Chapter 27

27. VIP Preview

Sujin walked confidently down the short red carpet, which led to the photo zone, holding Seooh tightly in her arms. She stood up straight, lifted her chin slightly, and wore a relaxed smile, while...

She asked Seooh to wave.

“Seooh, say hello. Hello~”

Seooh, the little gentleman in a tuxedo, smiled widely in Sujin’s arms and waved both hands.

“Hello~!”

As Seooh waved, the cheers grew louder.

“Squeal~! So cute~! So beautiful!”

“Look this way! This way! Baby! Look here once more~!”

“I’ll watch the movie three times just to see you~! Squeal~!”

Sujin approached a young female fan who was jumping and shouting. Sujin took the fan’s phone, took a pretty selfie with herself and Seooh, and then returned the phone.

“Squeal! Thank you!”

“Make sure to watch the movie~”

“Yes! I’ll watch it three times!”

After providing fan service, Sujin turned around to let more people see Seooh and then walked up to the photo zone. The red carpet event was already buzzing with excitement thanks to Sujin’s stunning beauty and Seooh’s overwhelming cuteness.

As the actors and director started the event, other well-known faces followed one by one.

The fans cheered every time a celebrity appeared.

Reporters were busy taking photos to post on the internet.

Click! Click! Click!

A little while later.

The preview for VIP members and celebrities began.

The lights in the screening room went out.

On the screen, the sequel to the hit movie from 10 years ago, "Too Scary for Me," titled "Too Scary for My Wife," started playing.

Everyone watched the screen with eager expressions.

* * *

The director and actors went into the waiting room.

They were going to wait there until the movie ended.

“Right. The two of you haven’t seen the movie yet, right?”

Director Lee Han-soo asked Hyun-ju and Jeong-tae’s mother.

It was a given.

When Hyun-ju and Jeong-tae’s mother nodded, Director Lee Han-soo said,

“Do you want to leave the kids and go see it?”

Jeong-tae’s mother answered immediately.

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

Jeong-tae’s mother really wanted to see the movie.

She was very curious about how much screen time Jeong-tae had and how much editing had been done.

In contrast, Hyun-ju, a long-time fan of the movie, hesitated.

She really wanted to see the movie, but she felt guilty about leaving her 18-month-old baby to watch it.

“Can I go and watch it with Seooh?”

At Hyun-ju’s words, Director Lee Han-soo scratched his head.

“Hmm, if the baby cries or anything... it might disturb the other guests... But since it’s Seooh, it should be fine, right? I don’t know. Go ahead. If there’s a problem, you can come out then.”

Hyun-ju, who had become gloomy at the fake refusal, smiled brightly.

“Thank you.”

“No problem. Do you want to watch it with Jeong-tae, Jeong-tae’s mother?”

Director Lee Han-soo asked Jeong-tae’s mother out of courtesy.

But Jeong-tae’s mother shook her head.

“No, I prefer to watch it alone. I can’t concentrate if I watch it with the kid.”

“Ah… Okay…”

“Haha, Jeong-tae, I’ll go watch the movie, so have fun here with actors Sujin and Han-soo, and Director Lee.”

This way, she could enjoy the movie and give her son another chance to be adored.

It was a win-win situation.

Hyun-ju, Seooh, and Jeong-tae’s mother followed the staff to the screening room.

The staff led them to empty seats in the corner of the room.

“I’m sorry, these are the only seats available…”

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

Hyun-ju bowed to the staff and sat down with Seooh.

The movie had already started.

“Seooh, this is your first time in a movie theater, right? You have to be quiet. Got it?”

Hyun-ju whispered to Seooh.

However, once they entered, she worried that the screen and sound might be too intense for Seooh.

She had momentarily forgotten this feeling since it had been a while since she last visited a movie theater.

“…”

This won’t do.

Hyun-ju stood up with Seooh.

“Jeong-tae’s mother, I’ll just go.”

“Huh? Why? Aren’t you going to watch it?”

“The screen is brighter and the sound is louder than I thought…”

“Because of Seooh?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I get it. But… hey, look. Is Seooh sleeping?”

“Huh?”

Just a moment ago, Seooh was staring at the screen with wide eyes.

But now, he had his eyes closed and his face buried in his mother’s arms.

“Sleeping? Just sit and watch. You said you really wanted to see the movie. A sleeping baby isn’t very noisy.”

