters.
“The Korean Arts Awards? There are still several months left.”
The Korean Arts Awards ceremony is usually held in spring, so there are about 4 months left.
When Yeon-woo tilted his head and asked, Lee Ye-eun immediately answered.
– 4 months is pretty tight, you know? Armand needs to finalize the concept from now and create everything stitch by stitch to fit you, Yeon-woo.
“Hmm, then you must be busy right now?”
At Yeon-woo’s question, Lee Ye-eun on the screen shook her head.
– No, I had free time in the morning so I came an hour early. That’s why I’m killing time at a cafe right now. Why?
At that moment, Lily and her friends had finished changing clothes but were hesitating about whether to come out or not, since Yeon-woo had been having a long conversation with someone on his smartphone.
Since Yeon-woo had been speaking in Korean throughout the call, they couldn’t guess what the conversation was about.
Then Yeon-woo called the children.
“Are you all done changing?”
“Huh? Yes!”
“Really? Then come out.”
Then the small door of the dressing room opened and Lily and her friends, all dressed up, walked out.
Actually, it felt like the children were imitating adults, which made him want to laugh a little, but Yeon-woo managed his expression and turned his smartphone around to show Lily and her friends to Ye-eun.
– Oh…? What? Where on earth are you and what are you doing?
Suddenly seeing foreign girls having a fashion show in what looked like a home space, Ye-eun’s voice was full of bewilderment.
“They’re Music Director Chrissy Monroe’s daughter and her friends. They say there’s a graduation dance party at school the day after tomorrow.”
– Dance party? Wow, that’s something you’d only see in American high school dramas.
“Since they’re graduating from middle school, strictly speaking it’s middle teen. Anyway, Sister, please take a look at them.”
Lily and her friends tilted their heads at the continued Korean conversation.
Then Yeon-woo pointed to his smartphone and explained.
“She’s my stylist. She has world-class skills, so wouldn’t she give you much better coordination than me?”
Of course, it would have to be done through Yeon-woo’s interpretation over the internet.
“W-wow! Really?”
It was more than enough world-class talent for activities at a neighborhood middle school level.
Yeon-woo left Lily and her friends behind and spoke to Ye-eun again in Korean.
“Sister. Armand does sell women’s clothing, right?”
– Huh? Of course. It’s just that men’s clothing is so famous, but it’s originally a total fashion brand.
“Then if what these kids are wearing doesn’t look quite right, please coordinate some clothes and dress shoes from Armand products. There are many Armand stores here too, so I want to check and give them as a surprise gift tomorrow before I leave.”
At Yeon-woo’s words, Ye-eun got fired up.
– Oh, it feels like creating protagonists for a high school movie, sounds fun?
“Well, these kids are only fourteen, so it’s middle teen. Just coordinate them cutely.”
Then Ye-eun on the screen shook her head.
– In Korean age, that’s sixteen. Kids that age want to look so mature, I can’t do that.
Ye-eun, who grasped the customer’s needs over the internet, began pouring out her passion.
The next day, as Yeon-woo boarded a plane heading to Incheon Airport, just as he was about to switch his smartphone to airplane mode, a message arrived.
– Chrissy Monroe: Yeon-woo! How can you give the children such expensive gifts before leaving!
‘Hmm, it seems what Sister Ye-eun ordered has arrived.’
– Just tell them it’s a gift from their uncle.
Actually, the age difference was closer to older brother than uncle, but when Yeon-woo sent the message, a reply came immediately.
– Chrissy Monroe: Really… Thank you so much. To think you’d pay attention to something like this.
– I’m taking off soon. Switching to airplane mode!
Using airplane mode as an excuse to stop Chrissy Monroe’s continuous expressions of gratitude, Yeon-woo took off toward Korea.
***
After finishing the long flight and returning to Korea, Yeon-woo arrived home, stretched his body, and then began working on his judge duties in earnest.
“Did you look into what I asked?”
Yeon-woo put on his headset, opened the communication channel, and when he asked Han Hae-woon, an answer came back immediately.
– Ah, yes. The security was so poor that I found it right away without really having to look into anything.
He had asked Han Hae-woon to obtain data from the scenario competition association’s database.
The list of participants who were eliminated without Yeon-woo’s knowledge and their personal information.
– Not only was security poor, but their work processing was also sloppy, so even that was missing participant names and phone numbers. Probably, in the process of removing personal information and checking only by participant numbers for blind judging, they accidentally deleted it from their own data too?
“Hmm, they probably didn’t treat it importantly since they planned to eliminate them anyway. Then what data remains?”
At Yeon-woo’s question, after checking something briefly, Han Hae-woon answered.
– There’s gender, age, address, and email address.
“Got it. That’s enough. If there are good scenarios, I can contact them directly.”
Yeon-woo nodded and examined the personal information on the list he had received, while Han Hae-woon continued speaking.
– But lately, since I’ve been restraining my activities and staying quiet, I got bored and decided to dig into those association bastards a bit.
“Hmm?”
Yeon-woo reacted to Han Hae-woon’s story.
“Do these guys also have connections with Baeksol?”
– Oh, that’s not it. I’m talking about the category that Team Leader was hot on recently.
‘The category I was hot on…?’
Yeon-woo tilted his head in confusion, then nodded as if he understood what was being said.
“Ah, tax evasion?”
– Yes. They had quite the nerve, didn’t they?
“Hmm, really?”
Yeon-woo stroked his chin and checked the calendar.
There was no need to blow things up in the middle of the competition and get caught up in unnecessary controversy together.
“Once the competition ends, I should give Oh Young-jin and Yu Do-hyun some performance results.”
He nodded, thinking of the two National Tax Service gentlemen who had worked hard running around from early morning last time.
“Okay. So if there are any other matters to report, contact me right away.”
– These days both the agents and I are staying quiet, so there’s nothing much. You must be tired from your trip to America, so get some good rest.
“Got it.”
Yeon-woo nodded, terminated the communication channel, and took off his headset.
Of course, he had no intention of resting.
He went out to the living room and grabbed the thick stack of documents on the table.
“So these are the scenarios that no one read and were eliminated.”
There might be a movie scenario buried in this pile of papers that could attract ten million viewers.
***
But reality wasn’t like that.
‘Hmm, honestly, I think I can understand just a little bit why the association filtered them out…’
The piled-up scenarios were almost all lacking even the basics, nothing more or less than collections of text that were incomprehensible.
Of course, that didn’t justify the association’s actions.
It was unfair to treat people this way after even collecting participation fees.
“Well, but it is quite an ordeal to keep reading stuff like this.”
Some scenarios were so chaotic that they seemed like the world as seen by a patient with schizophrenia put into writing.
They mixed first and third person even within a single sentence, and just reading the dialogue, it seemed like AI had randomly mixed two different stories together.
When you read properly written text, you should be able to vividly imagine it as if a video were playing in your head.
All the scenarios he had read so far felt like walking through thick fog.
‘Hmm…’
Yeon-woo mechanically picked up the next scenario.
Since he thought it wouldn’t be much different from the scenarios he had read so far, he had the drowsy expression of an office worker reviewing documents at the company on a Monday afternoon at 2 PM.
As he continued reading, Yeon-woo’s expression gradually began to change.
“Oh… well, look at this?”
—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————