NUTMEG 18

Gwon Jiyoung, the manager of the PR team, said she understood and apologized repeatedly. In truth, there was no reason for her to be sorry. The fact that reporters always got the member S.gun’s name wrong—though it was annoying regardless of the reason—was largely due to S.gun’s own nonsensical stubbornness in choosing the stage name S.gun in the first place just to look cool.

But today, because the stupid reporter had once again called him ‘Esseu-gun,’ Wonoh had gained a decent pretext.

“You know, right? It’s my first movie, so I’m very concerned. It’s also my first time doing a solo activity, so I don’t want to cause any trouble for the members. The media outlet is important, but please arrange for reporters who have interviewed me several times before.”

“Okay. I’ll let the agency know! Sorry to make you worry.”

“I’m sorry for being so picky.”

“No, no!” Wonoh gave a deep bow to Manager Gwon, who was waving her hands in dismissal, and only then did he get into the van. As he leaned his tired body against the cleanly maintained ivory leather seats, the members greeted him, saying he’d worked hard.

“Kim Geon, let’s just change your stage name to Esseu-gun at this point. It’s a chore for Wonoh to correct it every time.”

“Damn it. Is it really going to be like this forever? I should’ve listened when Wonoh told me to just use my real name.”

“Wonoh, you go through a lot every time, having to do interviews with these idiots.”

“What do you mean, idiots?! You’re talking about Yohan, right?”

“Hyungs, I’m hungry.”

“Geez. I really can’t say anything in front of reporters. It always gets edited weirdly and published.”

He listened until Jungjoon said to S.gun, “Isn’t that because you’re an idiot?” and before a loud uproar could erupt, he put in his earphones. Then he picked up his phone and turned up the volume of the song he had been listening to on repeat for three days. It was because he still hadn’t decided which of the two guide tracks S.gun had given him to use as the title track.

S.gun, a rapper and an excellent beat maker, was set to participate in the production of half the songs on the next album. One was a song with a fast-tempo beat, S.gun’s specialty, that looked like it would have fun choreography, and the other had more vocals and a good hook, so it seemed like it would be more popular with the public.

He had put in the earphones with the intention of not being disturbed, at least for the 15 minutes it took to get to the main office, but one of them popped out. He turned only his eyes in that direction, and Yohan blinked his large, double-lidded eyes.

“Wonoh hyung, how are you so good at talking? What’s the secret?”

Annoyed, he just closed his eyes. Saying what other people wanted to hear was easier than clapping his own hands together. When Wonoh didn’t engage with him, the other three quickly started chatting among themselves.

People are afraid to confide their true feelings to others. They are afraid that the inner thoughts they reveal as a sign of friendliness or to win someone’s heart might unexpectedly come back like a boomerang and become their weakness. Now in their third year, the members had started talking about that more often. About how they have no friends to confide in, how it’s hard to talk about their struggles even with their families.

Wonoh always found that he couldn’t relate to that talk and would shrug his shoulders. Everyone has weaknesses. Why should they show them to others as they are? To Wonoh, family was, of course, also ‘others.’

To that question, Jin Jungjoon, the calmest and eldest hyung in the group, had answered, ‘Because it’s lonely otherwise, Wonoh.’

Lonely? One moment they were saying it was better to be too busy to have time for a relationship, and now they were saying they were lonely but scared to open up to anyone. Wonoh had no desire to try and understand that contradictory story.

There is no time to be lonely.

He could make allies whenever he needed them. For Wonoh, it was something he could do without effort, just like giving reporters the answers they wanted. He didn’t even have to lie. He just had to display only the truths that were acceptable to show to others.

‘It’s tiring to pretend to be demure.’

Sometimes, he even added a little show, pretending he was selling it only to them.

The van came to a smooth stop at the back gate of Won Entertainment’s Cheongdam office building. A group of schoolgirls who had been killing time, hoping to run into some of the agency’s celebrities, approached the van and let out shrill screams. The guards posted at the back gate skillfully cleared a path so the members could enter.

As the final event of their official promotions, there was a short live broadcast with all four members together in a studio inside the office building. The trainees they encountered in the building looked up to the members with unwavering eyes. Choi Wonoh and the other members accepted those gazes with practiced ease.

