Chapter 10

The Splendid Return (1)

After coming out of the meeting room, PD Oh Sooyoung stretched her arms and tried hard to shake off her fatigue.

After finishing a meeting that had lasted nearly three hours, she returned to her seat with heavy steps.

Before she could even sit down, one of the writers came to see her.

“PD, I was just about to go get some coffee. Should I get one for you too?”

“Oh, could you? I’d like one iced cafe latte, please.”

When you work in broadcasting, coffee was almost an essential item.

Yesterday, and the day before that too.

PD Oh Sooyoung had been pouring almost all of her energy into preparing the drama, so she decided to rest her body on the soft chair until the writer brought her coffee.

About fifteen minutes later, the writer who had been assigned the job of bringing coffee returned with both hands full of cups.

She looked for PD Oh Sooyoung first.

“Here’s your cafe latte.”

“Thanks, Writer Jung. Once I finish my urgent work, I’ll buy you a good meal later.”

“It’s okay. You really don’t have to. Please take better care of your health, PD. It would be a big problem if you collapsed at such an important time.”

Quite a few staff members had transferred to the RETC broadcasting station along with PD Oh Sooyoung.

Writer Jung was one of them.

Writer Jung secretly glanced at the casting list lying on PD Oh Sooyoung’s desk.

There were two names that especially caught her attention.

“You decided to cast Yoon Dobin and Yoon Doye, right?”

“Yeah. I kept replaying the auditions of the other people, but I don’t think there are any actresses who fit the roles of Kang Seoyoon and Kang Seori as perfectly as Dobin and Doye.”

Even though quite some time had passed since Yoon Dobin and Yoon Doye’s private audition ended, the acting of the two rookie actresses still remained vividly in PD Oh Sooyoung’s mind.

So, as soon as the audition ended, PD Oh Sooyoung had immediately decided to pass both of them.

That showed just how much she liked their acting.

Writer Jung seemed to fall into thought for a moment.

“I’ve felt this since the first time I saw them, but don’t they look a lot like someone?”

“Look like someone?”

“I can’t say exactly who. But they don’t feel unfamiliar. I definitely saw them for the first time at the audition… but somehow, they felt familiar, like people I had seen many times before. Didn’t you feel that way too, PD?”

“Now that you mention it…”

At the time, she had been too focused on the audition to pay attention to it.

But now that the audition was over and she heard Writer Jung’s words, Yoon Dobin and Yoon Doye did indeed feel strangely familiar.

Did I happen to run into them somewhere while walking down the street?

No, it was hard to get this kind of feeling from such a brief encounter.

The two women put their heads together and thought about it.

But neither of them could come up with a proper answer.

At that moment, a man sitting across the room called out to Writer Jung.

“Jung Soohyun! Aren’t you going to give me my coffee?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Senior! I’ll be right there!”

Watching Writer Jung quickly leave, PD Oh Sooyoung sank back into her chair again.

She stared at the names Yoon Dobin and Yoon Doye written on the confirmed casting list for a while.

Then she placed it back on her desk.

It’s not important.

Since it had nothing to do with the drama, she decided to simply let it go.

“Okay. I’m almost at the airport now, so I’ll call you again after I get back to Korea. And please tell Doye and Dobin that I said so. Yeah. See you in a little while.”

After ending the call, the woman sitting beside Min Siyoon asked,

“Unni. Was that Seongjun oppa?”

“Yeah. How did you know?”

“When you start talking about Doye and Dobin, there’s a high chance that the person on the other end is Seongjun oppa.”

Min Siyoon gave a small laugh at her guess.

Thinking about it, she wasn’t wrong.

“How is Seongjun oppa doing these days? I heard the ratings of his last drama. He must be having a hard time at the broadcasting station.”

Yoon Seongjun had not produced a notable hit since The Age of Lawbreaking.

There was no way Min Siyoon didn’t know about his current situation.

“He seems to have a lot on his mind. I’ve told him several times that when you have too many thoughts in your head, it actually becomes harder to make a good project. But he’s stubborn too. He doesn’t even pretend to listen to me.”

Phew.

Min Siyoon let out a small sigh and looked toward the approaching airport entrance as she searched for her sunglasses.

“I should go there and give him a good scolding.”

“Is that really the reason you’re going to meet him?”

As the car came to a stop, Min Siyoon put on her sunglasses.

After pausing for a moment, she answered,

“For now, yes.”

It had been less than five minutes, but that phone call became the most memorable call I had received all year.

Siyoon was coming back to Korea.

Those words had been running through my head from yesterday until this morning.

It had been almost ten years since I had last seen Siyoon, counting all the time before my regression.

We were divorced, so I couldn’t bring myself to contact her just because I wanted to see her face.

Because I had been too absorbed in my work and had failed to properly take care of the children, I had even sent Dobin and Doye to Siyoon.

In that situation, asking Siyoon to meet me first felt far too shameless.

If I said I had no regrets, that would be a lie.

She was a woman I had once truly loved.

And that woman was finally returning from America to Korea.

