Superstar From Age 0

It was a Wednesday morning, a few days before Seo-jun’s birthday.

Jack Smith arrived at Seo-jun’s place.

“Welcome, Jack!”

Jack Smith couldn’t hide his admiration for his friend’s radiant appearance in the morning. He greeted his friend and his friend’s manager.

“Hi, Jun. Hello, Manager.”

“Welcome, Mr. Smith.”

“Please, just call me Jack.”

Jack exchanged greetings with Choi Tae Woo, the manager he had briefly met during the filming of [Over the Rainbow 2] in LA. Then he followed Seo-jun into the house.

Sniff sniff.

It smelled delicious, as if Jun had cooked something.

“Did you skip breakfast?”

Seo-jun laughed at Jack’s instinctive sniffing.

“Yeah. I’m starving.”

Haha.

Seo-jun and Choi Tae Woo smiled and headed to the dining room with Jack. The dining table was set with the breakfast that Seo-jun and Choi Tae Woo had prepared.

“There’s more, so help yourself.”

As they ate, seo-jun and Jack discussed where they would go today.

They had roughly decided where to go over the phone, but they planned to add a few more places in case of unforeseen circumstances.

“And let’s stop by the C Save Center.”

It would be a memorable place for both Seo-jun and the sprouts, even without us and Loki.

‘I also need to recharge my mana on the ship and the center where I engraved my abilities.’

Jack nodded at Seo-jun’s words.

“Let’s go to my house too. There are a lot of fun things in the attic.”

Choi Tae Woo, the manager, was not going to join them (the bodyguards would follow them), but he made sure to note where Seo-jun was going.

“When are you starting the filming?”

Jack asked, and Seo-jun answered.

“I’ve been filming by myself since yesterday, but I’m going to start filming with you from the car.”

Seo-jun had filmed the thank-you message for his birthday and the explanation for the vlog by himself last night.

“What about the filming crew?”

“? There’s none. It’s just you and me.”

Jack Smith’s eyes widened at Seo-jun’s answer, who tilted his head and then replied.

“You mean, you’re filming it yourself?”

“Yeah. I’ll do the editing too.”

“That’s tough.”

Jack had heard a lot of things from his friend who was a star, and one of them was that editing was hard. Seo-jun smiled brightly at that.

“I have to work hard to show the sprouts. Oh, remember that there are cameras on the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat, Jack. It’s dangerous to film while driving, so I installed them in advance.”

“Got it.”

After finishing their breakfast, seo-jun and Jack packed their bags and headed to the car that was ready in the parking lot of the accommodation. It was one of the cars that could be seen anywhere in LA.

Jack Smith looked at the cameras attached to the driver’s seat and the passenger’s seat with curiosity.

“It’s a small camera, but it feels weird to be filmed by it all the time.”

“Me too.”

Seo-jun nodded with a smile.

“They usually appear in variety shows, but I haven’t filmed many of them. Don’t you think it’ll be fun?”

“I don’t know. I don’t care about the camera like you do.”

The camera was just a camera.

Seo-jun laughed at Jack’s shrug.

“Should I drive?”

“I’ll do it. How about you show some scenery?”

“Then I’ll do that.”

Jack Smith sat in the driver’s seat, and Seo-jun sat in the passenger’s seat. Seo-jun had the camera he had filmed last night in his hand.

“So, are we starting the filming now?”

“Yeah.”

Jack Smith, who was fairly familiar with the camera because of baseball games and interviews, nodded.

Well, it wasn’t a movie filming where he had to act as someone else, and he just had to show his usual self like in the games, so he felt relaxed.

‘Even if I make a mistake, Jun will do the editing.’

He would cut it out anyway.

He felt a little nervous, but his shoulders lightened.

Clap!

Seo-jun clapped his hands to mark the editing point. And a few days later, he smiled brightly at the sprouts who would watch this video on his birthday and greeted them.

“Hello, sprouts! This is Seo-jun!”

***

“Jun! Jack! Welcome!”

The C Save Center buzzed with the arrival of the two VIPs.

Seo-jun, who always visited the C Save Center whenever he came to LA, and Jack Smith, who never missed donating every year, were the reason.

“I heard you were filming in LA, I wondered when you would come.”

“Hahaha.”

Seo-jun laughed at Kate O’Hara’s grin.

‘The usual?’

‘The usual.’

They felt like regular customers and employees who exchanged glances and talked.

“I’m really looking forward to Shena!”

“Are you filming now?”

“Not yet, right? There was no crank-in article yet, right?”

“Yeah. The filming is still far away.”

As Seo-jun talked about [Shadow and Knight], Jack Smith also chatted with the staff.

He was a player of one of the three major sports in the US (baseball, football (American football), basketball), and the Dodgers representing LA.

“Your home run was awesome!”

“Can I ask for your autograph?”

“Sure. Of course.”

As they were chatting, one of the staff asked.

“By the way, Jun. What’s that camera?” 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

“Oh, this?”

As Seo-jun explained, Kate and the staff froze.

Sprouts, and [From Sprouts].

They were the ones who had donated an enormous amount of money every year since then!

The noisy atmosphere from before was gone, and all the staff straightened their posture. And they smiled sincerely on their faces.

“Hello. I’m Kate O’Hara, the rescue team leader of the C Save Center. The donations you sprouts have given us are…”

Seo-jun and Jack smiled silently at the sight of Kate and the staff expressing their gratitude to the sprouts. He thought this scene should definitely be included.

***

“Shall we go for lunch now?”

“Yeah.”

Seo-jun and Jack decided to head to one of their favorite restaurants.

