The Trashy PD Has To Survive as an Idol - Chapter 347

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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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347

“Sigh…”

After a brief back-and-forth, I reluctantly stretched out on the bedding as Joo Woo-sung insisted. In the meantime, he’d torn open the cooling sheet and slapped it onto my forehead with a wet smack before rising to his feet with a rustle.

“Get some rest. The staff will grab lunch once we wrap the interview anyway.”
“Rest? I haven’t done any broadcast content yet.”
“Woo-sung’s broadcast is Joo Woo-sung himself—that’s the content. So stop complaining about broadcasting, PD.”

I was about to fire back, but the final “PD” caught in my throat and choked off my words.
I watched silently as Joo Woo-sung’s figure disappeared through the doorway, then exhaled deeply a beat too late. It was wordplay that made perfect sense given my role during “Please Camera,” yet I’d nearly reacted with unnecessary sensitivity.
After taking one more deep breath, I slowly closed and opened my eyes.

‘Lying down is comfortable, I’ll admit…’

I turned my body toward the door and settled back onto the bed.
The scent of firewood crackling in the courtyard and the metallic clink of the staff checking their equipment loosened something tight in my chest.
These were sensations I’d grown familiar with during my days as a PD.

“Cough, cough—”

I hunched over and hacked out a dry cough, burying my face in the pillow as I caught my breath.
Right—Joo Woo-sung wasn’t expecting anything in return.
If he’d cared about image-building, he would’ve networked long ago and played the shrewd celebrity game like everyone else. He would’ve at least kept up appearances with the Black Call members before the scandal broke.

‘If he keeps this up, he’ll probably even co-sign loans for his friends. How does he plan to survive in this harsh world? Tsk.’

But could I really get away with this self-produced content like this?
I lifted my upper body and swept my disheveled hair back roughly. I had to prevent Joo Woo-sung’s “Woo-sung’s Broadcast” from transforming into “Seo Ho-yoon’s Recuperation Hospital.”

‘I’ll just read the mood and play along.’

I peeled off the cooling sheet that had been partially hidden by my bangs and opened the door.
Humid air tinged with moisture brushed against my cheek. As I walked along the veranda, I could hear Joo Woo-sung’s interview in full swing in another room.

“—Joo Woo-sung, do you tend to get along well with your juniors at the company? I’ve noticed it since Hawaii, but it seems like you take care of them very thoughtfully.”
“Huh? No, that’s not really… I mean, it’s not like that.”

The direction of the question was crystal clear.
The PD had quickly assessed the opening flow and decided this shoot’s angle would be “the considerate senior.”

“Calling them juniors doesn’t quite capture it…”

I plopped down beside Joo Woo-sung, who was in the middle of the interview, and flashed a grin. Satisfied by his flustered expression, I casually draped an arm across his shoulder.

“Don’t you think it falls short? Wouldn’t we be more like very close friends to each other?”
“What’s gotten into you?”

I playfully patted the guy who was vehemently denying it, deliberately widening my smile.

“Our Joo Woo-sung really is a prankster, but his true feelings are different, you know.”
“….”

Joo Woo-sung stared at me with his mouth hanging open, rendered speechless.

“But he really does take good care of us.”

I withdrew my arm and stroked my chin, shifting into a more serious tone.

“Kindness and warmth are ingrained in him, so he’s always taking care of the other juniors too.”
“What is this now…”
“There are actually a lot of people at the company who admire Joo Woo-sung. He always pretends to be indifferent like today, but he looks after everyone.”
“Me? When?”
“….”

Shut up, please.
Don’t you feel the murderous glares everyone’s sending just to save your image?
I relaxed and playfully tapped Joo Woo-sung’s back to keep things light.

“Seriously, someone this humble is rare.”
“Come on, who am I even close with?”
“….”

Even as I racked my brain for an answer to his counter-question, aside from the people who trash-talk me—Lim Hyun-sung and Kim Hee-young—I couldn’t think of anyone else.

“…Black Call seniors?”

The answer that finally came out was bound to be clichéd.
Joo Woo-sung’s cheeks twitched. Then he averted his gaze and muttered under his breath.

“…What… Why are you saying something so obvious….”

Don’t be awkwardly shy here.
It’s completely obvious you two just recently became close.
Wondering if it was already ruined and whether editing could save it, I forced the corners of my mouth upward regardless.

“In any case, I’m always grateful to Woo-sung hyung. I’m learning a lot from him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense—.”
“Wahaha, you two have such a strong friendship!”

Before Joo Woo-sung could respond, the staff members interjected and ended the interview.
In an instant, the cameras and lights were turned off, and the microphone was put away.

“I said I’d handle it myself, but how annoying… Just lying down and resting, yet why are you grumbling and running around….”

I stood up and stared at Joo Woo-sung, who was muttering about something he wasn’t satisfied with despite me setting everything up for him, then tapped him lightly.

“Let’s go to the mart. I’m craving ice cream. I’ll buy it for you.”
“Häagen-Dazs.”
“You’re picking the most expensive one.”

He answered quickly and followed behind me.
Joo Woo-sung, who had received the keys to the vehicle with filming equipment already installed from the staff, naturally settled into the driver’s seat. I sat down beside him and asked.

“You can drive, right?”

At that, he let out a scoff and lifted one corner of his mouth in a smirk.

“I’m Joo Woo-sung. Why wouldn’t I be able to?”

I nodded with a gesture of understanding and leaned back against the seat. The nausea I’d been holding back churned again. I turned my eyes toward the window, gazing into the distance, when Joo Woo-sung’s voice reached me.

“Hey, use your phone to find a convenience store or mart around here. I think I saw one on the way.”
“I didn’t bring it. You didn’t even know that much until now?”
“I came prepared with everything, so why would I need to go there?”

