Chapter 42

- They are such horrible people. That's the same on M site. These people are slowly crawling out from under the ground.

"That's what I'm saying! It's going to be cold soon, they should just stay underground. I don't know why they're crawling out. Genie is someone who gets shy very easily, and he's surprisingly naive and innocent. Why are they trying to nitpick on him!

- I know, I know! I still vividly remember what Genie looked like every time we passed by TM's headquarters. Back in his trainee days, Genie would blush and smile brightly whenever he saw us.

Ma Do-Hee fell for Genie's looks back then and remained as his fan up until now. Ma Do-Hee had started her journey as an idol fangirl. The moment she had laid eyes on Chae Woo-Jin, she knew that she had reached the final destination of her journey. Woo-Jin would be the last idol that she would chase.

- I'll look into it and if it's true, I'll tell the Fancafe members to reveal all the information and stories about Genie that they've been hiding so far.

"Stories?"

- There are quite a number of Fancafe members who have personally seen how Genie acted in real life. We're afraid that he would not like it if we behave too much like sasaeng fans, so there are quite a few stories that only we know about which we have kept hidden from everyone else.

When Woo-Jin was in the military, regardless of how hard they looked for him, he could not be seen walking down the streets. However, stories about his sightings started to increase within Wish Baragi after he had been discharged from the military. Due to his striking appearance, there were quite a number of instances where they had spotted him walking through the crowd by chance. Even though they were unsure because they could not confirm his identity, the members of Wish Baragi guessed that he had been in the military during his period of absence due to his shaved head.

Thereafter, some of them had found out by chance through an acquaintance, who was part of the movie production crew, that Woo-Jin was shooting a movie. Although they called him Choi Woo-Jin while the acquaintance referred to him as Chae Woo-Jin, it was fortunate that neither of them noticed the difference in pronunciation. As such, they were able to hold a poll to open the Fancafe to the public just in time for the release of Death Hill.

Before the premiere of Death Hill, since Woo-Jin roamed around in public more usual because of CEO Jang's instructions, quite a couple of Wish Baragi members managed to catch a glimpse of him. However, they did not want to look like stalkers, nor did they want to give Woo-Jin unnecessary pressure. Thus, they disguised themselves to look like normal passers-by. Because of that, it was difficult for them to openly talk about their experiences.

When the Fancafe was still a private group, they had uploaded and shared most of the photos, as well as what they had seen or heard. But before they opened up the Fancafe to the public, they had deleted most of those posts, leaving only a few behind. After the mass cleanup of their Fancafe page, most of the posts depicting Woo-Jin's life were deleted. Afterwards, when they saw him, they pretended to not see him; when they heard information about him, they pretended that they didn't know anything. They did their best to ensure that they did not cross the line.

After ending the conversation with Hwang Yi-Young, Ma Do-Hee sent a group text to the Wish Baragi admins. In less than an hour, they had confirmed that everything Hwang Yi-Young had said was true, and decided on a flawless, systematic course of action. From that evening onwards, eyewitness accounts began appearing on Wish Baragi's Fancafe page, quietly developing a new public image of Woo-Jin.

Out of the multiple stories that were shared on the page, the highlight was the story of Woo-Jin going to the convenience store with his sister and buying a bunch of snacks. Since it was posted shortly after deciding not to involve Woo-Jin's family too much, the poster was extra careful with her words.

The post went like this: The author started off by saying that her friend informed her that Chae Woo-Jin and his sister were at the convenience store that she was working at. The author didn't really believe it, so she went to check the CCTV footage and confirmed that it was indeed Woo-Jin. She also explained that the high-performance CCTV camera had perfectly captured Woo-Jin's face, and that her friend just so happened to be doing a voice recording for personal reasons. She happened to record Woo-Jin's voice in the recording as well.

After explaining the whole story, although the author did not upload the entire footage and recording, she uploaded the snapshot of the footage and the voice recording with only Chae Woo-Jin's voice to the Fancafe. The author had even described the conversation between Woo-Jin and his sister, which she had heard from her friend, in detail. He was an older brother who was very attentive and caring towards his younger sister. He took care of her and was worried about her. Such dynamics between siblings were absent in most families. If not for the voice recording, she would not have believed it herself.

Since Woo-Jin kept a low profile, it was extremely rare for fans to be able to hear his voice. Even though there was a chance that the snapshot of the CCTV footage and the voice recording could be fake, the fans were happy and grateful for them. After they saw how innocent Woo-Jin was while teasing his sister, as well as how kind and affectionate he was towards her, all the new fans erased the prejudice that they had against Woo-Jin.

For those who only knew Woo-Jin after looking at his recent work, they had already established an image of him from what they saw. Hence, they had initially thought Woo-Jin had a strong personality and was slightly rude. Seeing Woo-Jin's true self caught them off guard as it was completely unexpected and beyond their imaginations. However, their image of him being ruined was not a bad thing, so they accepted it positively.

Needless to say, the fan who wrote the post did not have a friend who ran a convenience store, because she herself was the so-called friend in the story who had personally seen Woo-Jin. She was a foolish fan who froze up when she saw Chae Woo-Jin before her eyes. Thus, she missed the golden opportunity that was given to her to ask for an autograph as well as to take a photo with him. If not for the high-performance CCTV camera as well as the fact that she was reading and recording a novel for her grandmother who had a bad vision to listen to, she would not have been able to get anything from her encounter with Woo-Jin. She might have to spend the rest of her life regretting it.

