The Practical Exam
It made sense that a feature-phone-era commercial had been forgotten — but then a single cover dance blew up, and the past came calling. At school, my label had quietly shifted from the handsome guy to the handsome guy who used to be famous. After all, people had dug up Wagle Wagle Kindergarten, a Kim Si-woon film, and even a few cuts from an old photo shoot.
"Moutube for you. It brings the dead back to life."
"Don't go around killing perfectly healthy people."
"Take it as an honor. You're the first guy who's ever shown up on my channel."
"Well, in that case, I'm honored."
Knowing full well what happened when I failed to play along, I kept my hands as far off the stove as possible.
"I went to school and it turns out you have a boyfriend" — she needled me about it for ages.
"That's quite the sour face. Would it really be so bad if it were me?"
"Who said it would be!!"
Lately, her anger gauge seemed to blow its top the moment she laid eyes on me. She'd grumble and hedge vaguely whenever So-ra came up, dancing around the topic. Was she planning to challenge me to an actual duel if I ever gave her a straight answer?
Practical exam day —
The Seorim Arts High building, supposedly designed by a famous architect, looked grand and impressive from the outside. But the interior showed the neglect of half-hearted maintenance, and above all, it was shabby to its bones. The practice room designated as the exam hall for the Performance Department was a converted underground parking garage, and the moment I opened the door and stepped inside, the smell of mold stabbed at my nose.
"A second-year told me that when the rainy season hits, you have to come down here and bail the water out yourself."
Someone murmured behind me. He must have heard it from a senior actually enrolled here. Even without such stories, the state of the facilities was frankly outrageous. Students were paying close to ten million won a year in tuition to take classes in this rotting place. Sponsorships and donations from affiliated companies couldn't be small either, yet not a won of it went into the buildings. If the Chairman had any conscience at all, he would never have let the practice rooms fall into this state.
The waiting room was packed with applicants. The Performance Department admitted forty students at a competitive ratio of nine to one. Since multiple applications were allowed, even after subtracting those who went to other departments or dropped out midway, the number of students sitting the practical would easily exceed three hundred.
The exam ran over three days, and I'd been assigned to the first — which meant I was currently sitting in the waiting room alongside roughly a hundred other students.
"That's him, right? The kid from Yu-jin's channel? God, he's handsome."
"There's a commercial too. Search TTN on Moutube. Supposedly he was in a movie ten years ago."
"He was an actor? I've never seen him on TV."
"I looked it up. Apart from Wagle Wagle Kindergarten and that movie, there's nothing."
"Wagle Wagle Kindergarten? I loved that show as a kid."
"He was on it with Yu-jin, wasn't he? Guess they've been close since way back."
The murmuring around me was thick with talk of yours truly. Dancing that cover with Yu-jin had paid off in a way I hadn't anticipated.
"Hi."
Someone sat down beside me and greeted me. A wavy, layered bob that fell to her shoulders. She had the look of a country puppy that would fawn over absolutely anyone. Take off those horn-rimmed glasses and she'd probably be rather pretty. Overall, a girl whose charm leaned heavily toward the cute side of the scale.
"You're the one from Yu-jin's cover dance video, right? Are you two dating?"
"You know Yu-jin?"
"We go to the same school. We're not close, though."
She spoke briskly, without any wasted motion.
"We're not dating, but I've known her since we were little. Childhood friends, I guess?"
"Ah, I see. Hold on, your name was... I forgot."
She hurriedly started searching for something on her phone. Had she actually written my name down somewhere?
"Byun Ha-jin."
"Right, right — Ha-jin. Sorry, it completely slipped my mind for a second."
"And your name is?"
"Me? Minji. Pyo Minji."
Pyo Min-ji. I've heard that name somewhere before...
In an instant, lightning struck before my eyes. Like flipping a switch to flood a dark room with light, the memory sharpened into perfect clarity. The problem was that the speed at which it cleared... was far too fast.
"Agh!"
"What's wrong? Are you okay?"
When I clutched my head, she grabbed my shoulder, clearly worried. The world swam dizzily, like the lingering haze after a difficult scene, then slowly righted itself. The memory had revived all at once, and something in my head must have overloaded.
But what is she doing here?
