Become a Star

It might have been a different story if Woo-Hee wasn’t aware of Chae Woo-Ra’s existence in the first place, but knowing who she was right now didn’t change anything. Woo-Hee was merely curious about how Woo-Ra looked like, and how different she was from them; Woo-Hee also wondered if Woo-Jin had taken after their biological father’s side of the family and became a celebrity because of that.

But that didn’t mean they weren’t worried about Woo-Hee at all. When information about Woo-Jin’s mother’s side of the family was revealed to the public, their relationship with Chae Woo-Ra would inevitably be revealed as well. The thing that worried them the most was Woo-Hee’s reaction. They were concerned that she might end up feeling hurt during the crucial period before she took her CSAT because of this.

The timing was ambiguous in more ways than one; Woo-Jin’s maternal grandfather thought it would be advantageous for Woo-Jin to reveal his identity as Park Hyun-Man’s grandson before the interview. Out of consideration for Woo-Hee, they explained the situation to her beforehand and tried to make her understand what was going on bit by bit, while taking one step at a time.

However, when TM published the article out of the blue, things progressed rapidly and abruptly. They had no choice but to reveal the relationship between Park Hyun-Man and Chae Woo-Jin earlier than planned. Within a couple of days, speculations about the relationship between Chae Woo-Jin and Berry Rose’s A-Ra started surfacing the internet. It was only natural as there were already rumors about A-Ra being the granddaughter of Rome Law Firm’s CEO.

Even though it was a sudden development, Woo-Hee understood and accepted the situation. And Woo-Hee was even in a good mood on the day of the press conference. Her friends tried to comfort her but they made her angry instead. When details about her stepfather and maternal grandfather were revealed, she simply shrugged her shoulders.

“So Berry Rose’s A-Ra is Woo-Jin oppa’s younger sister too?”

“They don’t look alike, but since they both became celebrities, they must be siblings.”

Woo-Hee was shocked after hearing the thoughtless comments that her friends made as they were curious about her relationship with A-Ra. To Woo-Hee, Chae Woo-Ra is the daughter of her biological father. They were technically half-sisters, but Woo-Hee thought of her as a stranger.

But that wasn’t the case for the rest of the world. Even though they were only half-siblings, nobody could deny the fact that Chae Woo-Ra was Chae Woo-Jin’s younger sister. Regardless of their non-existent relationship, they were still biologically related to one another.

As Woo-Hee listened to how others referred to Woo-Jin as someone else’s older brother, and how they were similar because they were in the same industry, she became increasingly upset.

“I’m a lot more similar to oppa compared to her!” Woo-Hee’s competitive spirit was triggered as she exclaimed an undeniable fact. She had no interest in the entertainment industry, so she had no plans to change her career path. Instead, she decided to show everyone that she was more similar to Woo-Jin, by walking down the same path as him.

“Entertainment industry? Oh please. I’m going to enter Korea University’s Business School with a perfect CSAT score.”

Woo-Hee had already decided on her career path, but she wasn’t aiming for a perfect score on the CSAT. She originally took the exam lightly, but because of this incident, her attitude towards it changed. She took it very seriously now, which was a good thing, but it was wearing her out. She had become very haggard, but she looked like a model student in everyone else’s eyes.

Her mother was very surprised by this change. Woo-Hee thought she would be worried about her, but her mother turned out to be rather happy instead, and remarked that there was finally a high school senior living in her house. She also added that she finally felt like a parent now because her son hadn’t been anxious back when he was a high school senior taking the CSAT.

Additionally, as a parent of an examinee, Woo-Hee’s father was also very nervous and mindful of his actions. In Woo-Jin’s opinion, their parents were obsessed with being the parents of a high school senior.

“By the way, are you shooting the documentary or something at home?”

“How can I do that when I’m living with someone who’s taking the CSAT?”

“Hm… It’s okay if it’s just for a couple of hours though.”

“Huh?”

“Everybody already knows I’m your younger sister, so it’s not a big deal.” Woo-Hee nodded lightly and patted Woo-Jin on the shoulder, telling him not to worry about her. Woo-Jin couldn’t help but laugh even though her remark was filled with hidden intentions.

“I’m sorry. We could’ve moved past this quietly, but because of me, everything got revealed to the rest of the world.”

“But you get popularity and wealth in return. You shot ads and helped dad’s company. The good outweighs the bad.”

