Kang Woojin had come to France for the first time in his life. As he stepped into the arrivals hall at Nice Airport, his face looked no different from usual.
"..."
All of it was an act. But the real Kang Woojin was not calm at all. Inside, he had frozen solid.
Why?
-Flashflashflashflash!!
The instant the doors to the arrivals hall opened, it felt like he had been struck by lightning. He had heard there would be reporters waiting, but the moment journalists from all over the world suddenly appeared right in front of him, Woojin's heart started pounding.
There were hundreds of them.
'Oh my god!! This is actually insane!'
Reporters of all different ethnicities were frantically taking pictures of Kang Woojin. Half of them probably did not even know who he was, but they snapped away anyway, as if taking his picture was simply what they were supposed to do. Either way, it was quite a sight. He had seen this many reporters before, but never with so many foreign journalists mixed in.
Kang Woojin genuinely felt as if he had stepped into another world.
'But why are they taking pictures of me? They probably don't even know who I am.'
The pressure shot through him so violently that his legs nearly locked up. Without even realizing it, he stopped at the entrance of the arrivals hall, and Choi Seonggeon with his ponytail, the team members, and even the bodyguards following Woojin all came to a halt as well.
Choi Seonggeon stepped closer and whispered to him.
"What is it? Want to pose for a few photos? Fine, but let's keep it short if possible."
What was he talking about? It was a complete misunderstanding. Woojin had simply frozen from the pressure, but thanks to Seonggeon snapping him out of it, he gave a blank nod.
-Swish.
He lifted a hand toward the hundreds of reporters. It was an absurdly bold move. But to people who did not know what he was really like, it probably made him look very composed. Right then, Korean reporters among the foreign press started shouting.
"Mr. Woojin!! Mr. Woojin!!!"
"Hello!! Mr. Kang Woojin!! Please look this way!"
"A heart sign!! Can you do a heart sign?!!"
"Please say a word to your fans back home!!"
"Mr. Kang Woojin!! This is your first time at Cannes, right?! How do you feel?!!"
There seemed to be quite a lot of them. Around thirty, maybe? They were shouting desperately from among the foreign reporters. Whether he felt sorry for them or for some other reason, Woojin formed a heart with his hands for them.
Naturally, he did it with a completely serious face.
More spectators started gathering. Even reporters who had stepped away came rushing back. Broadcast crews from multiple countries overseas also began flooding into the airport. It was absolute chaos. Nice Airport, in a word, was overflowing with people.
From a distance, it looked like a swarm of ants.
At that moment, Choi Seonggeon lightly pushed Woojin's back and said,
"Let's move."
Only then did Kang Woojin nod and start walking again. Even as he moved, he muttered inwardly,
'Where even is this? Is this a dream? None of this feels real. My head feels like it's going to explode.'
Keeping up his strong exterior was exhausting enough as it was, and Woojin could barely manage to follow the path the bodyguards had opened for him as he slowly made his way out of the airport. Outside, countless tourists were taking pictures of him on their phones.
In any case, following Choi Seonggeon's guidance, Kang Woojin climbed into the van that had been prepared in advance.
He nearly let out a sigh of relief.
The moment the van doors shut, the two vans, including the one carrying Woojin, took off at high speed. For more than five minutes, there were still people visible outside the window. Only after they had driven for over ten minutes did they finally reach a relatively quieter road.
Only then did Kang Woojin fully realize it.
'Wow, this is seriously insane.'
He had actually set foot in Cannes.
Later.
It took about an hour to drive from Nice Airport to Cannes. Before long, Kang Woojin would arrive there. Dressed in a hoodie, he kept staring out the window without pause. His expression showed little change. It looked full of indifference, but inwardly he was flooded with raw feeling.
'Wow—seriously... no, wow—'
He kept exclaiming inwardly. The reason was simple. The scenery unfolding on the way to Cannes was so beautiful that it left him speechless. The endless sea, the islands visible in the distance, the picturesque beaches, and from time to time, villages that looked like they had been cut straight out of a movie scene.
It all felt like another world.
'Where the hell even is this place?!'
If he had not been acting, Kang Woojin would have been openly buzzing with excitement by then. As an actor, he had traveled to LA, Japan, Bangkok, Vietnam, and a number of other places, but even among them, this place hit him the hardest.
