Top Star By Luck [EN]: Chapter 39

“……Kkeueueueung.”

Kim In-kwon, sent flying and crashing into a pile of garbage, groaned as he staggered to his feet.

Then, he collapsed again.

But there was no one to grab his hand and help him up.

Because.

“…….”

Director Yeom’s camera was still pointed at his face.

The law of the studio.

Unless the film stopped rolling, the outside world could not interfere.

Meanwhile, Lee Min-ki was too stunned to react.

‘This is true professional action.’

Just thinking about the moment when Kim In-kwon rushed at him made his heart pound.

It was so real.

As if he really intended to hit him, it was incredibly realistic.

Just a few centimeters.

No, not even centimeters. If he had come in just a few millimeters more, Lee Min-ki would have been sprawled out there as well.

Kim In-kwon had controlled that split-second gap and flown off on his own.

…or so Lee Min-ki judged.

Regardless of the truth.

‘I’m still far behind. I got carried away just because my body listened to me for a bit. My posture is all wrong from the start. Instead of being happy about the compliments I’ve been getting lately, I need to realize this is what I should be doing.’

Seeing the raw, unfiltered action, adrenaline surged through Lee Min-ki’s head.

Meanwhile, around this time, Kim In-kwon managed to get up by supporting himself on the ground, and Director Yeom Kwang-ho’s camera finally stopped.

“Cut.”

Director Yeom Kwang-ho, who finally gave the signal, rushed over and grabbed Kim In-kwon’s hand, saying in a voice filled with undisguised admiration.

“That was excellent.”

“Yes?”

“That action just now, I really didn’t expect you to go that far. As someone who loves action, I was amazed by you, In-kwon.”

“Yes, yes? Yes?”

Praise poured in.

But Kim In-kwon himself was just confused.

‘What did I do?’

He had simply tried to give Lee Min-ki a hard time under the guise of an on-set accident, but he had failed.

He had planned to knock him down easily, then fall with him and say that Lee Min-ki hadn’t matched the choreography.

But what was this?

Far from touching Lee Min-ki’s body, he had ended up crashing into the garbage pile himself.

“There was a bit of ad-libbing, but I welcome ad-libs like that anytime. I was originally going to shoot it longer in one take, but if it’s this good, it’s better to piece it together in editing. In-kwon, can I look forward to more action scenes like this in the future?”

Moreover, Director Yeom Kwang-ho was praising him.

How should he react?

At this moment, there was only one thing Kim In-kwon could do.

‘That Lee Min-ki, you son of a…!’

His face turned red.

* * *

After a short break, filming resumed.

“Ready, action!”

Cutting out the scene where Kim In-kwon crashed into the garbage pile, they started again from the next scene.

The scene where Kim In-kwon brushed off Lee Min-ki as he tried to grab him, and ran away again.

This time, the scene where he threw garbage at Lee Min-ki while running away.

It was an extension of the action from before.

But even here, Kim In-kwon thought.

‘I messed up properly last time, but there’s no way I’ll let it happen again this time.’

It was a retry.

Just because he failed once, would he fail twice? Kim In-kwon’s anger was not yet over.

He was a man of will.

Failure is the mother of success, or so they say.

Kim In-kwon believed without a doubt that those words were the law of the world.

‘Eat this.’

Kim In-kwon, running as if to escape from Lee Min-ki, gripped the milk carton tightly.

According to the textbook, he should throw the milk carton at Lee Min-ki’s torso.

But he aimed a little higher, aiming to hit him squarely in the head.

Pshwiiik——

“Ugh!”

Perhaps because he put too much force into his hand.

The milk carton burst open as it was, and the white liquid inside soaked Kim In-kwon’s head.

Splash!

“Ugh! Ugh!”

As if a waterfall, fresh milk went into his eyes, obscuring his vision.

Thump!

To add insult to injury, his legs got tangled, and Kim In-kwon rolled across the floor again.

Even if the previous one was considered an ad-lib, this roll was clearly an accident.

But.

