Chapter 15: The Untamed Chiang Seung-wook Pro Max
After finishing the voice recording work that day, Kang Jinhun hurried to the dry cleaners to pick up his clothes and then jogged over to SM Entertainment.
The recording studio was only three kilometers away from SM Entertainment.
Such a short distance made Kang reluctant to pay a delivery fee.
As he turned the corner into Cheongdam-dong carrying the laundry bag, the security guard inside the glass doors of SM Entertainment was yawning while locking the turnstile.
“Sir!”
Kang Jinhun pressed his face against the door crack and called out, “Could you please help deliver this clothing?”
Without looking up, the guard replied, “Come back at nine tomorrow.”
“Ah…” Kang felt a bit dejected.
He had already come all this way.
Whatever the reason, he really didn’t want to make another trip.
Just then, a group of girls in various colored training outfits streamed out through the glass doors.
When Kang counted the eighth girl—wearing a gray hoodie and a baseball cap—he stood up to stop her.
“Excuse me, could you please help deliver this to the front desk?”
The girl instantly took three steps back, eyeing him warily—
Her broad shoulders gave the cheap white T-shirt a sharp inverted triangle shape; sweat-dampened bangs pressed above her brow bone. Her lashes cast shadows over pupils reflecting the streetlights, making her more captivating than the senior trainees with their thick eyeliner.
A few passing trainees slowed their steps upon hearing the exchange.
The girl with honey-brown dyed ends covertly aimed her phone camera at Kang’s profile from behind her backpack.
“Click. Click. Click.”
The shutter sounds mixed with message alerts exploded in the group chat—
[Breaking News! Wild handsome guy spotted at company entrance!]
The attached photo showed Kang’s slender figure carrying the dry cleaning bag, edged in gold by the streetlight; his jawline sharp enough to be part of a comic panel.
The chat instantly filled with a dozen replies:
[Rabbit Teeth]: Is this profile real?
[Polar Bear]: Wild Ji Chang-wook Pro Max?
[Fubo Bae]: That shoulder width, steroids?
[Silver Taeyeon]: Jacket looks like a 10,000 won street market bargain from Hongdae, but the face is on a level where sister Cody would beg him to wear haute couture.
The honey-brown haired girl nudged her companion’s elbow, and they whispered, staring at the screen.
Behind them, five or six trainees formed a half-circle at a safe distance, like observers watching a newly arrived arctic fox at the zoo.
Kang shook the dry cleaning bag.
“This is senior Lim Yoona’s clothing. I’m her... colleague.”
“Then call her.”
“Uh... I don’t have her number.”
“A photo together?”
“No.”
“Kakao chat history?”
“No.”
The girl tightened her backpack straps and circled around.
“Then please use the official channel tomorrow.”
[94Line Gossip Group]
[Honey Brown]: Never mind, he’s a liar without any contact info.
[Rabbit Teeth]: Such a waste of that face, suggest sending him to ‘We Got Married’ as a scammer special guest.
Kang spun around twice, tugging at his hair, then suddenly shouted:
“I know senior Kim Taeyeon! We ate fried chicken together yesterday!”
The honey-brown girl’s thumb hovered over the screen, about to spark a fire:
[Plot Twist! He says he knows Taeyeon unnie!!!]
New messages flooded the group chat:
[Silver Taeyeon]: Liar! The only fried chicken buddy of Taegu unnie I recognize is Yoo Jae-suk!
[1/3]
[Polar Bear]: The face is legit though. @Honey Brown, ask him his blood type, zodiac sign, and love history!
The girl stopped and looked back.
“Then call her.”
“No phone...”
She turned and walked away.
Kang panicked and stepped across to block her path.
“I’m an actor, with SEM company!”
“Never heard of you.”
“I acted in ‘Macbeth’ last month...”
“Never saw it.”
“Then you must know ‘Ode to My Father’? With actor Hwang Jung-min...”
“Sir, I need to catch the last train.”
The girl glared at him: “If you keep this up, I’ll call the police.”
“Bean Pole 2013 F/W collection, dry cleaning fee 33,000 won. Would a sasaeng fan spend that much on clothes and dry cleaning?”
Kang pulled the dry cleaning receipt from the bag’s inner pocket and handed it over.
The girl scanned the amount, her finger hovering half a centimeter above the phone’s emergency call button.
“Is it really senior Yoona’s?”
“Why would I lie?”
Kang then showed her a cast wrap-up photo from his phone’s album:
“You know the best actor Hwang Jung-min, right? He’s my teacher.”
