Escape From the Daytime Drama

Chapter 2

Cha Yeryeon’s room could hardly be called a room, because it had everything, including an en-suite bathroom, a study, a walk-in closet, and even a minibar with drinks and snacks. It was identical to the damn TV set that I knew.

I should take a look at the timeline.

I went into the neatly organized study. When I pulled a book out from one of the shelves, the shelf rotated and opened up to a new space. This was a secret office I’d made to avoid the people here. One side of the wall was filled with pictures and newspaper clippings, next to which were future events listed in chronological order.

—XX-XX-20XX: Chairman Cha Sehoon’s paternity test results are sent to Han Seori’s adoptive parents.

—XX-XX-20XX: Kimchi slap from Han Seori’s adoptive mother.

—XX-XX-20XX: Han Seori overhears her parents and learns the truth about her birth.

Using a highlighter, I crossed out the note about the kimchi slap. The plot was nearly halfway done now.

“Han Seori’s parents got the test results I sent them, which is why I got slapped with kimchi. Now, what’s next…”

I decided to review the overall plot of The Flower of Trials again. This cheesy soap opera had taken all of South Korea by storm.

“I can even love your cancer cells!”

This iconic line had given birth to tons of parodies and memes. As the title suggests, the story mainly followed the many trials of the female lead, Han Seori. The wealthy male lead, Cha Yebin, fell head over heels in love with her. They planned to get married despite the obvious disapproval from Yebin’s family, but then a secret was revealed—Seori was his half-sister!

The couple fell into despair after learning that they were siblings, but later it turned out that Yebin wasn’t his parents’ biological son. He was adopted! My goodness! What a miracle! Before Seori could rejoice in the fact that she and Yebin weren’t related, Yebin got into a car accident. Following the formula of every cheesy soap opera, he got amnesia!

“This story is just awful,” I murmured to myself, clicking my tongue as I recalled the plot.

The worst was yet to come. Despite Yeryeon’s interference, Yebin miraculously regained his memory, but was then diagnosed with cancer. However, he managed to survive thanks to an organ transplant from the male supporting role, Park Eunwoo, after which Eunwoo fell gravely ill. As befitted his supporting role, Eunwoo never regretted donating his organ for the female lead’s happiness. Later on, he even named Seori and Yebin’s future baby before he passed away. In the last scene, Yebin and Seori stood together at the beach, gazing up at Eunwoo’s CGI face in the sky.

“We’ll be happy, Eunwoo,” they said. “For you!”

That was how the soap opera had ended. I’d only recalled a quick summary, but it was enough to give me a headache. The villainess of the show, Cha Yeryeon, went completely crazy at the end and attempted to run her car into Seori, only to fail.

“Crimes may be wrong, but people are not!” Seori famously cried.

At that ridiculous line, Yeryeon came to her senses and turned herself in to the police, suddenly a changed woman. In other words, the ending that should await me is a life of repentance in prison. I jotted down the future events in my notebook, then irritably tossed my pen aside.

“This is driving me nuts.”

When The Flower of Trials first aired, it became the most hated TV show in South Korea due to Han Seori’s absurd level of kindness, Cha Yeryeon’s stupid villainy, and the frustratingly slow story pace. However, terrible soap operas still have a way of bringing you in, and despite being a daytime drama with over a hundred episodes, it still had an excellent viewership rating.

The female lead, Han Seori, was an incompetent woman who couldn’t get anything done without everyone else cleaning up after her mess. Meanwhile, the male lead, Cha Yebin, was shockingly dumb when it came to anything related to Seori. He was even nicknamed Mister Mid by viewers.

The supporting male character, Park Eunwoo, was hated for loving Han Seori for no apparent reason and for being an overall idiot. Everyone online begged him to get himself out of that hell. Lastly, the villainess, Cha Yeryeon, committed acts so preposterously evil that viewers wondered whether she had to go that far. Despite her obvious and oh-so-cliche schemes, the leads and all the supporting characters had remained completely oblivious until the end.

All of this made The Flower of Trials the most infamously bad soap opera in South Korea. The story ends with Yeryeon turning herself in. That also meant that until she confessed, nobody found a shred of evidence for all the awful things she did. Han Seori even had a frequently recurring line.

“It can’t be… Did Cha Yeryeon really do that? If that’s true, I’ll never forgive her. Never!”