Seooh, with his soft lips, made a snoring sound.

If his mother left, he wouldn’t be able to watch the movie.

Seooh’s desire to see the movie was no less than his mother’s.

‘I need to check how my performance turned out.’

He decided to pretend to sleep and secretly watch the movie.

Hyun-ju gently covered Seooh’s ears with her hands and carefully sat back down to avoid waking him.

This was how Seooh’s first movie theater experience began.

The biggest hindrance to Seooh’s movie-watching experience was not the brightness of the screen or the volume of the sound, but the perfume smell from Jeong-tae’s mother sitting next to him.

‘…At least it’s a bit lighter than before. Should I be grateful for that? Ugh.’

At first, it kept bothering her, but as the movie progressed, she surprisingly, really surprisingly, forgot about it.

Director Lee Han-soo’s direction and Sujin’s acting pushed the perfume smell out of her mind.

“Sniff… Sniff…”

Hyun-ju was crying.

Jeong-tae’s mother took a tissue from her bag and handed it to her.

“Thank you.”

Hyun-ju whispered and took the tissue.

However, when she glanced at Jeong-tae’s mother, her expression was a bit scary.

Jeong-tae’s mother was grinning.

Despite the very sad scene in the movie.

When Jeong-tae’s mother noticed Hyun-ju staring at her, she patted Hyun-ju’s shoulder.

“You know it’s a sad scene, right? But… Jeong-tae appears more than I thought. I thought he would be cut out completely. This is the most important thing to me.”

“Yes, yes.”

Jeong-tae didn’t appear much throughout the movie, but he did show up a few times when the family was together.

Jeong-tae’s mother, who had completely emptied her heart over the past few months after the filming ended, seemed satisfied with this.

She had given up the unrealistic desire to make Jeong-tae a child star with this movie and instead decided to focus on gaining experience through this movie.

Thanks to this, she had the leisure to applaud Seooh’s performance.

She acknowledged that Seooh was better than Jeong-tae.

“Seooh is in it. Oh, he’s really cute.”

Jeong-tae’s mother praised Seooh every time he appeared.

So, Hyun-ju had to praise Jeong-tae every time he appeared.

Seooh listened to Jeong-tae’s mother’s praise with one ear and, without his mother knowing, half-opened his eyes to carefully watch his scenes.

It was a scene where Sujin, wearing a baby carrier, came to the Han River and called her husband, Taesu, who had run away to his in-laws with their first child.

As the couple’s argument spiraled deeper into a quagmire, Seooh appeared.

As if trying to stop the fight, Seooh, in the baby carrier, called out to his father with a sad face.

From the front row, a few audience members whispered.

“Oh, is the baby acting? How can he find his father so accurately? He’s so smart.”

“Wow, he’s really cute. His face is so beautiful. It’s completely different from when he’s babbling. But both are so cute.”

“Look at the baby’s eyes. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?”

He was a scene-stealer.

Every time he appeared, he clearly drew the audience’s reaction.

‘I did pretty well, didn’t I?’

Seooh was quite satisfied with the scene.

It was good.

When Seooh called out to his father, the couple’s argument subsided.

Sujin still looked angry but looked down at Seooh and sniffled, and Taesu, hearing the child’s voice calling for his father and his wife’s sniffles, started to cry over the phone.

The movie moved from the middle to the end.

The couple, who had been constantly bickering, finally confirmed their love and realized the importance of family, as is typical in romantic comedies.

They headed to the airport for a family trip.

This was the ending scene that Seooh had filmed last at the airport.

The audience watched the couple, who had become parents, have a child, fight endlessly in the face of reality, and then hold hands and go on a trip, with warm smiles and happy faces.

And—

The movie, which had made the audience laugh and cry for 2 hours, bid farewell to them with Seooh’s clear, innocent laugh.

As the end credits rolled, beautiful family photos appeared one by one.

Among them was a photo of Sujin and Seooh taken at Seooh’s actual first birthday party.

Some audience members shed tears, moved by the aftertaste of the movie.

It was clearly a happy ending, yet somehow they were crying.

Some recalled what kind of life they were living 10 years ago, and others imagined what kind of life they would be living 10 years from now.

The return of the two couples, who were scary but cute, after 10 years, was… a huge success.

* * *

The actors’ stage greetings continued.