Become a Star

Woo-Jin discreetly pointed toward the security camera. Lee Yeo-Rin’s actions were probably captured on the management’s security cameras, so he told the staff member to check it out. Then, he said goodbye to the employee and took his leave. While he did so, he gave a slight nod to Lee Yeo-Rin out of politeness. However, he was exuding a dark aura, warning the woman that this would be the last time he would deal with her.

As the front door closed behind him, the embarrassed management staff cautiously spoke to Lee Yeo-Rin.

“It seems that nothing is wrong with him, so you can rest assured and return to your room.”

Although she was acting pitifully earlier, she now exuded a cold aura as if she were standing in the middle of a field during a blizzard. The employee didn’t want to be near her anymore, so he quickly said his farewell and got on the elevator.

Lee Yeo-Rin was the only one left in the hallway, silently staring at Woo-Jin’s front door.

“Oi, she’s still standing outside! What do we do?”

Woo-Jin explained the situation to Kang Ho-Soo on the phone and returned to the living room when Hyun-Min let out a loud exclamation. He was checking the security camera installed outside the flat. Hyun-Min showed the screen to Woo-Jin, bearing an exhausted expression from being fed up with everything.

“What if she stays there until tomorrow morning?”

“We just confidently walk past her. What else are we supposed to do? No one asked her to stand outside my home,” Woo-Jin replied bluntly.

“But what if she attacks you with some weapon?”

“I doubt it.”

Woo-Jin shook his head, saying that he wasn’t so weak as to let Lee Yeo-Rin attack him. He also added that an event like that would never occur in Korea.

“There’s always a first for everything. And celebrities are sometimes attacked by their anti-fans in Korea, you know? Don’t act all tough! What if she turns into your anti-fan because of today?”

It didn’t matter if Lee Yeo-Rin stopped being a stalker and became an anti-fan, but Hyun-Min was worried that she might maintain her extreme obsession and grow more aggressive. Thus, he scolded Woo-Jin, saying the actor should’ve gone easy on her.

“She would’ve behaved like that forever if I didn’t do something. And only time will tell whether she becomes more aggressive or starts using other methods from here on out,” Woo-Jin said.

“Still, don’t provoke her or anything.”

“The apartment where I’m supposed to relax is now a place I want to avoid because of that woman. What else was I supposed to do? If tolerating her isn’t going to make things better, then I have no choice but to go all out.”

Woo-Jin was careful with his every action, and he tolerated most of Lee Yeo-Rin’s behavior because he was a celebrity, but the woman interpreted it as the green light to worsen her conduct.

When he heard the woman talk to the management as though she had some sort of relationship with Woo-Jin, he made up his mind not to turn a blind eye anymore. Since his agency was looking for a new place for him to stay, he was just going to put up with her. However, if strange rumors started circulating in the management office, then things would get out of hand.

And if something happened at a later point, there was a possibility that the employee would appear in an interview on TV with a voice changer and blurred face, saying something like:

The atmosphere that day was strange between the two. It was like they had gotten in a big fight or had broken up only for the woman to come back clinging to him. I didn’t think Chae Woo-Jin could be so heartless to his ex.

Woo-Jin could imagine that the interview would roughly go like this, which was why he couldn’t remain passive anymore. Since Woo-Jin wasn’t going to be a resident at this apartment complex for much longer, it was possible that the staff member wouldn’t side with him. It was best if Woo-Jin spread the story that he had no choice but to move out because of that woman and create an alibi for himself.

“I just hope she doesn’t do anything and stays quiet while I prepare for the audition. That’s what she would do if she were truly my fan.”

Woo-Jin didn’t consider that woman to be his fan right now. But at the very least, if she had a functional brain and honestly cared for him in her heart, then he hoped she wouldn’t start anything before the audition.

Unfortunately, his ominous predictions had always come true so far. Lee Yeo-Rin was determined to show Woo-Jin her worth by selecting the worst possible choices.

***

<I found a strange social media account today by coincidence. The account was only made a few days ago, but the people’s reactions to it are no joke. I’m just posting about it here in case those on Wish Baragi hadn’t seen it yet.

