First Shoot! (4)
After the morning shoot wrapped, the lunch hour I'd been waiting for finally arrived. Yesterday I'd managed all of four lunchboxes at midday and then been forced to skip dinner entirely. Right now I was one stiff breeze away from collapsing of hunger.
"Unnie! Food! I mean—when are we eating?!"
"Food? Hold on a second..."
Kang Ho-yeon checked the delivery app, then her face twisted into something deeply unfortunate. The moment I saw that expression I started praying, desperately: please, anything but that look.
"Jiwoo... I'm sorry."
"Ah... please no."
I clasped both hands together and prayed. Please don't let it be something like the delivery's backed up, or I ordered the wrong thing.
God rejected my prayer.
"Looks like the delivery's running late. It should've been here by now..."
"What do you mean, running late?"
"Uh...? Jiwoo? Your face is kind of terrifying right now?"
What my face looked like was irrelevant. What mattered was that I had no way to soothe this starving stomach. I took a step toward Kang Ho-yeon.
"Ji... woo? Just calm down, okay? I'll have Gayeong run out and grab something right now. Yeah? So just... stay calm..."
"Unnie."
"Huh?"
I let out a light sigh. They've always said even a ghost looks better if it died on a full stomach. I've always agreed with that. I was this hungry already—how bitter must a ghost who starved to death feel?
"I have to be on set in thirty minutes. And it's not a solo shot—I'm filming with Jin Ji-hwa. For the next three days straight."
"I know that. You think I'd volunteer to be your manager and not know your schedule?"
"...As long as you know."
I nodded and went back to my assigned seat. I probably should have used the downtime to go over the script.
I'm so hungry... everything's swimming...
Hunger had wiped every thought from my head. This wouldn't do. I leaned back against the chair and slowly closed my eyes.
Acting drains way more stamina than I expected. I need to stay as still as possible and recover.
About ten minutes had passed when Kang Ho-yeon's voice rang out from across the set.
"Jiwoo! Food's here!"
"FOOD!"
I shot up from my seat, eyes locked on the lunchbox in her hands.
"Here. Today's box is jeyuk."
"Jeyuk! That's perfect!"
If pork cutlet was my number-one favorite food, spicy stir-fried pork was a close second. Honestly you couldn't really compare the two. But in this moment, jeyuk had just been promoted to my all-time favorite.
I popped the lid, still warm to the touch. Inside, glistening red-sauced pork and a mix of vegetables greeted me like old friends.
I swallowed. Just the smell set my salivary glands off like fireworks. I tore open the chopsticks, scooped up a generous clump of pork, and shoved it into my mouth.
"Mmm~!"
The instant it hit my tongue, I felt my rapidly dwindling stamina flood back in. That feeling was almost too good.
"You really know how to enjoy a meal. Is it that good?"
"Yes... pork cutlet is great, but jeyuk is delicious too."
Kang Ho-yeon wasn't the only one thrown by my reaction. The actors nearby started smacking their lips and drifting over to ask where the lunchbox was from. Among them:
"Jiwoo. You really know how to eat. I've never seen an actress put it away like that. So... that jeyuk lunchbox. Where's it from? Can you tell just me, on the down-low?"
Kang Wonseong had inserted himself into the conversation.
Absolutely not. This was a spot I'd only recently discovered, and I was not in a sharing mood.
"You're really going to do me like this? After everything I went through fighting for you?"
"Ah... well, that's true."
I'd heard he'd clashed with Han Mi-young over my casting, and even gotten into it with the production company and the investors. And still, the rumor that Kang Wonseong had stubbornly insisted on using me had reached my ears too.
"Fine... but only you can know, Director. You absolutely cannot tell anyone else. Got it?!"
"Even with that 'what a waste' look on your face... alright, let's hear it. If it's really that good, I'll spread the word all over town!"
"Director!"
In the end, Kang Wonseong pried the restaurant's location out of me, and I finished my jeyuk lunchbox in a state of limp defeat.
"Damn... still tastes amazing, though."
With that little episode behind us, lunch hour came to a close. After brushing my teeth in the restroom, I tipped my head toward the sky with a trembling heart. A different kind of tension from shooting alone settled over me.
Then—
"Jiwoo."
A female actress called my name.
"You're not too nervous, are you? Loosen up a little. Just do what you did earlier."
"Ms. Jin Ji-hwa."
"What's with the 'Ms.'? Just call me unnie. 'Ms.' makes me sound old. There's only ten years between us."
Wasn't ten years a lot? I barely swallowed the words that had climbed all the way to my throat.
"But you're still a senior far ahead of me. I couldn't possibly."
"...Then I suppose I'll have you call me sunbae, the way you do Go Eun-hye."
"That's a bit... I'll just call you unnie. Jihwa unnie."
We traded light small talk until Kang Wonseong called for us.
"For real? You were supposed to start school, but you came here without even enrolling because of the shoot?"
"Yes."
"Wow... high school is supposed to be all about the memories, though. By the time you get back, the cliques will already be set. You'll have to pick your group carefully..."
"Yes... yes...."
My energy was getting sucked dry. How did she have this much to say? Was this what they called girl talk?
Lee Boram and I weren't the chatty type with each other, so I'd never been drained like this. If anything, our conversations had been fun. Of course, the topic had been VTubers, which probably explained why my eyes had sparkled.
