3
ch 3
Let’s Clean
I asked the employees for directions and tried to show the script directly to a PD.
But then.
“Give it to me.”
Someone who looked incredibly young held out her palm and spoke.
Her employee ID said “PD,” but as far as I knew, there were several different kinds of PDs.
The PD I wanted to show my script to was someone who directly directed dramas.
“...”
Suspicious, I kept my mouth firmly shut.
She wasn’t going to take it and throw it away, was she?
Or shove it into some corner and forget about it.
She shrugged and continued.
“Scripts don’t go directly to the directors in the first place. There’s a screening process, and I’m the one who handles
that. So you can just give it to me. Here’s my business card.”
I accepted her business card, but I had nothing to give her.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t even written my contact information or email address on the script.
So I immediately took out my phone in front of her and called her.
“That’s my number.”
She picked up the vibrating phone and looked at me.
She gave a little laugh.
Then she made a smug expression.
It seemed she had misunderstood something, but I let her be happy about it.
That way, she might take a more favorable look at my script.
I took out the synopsis and Parts 1 and 2 of the script and handed them to her.
“I printed two extra copies of each. Would you like them?”
“No. One copy of each is enough.”
My backpack was heavy with my laptop and scripts inside.
But if one copy was enough, I had printed them for nothing.
I clicked my tongue and said,
“Please take good care of them. I think you’ll like them.”
I turned around and left.
For now, I’d wait for them to contact me.
If they didn’t, I could just work with another production company.
I was confident in my script.
It would be even better if this huge production company produced it, but even if it wasn’t them, there were plenty of
other good production companies.
Before entering the building, my heart had been pounding with excitement and anticipation.
But now, strangely enough, I felt relaxed and at ease.
Thanks to leaving all my discomfort in the bathroom just moments ago.
I felt as comfortable as if I were at home.
I went to my car, but before starting the engine, I picked up my phone.
I called the number I had gotten yesterday, and before long, I heard her voice.
“Hello?”
Kim Sori.
Now I could help ease her discomfort, too.
And not just her discomfort.
A top star who had once been loved by fans and the public had fallen to rock bottom in an instant.
All because of something she hadn’t even done.
The sense of loss and injustice, the anger and sadness, must have been tearing her apart inside.
“Ms. Sori, can you meet me right now? I found evidence that can clear up the controversy.”
A miracle had come to me.
This ability was changing my life.
And for her, this recording would become that kind of miracle.
A miracle that would change her life.
A miracle that would allow her to regain the brilliant light she had lost.
Kim Sori invited me over in the evening.
To her own home in Seoul.
It seemed she was coming straight up from Cheongju.
I headed to her house at the appointed time.
I stood in front of the door, took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell.
I had been invited to Kim Sori’s house.
It still didn’t feel real.
My world had really changed overnight.
“...You’re here?”
“Yes.”
Her house was nice and fairly large, but it wasn’t particularly extravagant.
I wanted to look around more carefully, but I couldn’t.
The atmosphere inside the house was far too heavy right now.
No.
Even calling it simply “heavy” couldn’t fully describe it.
There was intense excitement simmering beneath that heaviness, and all kinds of emotions were swirling across Kim Sori’s
face.
I only glanced at Kim Sori rather than looking at her properly.
There was a chance that if I stared at her too closely, I might see another hallucination.
This was the moment she had been desperately waiting for.
I wasn’t so insensitive that I would keep writing my script even during a moment this important.
Before explaining anything, I played the recording first.
At full volume.
That vicious voice rang out clearly.
Kim Sori didn’t move at all.
She listened intently.
She didn’t even swallow.
With her eyes wide open, she simply stared down at the phone and listened.
The recording was short because the conversation itself had been short.
But all the important information was there.
Kim Sori stepped closer to me and asked,
“...Can I listen to it again?”
There was moisture in her voice.
When I glanced at her eyes, they were bloodshot and red.
I nodded and handed her my phone completely.
The recorded voice played again from the phone she held in her trembling hands.
“Haah... Sob!”
She collapsed.
I quickly caught her.
The atmosphere around her was a complete mess, but...
After crying for a long time, she finally stopped and wore a relieved smile.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“Well...”
I was about to say, “It was nothing,” but I quickly shut my mouth.
To her, it wasn’t nothing.
It was something enormous.
A miracle that could change her life.
I nodded and spoke.