Was she being rewarded by the heavens for doing a rare act of filial piety towards her grandmother? As someone who was not a muggle, she got lucky. However, as Woo-Jin's fan, there are rules that she had to follow to protect his privacy and his family. Hence, she did not share this story with anyone with the exception of a few members of Wish Baragi, who had been her close friends for a long time. She knew what she had to do to protect Woo-Jin and his family, and if it were not for the group text that she had received, she would not have shared her story.

There were other members who were in the same situation. It was not that they did not have any news about Woo-Jin. On the contrary, despite knowing something, several fans had worked hard to stay in line to respect his privacy. However, the moment when theories that were defaming Woo-Jin surfaced, they immediately took action.

Even so, they did not confront the people who had openly criticized Chae Woo-Jin because they knew the entertainment industry well enough to not do something foolish like causing conflicts and indirectly aggravating the spread of baseless rumors. Instead, they would only post their own factual accounts.

Within a few days, stories about Chae Woo-Jin's sightings started appearing on Wish Baragi's Fancafe site. They uploaded photos of him taking the bus alone, and other photos of him at the grocery store. In one of the posts, a member flaunted an autograph which she had gotten from Woo-Jin three years ago. Next to his autograph, Woo-Jin had written 'This is the first autograph I have signed in my life'. The post caused a stir among the members of the Fancafe.

As the posts written by his longtime fans started to surface, the newer members also started to share their experiences. Initially, they were still cautious, but gradually, they got comfortable and jumped onto the bandwagon, writing their stories. There was a member who talked about how she saw Chae Woo-Jin going to school to apply for reinstatement with his friend and eating at a restaurant nearby, and posted the photos she had taken of him that day. Another member posted a photo they had taken in April of Woo-Jin and a man, whom someone had pointed out was a famous casting director, allowing them to guess which day it was. Perhaps, for Chae Woo-Jin as an actor, it was a memento of a special day in his career, hence, that photo was very precious.

One member even said that Chae Woo-Jin was tutoring her younger sister, but her mother fired him immediately after seeing his face. Back then, it was a reasonable decision. But now, she would complain about it to her mother, and they would share a good laugh over it.

All of the photos that were posted alongside their stories had something in common - Chae Woo-Jin's bright smile. The intense and arrogant look he had in the movie and the photos from the magazine photo shoot was nowhere to be found. The posts in Wish Baragi's Fancafe were reposted on other community sites, which attracted people's attention.

The members of Wish Baragi had decided on the concept. It was an undeniable fact that Chae Woo-Jin was a good-looking man; while capitalizing on that, they wanted to build up his image as a family man. Naturally, there were comments arguing how he looked cold and unaffectionate, but they did not have much of an impact. Based on the CCTV footage and the voice recording taken at the convenience store; the ringtone which Woo-Jin played for his sister to record; and buying a comic book for her, there was no way that Woo-Jin could be a cold and unaffectionate person.

Additionally, they had refuted comments that said Woo-Jin was arrogant during the photoshoot by explaining that he was very good at acting. In the beginning of the behind-the-scenes video with Kwon Eun-Mi, Woo-Jin did mention that he would go into acting mode, which he did. They asserted that because he was very good at acting, his charisma would not only be seen in videos, but in pictures as well. The original members were meticulous and systematic while refuting these comments. Following their code of conduct helped them control their emotions and they did not overreact or get overly excited, nor were they irritated by negative comments.

The new members who had joined Wish Baragi because of Chae Woo-Jin's good looks for the fun of it were gradually being influenced by the original members. The original members had already managed to convince those who were originally anti-fans of Blue Fit and TM to fall for Chae Woo-Jin's charms, so it was not difficult for them to sway the members who had already been enamored by his good looks. These casual fans would wake up one day and realize that they had become passionate fans of Chae Woo-Jin.

***

"Isn't it time for him to do variety shows or other interviews?

The photo shoot and interview Woo-Jin had done for Biltman was very well-received. The manager of the planning department of DS, Song Yi-Hwan, had immediately come up with a road map for Woo-Jin.

"It's still too early for variety shows. Don't you know that creating a persona on variety shows would spell the end of his acting career?" CEO Jang predicted that if Woo-Jin went on a variety show, he would not return to the big screen. He was worried that if he were to go on a variety show and do whatever he was told to do, he would create a likable persona because he would be too good at it.

"In that case, what about an interview? It's hard to refuse every single interview request. Because of how great Biltman's interview went, interview requests are flooding in from other magazines." They would be lucky if it was only a request and nothing more. There were even complaints questioning why they were turned down.

"Accept the interview requests after Glooming Day is released. It's ridiculous to get interviewed over and over again for one movie."

"The movie is going to be a flop though, is that going to be okay?"

While interest in Woo-Jin was growing day by day, she felt that the premiere of Glooming Day was akin to pouring water on a raging fire. Song Yi-Hwan felt that Woo-Jin should be actively exposed to the media and public beforehand to increase public awareness to a certain degree.

"Yesterday, The Supreme Witch said that she cried after watching the final version of the film because it was so good."

"But her taste in films..."

"No, she has never acted this way before. Even though they were films that she liked, there were several instances where she did not finish watching them. She said that this was the first time where a film had managed to capture and express the scenes that she had pictured when formulating the script. Even if it was not going to be a box office hit, you can be sure that it won't be a disappointing film."

Even though the Supreme Witch did not have the best taste in films, her evaluations were always objective and accurate. If not, she would not be this successful in the entertainment business.