Dawn of Apollo Chapter 4

Special commentary

[Lead manager Park has been temporarily replaced by a younger manager, Ms. Beagle Kim.]

SUNNY: Bea!!

[Sunny jumps up to try to give his favourite female manager a hug - a clear violation of idol decorum, really, he knows better than this - but is pulled back to the literal earth by Hyuntae. Jacob sniggers - we're sure we don't know why he's laughing. No one will be laughing later.]

SUNNY: ...Nice, dude! Subtle. 

HYUNTAE: I'm protecting your dignity! Y-Your - well, maidenhood, but, whatever the male equivalent is.  

BEA: Well, don't get your panties in a wad or whatever the male equivalent is. 

[Hyuntae hoists Sunny back into his chair, and Bea gives him a nice, clean, aboveboard fist bump, which restores his smile. She then looks around at the paraphernalia in the studio, and at the copy of the novel being thrusted towards her by Jacob.]

BEA: So, what's happening? What are we reading?

,,,Ahhh, your story?

SUNNY: Hey now! I think you mean, Yunsu's story!

JACOB: It's not Yunsu's, dagnabbit...

[They both laugh.]

BEA: Guys. C'mon. 

This is Manager Park's pet project, act like it means something to you. All right? Isn't it incredibly rare and unlikely for him to helm the development of a novel? 

Make it happy. You love it, you can't get enough of it, you want to eat it up like a soft scoop of vanilla ice cream -

JUNGMO: Oh dear, I think that's our cue.

JACOB: She's doing it again, she's spiralling - 

BEA: - A genre-defining work - nay, a genre-inventing work! Or else why, why would he get his own corner with all 5 of you? When I can't even get a grilled cheese sandwich? 

An iconoclast, a leviathan of literature. I mean, truly, I don't understand why we're not talking about Manager Park in the same breath as Kim Youngha, Shin Kyung-Sook... 

[The audio is pretty garbled here, as Bea spontaneously starts hand-shredding Jacob's copy of the novel, and all 5 guys get up and their voices start overlapping.]

[A few minutes later, Manager Kim has retired to the staff lounge, and Apollo is once again babysitting themselves. Jungmo has the floor.]

JUNGMO: ...I'm going to send her some flowers.

HYUNTAE: [To Jacob] She got me, she got me in the eye real bad.

[Jacob doesn't respond, but is gingerly picking up the pieces of his novel from the floor.]

JUNGMO: Perhaps we ought to transition to the main topic. What does everyone think of the latest chapter?

JACOB: I'm starting to feel like Soeun is a real dog! Where is she?

SUNNY: I know right?? I literally feel responsible for her wellbeing. 

JUNGMO: Well according to my notes from the writers of the series, it would appear that Soeun is based on Ms. Byeon Yuli's real dog, Ramyun. Moreover, Ramyun is turning 7 years old in September. She's the darling daughter of the Byeon family, who adopted her when they first moved to Incheon Chinatown. 

[To off-camera] Might we have a picture?

[A picture indeed pops up! It's a brown-and-silver Airedale terrier dressed in a Santa costume. And indeed she is on elevated seating, perched on top of an ottoman shaped like a peppermint humbug.]

SUNNY: Whoa!

JACOB: Amazing. Literally how I imagined her. 

[Hyuntae is back on set and holding a cold compress to his face.]

HYUNTAE: Fascinating...can we go on a field trip to meet her?

JACOB: [laughs nervously] Why would we - you're asking to go to Yuli's house.

HYUNTAE: Who's Yuli?

[Jacob's palm reunites with his face.]

HYUNTAE: All I heard was "Incheon Chinatown".

SUNNY: Speaking of, I haven't seen Yuli in a few weeks. Hope she's feeling OK! I guess we're not supposed to talk about her here though. 

MINHO: She's fine. I saw her at the canteen yesterday.

SUNNY: You ate at the canteen? What's wrong with home food??

MINHO: ...No comment.

JUNGMO: Did you happen to mention that we'd be conducting a roundtable about her story?

MINHO: She didn't have much to say about it. Said it was all written by the other writer, Kim Insoo. She came up with the original concept, and Kim Insoo developed it into a novel. 

[A pause.] There is no Kim Insoo at the company though. 

[The rest of the group processes this.]

SUNNY: Minho, what are you saying, this isn't a ghost story.

HYUNTAE: A ghost wrote this story?

JACOB: [Sarcastically] Are we all ghosts?! ...Get a grip. 

JUNGMO: Might it be a pen name? A pseudonym for someone else at our company. Or perhaps a contracted writer that we haven't had the pleasure of meeting?

SUNNY: ...Or it's actually Yunsu?? 

JACOB: I guess only Yunsu knows.