Drama Audition! (2)
I followed Kang Wonseong into the audition room.
The door creaked open.
The space inside was larger than I'd expected. A U-shaped table sat in the center, and more than ten people were already seated around it. Every last pair of eyes swung toward me at once.
Among them, of course—
"Jiwoo. We meet again."
Yoo Minho, the director who'd been with Kang Wonseong during the street busking, greeted me with a light wave. I was about to wave back when the only man in a perfectly pressed suit cut in.
"Ahem. Let's get started, shall we. Drag this out any longer and we'll be inconveniencing the other contestants."
What's his problem? Did he just glare at me? His whole face was broadcasting how much he disliked me.
"No manners on that one, huh?"
I nearly nodded yes. If there were going to be this many people, someone could have warned me. Grumbling inwardly, I put on the brightest smile I could manage.
"It's fine. I'm sure he's having a rough day."
I added it in a small, understanding tone.
The chair in the center scraped as I sat. Sit up straight, right? I straightened my back and neatly tucked my legs together, the same posture I'd used for corporate interviews, and swept my gaze across the people at the table. I ignored the man radiating hostility and met the eyes of a woman who looked to be in her forties.
Huh? Did she just... smile at me?
I was still trying to parse what that smile meant when Kang Wonseong, already seated, planted his arms on the table and put on a grave expression.
"Jiwoo."
"I'm sorry things turned out like this, but we're going to have to start the audition right away. Here's the script. I'll give you about ten minutes. Recite the lines for us."
There were no other character names. Just Kang Sora's name, her dialogue, and a sketch of the situation.
They wanted me to act with nothing but this? Was that even possible? Everyone else in the running would have gotten the script a week ago—maybe earlier—and been rehearsing ever since.
So they want a one-woman show. Me beating the drum and playing the janggu all by myself.
I'd been learning to act for a handful of days. Calling it "learning" was generous. I'd just been copying videos. Amateur hour.
Start with the situation notes.
Kang Sora was a young breadwinner raising three younger siblings alone, no parents in the picture. Every day was another part-time job, living hand to mouth. Even she had a dream, though: to be a singer.
From childhood, singing made time disappear. Whenever things got hard, she sang her way through it.
Got it. So she's singing by chance, gets picked up by someone from an agency—except he's a con artist. She can't handle the debt, and then she just...
Reading the script, I made a noise I shouldn't have.
"Huh?"
"Jiwoo? Is there something odd about the material?"
"Ah, no... it's just..."
I hesitated over whether to say it. Better not. A writer had poured herself into this script; a beginner like me had no business picking it apart.
I set the pages down and recited the lines I'd memorized, one after another.
"I got scouted by someone who said he was from an agency. I was just singing a song I liked. At first I was so startled..."
In that instant, the room froze solid.
"W-w-wait! Jiwoo? Was that... acting just now?"
Every gaze in the room turned sour. Kang Wonseong's face, Yoo Minho's, everyone's.
"Is there a problem?"
I played it shameless. I knew perfectly well those lines hadn't been acting so much as garbage. Of course they looked like that.
Especially him.
Is she kidding me?
The man in the suit who'd disliked me from the start—his expression had gone downright vicious.
"When I heard you singing on the street, Jiwoo, you poured your soul into that song. I'd like you to put that same soul into your acting. Not... whatever that was."
Pour my soul into it?
Maybe tell me how before you ask, I thought.
"...Don't tell me."
Kang Wonseong's eyes went wide as they met mine.
"Jiwoo. Have you ever studied acting?"
My shoulders gave a tiny twitch. So he'd caught me. I'd tried so hard not to let it show.
"No. I've never learned it professionally."
"Professionally... meaning."
"Yes. Copying videos is all I've done."
Kang Wonseong pressed a hand to his forehead.
She's never acted. Not even once.
These days agencies taught a bit of acting along with singing. He'd assumed Jiwoo had at least that much. The expectation collapsed in an instant.
Even if she's a perfect fit for the part, I can't cast Foot Acting like that.
He felt bad for her, but the casting was off the table.
He looked at her, ready to say so.
And then—
"....!"
Kang Wonseong felt it.
She hasn't given up. If anything... she's putting up a fight.
He stood and tossed her a few pieces of advice.
"Jiwoo. You don't have to treat acting like it's some mountain. You've watched actors in dramas at least once, haven't you?"
Jiwoo nodded.
"Yes. I started watching recently."
"Can you tell me what it felt like?"
