Chapter 127: One of a Kind of Girl (3)
Chapter 127: One of a Kind of Girl (3)
Ahn Su-Jin had received a request from Ma Yeong-Jun to publish an article regarding Entre Happy and Levanche. She lightly sighed. Her senior reporter looked at her strangely.
“What is it, Su-Jin? Is there another problem?”
“No, it’s not that, but... oh right, sunbae. Don’t you need a story to write about?”
“A story? Of course I do.”
Su-Jin’s sunbae was in charge of stories regarding entertainment. They picked up any incident that occurred in the entertainment industry.
“I got a story about Miss Kang Ra-Eun. Would you like it?” Su-Jin asked.
“Do you mean... the actress Kang Ra-Eun?”
“Yes.”
It certainly piqued his interest, since Ra-Eun was a top actress receiving tons of attention in the Korean entertainment industry as of late.
“Is it another dating scandal?” the senior reporter asked.
“No. You know that Miss Kang runs a company, right?”
“Levanche, was it?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Reporters in charge of entertainment news were naturally knowledgeable of Levanche now that it had grown to a fairly large scale in the clothing industry.
“Levanche has taken over Entre Happy,” Su-Jin stated.
“What? Seriously?”
“Yes. They just signed the contract yesterday.”
“My God. Miss Kang would be more than wealthy enough even if she quit her acting career.”
She was both an exceptional actress and businesswoman. There didn’t seem to be anything she couldn’t do. The title of the film that she recently starred in, One of a Kind of Girl, couldn’t fit her any better. Her presence, abilities, and everything else about her were all one of a kind.
However, Su-Jin thought Ra-Eun was one of a kind in a completely different way.
‘I’m sure Miss Kang is that masked woman.’
Ra-Eun herself had denied it, but Su-Jin was sure of it. Su-Jin’s eyes, tempered through her days as a reporter, and her sharp senses were telling her that Ra-Eun was the masked woman.
However, Ra-Eun continued to deny Su-Jin’s speculation. She seemed as if she couldn’t possibly lack anything in life, but she was planning something in the shadows.
‘What could it be?’
Su-Jin’s suspicions continued to grow bigger and bigger by the second.
***
Ra-Eun finally had some free time after her film shoots had wrapped up. She headed to the fitness center like any other day. She went up the stairs with the sports bag that she frequently carried around with her.
Song Ji-Ah, her personal trainer, asked her in surprise after seeing her, “Why are you coming to the fitness center so often lately, Ra-Eun?”
“Because I have nothing else to do.”
It was good for Ji-Ah to have one of the members that she trained come to the fitness center often, since it meant there were just as many chances for her to oversee Ra-Eun’s figure management.
“I thought you’d be traveling around now that your shoots are over,” Ji-Ah expressed.
“I don’t really like traveling all that much.”
Ra-Eun wasn’t the type of person to make plans for travel. She simply joined her friends wherever they wanted to go. She changed into clothes comfortable to work out in, and headed to where Ji-Ah was.
Ji-Ah couldn’t help but admire the fully-visible lines of Ra-Eun’s body.
“Is it me, or has your figure gotten better compared to before your film shoots?”
“Really?”
Movie stars usually stayed in shape until right before the production opened. Most of them usually slacked off on staying in shape after the shoots were over because they were able to relax, but Ra-Eun was the opposite. However, Ra-Eun had not gone out of her way to keep in shape either.
“I ate as much as I wanted, though. How weird,” Ra-Eun stated.
“You must have a metabolism that keeps you skinny no matter how much you eat,” Ji-Ah remarked while looking at Ra-Eun in envy.
Ra-Eun possessed a blessed metabolism that most women yearned for.
“I guess this is what it takes to be a celebrity,” Ji-Ah said.
Being a trainer, she had come across an enormous number of beautiful people with great figures. She had wondered why they weren’t interested in debuting as a celebrity with such qualities, but she was getting an idea why after looking at Ra-Eun.
“Shall we do legs today?” Ji-Ah asked.
“Okay.”
Ra-Eun did leg curls after stretching. It was an exercise that trained one’s hamstrings. She laid down prone on the machine and bent her knees backward as far as they could go.
“Good. Breathe in right there. One, two, three, four, and down.”
Ra-Eun’s physical prowess was just as good as those of trainers, so Ji-Ah honestly didn’t really have much to do. She only needed to adjust Ra-Eun’s form a little, so she had a breeze whenever she trained her.
“Whenever Ga-Ae does this, she collapses after just a few and says she can’t do any more,” Ji-Ah mentioned.
After Han Ga-Ae transferred to GNF, Ji-Ah had also become her personal trainer. She couldn’t help but compare the two when she was both of their trainers. Not only were Ra-Eun and Ga-Ae the same age, they were both celebrities, albeit in different fields. They had many other things in common.
Ra-Eun couldn’t help but giggle as Ga-Ae came up in their conversation.
