Summer break had finally ended. It had been a while since Kang Ra-Eun headed to school, and wearing a school uniform felt as weird as it had been a few months ago.

The thing that she could not get used to the most was the uniform skirt. Since she had not worn a skirt during her entire summer break except during drama shoots, she could not help but feel uncomfortable because of the breeze between her legs.

‘I’ll get used to it soon enough like before if I keep wearing it.’

She decided to trust her adaptability again.

It was 8:10 AM. Ra-Eun put on her backpack and headed to her older brother’s room. She clicked her tongue as she saw Kang Ra-Hyuk, who was still away in his dream world, only in his underwear due to the hot weather.

“Hey, get up,” said Ra-Eun as she poked at Ra-Hyuk’s side with her foot.

“Wh-What the...”

Ra-Eun complained at Ra-Hyuk who had barely opened his eyes, “You should be getting ready before the stock market opens. Review the information that I wrote down as well.”

“...You still haven’t gone to school yet?” Ra-Hyuk asked.

“I’m about to go now, what of it?”

“Sigh, are you my mom or something?”

His little sister’s nagging had gotten more frequent as time passed. Ra-Hyuk barely managed to get out of bed after Ra-Eun forced him out of his dream world. Since he had woken up, he headed to the front door to see his little sister out, but Ra-Eun stopped him while glaring at him.

“Don’t come out. I don’t want people spreading rumors that there’s a lunatic who goes around only in his underwear living here,” Ra-Eun remarked.

“I know. Who said I was gonna go outside? I’m just seeing you out.”

Ra-Hyuk had common sense, and it was not like he had confidence in his body. But even so, since he did not have an exhibition fetish, he wore a T-shirt that was rolling around on the floor.

“Have a safe trip,” he said.

“Text me anytime if you have any questions while trading stocks.”

“Yeah, I got it.”

Ra-Eun was able to observe Ra-Hyuk during the break, but she did not have the leeway anymore now that school had resumed. She was a bit anxious, but she had no choice but to leave it all to Ra-Hyuk since she could not skip school to go all-in on stock trading.

‘Well, I’m sure he can handle it.’

Ra-Hyuk was not a child, after all.

***

Ra-Eun could feel the strange air as she passed through the school gates. Actually, it was not the air, but rather the gazes.

“That’s Kang Ra-Eun, the one who appeared in The Devil’s Touch, right?”

“Was there really someone that pretty in our school?”

“That’s crazy; she’s so hot.”

Because Ra-Eun had instantly become a school celebrity from a drama appearance, the gazes of the students all shifted to her. She couldn’t wear sunglasses in school, so she was in quite the predicament.

In times like this...

‘I should go to my classroom as quickly as possible.’

She quickened her gait.

***

Ra-Eun had thought that things would be fine as long as she was in her classroom, but that was not the case at all.

“Ra-Eun! Have you met Sung Wu-Jeong? What’s he like? Is he more handsome in person?”

“What about Ji Han-Seok oppa? Do you have any selfies with him?”

“What did the set look like? Could you show us pictures if you took any?”

It was absolute chaos. Ra-Eun was nothing more than a relatively popular girl in school before the break, but her status had been elevated one level higher after her drama appearance.

Ra-Eun’s expression stiffened in a flash.

“Shut up and go back to your seats,” she muttered.

Even if she had become a promising rookie actress, her personality was the same as before. Once things had calmed down after Ra-Eun finally pulled away from her classmates, Seo Yi-Seo approached her.

“Weren’t there lots of people who recognized you on your way here? The school was in an uproar talking about you,” Yi-Seo mentioned.

Ra-Eun did not like people paying attention to her very much, which was also the case back when she was Park Geon-Woo. Her bad mood worsened after checking a text from Chief Jung.

[Ra-Eun, Yu-Bin is going to come pick you up after school, so let’s talk in my office, okay?]

‘What’s he gonna say this time?’

Chief Jung had been unusually quiet lately, but he contacted her as soon as school had resumed. She did not know what he wanted to talk about, but...

‘I’ll turn down any weird offers.’

Ra-Eun had strengthened her resolution.

***

School had ended early because it was the first day. Just like she had been notified, the car that she had ridden to travel to drama shoots was parked right in front of the school gates. The window rolled down, which Shin Yu-Bin then poked her head out of.