At first, I thought she was some weird attention seeker, but the contents of her posts are all quite noteworthy.

I think it’s the same woman who was photographed wearing Chae Woo-Jin’s t-shirt before. The sticky note that says, ‘I prepared breakfast for you. Make sure to eat it!’ and the study notebook all have the same handwriting as our Genie. And the selfie she took on the bed has the same background as Genie’s room that was shown on TV before.

There’s too much evidence and proof here. I think that Genie getting in a relationship is unavoidable, and I’m not against it either. But don’t you think this is unacceptable? The woman seems a bit frivolous and too careless with her actions. She doesn’t give off a good feeling. Doesn’t she know that it’s a critical period for Genie these days? I’m really upset about this.>

With that single post on Wish Baragi, the fancafe was almost completely burned to the ground in the ensuing chaos. Even those who already knew about the social media account but remained quiet joined the debate.

If one reviewed the posts carefully, the shirt she was wearing was clearly Chae Woo-Jin’s. The same went for the handwriting, and the room in the selfie was definitely the same as what was shown on the variety show before.

Another picture was uploaded during the discussion. This time, it was in an unfamiliar room, but the drawing that Woo-Jin had personally created was hanging on the wall. At first, people thought that Woo-Jin had perhaps gifted her the painting, but the interior showed that it belonged to a man. Furthermore, the items and objects that could be seen were the same as the ones in Woo-Jin’s room on the TV show.

Soon enough, people heard the news that the interior of Woo-Jin’s house had changed since the show’s airing due to some interior construction and renovations earlier this year. In other words, the newly uploaded photo was likely to be in Chae Woo-Jin’s modified room.

In the meantime, the woman in question continued to upload photos relating to Chae Woo-Jin on the social media account one by one. Every time someone in Wish Baragi objected to the speculation and tried to prove everyone wrong, she uploaded a new picture that supported the claims as if she knew everything that was happening in the fancafe.

And so, it reached a point where people started assuming she was a member of Wish Baragi as well. The problem was that this didn’t end with Wish Baragi.

A reporter in the entertainment industry wrote an article about this issue, saying something along the lines of ‘an interesting story has been spreading online.’ The reporter was always on the lookout for hot topics and scoops on social media and the internet, so they discovered the rumors pretty quickly.

The article was written and published less than an hour after the fancafe was first informed about the controversial social media account. This was why Kang Ho-Soo and Hwang Yi-Young had no time to respond or explain anything in the fancafe. They had been too busy preparing for the trip to the US and Woo-Jin’s audition.

Hwang Yi-Young only found out about the situation after the article was published. She was hurriedly trying to grasp the entire situation while Kang Ho-Soo informed Woo-Jin of the news.

“So the situation ended up getting out of hand,” Woo-Jin said.

“Based on the date that the first post was uploaded, it seems she started doing this the day after hearing our conversation.”

“Is this my fault?”

“I’d say this was going to happen either way since she took these pictures in advance,” Kang Ho-Soo replied.

They thought that Lee Yeo-Rin had only stolen some items when she sneaked inside Woo-Jin’s house. Yet, seeing how she could afford to take selfies back then, it was clear that she was far more daring than they had anticipated.

She had also cunningly used the notes Woo-Jin had written to Woo-Hee as a guise to pretend they were notes between two lovers. Thus, she had clearly stolen the sticky notes with the purpose of doing this from the beginning.

Woo-Jin’s room was revealed during the filming of Life Depicted, and he was even shown studying, so there was no way his fans wouldn’t recognize his handwriting. In addition, Lee Yeo-Rin posted pictures from both before and after the interior renovation, so she was insinuating that she was close with the entire family and had been frequenting the house for a long time.

“She uploaded something again.”

Kang Ho-Soo frowned and sighed, seemingly sick of the entire situation. He had constantly been monitoring Lee Yeo-Rin’s social media account. This time, she had posted a clip of the interview on DSTV where Woo-Jin said he didn’t have a girlfriend. However, there was a caption under the clip which didn’t exist before. She had written, ‘I won’t cry. I understand and care for him.’

“What kind of bullshit is this?!”

