240 Lee Yeo Ri, Debuting on National Television (1/2)

Nighttime.

After returning from the audition, Yeo Ri was finally able to rest and bury herself inside her blankets.

Gun had ushered her to the barely-furnished living room, where they made themselves comfortable on the sofa with their blankets and pillows cushioning them.

It was almost 9 p.m., the time when a certain supernatural-mystery-romance drama would air, and this episode in particular, was a special one to them.

It was Yeo Ri's first appearance as an actress. Although it was a small role, Gun was very excited to see his sister in action.

While Gun was trying to configure how to record the episode, Yeo Ri was busy staring at her phone.

She was receiving plenty of support from her friends, who were also waiting for the episode. Texts flooded her screen, and Min Chae, in particular, was going around advertising the episode to everyone she knew.

However, Yeo Ri barely paid attention to the chats, simply replying with an appropriate answer every once in a while.

Instead, she was putting all her focus on setting up a social media account on one of the most popular platforms on the web. She had asked Park Soo Yeon about it earlier, and the woman had given her the green light, on the proviso that Yeo Ri would have to run each post by a company personnel—or her manager, Kwon Tae Yang—before posting anything. The president hadn't intended to be so controlling, but they had to monitor her posts properly since Yeo Ri's career was still in its infant stages.

Yeo Ri had always wanted one before—a place to post all her photos and selfies she had once loved to take—but she didn't have a phone for that, and after she actually got her own phone, Yeo Ri wasn't in the right headspace for it. It was only recently that she finally opened up to the idea once again.

'It's starting! It's starting! It's starting!' Min Chae texted. Yeo Ri could feel the girl's excitement through her phone, which made her smile.

Finally, she managed to complete her profile and selected a profile picture. Since this was an official celebrity account, Yeo Ri would have to wait for a while before she would be allowed to 'follow' her real life friends' accounts, lest her popularity might affect them. After she finished setting up her social media account, she forwarded the username and password to Secretary Kwon, who would be in charge of monitoring her content.

Gun nudged the girl as the two main characters of the drama came into frame. Yeo Ri had immediately recognised them since they had worked together for a few days.

The episode opened with a dialogue between the two main characters as they inch closer to the ultimate finale. The lead this time had sent them to a girls' school where a disappearance had taken place, and they had taken up the job to investigate it.

Finally, a glimpse of Yeo Ri could be seen eight minutes into the episode. She stood behind a building, looking far away. A special filter had been added on her to produce an eerie pale blue hue to signify her role as a ghost.

”You're pretty even when you're a ghost,” Gun complimented. A huge smile hung on his face proudly, happy to see his baby sister thrive.

”Oppa, you're too happy. People might think you're the one who appeared in the show instead of me,” Yeo Ri laughed at her brother's silly reaction. No matter how soft he was towards her, this was also her first time seeing her brother smile from ear to ear. It was much more interesting to watch his reaction rather than the actual drama, she mused.

”Wait!” The heroine called out as the ghastly on-screen Yeo Ri disappeared around the corner of the school hallways.

Opening up a group chat between her, Min Chae, and Jang Mi, Yeo Ri finally decided to reply to Min Chae's flurry of texts.

'I thought my makeup was scary, but they made me look scarier after editing,' she wrote.

The two ever-loving friends quickly shot back, saying that she still looked beautiful even with ghost makeup on. Min Chae had even condemned her best friend for her words. 'If you think that's scary, wait until you see my last attempt at applying makeup... now that's scary!' She responded, reminiscing about her botched makeover a few months prior. 'So much for a high school debut,' she added.

The on-screen Yeo Ri had an unearthly quality to her thanks to the special effects and makeup. If anything, she looked like a sad fairy rather than a wretched ghost.

As the story progressed, Yeo Ri absentmindedly wondered if she should contact Won. She had his number saved, but she hesitated to contact him.

”...Who's that?” Gun asked, glancing at his sister who was hovering her thumb over her smartphone screen. 'Won', the ID was named.

”Who's this 'Won' person? Is it a guy? How did you meet him? Is he bothering you?” Gun fired in succession, a grim and disapproving gaze crumpling his face.

Yeo Ri sighed inwardly, knowing that this would happen. ”He's a coworker. We're friends,” she briefly explained.

”'He'?” Gun immediately focused on the word. ”So it's a guy?” He frowned, ”He's not bothering you, is he?”

”Oppa, you're too protective. He's not,” Yeo Ri smiled helplessly.

”You can never be too sure, Yeo Ri-ah,” Gun said sternly. ”All men other than your Oppa are all wolves.”

”What about Hyuk-oppa?” Yeo Ri blinked her eyes innocently. Hyuk was her 'Oppa' too, wasn't he?

As she had expected, his face soured. With a tightly scrunching forehead, he spat, ”He's the worst of them all.” No matter what, he still couldn't accept their relationship; it was wrong—and most importantly, that beast did not deserve to be with his pure and lovely Yeo Ri.

”...Hehe.” Yeo Ri could only laugh. In the end, she put away her phone, deciding not to contact the idol. At least not with her real phone number, anyways.

The two quietened down, focusing on the screen once more.

”—She went that way!” The heroine called out. The two leads branched away at the intersecting hallways, one following Ghost Yeo Ri while the other trying to evade the flurry of evil ghosts chasing after them. Yeo Ri remembered filming the scene, but most of the extras playing the ghosts had different filming days than her so it was her first time seeing them.