Because of that, he could not take his eyes off the scenery outside.
Every moment felt precious.
Meanwhile, Woojin instinctively thought of one of the skills engraved into him. What was it? Out of all the many languages, it was French. Since he was now in the homeland of French, he figured the need to use it might suddenly arise at any moment.
Right then—
"Woojin."
Sitting right beside him, Choi Seonggeon, who had just tied his hair up again, pointed forward with his index finger.
"We're entering Cannes."
That meant they had arrived at the city where the Cannes Film Festival would be held in all its grandeur. Looking straight ahead, the entrance to a fairly large city came into view. Dense buildings surrounded by the sea and the beach, with roads crowded with cars and people in between.
For a brief moment, Kang Woojin was reminded of an amusement park on Children's Day.
'Wow, holy crap! Was the airport just the warm-up?! Are we really going to make it through this alive?!'
Thanks to the Cannes Film Festival opening later that afternoon, the city of Cannes was already packed with people. The traffic was horrible. No, it was barely crawling. But Kang Woojin had no time to feel bored. There was too much to look at outside.
The whole city looked as though it existed for the sake of the Cannes Film Festival.
About an hour later.
"Ah! Look, look over there!!"
One of the stylists who had attended Cannes the previous year shouted.
"That's where the Cannes Film Festival is held!! Ah! What was it called again?!"
With a faint smile, Choi Seonggeon answered for her.
"The Palais des Festivals."
"Right! That's it!"
The famous Palais des Festivals, where the Cannes Film Festival was held every year.
It was enormous.
There was a giant billboard at the front, and the entire building was covered in glass. Inside the six-story structure were three large halls, six medium-sized halls, and more than twenty small halls. For reference, a huge red carpet would be laid out in front of this Palais des Festivals, and the opening ceremony, closing ceremony, and awards ceremony of the Cannes Film Festival would all take place there.
Also, inside the Palais des Festivals, the enormous Lumière Theater would screen the twenty films selected for the Competition section.
At a glance, it looked as though thousands of people had gathered around the Palais des Festivals.
'Wow, this is seriously something else.'
Since it was one of the central locations of the Cannes Film Festival, more than half the crowd consisted of tourists. They were all busy taking pictures with the Palais des Festivals behind them. The rest were Cannes Film Festival personnel, apparently making the final preparations. Naturally, they were preparing for the festival's opening later that day, and toward the beach, work was already underway on setting up the outdoor screening area.
Reporters and broadcast crews were busy filming, and tourists everywhere were being interviewed. Metal barriers had been installed several meters away from the entrance to the Palais des Festivals, and down the middle of them, a broad red carpet was being laid out.
Watching the entire scene, Choi Seonggeon spoke to Kang Woojin.
"That's the place. When the opening ceremony begins, that's where you'll be walking."
The corners of Choi Seonggeon's mouth looked as though they had nearly reached his ears.
"By then, there'll be at least tens of thousands of people there."
At that exact same moment.
Something enormous was happening overseas.
Especially on the social media account of the global star Miley Cara, who had hundreds of millions of followers.
At the appointed time, she uploaded a new post.
-[Everyone! The teaser for the title track music video from my new album is finally out! You can check it out on my YouTube channel, and the new album will officially be released on October 12...]
Along with the post, she uploaded the album jacket image and the official release date. Cara's new album, the one Kang Woojin had participated in, was set to release on October 12, roughly ten days later. In any case, the post was instantly flooded with massive numbers of likes and comments.
It was updating every second.
It was almost like a bombing raid.
For someone with hundreds of millions of followers all over the world, that was only natural. What was interesting was that among the comments written in all sorts of languages, the name Kang Woojin appeared here and there. The fact that a Korean actor had participated in the production of Cara's new album was already a hot topic among her enormous fandom.
And now, Cara's YouTube channel was overflowing with traffic.
The music video teaser that had just been uploaded had already passed several hundred thousand views. At that rate, it looked certain to cross one million views in only a few minutes.
The teaser itself was fifteen seconds long.
After the title of Cara's new album appeared at the beginning, the chorus of the title track played very briefly, and Cara appeared in several different outfits. Then, near the end of the video, a piano melody suddenly flowed in.