“Alright. Well then, we’ll start the live in 30 seconds.”

Some said that everything Choi Wonoh had now was a given because he was ‘Choi Wonoh.’ The world had no interest in the effort Choi Wonoh had put in to make those given things a given. They wanted to consume him only as the ‘dominant alpha Choi Wonoh,’ who, like a swan, had inherited elegant and superior blood from birth.

That was just fine with Wonoh. He was used to showing the ‘Choi Wonoh’ that others wanted. He wanted them to idolize him more, to worship him more, as much as they desired. He had to become more famous. Until his parents’ names were no longer needed before the name Choi Wonoh.

“Ah, you were surprised by Wonoh’s short hair, right? Wonoh cut it for the movie.”

“It’s going to be really fun, right?! When it comes out, we’re all going to go see it together! Wonoh hyung is always just looking at his script, even during schedules.”

“Wonoh will probably be good at acting, too. I’ve never seen it, but I just have a feeling he will be.”

“I agree.”

“Right, right.”

Wonoh smiled and looked at the familiar faces who were deliberately bringing up the movie.

From the very beginning, when he signed with Won Entertainment, he had laid out a condition: that he be allowed to personally choose the members who would debut with him. The company had no reason to refuse. Although there had been a five-year hiatus after his child acting days, it was that Choi Wonoh who had rolled into their company lock, stock, and barrel to sign a contract with them.

To become a member ‘candidate,’ there were three conditions. First, they had to be a trainee trusted by the company—Wonoh fully trusted the company’s judgment in assessing attitude, diligence, character, and appearance. Second, they had to have at least one outstanding talent.

Lastly, they had to be a beta.

Nowadays, times and perceptions have changed, so the boxes for distinguishing gender and secondary gender have disappeared from résumés, but around the time Choi Wonoh was born, it was an era when every citizen of the Republic of Korea would guess their secondary gender for fun. When he finally presented at the age of 13, articles with ‘dominant alpha’ attached to the front of his name were posted on portal sites every day.

But in reality, he deeply loathed the very species of alphas and omegas who wielded their secondary gender like power.

People who criticized Choi Wonoh often spat out boring remarks about how he was overrated due to his parents’ halo, or how he had connections. He had no intention of denying those words. He had no argument with the fact that, thanks to his accomplished parents, he had been born holding a handsome face, overflowing money, and definite talent for free.

However, he did not want to add a word to questions about his parents’ love story, which had actually been made into a movie. People called the beautiful romance of a film director and an actress who fell in love while shooting a movie ‘like a movie.’

Well, if ‘like a movie’ was used as a simple adjective, it was true. A cliché and disgustingly sordid third-rate movie.

The story of how the two of them came to be married was not the cotton-candy colors that the world imagined. The actress went into heat on set and was forcibly raped to the point of knotting, resulting in a pregnancy. And because the two were already celebrities, or perhaps because the two foresaw some business potential, they agreed to put on a show called marriage. That was all.

Another version of the story also exists. That the omega actress, having heard about an alpha director who wielded his pheromones like power, deliberately released her pheromones to coincide with her heat in order to hit it big. Either way, it was a nauseating story.

Choi Cheowon and Baek Hwao. His name, which took one character from each of their names and seemed like the fruit of their love, was actually given to him by his mother, who hated her own son, with the meaning ‘to resent and hate.’ But even that didn’t matter.

He despised those two as human beings. He hoped that for the rest of his life, he would not have to face them if possible.

But for his own goals, he intended to use both their names and the name Choi Wonoh as much as he wanted.

Wonoh remembered an alpha who had been dropped from the member candidacy because he wasn’t a beta, shouting in a fit of rage.

‘Who do you think you are! Is being Choi Wonoh everything?!’

He also remembered what he had replied to that.

‘Yes, it is. Weren’t you just trying to ride my coattails because I’m Choi Wonoh?’

Three years into his idol career, it was a little earlier than planned, but he started receiving scripts.

He had reached the top faster than expected, and with the added momentum, he had consecutively achieved the records he had aimed for. That was why he had to be cautious when choosing his first movie. He needed a work that would not tear down what he had built up bit by bit, but would allow him to jump in a single leap. If he messed up the first step, he would just be labeled as an ‘idol who tried acting’ and be consumed by mediocre, light works. Choi Wonoh’s goal was too high and far to be delayed like that.

