Free Web NovelSince I couldn’t hear any voices, it looked like I had arrived first after all.
“You here?” freewebnovel.cσ๓
“Han Yeoreum—!”
“Wow, you startled me.”
The moment I opened the door, voices echoed through the waiting room that had been quiet just seconds ago.
“It was so quiet I thought nobody was here.”
“....”
At my words, the two of them fell silent again. It seemed that when it was just the two of them, things were still a bit awkward.
You know how that is. It’s fine when everyone’s together, but when it’s just the two of you, there’s this strange awkwardness.
‘Come to think of it, this reminds me of the first script reading....’
Back then, we had no idea we’d end up like this.
I had arrived far earlier than scheduled, but still—both of them clearly had their own quiet attachment to <ParCheHi>.
‘Exactly half a year ago, we were here.’
So much ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) had happened. So much had changed. I sat down on one of the waiting room chairs and spoke.
“It brings back memories....”
Joo Junseo, who used to have red hair, was now fully black-haired. His sharp, delicate features looked a little more refined.
Choo Gaeul had cut her hair into a bob. The ends were softly curled inward, adding a touch of cuteness to her already polished face.
Completely ignoring my nostalgic tone, Junseo handed me a drink piled high with whipped cream.
“What’s so old about it. Just drink this.”
I sipped the autumn limited-edition banana caramel cream frappuccino Junseo gave me and sank into my memories.
“We used to secretly hear that senior throwing a tantrum in here.... Back then, the waiting rooms were right next to each other....”
Junseo, who had been drinking an Americano, started coughing like he’d lost his mind. His manager beside him stared at me with his mouth hanging open.
“What did he say again? Something like, ‘Just dump the scene on that f*cking female lead or whatever....’ His projection was pretty good. It felt like he was talking right next to us.”
Junseo stopped coughing for a moment. His face, which had been red, turned pale. Gaeul looked horrified.
“Wow, that personality is really awful....”
“...Says the one who was glaring and asserting dominance with her eyes the whole shoot. Honestly, when you talked to me at the wrap party, I was terrified you were about to put me through drills on the spot. I didn’t even have an agency back then—what could I do? All I could do was get accused of being a parachute hire.”
This time, Gaeul’s face turned bright red. As I dug up the two of them’s dark pasts, the atmosphere in the waiting room quickly warmed up.
“That explains it. I wondered why your expression was so bad when I followed you out. Who are you calling awful?”
“I only used vibes, okay? I didn’t swear like you did. In conclusion, you’re way worse.”
This was completely different from the earlier silence. They both said they’d been taking acting lessons seriously lately, and it showed—stronger projection, clearer diction.
“I only did it behind your back, but you did it right to their face! And in the end, thanks to me, you got more screen time—so isn’t that good?”
“Is it really good to gloss over someone getting hurt just because they got more screen time?”
“If we’re talking about screen time, I heard something too. You dyed your hair pink on purpose because you were greedy for lines—.”
“Hey! Why is that coming up now?!”
I savored the frappuccino Junseo had given me. This new flavor was good.
‘At this rate, even if they meet one-on-one later, it won’t be awkward.’
The Han Yeoreum Fam can function just fine even without Han Yeoreum.
Just then, the knock on the waiting room door was drowned out by their voices, barely audible. A staff member holding a camera peeked in through the crack.
“...We’re here to shoot some making-of footage. Is something going on...?”
I smiled and gave an appropriately vague answer. freewebnøvel.com
“We’re arguing over mint chocolate. Junseo oppa is anti–mint chocolate, and Gaeul is pro–mint chocolate.”
“That’s it?”
“Of course. Could you come back in about five minutes?”
And five minutes later, when the staff member returned with the camera, the three of us appeared in the frame in a suitably friendly mood.
Both of them had improved a lot as actors.
“No, oppa. <ParCheHi> was literally called mint-choco melon bread, so of course you should be pro–mint chocolate.”
“...When you put it like that, I can’t really argue....”
It was the perfect kind of scene to put at the start of the making-of video. I looked into the lens aimed at us and smiled. It was finally time to say goodbye to <ParCheHi>.
“Hello! I’m Han Yeoreum, who played Pi Chaewon in <The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine>. Nice to meet you.”
This time, the role of the heroine went to Gaeul, but I didn’t feel regretful. What she had shown during the script reading was enough to let go of even my lingering attachment.
“Who decided I’m the heroine?”
The <ParCheHi> spin-off told the story of the world Hina belonged to.
Hina realizes that she is the heroine of a pure romance manga, but because she loves her family, her friends, and everything about the world around her, she has no desire to leave the manga.
“I hate hardship, adversity, growth arcs, all that! No wonder life’s been so hard....”