Woo-Jin had been patiently watching thus far when he suddenly jumped from his seat and trembled. Lee Yeo-Rin had given him goosebumps, and not in a pleasant way.

“She writes like a middle school girl going through puberty….” Kang Ho-Soo remarked.

“Please tell me people don’t actually believe that I’m dating this type of woman!”

Woo-Jin wasn’t concerned about a potential scandal at the moment. Rather, he was more worried about being misunderstood as someone who’d date a woman with such childish posts. He would detest being seen as such.

“Unfortunately, there’s too much evidence that supports the idea. Many people believe her right now.”

In fact, some were even cheering for the ‘couple,’ although they were a scarce few. Others criticized the woman, saying that uploading such posts wouldn’t help Chae Woo-Jin at all, while another group of people fought back and denounced Chae Woo-Jin instead. They argued that he shouldn’t hide the relationship like a coward and make his girlfriend write such things and that a real man should openly reveal the truth.

“What should we do? Should we start by writing an article denying the rumor?”

They first needed CEO Jang Soo-Hwan’s instructions before doing anything, but Kang Ho-Soo asked Woo-Jin’s opinion first.

“Is there really a need to do that? She handed us the evidence of her trespassing in my house, so we should report it to the police.”

There was already enough evidence of Lee Yeo-Rin’s trespassing with the footage from the security cameras and the reporter Kim Gwang-Sik’s camera. They could even add the housekeeper and the cleaning company’s testimonials to back their evidence. They could claim that they initially weren’t sure if it was Lee Yeo-Rin since she had gotten plastic surgery but were finally certain after this incident.

“First of all, we should get her posts removed,” Kang Ho-Soo said.

“Even if there really is nothing going on between us, if we publish articles denying it and take down her posts, people will become more suspicious of us. Let her do as she wants. She’s old enough to know that she needs to pay for her actions.”

Although this could be considered a scandal, Woo-Jin was relaxed and showed no sign of anxiety or impatience. Sensing Kang Ho-Soo’s doubtful gaze, Woo-Jin smiled and spoke.

“This is nothing compared to the sponsorship scandal. Besides, even when there are relationship scandals these days, the people involved just make the relationship public and continue dating. Nothing happens to them.”

From Blue Fit’s physical abuse, their use of Woo-Jin’s voice in their songs, to the sponsorship incidents, Woo-Jin had already experienced plenty of hardships in just a few years that people would normally never experience in their lifetime. Compared to those incidents, this was nothing of concern.

And these days, even when there were scandals, the celebrities just admitted the truth immediately and continued their relationships. After this, the fans seemed to watch over them and give up on protesting. Most importantly, Chae Woo-Jin’s popularity had a firm foundation and wasn’t at a level where it would get shaken by one little scandal.

“It’s not like my career will take a fatal blow just because she does stuff like this for a few days, right?” Woo-Jin asked.

Kang Ho-Soo pondered before nodding in response. Chae Woo-Jin’s fans had trodden through all kinds of storms. They wouldn’t be shaken in a matter of days just because of this woman’s posts.

Furthermore, the reporters were only writing about the controversy. They weren’t siding with Lee Yeo-Rin yet. Reporters always had to be careful when writing about Chae Woo-Jin. He also had substantial international popularity, which tended to give him some protection. In fact, there were even some articles that treated Lee Yeo-Rin like a crazy fan.

“I guess you’re right. I just wanted to take down these posts because they’re unpleasant to read,” Kang Ho-Soo said.

“If we give her a warning, she’ll probably distort it and say we pressured or blackmailed her and tattle about it online.”

Judging by Lee Yeo-Rin’s attitude so far, it didn’t seem like she would give up so easily. Woo-Jin had once heard that a celebrity had a stalker for over a decade and only reported it to the police when the stalker broke into their house because they couldn’t stand it anymore.

Meanwhile, Woo-Jin had debuted just a few years ago, yet Lee Yeo-Rin had already trespassed through his house and had even moved into the apartment next to his. If things had escalated this much already, Woo-Jin couldn’t imagine how much of an ‘upgrade’ her actions would have after ten years.