Brisingamen was already a successful company to begin with. As a jewelry company, it had a high brand value both domestically and internationally, so even if Woo-Jin did not become their model, Gaon would have still been successful. However, judging by its popularity and their speed of growth, it was clear Woo-Jin made a huge contribution. Additionally, now that Woo-Jin’s relationship with his father had been revealed, it made an even bigger and positive impact. It was a fact that even the employees of the company hadn’t been aware of, when it was found out that this truth caused the employees to resent their CEO, it made people smile.

Woo-Hee didn’t think it was all bad. Apart from the slight inconvenience that stemmed from having to be careful about what they did in private, she felt that there were more pros than cons of her brother being a famous actor. There were times where Woo-Hee felt flattered, so much so that she felt embarrassed. It was a nice experience.

“It seems like I’m an attention seeker too because I’m just like oppa.”

Woo-Hee used the words that Woo-Jin used to describe himself from time to time. She emphasized that she was just like Woo-Jin, and brought the pear juice back to her room. As a high school senior, Woo-Hee had been exhausted the entire time, but she suddenly became very positive and cheerful. She was unpredictable.

Unfortunately, Woo-Jin had another unpredictable younger sister, who was also a senior in high school. Berry Rose immediately stopped all activities on the day when Woo-Jin was revealed to be Park Hyun-Man’s grandson. The reason they cited was that A-Ra had to prepare for the CSAT as she was a senior in high school.

It felt strange that they abruptly canceled the events that had already been scheduled in advance, but the news surrounding Chae Woo-Jin was so big that their abnormal actions didn’t garner much attention. The CSAT preparation was a reasonable excuse, to a certain extent. It was just that the true story was revealed a few days later, shocking the public. Just because the posts about A-Ra being the granddaughter of the CEO of Rome Law Firm had been taken down, it didn’t mean that the memories of the people who knew about the rumors had been erased.

As such, gossip about this topic was all over the internet. The media companies had yet to publish any articles because they were conscious of Park Hyun-Man and only made conjectures.

“Nothing is easy.”

Woo-Jin sighed as he drank the coffee that had cooled down a bit. His biological father, his wife, and their daughter. None of them were easy to deal with. Woo-Jin was unable to understand Woo-Hee’s behavior, nor he was unable to predict how Chae Woo-Ra would behave either. He was also nervous because he didn’t know how Chae Woo-Ra’s parents would react to their daughter’s sudden change. This was particularly true for Chae Woo-Ra’s biological mother as she had already tried to sabotage Woo-Jin once.

Woo-Jin already had multiple things on his plate; now that one more troublesome matter had been added to the list, Woo-Jin’s life became even more exhausting. Even when Woo-Jin had been cast in a program called Life Depicted, he had no complaints. However, when he looked at the shooting schedule – three days, two nights each week over the course of four weeks, without the help of the writer, it was simply overwhelming.

During that period, the fact that he had to plan the shoot and take the lead was rather burdensome. The first shoot was scheduled for this Thursday, and it would be ending on Saturday. Thursday’s shoot had already been approved by the school and his professors. He had also told his friends who were in his class to stay away if they didn’t want to be caught on camera.

Just like that, he was planning to fill the time by showing a small snippet of his school life, but he was worried about the next day. He had no classes on Friday, so he had no choice but to show the viewers what he did during his spare time. He tried to make plans, but he ended up tearing many pieces of paper because he found them to be very boring.

Feeling frustrated, he called the production director and asked what the other two people did for their shoot. Yoon Seong-Hwan had started shooting last week. Recently, he had been preparing for a play, so the concept of his shoot focused on the process and his relationship with his fellow theater actors. After the rehearsal, they shot him at a get-together talking to the other actors about acting. It seemed that the theme he was going for was becoming a mentor to his juniors.

As for Park Mi-Hyun, she had finished her first shoot a few days ago. As someone known for being a homebody, she showed the viewers how she had fun at home. She showed them how to have fun and methods to enjoy every moment at home. She showed what she ate, and how she spent her time.

Woo-Jin hung up the phone feeling pressured when he heard that even the production team had been surprised by the sheer amount of things she was able to do despite the limited space.