Without fail, the popular comments online were always similar.

- Yeah she obviously did it but you’re the only one who doesn’t know

- I don’t care if you forgive her. Do something! ANYTHING! Instead of just talking about it!

“I still have a long way to go,” I said to myself, running my finger along the list on the wall.

I was near the halfway point of the show now that I’d sent Cha Sehoon’s paternity test results to Han Seori’s adoptive parents last week. The mother, who loved Seori to pieces, was furious at my suggestion that she leave the family. That was why she’d come to my office to slap me with kimchi. After this scene, Seori—not yet aware of the paternity test results—would beg her adoptive parents to reconsider after their sudden opposition to her marriage. This would drag on for about two more episodes.

“There shouldn’t be any important scenes for me for the time being.”

Feeling like a great load was off my chest, I stretched languidly and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Seori eventually learned the truth about her birth after eavesdropping on her adoptive parents in their bedroom. Profoundly shocked, she left for Busan on an impulse. Yebin would go into a frenzy looking for her, and with Eunwoo’s help, he’d eventually succeed in finding her. Then, Seori would reveal the secret.

“We’re actually siblings!”

The cat would finally be out of the bag. Once Seori explained that I was the one who uncovered the secret, Yebin would come running to me, positively livid. I had one line to say.

“All I did was share a fact. There’s no way you can marry Han Seori.”

With that, Cha Yeryeon’s evil deeds would come to a brief halt. Of course, Yeryeon already knew that Yebin was not his father’s biological son and that he was adopted, but she’d never tell him that because she was the villainess. Why would she so kindly tell the truth just to help out a couple in love?

After that, Seori would come to live in this house as our father’s daughter and my half-sister, thus beginning a hellish life with her lover-turned-sibling. That would be my cue. I scribbled all of this down in my notebook, then tore out the pages and fed them to the shredder.

No matter how I see it, the most hardworking character in this whole show is me, Cha Yeryeon.

* * *

“So you’re saying… You have no idea how that woman managed to make it past security and all the way up to a meeting room on the nineteenth floor?”

“Forgive me, Ms. Cha, but we really don’t know!”

As soon as I arrived at work, I went straight to the security office to see how Han Seori’s adoptive mother had managed to get in. The security camera footage only showed the woman marching in through the front doors and gliding past the mandatory fingerprint recognition setup. Upon seeing the footage, the security team turned pale and bowed to me, apologizing profusely.

I know it’s not your fault.

I’m sure they were probably in a trance or something when Seori’s mother came in. This was a world in which anything could happen, as long as it was necessary for the plot of the drama.

“I don’t want to hear that you don’t know,” I said. “I’m sure you heard what happened as a result of your mistake.”

“We have no excuses, Ms. Cha. The team will duly accept any disciplinary action you take.”

I knew there was no way they could have stopped it, but I still felt peevish.

This was just too much. You could have at least put up an argument and told her that outsiders weren’t allowed in.

“Look at that. She just waltzed in without even scanning her fingerprint. How can security at Jechun Group be so lax? Anyone could have come in, even a peddler on the street or a pedestrian walking by!” I said a little resentfully, pointing to the footage.

With every word that left my mouth, the security team turned even paler. It was quite the spectacle. This was a world in which absurdities could be allowed as long as it was needed for the story, but in every other sense, it was no different from reality. If I didn’t do anything about this incident, the company would take disciplinary action one way or another. After all, an outsider had been allowed to enter the building and attack none other than the chairman’s daughter with a slab of kimchi. Even though I knew that these people were truly innocent, I couldn’t turn a blind eye altogether. Reprimanding them like this was my way of taking action.

“I’ll let you off with a warning this time,” I said. “I trust you’ll tighten security after this.”

“Oh, of course! Thank you, Ms. Cha! Thank you!”

Everyone was still loudly apologizing when I left the security office. Now that I’d declared I would let it slide, no one else would be able to punish them.

“Yeryeon?”

I was returning to my desk feeling much more lighthearted when a deep and pleasant male voice stopped me in my tracks.

“Oh, Mr. Park,” I replied, turning around.

“I told you to call me Eunwoo. Did you forget we’re engaged? At least show your fiancé a little warmth.”

What’s with him? Is he allowed to act like this?

I could feel my stress-induced gastritis flaring up again. Furrowing my brow, I gazed up at the tall man standing before me.