I'm an Unknown Actress, But Everyone Knows Me

* * *

“Good heavens. How embarrassing....”

At Huijae’s stubborn insistence that she would escort her home, the woman had no choice but to invite Huijae into her dilapidated house.

It was a collapsing shack where countless people were living together.

Everywhere the eye landed, there were stains of something unidentifiable. It could hardly be called a house.

The sour stench made Huijae instinctively raise a hand to cover her mouth—then she hurriedly lowered it again.

“I’ve got nothing to treat a guest with. And you even brought me home.”

“No, it’s alright. Really.”

Huijae stood awkwardly in a place where there wasn’t even a proper spot to sit.

From behind her, someone lifted the shack’s flap and stepped inside.

“You didn’t go to work? Oh my... who—”

A woman whose hair had now turned completely white, whose face carried wrinkles as deep as the years that had passed.

The woman who had once given Huijae her Joseon name.

She looked at Huijae with wary eyes—eyes suspicious of someone who clearly did not belong in a place like this.

“Aunt! It’s Miss Hanamura! Don’t you remember?”

“Hanamura...?”

Huijae’s heart swelled with joy. She quickly grabbed the woman’s rough, grime-stained hands.

“It’s me. Huijae.”

Warmth flowed from their clasped hands. Huijae’s bright smile. The voice that now spoke Joseon words without hesitation.

The woman’s memory returned immediately.

“Oh heavens! My goodness. My goodness....”

“...Have you... been well?”

It was an awkward greeting.

After all, surviving day by day in this place—where the stench stabbed the nose—could never truly be called “living well.”

Even so, Huijae asked exactly as the language textbook the woman had once given her had taught.

She asked if she had been well.

“We’ve been well enough. After you left like that, we worried so much about how you were living—but seeing your face like this makes me so happy!”

“Aunt! Who is it?”

“Get outside, son! It’s noisy enough already!”

“Unni....”

Before long, people began appearing around the noisy shack.

A tiny girl, barely reaching Huijae’s knees, approached and touched her hand.

The Joseon people were still so warm-hearted.

People who lived each day faithfully, without shame.

But then why—

Why did these people have to live in a place like this?

Seeing such raw poverty for the first time, Huijae’s mind became tangled with confusion.

* * *

“Um....”

Wearing a white slip nightgown, Huijae hesitated as she walked toward the bed.

Taejin, who had been reading with the bedside lamp on, lifted his gaze kindly.

“What is it?”

“...”

“Have you come to ask me for something?”

Taejin closed his book with a playful smile.

Huijae approached the husband who lightly tapped the empty space beside him, and she carefully sat on the edge of the bed.

“How rich are you?”

At the sudden question, Taejin burst out laughing.

His wife seemed a little sulky at his reaction. Finding that adorable, he brushed her hair aside and rubbed her cheek with the back of his hand.

“That is the wrong question. You should ask how rich you are, not I. Everything I have belongs to you.”

Huijae’s expression softened at his words.

Only then did she gather the courage to say what she wanted.

“I want to help people.”

Huijae told him everything that had happened that day.

That she had hit a woman with her car, and it turned out to be the same girl and woman who had once suffered misfortune in Jinhae because of her.

That those women were now living in poverty.

That she wanted to help them.

“That works out well,” Taejin said calmly. “We happen to be short of people to help with the house. Perhaps this is also fate.”

“...Is it?”

“Your heart is kind, so perhaps fate has returned an old connection to you.”

Taejin lifted Huijae’s hand to his lips.

He kissed each of her fingers in a familiar, affectionate gesture.

But Huijae bit her lip.

He was a good husband. A fine man.

And yet...

“Yes. Let’s do that.”

Something stirred inside Huijae’s heart.

Not a person.

She wanted to help people.

* * *

The next morning, Huijae woke before Taejin and picked up that day’s newspaper from the entrance.

She was about to place it on the table with a cup of coffee for him to read.

That was when she saw it.

Taeseok’s face was printed on the front page.

“Great Success Began When He Held the M-1 Garand Rifle”

[A poor man from Jinhae creates a rags-to-riches legend...]

Huijae read the newspaper with a serious expression, thinking deeply about something.

Behind her, Taejin had already woken up.

But he simply watched her.

—

“Wait, did she realize something?”

“Just looking at Taejin makes me feel miserable for him... damn, he’s such a perfect husband.”

“Please let Huijae remain a saint character until the end, Seokhwan.”

“ㄴ In the original she ran over the cheating woman with a car, but since they’re twisting it differently now, Huijae will probably stay a saint character.”

—

Taejin said nothing.

He made no particular expression.

He simply watched his wife quietly.

Over Huijae’s small shoulder, Taeseok’s smiling face from the newspaper met Taejin’s gaze.