"Hmm..."
She thought for a moment, then went on.
"Some of the actors felt awkward. And some of them felt like they were overdoing it."
He wanted to tell her she was wrong. She wasn't. There used to be a lot of talk about powerhouse actors. These days you saw more of the ones who just blended in, inoffensive and forgettable.
Actors with outstanding looks? Those were everywhere. Even an unattractive face could be made beautiful with makeup and direction.
Assuming, of course, the acting held it up.
"Right. Then why do you think those actors overdo it?"
Jiwoo thought again and offered an answer.
"Maybe... because they... inhabit the character? The role?"
Kang Wonseong smiled.
Just as I thought.
She hadn't been taught to act. That was all. The potential was already there. Her vocal production didn't even need correcting.
"Can you try it again?"
Jiwoo looked down at the script.
This is...?
She startled. It was the same script. No one had swapped it out; she'd been holding it the whole time. It couldn't have changed.
The script changed?
In that short span, only her eye for the page had shifted. The script itself was the same.
The same type, the same character history, the same descriptions. And yet a grief and a fury she'd never felt the first time came pouring off it.
Tears for everything Kang Sora had felt threatened to spill right then and there.
But she couldn't cry. An audition was a job interview. Judges didn't care for weeping or shouting. You simply laid out the fullest performance you could.
"I... got scouted by someone who said he was from an agency? I was just singing a song I liked... At first I was so startled I screamed 'Aaaagh!' and he didn't even get mad..."
A completely different cadence filled the audition room. She already had every line memorized. Her acting still wasn't strong enough; she might break in the middle.
So she simply refused to let herself break.
Jiwoo understood a little more of Kang Sora's grief.
She poured into this place the rage and sorrow of being taken by a con artist in the life when she'd been a man.
"But that man! He was a con artist! The money I... I earned so hard for my siblings!"
Kindergarten tuition for the fourth, academy fees for the third, even college tuition for the second—money Kang Sora had scraped together while barely keeping food in their mouths, gone in a single stroke.
There was no one around. It wasn't time for the younger ones to come home from academy, and kindergarten wasn't out yet. In a space that was hers alone, she could only pour out her fury.
Kang Sora looked up at the ceiling. Slowly. Very slowly.
The only thing that met her eyes was a broken light, swaying in front of her face.
"Ah.... Why... why did you leave us behind first... If it would just... if it would just make things easier..."
Every line was finished, and still no one opened their mouth. Their bodies had gone rigid.
They couldn't help it.
The only person standing there was Kang Sora, swaying hard on her feet.
What just happened?
Even after the acting was over, they were staring at me, unblinking.
Did they hate that take?
It had been as fun as singing on the street during the busking. I'd gotten carried away without meaning to and overdone it.
"Jiwoo..."
Kang Wonseong's mouth finally opened. I started to stand, ready to apologize for going overboard.
"Jiwoo... how... how did you put on a performance like that?"
"I'm sor— wait? What do you... were you about to scold me for overdoing it..."
Kang Wonseong's brow furrowed, as if he had no idea what I was talking about.
"Why would I scold you? It's nothing. Really."
He cut himself off, shook his head, and passed the baton sideways. The woman who took it had been staring at me with glittering eyes from the moment I walked into the room.
"I'll take it from here. I'm Kim Eun-joo, the writer of this drama. A pleasure, Jiwoo."
"...Yes. Likewise."
"But Jiwoo."
The smile vanished from Kim Eun-joo's face, replaced by something serious. I tensed right along with her, ready to answer whatever came next as honestly as I could.
"By any chance... what cosmetics do you use?"
"....Excuse me?"
The question was so far from anything I'd expected that I couldn't help but gape. I wasn't the only one. Kang Wonseong, who'd just handed her the floor, let out a disbelieving laugh.
"Ha... is that really what you're asking right now?"
Even under Kang Wonseong's scolding, Kim Eun-joo didn't budge.
Of course she didn't.
"Look at that baby skin! I'm jealous! I'm curious! Isn't everyone? If she can keep skin like that, every agency in this room would be drooling, don't you think?"
And then every gaze in the room, except for three people, locked onto me.
That was when it clicked.
Don't tell me... they're all agency people? I thought they were just investors.
No wonder it had felt off. From the second they saw me, they'd been busy doubting me and tearing me down.
They've been killing themselves to get their own actors into this. And me... do I even belong in a seat like this?
Acting for the first time. The entertainment industry for the first time. Me?