Fortunately, there was no overlap with what Woo-Jin had planned. As an actor in the second year of his career, he wasn’t in the position to dive into deep discussions about acting, and Woo-Jin didn’t know how to spend his time at home. Since he couldn’t attempt these things even if he wanted to, it seemed like he had to do something uniquely different. Hence, he felt the pressure of needing to create content that was different from the other two actors.

“People have changed the way they look at you.”

After hearing Hyun-Min’s subtle words, Woo-Jin stopped worrying and looked around. The reactions of the people he made eye contact with were different, but Woo-Jin didn’t see any significant difference compared to before.

“How has it changed? It seems like it’s the same as before though.”

“They’ve become more greedy.”

The students on campus had always thought favorably of Chae Woo-Jin. Even before he became an actor, it was rare to find someone who hated him, including the professors and other students who didn’t know him personally. Apart from his lack of social skills, he was perfect in every way, so there was no reason to blindly dislike him. It was the same even after Chae Woo-Jin became an actor. In fact, people liked him even more, so the ambience around him was mild and sweet.

“On top of being Actor Chae Woo-Jin, who will most likely pass his bar exam, your maternal side of the family owns Rome Law Firm, and your step- father is the CEO of Brisingamen. Not to mention, your biological father owns Bareunjeong Foods and Garam. Who wouldn’t covet that?”

When Woo-Jin’s relationship with Chae A-Ra was revealed, it would be strange if people didn’t know about his biological father. Bareunjeong Foods was founded by his biological father, and it had grown rapidly in recent years, but Garam was the foundation of their wealth. Garam was a hotel chain that ran dozens of hotels and resorts domestically and abroad. Even though each branch was managed by a professional manager, Woo-Jin’s biological father was the CEO of Garam and he owned 53% of Garam’s shares.

Even though this was just another story of someone else’s life, other people didn’t see it that way.

“Lee So-Hyun called me yesterday.”

“She called you?”

Lee So-Hyun felt uncomfortable around Hyun-Min as he had openly expressed his dislike for her, to the point it was so obvious that Lee So-Hyun pretended not to know him and tried to avoid running into him at all costs. Woo-Jin wondered why she would even call Hyun-Min personally.

“She asked if I knew about your family, so I told her I knew about it a long time ago, and then she got mad at me. She said we played her.”

“What?”

“She thought you were testing her. She said that if she had known about your family, she wouldn’t have broken up with you.”

Even though Lee So-Hyun had said a lot more things to him, Hyun-Min briefly summarized the key points of the conversation. Lee So-Hyun said that Woo-Jin appeared to be a poor aspiring actor with no future; even if he became a successful actor or had a high chance of passing the bar exam, she only treated him like a shiny rock. However, now that she found out the rock she had tried her best to toss away turned out to be a diamond, she claimed to have been deceived by him.

“...”

“It’s embarrassing, huh?”

Learning more and more about the true colors of the person he had once loved with every fiber in his being was a difficult feat. Instead of answering his friend’s question, Woo-Jin nodded and facepalmed.

“She said those words confidently. She probably thinks that she deserves to be forgiven and loved regardless of what she does. On top of having a high self-esteem, it’s clear that she’s a self-centered person through and through.” Hyun-Min shook his head and Woo-Jin nodded in agreement.

Even though it seemed as though Woo-Jin was the one who caused her to become like this throughout his past lives, the present day Woo-Jin was embarrassed by this situation. All of it was pathetic and absurd.

“Nobody should be ashamed of any type of love…”

“That’s not true. Adultery is shameful!”

“That’s not love. Don’t compare our love to something as dirty as that.”

Woo-Jin overreacted to Hyun-Min’s casual remark. The word ‘adultery’ triggered all kinds of emotions within him. It was the shame and warning given to himself by his past lives, coupled with the hatred towards his biological father.

Even if Hyun-Min hadn’t said that, stories about his parents started surfacing, as details about Woo-Jin’s biological father were revealed. As expected, Woo-Jin’s reaction on TV Star began trending belatedly. The reason why he stared into space after hearing A-Ra’s name was directly linked to their family secret. While Chae Woo-Ra was indeed Chae Woo-Jin’s younger sister, it was evident that they didn’t share the same mother.

In Chae Woo-Jin’s eyes, she was just a younger sister whose face he didn’t even recognize. He only knew her by name. On the other hand, Chae Woo-Jin was an older brother whose name Chae Woo-Ra didn’t even know. That short scene alone seemed to have revealed the story about their relationship, which evoked a sense of bitterness.