It was a story about Hina, a heroine who didn’t want it, but kept getting dragged into incidents anyway, trying to change her genre.
Junseo and I appear briefly at the beginning and the ending. The two characters have now reached a point where being together feels natural.
Not dating, but not just friends either.
“Shouldn’t you be looking at this instead of a problem set?”
“At this point, I’m not even asking you to call me oppa—just don’t call me ‘you’....”
At a bookstore where Jun, who enjoyed romance manga despite his looks, went to buy problem books with Chaewon. Chaewon, trying to figure out how to tease him again, grabbed a romance manga at random. But the page she opened was strange.
“This... could it be....”
“Hina?”
Hina was in another romance manga. She was also in the mystery manga next to it. And in the cooking manga beside that.
“She’s a romance manga heroine!”
And Gaeul picked up the line.
“I only want slice-of-life stories! Something light, like going out to buy pudding!”
“...Then why are you dragging me along?”
“For slice-of-life, you absolutely need someone like you. A bit dumb, kind of foolish, someone who delivers lines without much energy! Especially someone who sticks next to a character like me.”
The new male lead of <ParCheHi> wasn’t as strong an actor as Gaeul, but I wasn’t worried.
‘The vastly improved Gaeul will fill in the gaps as Hina.’
Besides, a stoic male character suited Hina well. Any shortcomings in acting wouldn’t stand out too much.
The script reading ended successfully, but our <ParCheHi> schedule for the day wasn’t over yet. If anything, this was when it really began.
“Yeoreum, good work. Drink some water.”
“Thank you. I’ll drink after I change. I need to fix my lips anyway.”
Next came the Blu-ray interview shoot. Hwang the coordinator handed me the school uniform she had prepared in advance.
I changed into the current-stock school uniform—it had been a while since I’d worn one. Before I knew it, Junseo and Gaeul were already dressed in their uniforms too.
“Hey. Doesn’t this feel weird?”
“I’m a little sad too, but that doesn’t mean you can hog the male lead position forever, sunbae.... No matter how greedy you are for screen time.”
“Stop talking.”
When I brought up the screen time argument from earlier, Junseo frowned deeply. Gaeul pushed my back lightly with her small hand.
“Han Yeoreum—. Hurry up, let’s go do the Blu-ray interview. We’re definitely releasing a Blu-ray for the spin-off too.”
Well, either way, it was good. The three of us filmed the Blu-ray interview in JC ENM’s internal studio, which had been dressed up to look like the Current High classroom.
What was fun, what was difficult, each of our thoughts on our characters’ directions—we filmed for quite a while, long enough that I wanted to talk even more.
‘I hope it turns out well.’
With that modest wish, a few days later, the script reading video was uploaded. The reaction was exactly what you’d expect.
Intube
@JC ENM Subscribers: 770K
[The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine! Spin-off Script Reading] 04:55
Views: 63K
–Junseo with black hair is insanely attractive TT_TT please preserve this forever
︎˪22 panting handsome men must be classic, this person knows their stuff
–Choo Gaeul’s acting improved a lot lolol the spin-off is gonna be crazy fun, I’m hyped
–A web drama getting a Blu-ray lolololol is it because this year’s such a romance drought? ParCheHi is carrying everything, this is insane,,T_T
People who enjoyed <ParCheHi> poured in quickly, so the early view count and comments were stable, and news of the <ParCheHi> spin-off spread through communities and SNS alike.
And above all, the most impactful thing was—
Aetami (Not a pyramid scheme acct dmgX) @AnYtimeMedia
What? What did you just say? A ParCheHi Blu-ray is coming out?
︎˪Aetami’s at it again, no matter what you say, this can’t actually happen..... please let it go now ( •́ㅿ•̀ )
︎˪(article link)
︎˪??Why is this real??? (ﾟﾛﾟ)
A web drama with a runtime of only two hours captured the hearts of netizens. That drama was JC ENM’s ‘The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine’ (:ParCheHi).
Unlike existing web dramas, ParCheHi attempted a first-of-its-kind shift from a focus on “relatability” to a focus on “story,” achieving unprecedented success. One representative example was the release of a Blu-ray—something previously reserved only for popular mainstream dramas.
On the 17th, ParCheHi will move forward with producing a director’s-cut DVD and a limited-edition Blu-ray through crowdfunding.
It was unheard-of news: a web drama getting a Blu-ray. Interest in the funding flooded in like a tide.
* * *
“Finally!”
After refreshing countless times, Aetami finally managed to access the funding site.
▶︎Project heroine
The Cherry on the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine
Today was finally the day the <ParCheHi> Blu-ray funding opened.
