Become a Star

Once again, Woo-Jin and Hyun-Min set up their stand on the terrace in front of the coffee shop and waited for customers.

The photobooks were individually wrapped in plastic so that people couldn’t see their contents. But a dozen photos were enlarged, printed, and displayed at the front. The photobook's cover was a picture of Woo-Jin from behind, walking barefoot on grass, with the title My Life, Your Depiction.

It was taken from the title of the show Woo-Jin was currently filming and also signified that he was working together with Hyun-Min.

Although the entire backstory behind these photobooks would be aired on TV, they still added a detailed explanation at the end of the photobooks, accompanied by Chae Woo-Jin’s autograph.

He would’ve preferred signing each copy individually, but since the photobooks were planned to arrive this morning and had to be sold immediately, Woo-Jin didn’t have the time to do so.

“Oh, you’re not selling soap today. I quite liked them after buying some last time and wanted to buy more.”

One customer came running at them as soon as they saw the teddy bear costume, expecting more soap to buy. Unfortunately, they couldn’t hide their disappointment at the presence of the new products.

They glanced at the photobooks with Chae Woo-Jin’s pictures and simply shook their head dejectedly. Unfortunately, their first guest wasn’t Woo-Jin’s fan.

Woo-Jin was stupefied as the customer left empty-handed, and Hyun-Min slapped his own forehead.

“Not off to a good start,” Hyun-Min commented.

Unable to speak because of the bear mask, Woo-Jin acted like he was looking in the distance, feigning indifference.

“Oh! When did Chae Woo-Jin even release a photobook?”

A voice rescued them from their disappointment, and Hyun-Min quickly put on his business smile. He explained the product’s origin enthusiastically with a lot of hands gestures.

“To be more precise, Chae Woo-Jin had his friend make this personal photobook for an assignment at university. You can think of this as an event where you get to see him in a completely different light than usual.”

“Ah! Now that you mention it….”

Only then did the customer look at Hyun-Min’s face and recognize him. Hyun-Min then nodded in response with a grin.

“Yes, my friend is indeed that Chae Woo-Jin. We made these with the pictures I took and….”

Hyun-Min directed his attention to the large pictures and humbly mentioned that those were the worst photos among those in the book.

It may be far-fetched to say, but the customer was somewhat able to gauge the mood and content of the photobooks with the displays.

The atmosphere exuded by the piano-playing Chae Woo-Jin and the Chae Woo-Jin peacefully smiling while sitting on the street ground couldn’t be any warmer and homely. As a fan of the actor, there was no need to waste time, and the customer immediately took out their wallet.

“Yes, this is how it should be! The first sale bodes good luck for the day!”

Hyun-Min shouted as he discarded the memory of the actual first customer who left empty-handed after a few questions. Even Woo-Jin was excited by the sale of a single copy and danced around in his costume.

With a renewed sense of confidence, Woo-Jin grabbed the display picture where he was drinking sikhye with a towel wrapped around his head in Leia buns and left the terrace, stepping onto the streets.

By showing the photo to passers-by and advertising the goods, people who were going to walk past started showing interest.

“It’s a bear~!”

But today, there were especially many families with children on the streets. Every kid—ranging from toddlers to elementary school students—flocked around Woo-Jin with twinkling eyes when they saw the bear costume.

They climbed on his back and jumped around to pluck the rose on his ear. Two kids were clinging onto each of his legs, making it difficult for Woo-Jin to take a single step forward.

He barely managed to separate himself from the children and sat on a chair next to the stand to catch his breath. But suddenly, one customer’s words made his breath come to a halt.

“But that bear's sitting pose looks oddly similar to our Genie.”

“…”

“Hahaha, is that how it looks? Oh my, what an amazing coincidence!”

Hyun-Min denied the claim immediately out of surprise. However, that awkwardness only amplified the suspicion of the customer.

Hyun-Min was Woo-Jin’s friend and was selling photobooks they had made together, so it was strange that Hyun-Min was the only one present here.

No, technically speaking, this mysterious teddy bear was also with him, so Hyun-Min wasn’t alone. Moreover, the presence of cameras and a crew that appeared to be filming a show solidified their suspicion into certainty.

In order to clear the doubts, Woo-Jin put his hands on his waist and pretended to laugh out loud as though he had heard something hilarious.

He then started doing a grasshopper dance and other stupid dances—something Chae Woo-Jin would never do—and tried to appear as ridiculous as possible.

“Hey, after saying ‘Genie this, Genie that’ every single day, does every man in the world look like Chae Woo-Jin to you now? Why would that uncle[1] bother to wear that suit and dance around like a fool? He could just show his face and ask you to buy the photobooks if he were really Chae Woo-Jin,” the customer’s friend rebutted.

As the customer claimed that the bear was Chae Woo-Jin, her friend shook her head in disappointment. Since the friend’s statement sounded reasonable, the customer—who was Woo-Jin’s fan—eventually agreed and changed their mind. Looking at the bear acting foolish, it didn’t seem like Genie after all.

“You’re right. If he showed his face, we could sell out in no time….”

Hyun-Min did not confirm nor deny the bear’s identity but only lamented about their situation.

They had only sold 27 copies in the last hour, so Hyun-Min could only grieve about how bleak their future looked. He thought that the photobooks would quickly sell out if he said they were Chae Woo-Jin’s photobooks, but these were harder to sell than soap bars.

The soap bars had a lower starting price at three thousand won in the first place. Thus, it was less burdensome on the customers’ wallets compared to the nine thousand won photobooks. Moreover, customers were sending them suspicious gazes as these products weren’t official goods.

Fortunately, those who recognized Hyun-Min from the show trusted him and bought a copy.

“Did you say it was a school assignment? It would’ve been nice if you sold these with Genie since you made them together,” the customer commented.