‘Ooh, ooh ooh.’

Director Yeom Kwang-ho’s camera did not stop.

He was simply admiring.

‘This scene is good too.’

Wasn’t it too natural?

The life of an action scene in a crime film is naturalness.

Action that jumps like freshly caught fish.

Right now, Kim In-kwon was showing exactly the ideal action itself in Director Yeom’s opinion.

Lee Min-ki was also admiring.

‘Stuntmen are different.’

To be able to incorporate any unexpected situation into a scene.

Wasn’t it an ad-lib beyond an ad-lib?

Whatever the truth, that was how Kim In-kwon appeared in Lee Min-ki’s eyes.

“Cut! Let’s catch our breath and continue. Let’s just fix the sequence.”

Director Yeom was also someone who enjoyed weaving such unexpected situations into a larger picture.

He seemed to be thinking of using it to the end without throwing it away.

But it wasn’t over this time either.

“Ugh!”

“Hah, hah, hah. This, this bastard, worked out, hah, a bit, it seems.”

The scene where the fleeing criminal faces a dead end and decides to fight hand-to-hand.

Kim In-kwon threw a somewhat excessive punch at Lee Min-ki.

Thud.

Quite by chance, he tripped over Lee Min-ki’s foot and fell to the ground again.

“Ooh!”

And Director Yeom admired.

‘Why again?!’

Kim In-kwon was burning inside.

The same situation was repeated several times.

Whack!

“Ugh!”

Thud!

“Cough!”

Kim In-kwon repeatedly failed in his action in front of Lee Min-ki.

No, the scene was successful.

It was just that his intentions were not achieved.

‘Is this bastard doing this on purpose, knowing everything?’

By this point, he even felt wronged.

Who was Kim In-kwon?

He was someone who could be considered one of the best among stuntmen.

He wasn’t someone who would make a mistake in a simple fighting move.

Causing a simple accident to embarrass a rookie actor should have been easier than eating cold rice in cold water.

It wasn’t like he was doing it for the first time.

But this time, that simple thing was too tangled like a complicated shoelace.

“Ah! Fucking hell!”

He was on the verge of bursting into flames, just like the words he was uttering.

‘Is this bastard lucky?’

Kim In-kwon guessed the truth.

It was purely a matter of luck.

Accidents originally involve luck, whether it’s bad luck or something else, and luck is devoured by greater luck.

Yes, it was Lee Min-ki’s luck.

His luck was so great that it bounced off any encroaching misfortune.

Beyond just bouncing it off, it even retaliated.

The farce that had taken place in the waiting room during the filming of [Campus Story] was also like that.

The absolute difference in luck.

Lee Min-ki had various kinds of luck, but in terms of luck in avoiding misfortune, it could be said that he was at an absolute level.

And.

‘What is this person trying to do since earlier?’

He wasn’t a pushover.

Ad-libs and mistakes should be kept to a certain extent; if it was repeated to this extent, there was no way he couldn’t read the malice underneath.

In the first place, why is an ad-lib an ad-lib?

Isn’t it because it’s a sudden situation that it’s called an ad-lib?

To repeatedly ad-lib like this in an action scene where it’s easy to get injured was like disregarding the other person.

Regardless of Kim In-kwon’s intentions.

‘Do I look like a pushover?’

At first, he wondered.

He wondered if Kim In-kwon was doing it intentionally.

But gradually that conviction became clearer, and by the time they reached the hand-to-hand combat action, he couldn’t help but notice.

‘This is deliberate.’

He didn’t know why, but he was clearly launching hostile ad-libs at him.

If so, he couldn’t just accept it.

He had to let it flow as much as he could.

And.

“Ugh!”

It was the moment when Kim In-kwon, feigning a mistake, threw a punch at the back of his head.

“……!”

That fist was firmly caught in Lee Min-ki’s hand.

Like a ball caught in a catcher’s mitt.

Crackle.

He tried to pull it out, but it remained stuck.

As if pressing down hard with a press, Lee Min-ki’s fierce grip suppressed Kim In-kwon’s fist.