“Ga-Ae has pretty high athletic ability, but she doesn’t really like exercising.”
She had become well aware of it during the On Duty, All Clear! shoot. Although Ga-Ae didn’t really stand out because Ra-Eun and Min Bo-Yeon were overwhelmingly better than the rest, she had also done fairly well.
One needed to have a considerable amount of stamina to sing while dancing on stage. Since Ga-Ae had done so from a very young age for several years, she was a cut above in terms of endurance. It simply didn’t show when the subject of comparison was Ra-Eun.
“That aside, Ga-Ae’s been working really hard lately. She’d placed pretty high on the latest music chart. She was in the top five!” Ji-Ah said.
Ever since Ga-Ae’s debut as a solo singer, her popularity had been skyrocketing by the day. Things were going exactly as Ra-Eun knew of the future.
“Ga-Ae’s been going around saying she would still be a stooge member in her group if it weren’t for you. She’d even thanked you on TV once,” Ji-Ah mentioned.
“Oh, I saw that too.”
Ra-Eun had coincidentally watched a talk show that Ga-Ae had appeared in. The subject at the time was...
[My Benefactor]
Ga-Ae had chosen Ra-Eun as her benefactor, causing Ra-Eun to feel embarrassed while watching the show.
“Tell her to treat you something when she takes first place someday.”
Ra-Eun simply smiled in response. The original reason why Ra-Eun had jumped into the world of entertainment was because of her grudge toward Kim Han-Gyo. She had thought that she would only be able to fulfill her revenge by becoming more famous and raising her influence to be similar to her target of revenge.
That was why she was taking her revenge step by step, but there were people like Ga-Ae who happened to benefit in the process. They would be able to help Ra-Eun in the future.
***
The movie release date was announced, and the day of the premiere had arrived. Ra-Eun had to make her preparations early in the morning to stand on the stage before the public after a long time.
It had also been a while since she had visited the beauty parlor. The employees exclaimed with sparkling eyes and a slight bitter tone as soon as they saw Ra-Eun.
“Ra-Eun! You should come to our parlor more often. Where have you been until now?!”
“You didn’t leave us to go to some other beauty parlor, did you?”
“If you did, we’d be super upset.”
It was also very important which beauty parlor a famous celebrity went to, since it was directly correlated to the establishment’s sales. Just the fact that this beauty parlor was the place that Kang Ra-Eun frequented was enough advertisement for the establishment.
Ra-Eun smiled bitterly from the employees’ comments of sorrow.
“I simply had no reason to visit since I had no shows scheduled besides film shoots. I’ve never visited any other beauty parlor but here.”
“Really? We can trust you, right?”
“Yes, you can.”
She had never expected to become a woman coveted by beauty parlor employees. She was experiencing all kinds of things in her life.
‘Min Ju-Tae didn’t experience something like this.’
It certainly was true that real life was more dynamic than an imaginary world. Ra-Eun had her make-up and hair done for the premiere. The employees couldn’t stop smiling whenever they saw her.
“It feels so good whenever I do make-up for women as pretty as Ra-Eun.”
They felt a strange sense of pleasure as Ra-Eun got more and more beautiful with each touch. Ra-Eun felt like she had become a doll that the employees were playing with whenever she was put in such situations. However, since she knew very well that they had no ill will behind such comments, she simply closed her eyes and fell deep into thought.
After finishing all the preparations, she headed to the premiere venue. Ra-Eun’s expression wasn’t very bright as she wore the dress that Ryu Ha-Yeon had prepared for her.
“What is it, Ra-Eun? Is there something you don’t like about the dress?”
Waiting to be asked such a question, Ra-Eun pointed at her left thigh.
“Isn’t the slit a bit too big?”
She wasn’t wearing stockings nor bloomers. Her bare, smooth left thigh was brazenly visible through the bold side slit.
Despite Ra-Eun’s criticism, Ha-Yeon said with a smile, “Come on. That level of skin exposure is child’s play. And don’t worry. No matter how much you move, there is absolutely no chance that your underwear will be visible at this angle.”
“...”
Ra-Eun naturally thought of someone whenever she looked at Ha-Yeon; the main screenwriter of Reaper, Hwang Yo-Rin. Ra-Eun was made to wear tons of outfits every single episode, to the point that it was no exaggeration to say that Yo-Rin had casted her as the protagonist simply to see her in as many outfits as possible. Ha-Yeon sometimes reflected the same temperament as Yo-Rin, like now for instance.
“Are there any alternatives?” Ra-Eun asked.
“There is.”
As a stylist, Ha-Yeon always prepared alternatives. She asked Ra-Eun to wait and pulled out the substitute dress for her to see.
“What do you think of this?”
This dress had a very deep V-neck instead of a side slit.
As soon as Ra-Eun saw the dress, she answered without a shred of hesitation, “I’ll just go with the one I’m wearing.”
Compared to the dress that Ha-Yeon was holding, the dress that Ra-Eun was wearing started to look wholesome.