“Ra-Eun! You heard from Chief Jung, right? Get in.”

Ra-Eun lightly sighed and got in without a word. The students who had witnessed the scene from afar could only watch as they thought, ‘As expected of a celebrity.’

As she turned the steering wheel, Yu-Bin said with a smirk, “Aren’t you quite the school celebrity now?”

“They’re just fascinated that there’s someone in their school who appeared in a popular drama with high view ratings,” Ra-Eun expressed.

“That’s true, but aren’t you pretty popular in school? I’m sure you get tons of love confessions.”

Yu-Bin’s guess was very accurate. Even today, there was a love letter from someone in her desk drawer, saying that they liked her and wanted to confess. But of course, Ra-Eun had completely ignored it.

“It’s just a hassle to turn them down,” said Ra-Eun.

“Yeah. Director Son thinks highly of you, and I hear that those in other broadcasting stations are also paying close attention to you, so you should focus on showbiz instead of getting a boyfriend, okay?”

Ra-Eun hated both the thoughts of getting a boyfriend and focusing on show business. She had only one goal, and that was to take her revenge against Congressman Kim Han-Gyo. Continuing show business was nothing more than a part of that goal.

“By the way, why does Chief Jung want to see me today?” Ra-Eun asked.

“He said he had something to tell you,” Yu-Bin replied.

“What does he want to tell me exactly?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll have to find out with you.”

Not even Yu-Bin knew, as if Chief Jung was telling them to come to him if they wanted to find out.

***

Chief Jung had taken them to a meeting room in the GNF agency, and brought a bundle of papers after asking them to wait for a bit. It looked similar to a movie or drama script.

“What’s this?” Ra-Eun asked.

“Information regarding a music video shoot,” Chief Jung answered.

“A music video?”

“Yup. As for whose music video... Don’t be surprised, Ra-Eun...” Chief Jung then said in a higher tone, “You know Rita, right? She’s releasing a new single, and she wants to appoint you as a protagonist in the music video!”

Rita. She was a singer who Ra-Eun knew very well. In her past life, Rita was the most popular and successful singer in Korea, who also did acting on the side.

Currently in 2010, she was a rookie singer who had only debuted two years ago, but she had continuously walked the path of stardom without any periods of anonymity since her debut. It was certainly a surprise, since such a person wanted to have Ra-Eun play the role of heroine in her music video after only having appeared three times in a drama. However...

“I won’t do it,” Ra-Eun flatly refused.

“Y-You won’t? Why?!” Chief Jung exclaimed.

“Because I don’t want to.”

“You haven’t even looked at the script!”

“It doesn’t matter. I won’t do it anyway.”

“...”

Ra-Eun had no desire to succeed as a celebrity. All she needed was simply to make points of contact with Ji Han-Seok.

Chief Jung felt pent-up by Ra-Eun’s response. There were countless celebrities wanting to star in Rita’s music video; the songstress had been in the limelight as of late. Ra-Eun was trying to drop-kick a lucky charm that had rolled her way.

“O-Okay, then at least take a look at the script, okay? No, please take a look! I beg of you!”

“...”

After coming all this way, Ra-Eun had no choice. Since there weren’t that many lines, she could just skim through its contents.

Flutter—

After quickly going through the contents of the script, Ra-Eun answered, “I won’t do it.”

As expected, her decision did not change.

“Could you at least tell me why?” Chief Jung asked.

“I don’t like the outfits. I will never wear a skirt. Also, I’ll never do any skinship[1] with a man, not even hand-holding. I don’t want to do aegyo, smile brightly, or anything like that either. And of course, I won’t do any revealing scenes. They can forget starring me without these conditions.”

In other words, she did not want to star in it. Chief Jung deeply sighed and said, “Well... for now, okay. I’ll summarize your conditions and try sending it to them.”

“Do it. I’m sure they’ll say no,” Ra-Eun dared Chief Jung.

That was exactly what she had wanted.

***

On the next day, Ra-Eun received an unexpected call from Chief Jung as she was walking home with Yi-Seo after school.

- R-Ra-Eun!

“What is it now?”

- They decided to accept every single one of your conditions!

Ra-Eun reflexively cursed, “For fuck’s sake.”

She had never expected them to accept.