Joo Woo-sung unlocked his phone from the holder and tossed it to me.
I caught sight of Nyang-nyang’s photo set as the background and chuckled before finding the portal app among the default applications and tapping it. The moment I pressed my finger on the search bar to look up nearby facilities by location,

[Cold]
[Good tea for colds]
[Pear and platycodon tea]
[How to make pear and platycodon tea]

A string of previous search queries appeared.

“….”

For a moment, I forgot about the pain in my body.

‘Did my eyes just deceive me?’

They say when a person changes too much, it’s time for them to die.
Was it actually Joo Woo-sung who was suffering and dying, not me? Or was it possible that all of this was his sophisticated strategy for something I didn’t know about?
I narrowed my eyes and slowly scanned the person beside me before calling out softly.

“…Hyung.”
“What.”
“You’re being kind just for the broadcast, right?”
“You ungrateful bastard. You’d better keep your mouth shut before I throw you face-first into the mud of a rice field.”

I just shrugged my shoulders and turned my attention back to the phone.

***

[Title: Preview of Joo Woo-sung’s Broadcast – Seo Ho-yoon Episode

The preview is already up even though the official schedule just dropped not long ago
Is WH, the master of showing off, finally catching up to Dae Pa-sung’s speed? (Dae Pa-sung’s specialty: unmatched in both quantity and speed of self-produced content..)

Woo-sung gathered materials from around the area and whipped up bean sprout soup and balloon flower root tea with practiced ease.
It’s so cute I criedㅠㅠㅠㅠ]

[Title: Summary of Woo-sung’s Broadcast Preview

Come Visit Woo-sung’s Forest

Haha seriously though, gathering materials from all over the place and meticulously crafting everything is actually insane.. Woosung is lowkey talented.
I obtained ‘Kimchi’ and ‘Flour’—!!
└Seo Ho-yoon looked a little off for some reason… but it was so sad and cute to see the two of them getting along well, bickering and being close as everㅠㅜ]

‘The preview reactions are decent, at least.’

I’d just returned after spending the entire time being nursed through my illness without doing anything major.
Because I’d bought ice cream, I was served a finely minced porridge of summer vegetables for dinner, and the next morning I was treated to warm soft tofu accompanied by thoroughly braised radish that was easy to swallow.
It felt less like work and more like a genuine rest in the countryside.
The penalty remained intact, but my body felt somewhat refreshed nonetheless.
Still, while I assumed WH Entertainment had edited everything appropriately on their end, I found myself checking SNS and the Community, troubled by both my own appearance and how the shoot had unfolded so differently from usual.

I was scrolling through the feed when I spotted a title that caught my eye.

[Title: But that place from Woo-sung’s broadcast

It seemed oddly familiar so I dug through past videos like crazy
Isn’t that the place from The Dun’s first year when they put out that self-produced healing rural special, which turned out to be a ghost story special?
There was so much talk back then about people seeing ghosts in that video..
Why did he… write that letter to himself five years later..!!

└Wow that’s right, this is insane how did you find this? You’ve got eagle eyes
└No, did you take the picture in a place like this?ㅠㅠㅠㅠJuseong-ahㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
└Joo Woo-sung seemed really composed though, does he not know or is he just fearless?
└└Looking at old interviews, he doesn’t seem to believe in superstitions or mysteries like that, ghosts and stuff. He said there are so many scary things in the world, why get spooked by those?]

The time capsule was no longer there.
I heard the Agency had it recovered immediately, judging that it could either interfere with other programs or that fans might find the location and take it.

‘I wrote “restore everything to how it was.”‘

My resolve on that matter remained unchanged.
It had to be this way.
All of this would end once I completed the main Quest and scenario Quests of Obscure Idol Tycoon.

As the familiar headache crept in, I set my phone down and sprawled across the sofa. Malang scampered about near my feet, eagerly gnawing on a toy.
Then,

Beep, beep-beep, beep….

The sound of someone entering the entrance door code echoed through the space, and moments later, a figure stepped inside.

“Hey there.”

It was Min Ji-heon, my landlord.
He’d supposedly been away on an overseas location shoot, and despite the jet lag that should have plagued him, his face gleamed with an almost suspicious radiance.
Min Ji-heon casually tossed his luggage aside and approached with a playful grin.

“Let me see how our guest is doing. Still alive and well, I hope?”
“Until I saw your face, yes.”
“How unfortunate.”

Despite his words of mock sympathy, he settled onto the floor and asked,

“So how much longer are you planning to stay?”
“Until things return to normal.”
“At this point, wouldn’t it be easier to just tell the members something…?”
“Enough.”

What was the point anyway?
I cut off Min Ji-heon’s words firmly.

“This whole situation won’t last much longer anyway.”

The day I would confess everything to them would never come.
Min Ji-heon fell silent for a moment, then his expression twisted into a sullen pout.

“Look at you, taking out your frustrations on me just because you can’t resolve anything.”
“You noticed?”

When I responded with a dismissive tone, Min Ji-heon, who had been glancing at me sideways, tried to calm himself by stroking Malang. However, Malang quickly escaped from his grasp and bounded toward me with a flutter of paws.
Ignoring Min Ji-heon, who stood frozen with a shocked expression, I picked up the puppy and stroked its fur in one direction while lost in thought.

“Does Malang really like me that much?”
“….”

In truth, there hadn’t been any major problems so far. The only issue was that my physical condition remained consistently poor.
The comeback preparations weren’t falling behind either—somehow, they continued to move forward.

‘There’s something unsettling about it, though.’

If I had to pinpoint what felt slightly off…
It was that Kang Yi-chae had been unusually quiet all this time.

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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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