“He couldn’t because the CEO was against it.”

Hyun-Min sighed and complained about how if they couldn’t sell all these, their grades were done for. At those words, Woo-Jin’s fan raised her head and spoke.

“I’ll buy a few more copies.”

“I’m sorry, but you can’t. Woo-Jin’s CEO was also against that. He ordered us to sell only one copy per person to prevent the photobooks from being resold as premium goods later on.”

Hyun-Min muttered that the CEO was a horrible person even though he initially had a good impression of him, to which the fan also sighed with Hyun-Min.

“Then we should post something on the fancafe. In fact, you should’ve advertised this event on the fancafe since we would’ve been ecstatic about it.”

The customer would’ve totally missed this event if she hadn’t coincidentally decided to walk down this street today. Thus, she bluntly complained to Hyun-Min.

“Then it’s no fun.”

Hyun-Min winked and smiled mischievously.

Woo-Jin had objected to the idea of using the fans since it was rude, but Hyun-Min also had no desire to bet everything on the fans from the get-go. That option was their last resort. Only by suffering through hardships could one achieve incredible exploits and become a legendary hero.

Although he constantly whined about the low sales, this was a new and interesting experience for Hyun-Min and Woo-Jin. They were having a lot of fun on this adventure despite the hardships.

But as he looked at the pile of photobooks that didn’t seem to shrink at all, Hyun-Min started to get more and more anxious.

“But isn’t your friend going to buy one?” he asked, turning his gaze to the girl next to the customer.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not Chae Woo-Jin’s fan,” she replied.

The friend who had come with Woo-Jin’s fan shook her head shyly but proudly. To be more precise, she liked Chae Woo-Jin, but not enough to buy a photobook with her own money.

“You jerk, didn’t you buy that Vesta photobook without hesitation before?” the customer poked fun at her friend.

“Oh, we’re at a disadvantage against Vesta since it’s one vs. eight!” Hyun-Min exclaimed.

Vesta was a popular idol group that filled in the spot Blue Fit had left behind as they lost their reputation. Not only did all the members have great skills and looks, but they were eight in the group. With such a configuration, the group was tailored to target a large variety of tastes and preferences, appealing to all audiences.

Hyun-Min muttered about how they were at a disadvantage and shook his head with a sad gaze. The customer’s friend couldn’t make eye contact with him and looked aside but noticed something interesting.

“That uncle is really enthusiastic about this.”

Woo-Jin’s fan and Hyun-Min both turned their heads at those words. At the other end of their gazes was a breakdancing teddy bear with pictures in both its hands.

“Hey, stop calling him an uncle. Are you two the same age?”

Woo-Jin’s fan complained to her friend and then asked Hyun-Min while pointing at the bear.

“Yes, he’s my friend.”

“See? But it seems like he also participated in the assignment. He’s very enthusiastic about this.”

“Rather than calling it enthusiasm, I’d say he’s lost half his mind.”

The bear was afraid of having his true identity figured out and tried his best to act weird, but he had gone way too far. That desperate performance was created through Woo-Jin’s tenacious will to keep his identity secret.

“Aw~ How cute. Take a picture with me, uncle!”

The friend called out to the bear and approached him, seemingly not having heard Hyun-Min’s conversation with the customer.

But the enthusiastically breakdancing bear heard the friend clearly. He clearly heard a female voice calling him ‘uncle.’

“Aaaaand it looks like the remaining half of his sanity was also lost.”

Hyun-Min shook his head as he saw Woo-Jin slowly collapse on the spot.

“It’s really discouraging whenever you’re called ‘uncle.’” Hyun-Min explained.

He recalled the first time he was called as such, back when he was serving in the military and had a shaved head.

“Ah, I totally understand. I was so shocked when an elementary school kid called me aunty in the past.”

The customer felt sorry for the person inside the costume, as her friend kept shaking the bear on the ground to take a picture with it.

Instead, she poured her apologetic feelings along with her support for Chae Woo-Jin into an earnestly written post on Wish Baragi to advertise the photobooks.

And the results of her actions began to show within dozens of minutes.

Fans flocked to the stand to buy the unofficial photobook Chae Woo-Jin had made with his friend.

Surprised by the sudden crowd of customers and fans, Woo-Jin suddenly became the mascot and was busy doing tricks and taking pictures with people.

But in the end, he stood by Hyun-Min’s side and exchanged the photobooks for money instead.

As the copies quickly dwindled, Woo-Jin’s fans stopped paying attention to the uncle in the bear costume. They were busy trying to buy one of the few copies left, so they didn’t even have the brainpower to acknowledge the teddy bear hanging out around them.

That Saturday, all four hundred photobooks were sold in exactly six hours.

The sales were stagnant for the first two hours, so it would be more precise to say that they had sold all the copies in more or less four hours instead. They were selling roughly 2-3 copies per minute in the end; thus, the salesmen’s physicality was practically nonexistent at this point.

“I’m totally spent….”

Hyun-Min muttered as he leaned back on his seat before lowering his gaze. Woo-Jin was conked out on the coffee shop’s breakroom floor, barely having removed the mask. Hyun-Min didn’t dare wake up his friend as his soft breathing resounded.

Even Hyun-Min was exhausted, so he couldn’t imagine how grueling it was inside that thick, hot, and heavy costume. But the stack of money on the desk put a smile on Hyun-Min’s face.

Woo-Jin had said that he would donate his earnings, but there was no need for Hyun-Min to do the same. In other words, half of today’s profits belonged to him.

“That was a great assignment!”

His grades aside, it was nice to have more money in his hands. It was totally worth exhausting 110% of his energy today.

But for some reason, he felt like all the money would be lost on failed stock investments before long.

1. 아저씨 Not blood-related but a random older guy. ☜