-♬♪
Then, for about two seconds, Korean actor Kang Woojin appeared seated at a piano. It was an unbelievably short moment, but Kang Woojin would probably be the first and last Korean actor ever to participate in an album by an artist of Cara's level in this way.
Because normally, no actor would possess the ability needed to contribute to an album by an artist of her stature.
Comments in all kinds of languages poured in like a flood.
And naturally, Cara's fans scattered all over the world began rushing to Kang Woojin's YouTube channel and social media. As a result, Woojin's subscriber count, in a word, started skyrocketing.
It was something beyond imagination.
Meanwhile, inside a plane in mid-flight—
the destination of that plane was Korea.
The aircraft heading to Korea was filled with the Beneficial Evil production team. Not only PD Song Manwoo with the heavy dark circles under his eyes, but writer Choi Nana, Executive Director Kim Sohyang, and more than a hundred staff members were all on their way back after completing the overseas location shoot.
Half of them were dozing.
The other half were deep in conversation.
"Whew, time really flew by. I still can't believe the Bangkok shoot ended this fast."
"It's probably because the entire shoot was insanely intense. From Miley... no, from 'her' appearing to Mr. Woojin's long-take filming, all of it was like that."
"Ah, but seriously, Mr. Woojin's action scenes were unbelievable. They were incredible."
"And his chemistry with her was absolutely perfect too, right?"
Kang Woojin was the central figure of the staff's conversation.
At that point, writer Choi Nana adjusted her round glasses and asked PD Song Manwoo, who was sitting beside her,
"PD-nim, Mr. Woojin must be causing quite a stir in Cannes by now, right?"
He turned his head from the script he had been reading with tired eyes.
"Probably. He'll be insanely busy."
"...Whew, he must be exhausted. He went there right after filming ended, didn't he?"
"He had to arrive in time for the opening day. It's a global event. He couldn't be late."
After muttering to himself, PD Song Manwoo suddenly found himself recalling the first time he had met Kang Woojin. He had been the director who first discovered Woojin when he stepped into the entertainment world. And now, he found Woojin's current situation rather astonishing.
"It feels like just yesterday that he was at the preliminary round for Super Actor*. That arrogant monster I saw back then has now reached a point where arrogance doesn't even matter anymore. He's standing shoulder to shoulder with global actors now."*
Writer Choi Nana rubbed her arms.
"Ugh, I've got goosebumps."
Seeing her reaction, PD Song Manwoo laughed and then changed the subject.
"Jang Yeonwoo may be stepping away for a bit, but we need to hurry the shooting schedule along. And Executive Director, you too."
"Hm? Me?"
Kim Sohyang, who had been sitting several seats away sending messages to someone, turned at Song Manwoo's call.
"I wanted to ask you something about the Beneficial Evil project. Would it be possible to split the release into two parts?"
"...What exactly do you mean by split in two?"
"I mean, how about dividing it into two parts? Release the twelve episodes as six and six, with a gap in between."
"Ah."
"It wouldn't be exactly the same concept as season one and season two."
He closed the script he had been looking at and continued explaining.
"Compared to the original production environment of Beneficial Evil*, a lot has changed. The action scenes, the close combat, the script, even the fact that 'she' joined the casting."*
"That's true."
"Pre-production is basically a given already. In my opinion, instead of releasing all twelve episodes at once, it would be better to finish filming and editing episodes one through six as quickly as possible and release them first. Then, after the first part is released, we can resume filming episodes seven through twelve."
"Hmm, so you're saying we should release the first six episodes as one batch first?"
"Exactly. And besides, it's practically impossible to keep 'her' involvement secret for long. It's definitely going to leak somewhere."
Kim Sohyang, Executive Director of Netflix Korea, replied,
"So the core of your proposal, PD-nim, is that you want to move up the scheduled release date for Beneficial Evil*, right? You want to push the release forward?"*
"Exactly."
"Not eliminate the second half entirely, but release the first six episodes first and delay the back half. So the release schedule would be moved up quite a bit."
"No, actually, a lot."
PD Song Manwoo held his thumb and index finger apart by about the size of a fist, then cut that distance in half.
"That's right. By simple calculation, the total schedule gets shortened by half."
Cut in half?
That meant the time until launch would be reduced significantly.
At PD Song Manwoo's sudden suggestion, Kim Sohyang stroked her chin and smiled.
"...That's actually pretty tempting."