The line to say at a moment like this was obvious.
Of course it was.
“I simply did what I could.”
I might have looked pretty cool saying that.
“But how on earth did you do it?”
Kim Sori asked while pouring soju into my glass.
Her eyes were swollen, and she looked at me as though I were fascinating.
It hadn’t even been twenty-four hours since we had met and I had heard her story.
And yet I had suddenly brought her such decisive evidence.
Of course she would be amazed.
“Hmm. I just got lucky. I wasn’t even deliberately digging into it.”
I couldn’t reveal the details.
How could I tell her about those filthy circumstances?
There was absolutely no way.
I accepted the soju bottle and poured some into her glass as well.
Then, for the first time since arriving here, I stared directly at her face.
She had been beautiful yesterday, and she was beautiful today too.
Even with her swollen eyes, she looked beautiful because it was a new side of her.
There seemed to be stars embedded in her eyes, which no longer held any trace of wariness.
When I stared at her, confusion filled her eyes.
Even that expression was incredibly vivid.
When someone had a beautiful face, everything they did became a picture.
But I didn’t see a hallucination.
Right.
It was possible that I wouldn’t.
So I turned my gaze away.
I knew Kim Sori was the target of my ability, but there was no guarantee that I had to look directly at her face to see
a hallucination.
This was worth experimenting with as well.
I carefully observed everything.
Her posture.
Her clothes.
The table she had prepared.
Even the living room.
I focused on each thing one by one as though examining it piece by piece.
Still, nothing appeared.
“Why? Do you want me to show you around the house?”
“Yes! Please show me around.”
Right.
Let’s take a closer look at the house.
“...But it’s a little messy. I’m normally really good at keeping things clean, but I got really into minimalism
recently.”
What on earth did minimalism have to do with being dirty?
Absolutely nothing, probably.
I nodded and said,
“I’m also really into Detroit: Become Human, so I don’t care about things like that.”
“Detroit... what? What is that?”
“A game. It’s a sci-fi action adventure game, but I haven’t actually played it yet.”
“You said you were into it.”
“Yes. I am. Just like you’re into minimalism.”
She let out a hollow laugh and glared at me.
I calmly met her gaze.
“Writer, you don’t have a girlfriend, do you?”
“You don’t have a boyfriend either, do you, Ms. Sori?”
“...”
Kim Sori pouted and walked away.
She was cute.
She opened a closed door and proudly showed me a disastrous room.
Clothes were piled up into mountains everywhere, while all kinds of objects formed various landscapes.
There were rivers, mountain ranges, and even valleys.
“Do you happen to do modern art too?”
“Yes. Beautiful, isn’t it?”
She opened the door to another room wide.
“Oh! So you run a warehouse too?”
“Yes. This is basically the hub of Asian trade.”
And this was the last room.
Only the bedroom remained.
Surely the bedroom would at least be clean, right?
She grabbed the doorknob and glared at me with a sulky expression.
She seemed fully prepared to fire back at whatever I said.
The bedroom door opened.
“Hmm...? Gasp!”
She tilted her head at my reaction before looking inside the room.
“Gasp!”
The door immediately slammed shut.
Her pajamas and underwear were no longer visible.
But the scene inside had already been burned into my eyes.
Kim Sori lowered her head.
Her face had turned bright red.
Even her ears and neck were red.
“...You saw it, didn’t you?”
“No?”
I quickly shook my head from side to side.
“...”
“...”
We started drinking again.
She began raising her glass a little faster when we toasted.
In the end, my ability didn’t activate.
But I didn’t feel impatient.
I had completed Part 2 in just one day.
There was no reason to rush.
As we drank and talked, she smacked her lips and cautiously asked,
“By the way, Writer... Could you perhaps give me the script?”
Her tone was casual, but her voice trembled slightly.
She seemed afraid that I might refuse.
‘Now?’
Yesterday, she had spent the entire day helping me write my script, saying she would help me get inspiration.
It had only been a short time, but surely that meant we could consider ourselves somewhat close.
And yet she was still trembling.
Maybe it was because of the difference in our positions.
From her perspective, it might not be strange at all.
She had experienced so many miserable things up until now.
That would change from this point on because we had evidence that could clear the controversy, but...
‘No wonder her self-esteem has dropped.’
She had been fired from the work she had been doing.
No one in the industry called her anymore.