Cold sweat ran down Kim In-kwon’s forehead.

‘What kind of grip strength.’

Grip strength.

The efforts he had built up over time finally shone.

It had only been a week since Lee Min-ki started working out at the gym near his house.

[Manager, is there any way to build up my forearms (lower arm muscles)?]

He had suddenly asked Manager Kwon Joon-yong that.

[Forearms? Why forearms?]

[Many people say that the thickness of the forearms is a symbol of masculinity. I was wondering if I could build them up separately here.]

[Hmm, it’s not impossible. But forearms are such small muscles that it won’t be fun, will it? It’s hard to build them up and they grow slowly. To build them up noticeably, you’d have to put in three or four times more effort than for your chest or thighs, wouldn’t you say?]

[Even so.]

[Hoo.]

Manager Kwon Joon-yong gave an ominous smile, and it was the moment he felt something was wrong.

[If our member wants it, we have to do it for him. He wants to do it voluntarily. Yes, yes, as an education worker, I have to respect that will.]

[I just want to do it as a side thing…….]

[Min-ki, that’s not it, anything, muscles, you have to see it through to the end once you start. That’s what muscles are all about.]

I don’t know what kind of logic that is.

Anyway, the training wasn’t easy.

[Start with dumbbell reverse curls, loosen your wrists with farmer walks, and build them up with pull-up bar hangs. When it gets a little easier, switch to dumbbell wrist extensions and repeat.]

He had to repeat all sorts of forearm exercises that others didn’t do.

That was the forearm he had created.

It wasn’t really showing yet, but muscles tend to show their function before their visuals.

55kg [121 lbs].

That was the grip strength that Lee Min-ki had achieved now.

It was a 40% increase from when he first started.

It was in the realm above the average person and below athletes.

“……!”

Kim In-kwon tried to pull his fist out as much as possible, but it didn’t work.

“Eek!”

Only after using his whole body as leverage, not just his arm strength, was he barely able to break free.

“Uh, uh?”

Even to the point of falling on his butt backwards.

But his anger was not relieved.

Kim In-kwon, who got up dusting his sore butt, pointed and shouted in an angry voice.

“Min-ki, aren’t you going too far?”

He was questioning him.

“Yes?”

Lee Min-ki’s face twitched, wondering what he was talking about, and in the meantime, Kim In-kwon continued.

“It’s good to ad-lib, but you have to do it within agreed limits. Isn’t that right?”

That’s right.

Ad-libs are something you can only do when there is an implicit agreement with the other actor.

But.

‘This person hasn’t agreed with me until now.’

It was the same for him; he hadn’t done that either.

From Lee Min-ki’s point of view, it was just absurd.

Is it a sensible ad-lib if he does it, and a mistake if someone else does it?

“It’s not just me who’s doing that.”

“Everyone does this while looking at the atmosphere and breathing, what if you get hurt doing that? Huh?”

“I almost got hurt too.”

“So, did you get hurt?”

Perhaps because of his hot-tempered nature.

Kim In-kwon’s criticism continued as if he didn’t even care about the camera.

But.

It wasn’t just him in this place.

The dozens of people surrounding him, they weren’t just standing there like bystanders.

“In-kwon, why are you so angry?”

There was someone who couldn’t stand it and intervened.

It was Choi Yu-chang.

He smiled brightly at Kim In-kwon, who had a surprised expression.

“These things can happen when filming a movie.”

“Right now, this friend is being.”

“Hey, it was a little too much. But In-kwon, you’re the senior. You’ve been the only one ad-libbing until now, so Min-ki probably wanted to try it himself after seeing how well you were doing. Huh?”

“Even so.”

“In-kwon.”

It was the moment Kim In-kwon was about to argue.

In an instant, Choi Yu-chang’s eyes sank even deeper, and a chilling voice flowed from his mouth.

“Isn’t there too much personal feeling in your acting?”

A sharp word like an awl.

Kim In-kwon’s lungs froze at that word.