# Chapter 19
The producer, who had announced that the broadcast would start at 11 AM as scheduled, told them to rest for a while and went to the staff.
“Novelist, look at this,” Manager Yoon Hyesu showed Mo Eunje her phone screen. It was the SNS account of an unknown person. But there was a familiar face in the photo. It was a picture of three men, and at a rough glance, the bottles lined up on the table easily exceeded 10. To be exact, there were 2 bottles of whiskey, 4 bottles of soju, and 11 bottles of beer.
“When was this taken?” Mo Eunje asked quietly with an incredulous voice.
“It was posted six hours ago. This is this person’s account, and they tagged Novelist Seong.”
Manager Yoon’s finger pointed at the man sitting next to Seong Giha. Six hours ago would have been around 4:30 AM. Even Mo Eunje, who was weak in the mornings, had forced himself to get up and even stopped by the shop, but today’s guest had apparently been drinking until 4:30 AM before a 11 AM live broadcast.
“The producer discovered this first and was furious until you arrived.”
Now Mo Eunje understood why the producer’s face had shown such evident displeasure.
“He’s out of his mind,” Tae Igyeol, who had been observing the situation without a word, bluntly remarked in a dry tone devoid of emotional fluctuation. Though it was an entirely objective assessment, Mo Eunje, who had inadvertently made eye contact with Manager Yoon Hyesu, gave an awkward smile and gently stepped on Tae Igyeol’s foot. This was a place with many ears, so even word choice had to be careful.
“Don’t worry about me. We’re on the same team. I’ve heard a lot about Tae Igyeol from my predecessor.”
Manager Yoon Hyesu shrugged good-naturedly. When Mo Eunje, Tae Igyeol, and the agency manager attended publishing events together, staff members could immediately identify who the agency manager was, but they often mistook Tae Igyeol for a bodyguard.
“MC, we’ll put your microphone on now.”
“Yes.”
Before he could respond to Manager Yoon, a staff member approached. As soon as the microphone was attached, they were immediately asked to standby. A test rehearsal was scheduled to check how they would appear on screen before the live broadcast began, also serving to familiarize themselves with the additional script that had been added to fill time until Seong Giha arrived.
“Phone, please.”
As Mo Eunje held out his phone, two hands extended toward him. One was Tae Igyeol’s large palm, and the other was Manager Yoon Hyesu’s delicate palm. Mo Eunje apologetically nodded to Manager Yoon and handed his phone to Tae Igyeol.
&
After receiving Mo Eunje’s phone, Tae Igyeol changed the setting to vibrate mode and put it in his back pocket. He also set down the bakery bag. He could feel Manager Yoon Hyesu glancing up at him from the side, but he ignored it.
Mo Eunje went up to the brightly lit set and sat down on the two-seater sofa, settling into position. With the table in the center, there was a two-seater sofa diagonally to the left for the host, and a single-seater sofa directly opposite for the guest.
With cameras positioned at various angles, the screen would capture a near-frontal view of both the host and guest, but from outside the set, Mo Eunje’s right side was more visible. It would be the same for the live broadcast.
It was a shame, since his left side was more handsome. Tae Igyeol thought the production team didn’t know the basics after recruiting a host, and wondered why the agency manager came to the studio if she couldn’t even check such things. On the other hand, he was secretly satisfied that only he seemed to know that Mo Eunje’s left side was more handsome.
He opened the camera app with the shutter sound muted on his phone. The subject he loved so much filled the screen. Mo Eunje was flipping through the bound manuscript he had brought while copying something onto the cue cards. Tae Igyeol captured his concentrated expression in the camera. One, two, three… eight, nine… Once again today, Tae Igyeol’s album was filled with moments of Mo Eunje.
“How far has he gotten?”
“He’s not answering his phone.”
“Is this a joke, seriously…”
The producer and content writer, who had briefly left, whispered as they brushed past Tae Igyeol. It was 10 minutes before the live broadcast. If he had asked for understanding that he would be about 5 minutes late, he should have arrived in the vicinity by now.
Tae Igyeol let out a bitter laugh. He was already displeased with how they were dumping all the burden on Mo Eunje, refusing to either slightly delay the broadcast start time or to disclose that guest Seong Giha’s appearance was delayed because he had been to the emergency room. He thought they were crazy to expect this of Mo Eunje, who wasn’t even a professional MC, but since Mo Eunje himself had said it was fine since it was only 5 minutes, Tae Igyeol had held back. However, the conversation he overheard between the producer and content writer pushed his buttons.
“Haah…”
Fuck.
“Excuse me.”
As Tae Igyeol was about to approach the producer and content writer, cursing under his breath, Manager Yoon Hyesu stopped him. She was timidly holding onto Tae Igyeol’s shirt cuff with the tips of her thumb and index finger. When he looked down at her impassively as if asking what she wanted, she shook her head slightly.
“I’ve reported this to the CEO. We plan to formally protest from our agency’s side after safely finishing the broadcast first.”