When Choi Wonoh spread a rumor through his agency that he was receiving scripts, the flood of scripts that came in were far from sufficient to effectively realize his ambitions.

Most of them were roles that were too heavy for Choi Wonoh’s age, or they were endlessly light as if they had no expectation of his acting ability, or if not that, they were trash-level scripts that were hell-bent on stripping Choi Wonoh naked, as if they had only schemed to gather his fans. Sometimes, there were even scripts with ‘Director: Choi Cheowon (TBD)’ written on the cover, counting their chickens before they hatched. He threw those into the trash without even looking at them.

The worlds of idols and actors were completely different. Actors often had a high pride in their own lofty world. They were stingy about accepting someone from a completely different world, even if they would lick each other’s assholes in the mud pit. The movie industry was even worse. He knew it wasn’t a place to be taken lightly just because he had done some child acting and made a name for himself as an idol, but his mouth tasted bitter.

This was the level he was at without borrowing his parents’ names. Wonoh put down the script he had read to the end, just in case, as if tossing it, and pressed his tired eyes hard.

Starting as an idol was his own decision. He wanted to succeed first in a world where their influence didn’t reach. And after that, he wanted to succeed in their world as well. Right now, he was just knocking on the door of that world, so he shouldn’t be too disappointed. As he leaned his head back on the sofa and tried to close his eyes, he thought he could hear the conversation of the people from the production company who had given him the script.

‘You know, Director Choi’s son. He’s an idol. Just toss him a few scripts that kids these days would like.’

Choi Wonoh began to look for a director he liked himself. He needed a script that could completely shatter the image of a dominant alpha or a diamond-spoon kid. Preferably a role that only he could play now, in his early 20s.

It was by chance that he saw Director Im Kihwan’s previous work, <Sunlight>. After watching all of his short films and practice-like short videos from his college days, he tracked down his contact information and got in touch without a second thought. He and Director Im Kihwan hit it off right away. Even after meeting Choi Wonoh, he offered a nonchalant observation. ‘If I were you, I’d just play and eat for the rest of my life. Why do you live so diligently?’ He liked that.

However, the role of ‘Lee Eunsung,’ who would be Choi Wonoh’s counterpart, had not been decided, so they were struggling for three months.

Choi Wonoh remembered the first time Cheon Minje walked into the audition room.

He was a man who had a way of strangely catching one’s eye. His features, exquisitely arranged on his small face, had the power to draw people in even when his expression was blank. When his fine, jet-black hair covered his entire forehead, he looked delicate, but when he pushed his hair back, his sharp eyebrow ridges and the pointed ends of his eyes were clearly revealed, making his handsome face shine. But more than anything, he liked his gaze. His eyes would sparkle with power, and then suddenly darken with secrecy.

He knew without even having to do a camera test. How vividly his cheekbones and jawline, formed by smooth, obtuse angles, the way his eyes drooped when he smiled, his straight posture and long limbs, would come to life on screen. A quick glance at Im Kihwan at the table made it obvious he was thinking the same thing.

This is ‘Lee Eunsung.’

“How’s the movie set? Please give your fans a hint.”

Jungjoon, who had naturally taken on the role of hosting the live broadcast, asked Wonoh. On the monitor in front of him, chat messages scrolled up at a rapid pace.

I love you UNCON, Wonoh’s short black hair is crazy no matter how many times I see it, love uuu oppa, cute cute cute ㅠㅠ, say hello brazilllll

Wonoh raised his thin double eyelids and was lost in thought for a moment before speaking to the screen again. The only face that came to mind when he thought of the film set was,

“Um. The hyung I act with is funny.”

“What? Funnier than us?”

He ignored S.gun, who was glaring at him lightly, and smiled with crinkled eyes at the monitor. The speed at which the chat window was scrolling up became noticeably faster than before.

Once ‘Eunsung’ was decided, everything proceeded smoothly.

But still, sometimes, quite often, Wonoh was anxious.

“It’ll probably do well to some extent because my name is on it, but I hope it does much better.”

“Yeah.”

“I want to win awards with this.”