Chapter 102
“You didn’t think of that?”
“W-well... we had to cast someone in a hurry.”
Well, I wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize the producer, either.
I hadn’t thought of it, either; I’d just accepted the job and even finished filming.
But once we were actually about to film in the studio, there was no guardian guest I could invite.
Because I had no parents.
The producer told me about several past cast members who had brought people other than their parents to serve as their guardians.
Relatives, siblings, friends or wives who had lived with them, and so on.
Perhaps because the program had been running for so long, those histories were quite varied.
But naturally, every orphaned minor who had appeared had brought only their parents.
I racked my brain and came up with several candidates.
First, the director and teachers at Neulneul Orphanage.
They were the people who knew me best, relatively speaking, but... somehow, I didn’t want to just call them.
Fundamentally, inviting them wouldn’t be very entertaining.
Most of them didn’t know me all that well to begin with, and they were also reluctant to appear on TV.
Other than them... I really didn’t have anyone to invite, did I?
For the past few years, I’d grown up alone in a private room and lived independently, so there wasn’t anyone who knew what I was normally like.
“There really isn’t anyone?”
“I don’t think there is.”
“Uh, oh... What do we do?”
In all the years the program had been running, there had never been an episode where a cast member’s guardian went unrepresented.
They had somehow forced connections and brought someone in, squeezing footage out of them.
Just when it seemed that streak might finally end, the producer came up with an idea.
“Are there any older sisters or brothers at the orphanage you’re close to?”
“Someone I’m close to... Hmm, not really.”
I racked my brain, calling up one name after another in search of someone suitable.
“Th-there is that person, isn’t there?”
“If you mean her... Oh, right.”
“Yes, that dancer!”
Seo Ina, who had been milking the fact that she came from the same orphanage as me for all it was worth.
I’d completely forgotten she existed.
Even after I possessed Seo Si-yeon, she had remained close to me, and she had a certain degree of public recognition as a dancer—in other words, she had the perfect profile for this job.
“Let’s go with Ina unnie. That seems like the best option.”
Well, it wasn’t as though I could resurrect my parents from heaven and bring them here.
For now, this seemed like the best I could do.
Somehow, I felt a little strange, as though she were feeding on my existence and continuing to grow.
* * *
The space called Neulneul Orphanage is definitely large, but at the same time, small.
There are a lot of people and plenty of space, but that also makes it ideal for all kinds of rumors to spread in an instant.
It was much like how a rumor circulating within a military unit would reach every soldier in less than a day.
Neulneul Orphanage is a closed-off place where rumors spread quickly simply because there’s nothing to do.
It was no accident that Seo Si-yeon found out her parents had died.
Kids who had secretly overheard the teachers talking spread the rumor, and Seo Si-yeon learned about it in no time, too.
That was why the residents of Neulneul Orphanage ended up knowing each other far too well.
Good news spread quickly, but so did every dark chapter people would rather keep hidden.
That was why inviting Seo Ina here may have been a mistake.
She was the orphanage’s undisputed social butterfly. She’d watched Seo Si-yeon since she was little and continued to gobble up every rumor circulating around the orphanage.
In other words, she remembered every one of my embarrassing past stories and memories.
The camera caught sight of a teddy bear while I was showing off my room.
“Ah, those bears! Si-yeon got them as a birthday present when she was six. The older girls pooled their money to buy them... She bawled her eyes out when she got them.”
“It’s true, but honestly, I had every reason to cry. Those bears looked so cute to me back then. And you all pooled your money to buy them... Well, it was touching.”
What started as a lighthearted exposé of my past personal life gradually drifted into deeper and deeper territory the longer it went on.
“She was already famous around there. People kept saying there was an incredibly cute girl, so the older kids and her classmates would even step in to stop anyone from trying anything funny with her.”
.
.
“Was it after Singer Star ended? She suddenly changed! She locked herself in her room all day watching anime and recommended it to the other kids like crazy.”
“Honestly, I carefully selected only masterpieces.”
“It was when Si-yeon’s popularity was at its absolute peak... Everyone watched everything Si-yeon recommended, and most of them became otaku.”