Before my regression, whenever people discussed the top tier of drama writers, she was a star whose name never failed to come up. Her main work was television scripts, but she'd written web novels back in her school days and even worked as a manhwa scenario writer. She'd debuted in spectacular fashion by winning the grand prize at a broadcaster's competition, racked up hit after hit on both terrestrial and cable channels, then moved into streaming and became a byword for guaranteed success on Ni-flix. It was honestly baffling that a future heavyweight like her was applying to a Performance Department to learn acting.
"My head just hurt for a second. I'm fine now."
"You must have been nervous. Though with a face like yours, even your suffering looks like a painting. Honestly, you."
It was a compliment about my looks, but with a different texture than what I usually got. No possessiveness in it at all — just pure, uncomplicated admiration.
"Anyway, what are you doing here? Seorim Arts High doesn't even have a creative writing department."
The closest thing to it was the Video Production Department, which taught planning and directing. Unlike most screenwriters, she had kept directing her own work all the way through university — and not casually, either; she'd been serious enough to win awards at short film festivals. Her ever-smiling face turned oddly unreadable.
"What? This isn't the first time you've seen me?"
"It's the first time I've seen your face. But I've heard there's a girl at Myeongil Middle who writes incredibly well. You serialized novels online too, didn't you?"
"How did you know that?"
Her expression was less surprised than fascinated.
"I know a few more kids at Myeongil Middle besides Yu-jin."
From my past life — I'd heard it in an interview, but I glossed over the details. She tilted her head, curious, but didn't press further.
"Well, it's not something I can really go into, but let's just say I'm rebelling as hard as I can to get out from under my dad's thumb. I applied here because of that, too."
Min-ji's father, a university professor, was one of the novelists who stood at the very forefront of the Korean literary world. He absolutely despised the idea of his exceptionally gifted daughter writing web novels or manhwa scripts. Why, he fumed, was she squandering such dazzling talent mass-producing disposable printed trash? So in defiance of that father, she had applied to a major with nothing to do with prose.
"I'm interested in acting, too. It'll help when I write scenarios or scripts down the line, won't it?"
Maybe a writer could take a turn on stage herself, she said with a sly grin. It was a mindset perfectly suited to that "Lucky Vicky" attitude that had been all the rage in my past life.
Just then, someone entered through the waiting room door.
"May I have your attention, applicants? You are currently in Waiting Room One. We will move you to Waiting Room Two in groups of five, in order of exam number. Apart from students entering the exam hall, you may practice there. And furthermore..."
The handful of instructions that followed more or less matched the accounts I'd read online. I glanced around the room — students were fiddling with their instruments or warming up their voices over scripts.
"I should warm up too. Fighting — let's make sure we see each other at school."
"Where are you going? It's not your turn yet."
"I practice better in a corner somewhere."
And off she went, humming to herself. It was a breezy ease that made the tension saturating the waiting room look almost absurd. I had just quietly closed my eyes to run through my script in my head when my exam number was called.
The exam hall itself was every bit as run-down — the only difference being that the mold smell was slightly fainter than in the waiting room. There were five judges, and a glance at their faces made it easy to guess whose side each of them was on. The three seated at ease, as if perfectly accustomed to these surroundings, were school staff; the two wrinkling their noses at the stench of mold were outside guests. Cameras had been set up along both side walls and behind the judges' table.
For accepted candidates only, any agency with an interest could review the footage of their performance scenes. In effect, passing the practical meant sitting the agency audition and the school exam in a single stroke.
The judges had not introduced themselves, but I knew perfectly well who the man in the center was. Vice Principal Na Kyung-man — a director once revered in the theater world.
The same face I saw on the news, back in my past life.
He had stood up to that hopeless Chairman and tried to change the school, only to be framed and dismissed on false charges. The wound must have cut deep, because even after the Chairman was finally driven out, he never returned.
This time, I absolutely will not let that happen.
I stood before the panel, bowed with due courtesy, and fixed my gaze straight ahead. One after another, the judges straightened in their seats with undisguised admiration. Being this handsome meant never having to work for attention — convenient in any number of ways.
"Exam number A39, Byun Ha-jin... is that correct?"
"Yes, Mr. Vice Principal."
"Do you know who I am?"
A flicker of surprise crossed his face.
"I saw you exchanging greetings with the Principal before last year's graduation ceremony performance. The video was posted on Moutube."
"You were on screen for what, a few seconds. You remembered my face from that?"
"I happen to be... rather good at remembering faces."
"A keen eye, then. That's one of an actor's greatest assets — see that you hone it. Now, shall we talk about the free performance you've prepared?"
And so the practical exam began.