Though the pixels weren’t very clear, it was evident one of the two with arms around each other was Hwang Jung-min.
Suddenly, the girl reached out:
“ID card.”
“Didn’t bring it.”
“Student ID?”
“Will a graduation certificate do?”
He opened the Seoul Institute of the Arts website’s graduate directory; in the first row of the 2009 acting major stood his name with a portrait photo.
The girl was silent for a moment, then pulled out the trainee handbook.
“Name.”
“Lim Yoona.”
“I meant your name.”
“Kang Jinhun—’Kang’ like pickles, ‘Jin’ like existence, ‘Hun’ like merit.”
She flipped to a blank page and quickly wrote:
[May 9th, delivered clothing to senior Lim Yoona (Kang Jinhun). Witness: street lamp outside SM company.]
“Sign.”
Kang signed with flourish. Suddenly, he noticed her backpack charm:
“Bae... Joohyun?”
The girl snapped her cap down tighter.
“How did you know?”
“Brand.”
Kang pointed to the charm attached to her backpack—
[Bae Joo Hyun Trainee Class A]
Joohyun instantly gripped the pendant tightly.
“Give me the bag.”
“Oh…”
Joohyun grabbed the bag, swung it over her shoulder, swiped her card, and passed through the turnstile, fleeing as if chased by zombies.
“Thanks! You’ll definitely debut!”
Kang’s blessing rode the night wind and faded with the elevator’s ding.
“Thanks for the good wishes.”
[94Line Gossip Group]
[Honey Brown]: [Photo of Joohyun’s back] Joohyun unnie took the bag! But ran like being chased by ghosts!
[2/3]
[Polar Bear]: Haha, Joohyun unnie’s idol image is lighter than her weight!
[Silver Taeyeon]: Is this guy really a liar? Should I call the cops??
[Fubo Bae]: Let’s call it a night. If I fail the monthly test again tomorrow, I really have to pack up and go sell spicy rice cakes in Daegu…
[Rabbit Teeth]: Last message! @Honey Brown, did you get this guy’s Kakao account?!
...
By the time Kang Jinhun got home, it was already ten at night.
The entrance sensor light went off as the door closed.
The living room glowed with the blue light of the TV.
MBC was replaying the ‘Infinite Challenge’ music festival special.
Lee Sung-kyung was curled up on the left side of the couch, a napkin spread across her knees, mechanically peeling the third boiled egg.
“Sung-kyung, this celery juice…”
Kang shook an empty thermos.
“You didn’t mix it up, did you?”
Lee paused in peeling the egg white.
“Tastes bad?”
“Not exactly…”
Kang scratched his head.
“It’s just that after senior Taeyeon drank it, she immediately put on a pained expression, but... it’s excellent for waking up!”
At this, Lee unconsciously crushed the egg yolk between her fingers; golden oil seeped through.
“You gave it to her?”
“Senior Taeyeon said she’s been so stressed she broke out in pimples recently, so I shared some. After drinking it, she snatched back the throat lozenges I exchanged for it and even threatened to hang me on the Han River Bridge…”
Lee leisurely wiped her fingers with a wet wipe.
“So you want me to reimburse the throat lozenges?”
“Of course not, I mean…”
Before Kang could finish, he saw her kick the medicine box under the coffee table toward his feet.
“Figure it out yourself.”
He crouched and opened the box lid. On top was a pack of throat lozenges still sealed in plastic.
—Clearly freshly added.
Kang jingled the lozenge pack.
“Sung-kyung, has your throat been bothering you recently?”
Lee swept the empty eggshells into the napkin.
“Promotional gift.”
“But this…”
“Shut up.”
Lee bundled all the egg yolks in the napkin and pushed it to the table’s corner.
“I feed it to stray cats.”
“Oh, right, Sung-kyung.”
Kang put a bag of brown sugar ginseng tea on the table from behind his back.
“Is it that time of the month?”
“Kang... Jinhun.”
Kang dashed into his room and shut the door.
“Good night!”
Lee stared at the brown sugar, expressionless, and tossed it into the drawer.
—The drawer already contained three unopened packs of brown sugar, with production dates spanning two months.
What Lee didn’t know was—
Kang had counted the 33,000 won in coins six times back and forth at the dry cleaners, wasting seven minutes before paying.
But when he saw the brown sugar packaging at the convenience store, he didn’t even glance at the price tag before scanning it into his basket.