It was a well-known place for both locals and tourists, so they didn’t think it would be a big problem even after the broadcast was uploaded on YouTube.

It took some time to travel on the vast American land, but they enjoyed the wide and blue sea.

“Is that another whale?”

“Maybe.”

Seo-jun laughed at Jack’s words.

Fortunately, the sea in March was peaceful.

♬

As they listened to the music from the radio and looked at the sea, they remembered us singing and Loki coming and going.

“Monster Co. also made dolls of us and Loki, right?”

“Yeah. They’re still selling them. The profits are donated to other marine centers.”

Seo-jun’s good influence was still spreading around the world.

“I’m reminded of something when I see the dolls.”

Jack, who was holding the steering wheel, burst into laughter. Seo-jun turned his head to his old friend.

“When we were kids, I thought you were a magician. Or a psychic.”

“…Oh.”

Seo-jun, who had a lot of things to be embarrassed about, reacted a beat late.

He could only use the lowest grade back then, so where did he get that impression? Was it because he was a child and could feel something different from adults?

He swallowed quietly and asked.

“…Why?”

“We used to draw a lot on sketchbooks when we were kids.”

“We did.”

Seo-jun nodded.

It was the same for any child in any country to lie on the floor with their belly down, shake their legs back and forth, and draw on sketchbooks with crayons until their hands got dirty.

There must be a picture of young Seo-jun and Jack having fun drawing, taken by their parents.

Jack said with a smile.

“But the pictures you drew turned into dolls after a few days. The pictures I drew stayed the same.”

Seo-jun’s eyes widened.

“I thought that because your pictures turned into dolls several times.”

***

As he looked at Seo-jun’s pictures that turned into dolls as usual, young Jack Smith thought seriously.

‘…Is Jun’s sketchbook a magic sketchbook?’

They used crayons and colored pencils together, so he really didn’t know.

“Jun! Let’s swap sketchbooks and draw!”

“? Okay.”

Young Seo-jun, who didn’t have much to think about, nodded and swapped sketchbooks with Jack.

That day, Jack drew a dinosaur and Seo-jun drew a monster that looked like a dinosaur, a drake (everyone thought it was a dinosaur).

And a few days later.

Jack waited for a dinosaur doll to appear from Seo-jun’s magic sketchbook, but nothing appeared. Instead, seo-jun’s drake that he drew on Jack’s sketchbook turned into a doll and appeared.

“Jack! Look at this! It’s a drake! Isn’t it cool?”

“…”

“What’s wrong, Jack?”

“Uwaaaah!!”

He ended up crying, young Jack Smith.

***

Seo-jun laughed at Jack’s story. Jack also laughed and said.

“When I told my parents that story, they laughed so hard. And then I found out that your uncle in Korea was making dolls based on your drawings.”

“You mean Uncle Hee Sang.”

Kim Hee Sang was making dolls as a hobby back then. So he made and sent dolls based on the pictures that Seo-jun sent (actually, seo Eun Hye and Lee Min Jun sent them to show off).

“He also made dolls based on my drawings after that.”

“He did.”

That’s how ‘Monster Co.’

was created as Kim Hee Sang made and sold more dolls.

“Do you still design?”

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

Seo-jun said, nodding his head as if it was obvious. Jack said with a smile.

“When this is uploaded, won’t the products you designed be sold out? Or the Monster Co. website will crash.”

“Hahaha.”

Seo-jun didn’t say no.

He felt like he could see his dad and Uncle Hee Sang touching their foreheads.

***

The place they headed to after lunch was Jack’s house, but since it would be rude to film outside the house, they decided to film only in the attic.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been here.”

Seo-jun looked around the attic, remembering the past. He didn’t forget to film and explain with the camera he was holding.

“The attic is the children’s dream. I lived in an apartment in Korea, so I didn’t have an attic. So when I came to Jack’s house, I spent more time here than in the room. I talked with my friends and watched American dramas and movies.”

He still remembered playing with Jack and his friends here.

“But now it’s used as a storage and I don’t come up here much.”

As Jack said, the attic, which used to be the children’s secret base, was filled with stuff. But it didn’t seem to have much dust, as if it was cleaned.

“These are your things that I found in advance.”

“Oh. They were here?”

The box that Jack handed over was full of toys, bags, fairy tales, and things that Seo-jun used to play with. The colorful and small toys that babies would play with were so cute that he couldn’t help but smile.

“It looks like we really played a lot at your house.”

“Our house was your house and your house was our house. Even after we returned to Korea, we came to play during the holidays.”

Jack laid out various things on the floor. He also looked at the album with the pictures they took when they were young and took out an old game console and said ‘Let’s play later.’

and put it away.

“We did. We had so much fun with you then…”

Seo-jun recalled the memories.

We watched TV and played baseball, ate lunch and played catch, ate dinner and played baseball games.

“…Why do I only remember playing baseball?”

“Uhahahaha.”

Jack laughed at Seo-jun’s words. It was a meaningful laugh.

“That’s because of me.”

“? Isn’t that obvious? You said let’s play baseball, so we did.”

If it wasn’t for Jack, he would have been watching American dramas and movies. Of course, he wouldn’t have been able to watch for long because of the time limit. His parents were strict about media education.

“No, that’s not it.”

Jack smiled and took something out. It was a colorful toy. It looked like a speaker with small holes on one side.

“What’s this?”

“A toy recorder.”

“…A recorder?”

“I found this yesterday.”

Jack shrugged his shoulders.

No matter how many times he thought about it, little Jun and little Jack were very interesting kids.

‘Of course, they still are.’

Jack told the story to Seo-jun, who had a question mark on his face.