Honestly, this was one of my achievements.
Back then, literally everyone watched anime.
The anime marathons we watched together at group viewing parties are still some of my fondest memories.
I wanted to use that momentum to mass-produce otaku at Neulneul Orphanage, but everyone gave up anime once COVID was over.
After the camera spent some time panning over the various figures and manga in my room, the footage cut to me turning on my computer and logging into a game.
“Oh. You like games too, Si-yeon?”
“Yep! I love them.”
This was the point I’d designated as the centerpiece of this shoot.
This was where I planned to play up my image as a female LoL player and make an impression on the viewers.
“What tier are you...?”
“I’m Platinum.”
One of the panelists who knew a little about games looked at me with mild surprise.
“Platinum at your age means you’re pretty good, doesn’t it?”
“Really?”
“Yes. Usually, elementary school students spend their time floundering around that tier.”
“Hehe.”
My shoulders shot up as if they were about to pierce the sky.
Honestly, with a tier this high, I’m allowed to show off a little, aren’t I?
I was still far worse than in my previous life, but inhabiting Platinum with these pathetic fingers was practically a miracle.
Without the knowledge I’d built up in my previous life, I’d have been floundering in a truly hopeless tier.
“Ina, did Si-yeon always like games?”
“Yes. She used to practically live in the computer room on the first floor of the annex. I think she played games with the boys there quite a lot... though I don’t know the details.”
Seo Ina could have left it at that, but she just had to tack on one more thing.
“Hmm. But I heard the game she mainly plays isn’t LoL, but one where you pull anime characters...”
“Unnie, that’s enough.”
“Okay.”
It was fine for them to know I watched anime, but they absolutely couldn’t find out that I played Chinese otaku gacha games.
I’d started because there was nothing to do during COVID, but I still couldn’t quit, and I’d kept maxing out every character that came out... Surely this was my true dark history.
But my real dark history was something else entirely.
Kim Byeol appeared on the screen, looking around as if everything were fascinating.
She was the first of Seo Si-yeon’s school friends ever to appear in the media.
The screen showed me discussing what to do for fun with Kim Byeol.
“Do you have many friends at school?”
“Yes! Of course. Hehe, I have nine friends in my class.”
They were all older than me, technically, but I’d blended in and gotten along with them just fine.
Seeing me like that, one panelist seemed to pick up on something and turned to Seo Ina.
“Did Si-yeon have a lot of friends before, too?”
“No, when her class assignment was announced, Si-yeon whined and cried. She said there weren’t many kids from the orphanage in her class... and that she probably wouldn’t be able to make any friends.”
It was true, but I wasn’t the one who’d cried.
It was Seo Si-yeon, before I possessed her, who had whined and cried because she thought she wouldn’t be able to make any friends (and she really didn’t make a single one and went around alone).
But since I couldn’t exactly say that, I merely shot Seo Ina a venomous glare.
Kim Seol, who had been quietly listening beside us, chimed in as well.
“Come to think of it, you never played with your own friends and always played with us...”
“Urgh.”
That was because, after I possessed her, I couldn’t play with kids my age—we were too far apart mentally.
It absolutely wasn’t because I had no friends.
Fortunately, when my day out with Kim Byeol aired next, the subject shifted to Kim Byeol.
* * *
The stories about my past that I’d gotten Seo Ina to tell were a little embarrassing, but they weren’t particularly important.
Whether I’d whined and cried in the past or been obsessed with games had nothing to do with my music.
If anything, those things weren’t bad material for an entertainer’s past.
In a neighborhood where school bullying and defiance of one’s elders were everyday occurrences, merely sniffling in your room because you had no friends was practically commendable.
The bits about games and anime could even help broaden my fan base.
But the real problem erupted from a completely unexpected angle.
[Had Seo Si-yeon moved?]
-She moved to an insanely nice place... Huh.
-I looked up the sale price, and it’s freaking insane lol
-Does Si-yeon earn that much?
The housing-price topic, the Achilles’ heel of Koreans, which I thought had already passed, had been reignited.