“…”
“Novelist Mo Eunje is someone our company takes special care of, so you don’t need to worry too much. This is why I’m here.”
“…His left face photographs better on screen.”
“What…? Ah… ah, yes. Just as I heard. Excuse me for a moment.”
Manager Yoon Hyesu, who had made a strange expression as if she’d heard something absurd, quickly composed herself and rushed to the producer. There were about 6 minutes left until the live broadcast began.
“Host, please try sitting on the single sofa in the center!”
When the producer called out, Mo Eunje moved to the seat with a puzzled expression. Soon after sitting in the central single sofa, he immediately prepared to proceed by reviewing the cue cards.
Manager Yoon, who had exchanged a few more brief words with the producer, returned to her original position.
“They said it’s difficult to move the sofas to the opposite side because the lighting and cameras are all set up. And time is tight too.”
“…The main character’s seat suits him best anyway.”
“Yes. The producer seemed apologetic and suggested changing seats first.”
“Today we’ll proceed with the host and guest seats switched! Please check the white balance on the host’s face again!”
At the producer’s call, a staff member with a white board rushed to Mo Eunje’s side. Following the staff’s instructions, Mo Eunje’s face was now visible from the front as he gazed at the camera. On the live broadcast screen, since they would capture both the host and guest simultaneously, his left face would be visible. Tae Igyeol quietly took out his phone and opened the camera app again.
&
“Hello. I’m novelist Mo Eunje, hosting the ‘Book of the Month’ April new release introduction. I see many people have already joined us. Thank you. Yes, it has been a while since my official activities. I’m glad to see you too.”
Every time Mo Eunje spoke, comments flew up at a rapid pace in the live broadcast chat window on the monitor phone. Even if he tried to focus and read them, they disappeared to the top before he could properly read a single line.
Perhaps because he was sitting in the central single-seater sofa where he had sat each time he appeared, it felt quite familiar, reducing his nervousness and burden. For some reason, the unusual situation of seating the host in the guest’s chair had occurred.
Although he monitored “Book of the Month” every month, this had never happened before. In a live broadcast, the person sitting in the center was not the host but the guest author who had published a new work. This seemed to be a benefit that Manager Yoon had secured while protesting about Seong Giha’s lateness.
Looking at the script that the content writer had prepared to fill time until Seong Giha arrived, it contained only content about Mo Eunje himself. The real-time questions coming in were the same. The most frequent question was when Mo Eunje’s new book would be released.
But since today was meant to promote Seong Giha’s first full-length novel, no matter how much of a gap had been created due to his lateness, Mo Eunje didn’t want to steal the time meant for promoting his new book. Mo Eunje subtly set aside the additional script he had received and momentarily turned away from the grateful comments.
Somehow he had inadvertently snatched the protagonist’s seat, but he couldn’t also take away the promotional opportunity. The role he had as the one sitting in the host’s seat was to promote “On Friendship That Can Only Be Love.”
“I know many of you have been waiting for today. Yes, it’s the day your beloved Novelist Seong Giha’s new work has been published, right? I received a copy as soon as I arrived at the studio.”
Mo Eunje held the new book he had received during rehearsal just below his chin so the cover was clearly visible. The chat was filled with comments about how handsome Mo Eunje was. Though Mo Eunje himself lived with the words “I’m handsome” constantly on his lips, as a novelist, he couldn’t be entirely happy about it.
When he made his debut, there were far more discussions about his appearance than about his work on the internet. It was truly bitter and disheartening for a carefully crafted work to be overshadowed by mere appearance. A novelist wants to be recognized solely for their writing.
If it was frustrating with his own work, it was even more awkward when his appearance as a host received more attention than the featured book or author at another writer’s publication event. If Seong Giha learned about the current situation, he would probably be very displeased. Mo Eunje turned his gaze away from the chat window and fulfilled his duty.
“‘On Friendship That Can Only Be Love.’ From the title, you can feel Novelist Seong Giha’s delicate sensibility. Speaking as someone who has read it in advance, I can tell you that you will once again encounter the author’s uniquely gentle writing style and lyrical psychological descriptions.”
He took out a memo that had been inserted between the cue cards and moved it to the top. It was a brief summary of the early plot of Seong Giha’s new work that he had prepared the night before, just in case. Although there was already an introduction written on the book platform’s new release pre-order page, it was full of flowery rhetoric written so abstractly that one couldn’t even guess the content, making it less useful, so he had written his own.
Mo Eunje took a small deep breath and introduced the work in a calm, quiet voice. As he promoted it to make readers want to read it, he observed the reactions of the producer and content writer. Tae Igyeol, standing two or three steps away from the main camera in the center of the studio, kept his eyes fixed on his phone.
He was holding his phone as if taking photos, but since he was someone who found even coming along bothersome, he wouldn’t be taking pictures. If he had the generosity of spirit to do that, he would have taken photos when Mo Eunje appeared as a guest before, but he had never once shown such thoughtful kindness. Since it was Monday, he was probably looking at stock prices. It was already 11:08 AM.