A few days later, Taeseok received a phone call.

From the person he had waited for his entire life.

Huijae.

She asked if they could meet, if he had time.

How could I possibly not have time when you are the one calling me?

Taeseok couldn’t sleep that night.

He was too excited to bear it.

At dawn he woke early, slicked his hair back with pomade, chose his best shirt, and pinned a tie pin to his tie.

When would she arrive?

Unable to hide his anticipation, the young man paced by the window.

The garden of his two-story Western-style house had pear trees lined along both sides.

Petals carrying the sweet scent of spring trembled softly in the wind.

The greenery seemed to tickle Taeseok’s heart.

At last, Huijae appeared in the distance.

A lady wearing a pink blouse and navy skirt walked slowly, step by step, toward him.

It felt as though spring had arrived all at once.

“I came because I have something to ask of ⊛ Nоvеlιght ⊛ (Read the full story) you.”

“Yes. Anything.”

I’ve succeeded this much now.

Maybe not as much as the man beside you—but I could make you happy. I could take you to wonderful places. I could give you beautiful things.

Taeseok swallowed every word that threatened to burst out and calmed the violent pounding of his heart.

Across from him, Huijae slowly lifted her teacup.

She took a quiet sip.

“I’ve heard that President Gi owns many fine clothes. Precious blouses and skirts brought from overseas—too many to count.”

At Huijae’s quiet voice, Taeseok nodded without realizing it.

I wanted to dress you in them.

He wanted to say that.

“Right now, importing foreign clothing is prohibited. That’s why smuggling is rampant. Everyone is desperate to own luxurious clothes from overseas.”

“......”

“I need those things.”

But the words struck him like a barrier.

Huijae’s expression looked as if she had made a firm decision.

“So would you be willing to give me those clothes you own as a gift? I will compensate you separately. However, I would prefer that no trace of a transaction remain.”

The sparkling wedding ring on the fourth finger of the hand holding her teacup stabbed painfully into Taeseok’s eyes.

At the time, Korea had to stake everything on exports.

The economic foundation had collapsed.

Yet even in an atmosphere where luxurious imports were unacceptable, the upper class still craved beautiful and expensive things.

Smuggled goods circulated quietly through the market.

Huijae wanted to seize that blind money.

“I’ve heard that supplies coming from the UN and the United States pass through your hands, President Gi. Among them there must be fabrics suitable for the wardrobes of the ladies in Jongno.”

For those who struggled just to survive each day.

For those who still lived faithfully.

For the people of Joseon.

“I want to create a new market by perfectly recreating overseas trends using the craftsmanship of our domestic workers. Since they won’t be smuggled goods, people will be able to wear them confidently even at official gatherings—”

Before she could finish speaking, Taeseok stood up.

“...So that is why you came.”

The essence of a businessman was the ability to lie smoothly.

He gripped the trembling end of his voice and carefully maintained a calm expression.

“They are not particularly valuable to me. So there is nothing to make a fuss about giving them as gifts.”

Pretending it meant nothing, Taeseok climbed the stairs.

He strode up to the second-floor railing, grabbed a neatly folded piece of clothing, and tossed it down.

“This will do.”

Beautiful fabric fluttered down like falling petals.

Just as they had once met eyes across a wall, Huijae and Taeseok met eyes again across the railing.

“I will send you carefully selected new products each season.”

Taeseok picked up more neatly folded clothes.

He threw several down again.

They fell like discarded, meaningless gifts.

“Silk.”

I wanted to give all of this to you.

“Flannel.”

Not like this.

“Indian cotton.”

But I still wanted to give it to you.

“Linen.”

Before long, clothes piled up around Huijae.

Like a place where bright flowers had bloomed and fallen.

“I will give all of it to you.”

—

“Wow they changed this scene like this?? This is insane...”

“In the original it was really bright, but considering the Korean historical background this version actually makes sense.”

“The detail of Ji Haebeom having tears in just one eye is crazy. Please let him cry once with that pomade hairstyle.”

“ㄴ The way he swallows the end of the word ‘flannel’ is insane acting too. Cry harder please.”

—

Just as writer Ahn had predicted.

The ratings reached 27%.

—

“Wait we’re still only halfway and it’s already this high? Are they going to break 30% later?”

“Seriously how do you drop this drama now? I’m riding this to the end.”

“Because Taeseok isn’t the only focus, the immersion will probably be insane in the later episodes.”

“Our Huijae is so amazing T_T she’s doing so well T_T”

—

Eun Baekhap was no longer playing the “adult Huijae.”

She had become another Huijae entirely.

“If it’s like this, Han Yeoreum is in real danger.”

One of the reporters at Daily Media said it.

Several others nodded.