Even when she tried to promote herself, no one listened.
And even when she explained herself, there had been no one willing to believe her.
Even though she now had evidence in her hands, those experiences wouldn’t suddenly make her confidence return.
Especially when it came to something related to business.
I also tried to be careful with my attitude.
I took the script out of my bag and handed it to her, as though giving her the script were nothing special.
“I have some copies of the script printed out. I printed three copies of each just in case, but apparently the
production company only needs one each?”
But once the script was in her hands, I became nervous.
For some reason, it felt as though things were finally beginning in earnest.
And I wanted her to act exactly as I had seen in my visions.
‘Can Kim Sori act the way I saw in my vision?’
I wanted to see her acting immediately, but she would need practice.
She had been away from acting for a while, too, so it might take quite some time before she was ready to show her acting
to others.
She reread the script she had read yesterday and then began reading the new synopsis I had written.
I stared at her and thought.
I should see Kim Sori as often as possible.
For as long as possible.
If I didn’t know the conditions under which my ability activated, then I simply needed to stay close to her and wait.
I relaxed and continued watching her.
It was surprisingly entertaining.
After he left, Kim Sori was alone in the house.
The house was quiet.
Whenever her surroundings became quiet, loneliness, solitude, anger, and sadness would suddenly creep up on her.
That was why, whenever Kim Sori was alone at home, she always kept the TV or music playing.
She hated this silence so much that it made her shudder.
But now, there was no sound from the TV.
No music either.
Only one tiny sound could be heard regularly through the silence.
Rustle, rustle.
The sound of turning script pages.
Normally, such a small sound would never have been enough to satisfy her.
But now, she wasn’t anxious either.
Her home felt comfortable.
The reason was obvious.
It was thanks to him.
Rustle.
As she turned a page, the vibration of her phone also sounded.
Bzzzt.
The name of her agency’s CEO appeared on the screen.
CEO Kim Jungman.
“Hello?”
“S-Sori! Is this real!?”
His extremely excited voice came through the phone.
He must have listened to the recording.
“Yes. It’s real.”
“What happened... No. I’m coming over right now! You’re home, right?”
“Yes. Take your time.”
She hung up and let out a small laugh.
He must have been shocked.
She had been too.
He had completely turned her world upside down overnight.
It felt like a drama.
Like a movie.
How could something like this happen?
“He’s really... an amazing person.”
She read the script again and again.
It was already her third time through it.
But the more she read, the more her expression subtly twisted.
She bit her lip and began trembling her leg.
It was because two opposing emotions, greed and conscience, kept growing larger and colliding with each other.
‘Can I... really do this?’
She wanted this script.
She wanted this role so, so badly.
But the emotions she felt yesterday and today were slightly different.
Yesterday, she had wondered, “Can I do this?”
Now, her conscience was pricking her.
Her own circumstances were simply too poor for her to covet the precious debut work of the person who had become her
benefactor.
Even if the controversy was cleared up and the truth came to light, the public probably wouldn’t care.
People were like that.
When a controversy erupted, they would make an enormous fuss.
But when it came to explanations and clarifications, they didn’t pay nearly as much attention.
And they certainly wouldn’t believe everything one hundred percent.
There would still be plenty of people who refused to believe her and continued to doubt her.
That was how public image worked.
It was easy to ruin, but extremely difficult to restore.
“It would only cause trouble...”
He had said this was his debut work.
But she was someone whose image had been stained.
Could she really play the lead in it?
In the precious debut work of the benefactor she could never repay enough?
It was impossible.
She didn’t want to do that either.
The problem was that she liked this script far too much.
Perhaps because he had used her as inspiration, it even felt as though the role had been tailored specifically for her.
“...It’s far too much for me. I shouldn’t be greedy.”
She shook her head several times, trying to get rid of her greed.
But her hand continued turning the pages.
“But practicing it... should be okay, right?”
She would only practice.
She had been away from acting for a long time, so her skills must have become rusty.
If she wanted to make a comeback, she needed to practice.
“Right. I’m just... practicing.”
The moment she made up her mind, she suddenly remembered the filthy room.
She didn’t know why, but unlike usual, she suddenly had an overwhelming urge to clean.
Kim Sori closed the script and jumped up from the sofa.
“Let’s clean.”
Neatly.
So it wouldn’t look dirty.
This house had originally been clean.
She wanted to bring it back to the way it had been.