Without really thinking about it, I had promised that we would make time to meet separately after Siyoon returned to Korea.

I still can’t believe it.

My heart was pounding with excitement as if I had just made a date with Siyoon for the first time.

But at the same time, I was worried.

Because the two of us were officially divorced.

Even after I arrived at work, I couldn’t escape my deep thoughts.

One worry after another.

While I continued to waste time meaninglessly—

“Yoon Seongjun. What are you doing?”

Team Leader Han, Seongguk hyung, came to our team office.

“When did you get here?”

“Been here for a while. You didn’t even notice me. Is something bothering you?”

Because my mind had been somewhere else, I hadn’t even noticed that Team Leader Han had been chatting with our staff in the office.

I forced a smile and denied it.

“The drama ended safely. What would I have to worry about?”

“Then why do you look like that?”

“That’s…”

Seeing my troubled reaction, Team Leader Han gave a small laugh.

“Let’s go have a cigarette.”

“I quit smoking.”

“Huh? You quit? Until recently, you used to easily smoke a whole pack a day.”

“I’m trying to quit from now on. My daughters said they don’t like having a dad who smells like cigarettes.”

“If the kids say that, you can’t really help it.”

Since Seongguk hyung was also a father like me, he would understand what I meant better than anyone.

“Then let’s have some coffee instead. I’ll buy.”

I never turned down free coffee.

We bought coffee and headed to the outdoor resting area near the broadcasting station to get some fresh air.

Sip.

The warm coffee drove away the cold winter air, at least for a moment.

After a short silence, Team Leader Han spoke first.

“Are you worried because the ratings aren’t doing well?”

He was talking about Kim Teacher, Who Appears Here and There.

“That’s part of it.”

Since the ratings hadn’t been very good, I was also worried about getting production support for my next project.

TV programs inevitably have to care about ratings.

When the ratings had dropped to almost 1 percent, I had even been pressured to end the drama early.

The ratings recovered in the middle, and somehow we managed to reach the originally planned number of episodes.

But I didn’t know what would happen with the next project.

Team Leader Han put down his coffee and patted me on the back.

“Don’t worry. The ratings were rising toward the end, and I’ll talk to the higher-ups as well as I can. You just focus on planning your next project.”

“Thank you, hyung. I mean, Team Leader.”

“You little punk. When it’s just the two of us, you can call me hyung like you used to.”

Team Leader Han unconsciously took out a cigarette and was about to put it in his mouth.

Then he looked at me and put it back into his inner pocket.

“Anyway, I know your abilities better than anyone, so don’t let yourself get so discouraged. Isn’t that how creating things works? Sometimes things go well, and sometimes they don’t. Looking at you, I feel like you’re going to make something big happen soon. So put everything you have into your next project. Got it?”

“Yes. Thank you, hyung.”

“Don’t mention it.”

Team Leader Han had also held the same position as me before becoming the team leader of the Drama Planning and Production Department.

Perhaps because of that, he understood and sympathized with the feelings of drama PDs better than anyone.

Perhaps to change the mood, Team Leader Han changed the subject.

“I heard that Dobin and Doye, the girls you introduced to me last time, passed the audition. PD Oh Sooyoung was really grateful to me, saying she couldn’t believe I had found such talented kids.”

“That’s good.”

I had already expected my daughters to pass that audition, but unlike me, Team Leader Han had only been half convinced.

“I guess their acting skills are much better than I thought. If I had known, I should have gone to the audition myself.”

Team Leader Han had absolutely no idea that those two girls were the daughters of his close younger brother sitting right in front of him.

I was already worried about how this hyung would react when I eventually told him that I was actually their father.

Well, if it’s hyung, he’ll understand why I couldn’t tell him back then.

Anyway, my next project.

Originally, the project after Kim Teacher, Who Appears Here and There should have been Her Video Letter.

But that drama was more like a project I stubbornly created for myself, a story that would be difficult for viewers today to connect with.

Even if I remade a story that could have worked in the trendy drama market of the 1990s, it would only lead me to fall again.

I had to change.

And I had to be different.

If I repeated the same process, the result would only be the same.

I need to think about this.

The joy of putting a period on one chapter of my life lasted only a moment.

It was time to start thinking hard for a new beginning.

The moment I returned to the office, a strange sight unfolded before me.

The staff were gathered closely together in front of the small TV installed in the office.

“Ah, Senior!”

Yeonju raised her hand high toward me.

“Come over here. There’s some important news for you.”

“About me? What is it?”

“You’ll know when you come over. Hurry, hurry!”

I was curious about why everyone had gathered around and was whispering.

And after hearing that it was something deeply connected to me, I couldn’t simply ignore it.

As I approached, I began to hear the voice of a male news anchor.

—Here is the next news. Korea’s top actress, Min Siyoon, has returned to Korea after completing six months of filming in the United States.

Min Siyoon.

The mother of my daughters and my former wife.

After hearing the news of her splendid return, I couldn’t think of what I should say.

Not right away.