"So. The most important thing when you're in school is—"
I couldn't exactly ignore Jihwa unnie dumping a whole treasure trove of school-life tips on me out of consideration. She was still my senior, after all.
This damn senior-junior culture, I swear...
Living in Korea, everyone ran into the sunbae-hoobae hierarchy eventually. It still irritated me. I let Jihwa unnie's tip dump go in one ear and out the other, nodding along all the same.
Then—
"We'll begin shooting shortly!"
Kang Wonseong's voice—the one I'd been waiting for—cut through.
"Oh, look at the time. I'll tell you the rest later. Come on, let's go!"
The words "the rest later" sent a chill down my spine as I headed onto set.
Still... I did loosen up. Wait. Did she do that on purpose? To help me relax?
Nah. No way.
Acting with Jihwa unnie turned out to be more fun than I'd expected.
"Kyaaaaah!! A g-ghost!"
She'd take one look at me-as-Kang-Sora and scream like she'd just seen a real ghost.
"L-look at this! It's a talisman I got from a famous shaman's house! How about that! You can't even move, can you!"
She'd thrust a fake-drawn talisman at me, swelling with triumph. I almost burst out laughing more than once.
So this is what a ten-year veteran looks like?
Over the past decade she'd only done four dramas and two films—not a huge filmography—but every single one had cleared its break-even point. She was the kind of actress people trusted on sight.
"Cut! Jiwoo! You can't smile there!"
"Ah..! I'm sorry! I couldn't help it."
I'd tried my hardest to hold it in, but Jihwa unnie's performance had pulled a smile out of me anyway.
"What? That was actually a really good take."
"I'm sorry... I just... I'm having so much fun right now."
"F-fun?"
Jihwa unnie's expression crumpled, just a little. Had I said something weird? I replayed my last line.
"Unnie? Did I say something strange?"
"N-no... so then, Jiwoo, you haven't been enjoying the shoot until now?"
I didn't understand why she was asking, but I nodded.
"Filming with you, I started actually enjoying the acting. Until now I treated it like a job and just performed what was on the page. From here on I want to act because it's fun."
"Alright. Give it everything you've got. Hah... I'm not going to lose to you, either."
Jihwa muttered that last part under her breath, then shouted toward Kang Wonseong.
"PD! Let's go! I've got the emotion!"
Whether she'd truly locked in or not, the crease between her brows smoothed out, and she picked the scene right back up.
"G-Ghost... you said? Not a regular ghost?"
Kang Shin-hye tilted her head with the exact same uncomprehending look I'd worn a moment ago.
"Don't you dare mix me up with some cheap little ghost!!"
The set began to tremble along with my voice, thick with contempt. The rattle of props layered over my lines.
"What's wrong?"
"No, it's just... I think my voice overlapped with the rattling."
"Ah... we'll ADR that later. No problem."
I'd thought post-recording was something they only did in animation. Realizing dramas used ADR too was just one of many new things I was picking up on this shoot.
I thought I'd studied enough. Turns out there's still a lot to learn.
And just like that, the fun days of filming with Jihwa unnie reached their final stretch.
The last day of shooting. This wasn't another Kang Sora and Kang Shin-hye scene. For the first time, we were filming Kang Sora meeting Kim Jinwoo.
Kim Jinwoo was not pleased that Kang Shin-hye was still holding out, refusing to leave the company even after he'd given her a full week.
"Still hanging on, huh... impressive. But that ends today."
He planned to use the ghost rumors that had been circulating around the company for years to drive Kang Shin-hye out. It might have sounded childish. But Kim Jinwoo knew the truth: the ghost in this building wasn't a rumor. It was real.
"Alright... come out, ghost! Show yourself already!"
He waved around a talisman of unknown origin, shaking it in every direction. Not so much as a ghostly hair appeared.
"Th-this can't be right?"
Kim Jinwoo was thoroughly rattled.
Then—
"KYAAAAAAAAH!!"
Kang Sora burst through the wall.
"Ugh... what even is this! And this place... the practice room? Again?!"
"Ohh! There you are at last! Ghost! On my command, get Kang Shin-hye out of this company!"
Kim Jinwoo issued his order with an expression of supreme arrogance. Kang Sora looked at the talisman in his hand with a frigid expression and let out a sigh.
"Haaah..."
"Ugh..!"
Choi Chun-sung flinched before he could stop himself. That wasn't Lee Jiwoo doing a ghost impression. That was the kind of ice-cold, thoroughly unimpressed sigh the real Ghost Kang Sora would have let out. The thought that he'd just been outacted didn't even have time to form before the scene rolled on.
"You... you summoned me with that fake talisman? You really want to get wrecked, don't you? How dare you... to this Ghost?"
"G-Ghost? Not a regular ghost."
"Ah... I have to explain this again? Ugh. What a pain. Just... disappear."
Kang Sora raised a hand. A fierce wind began to whip through the room. Kim Jinwoo couldn't even keep his bearings in the gale tearing through the practice room.
"Just disappear—"
"WAAAAIT!! Stop! You Ghost!"
A woman shoved open the practice room door—which should have been locked—and stepped inside. In her hand was a shabby wooden stick.
"Are you okay, Kim Jinwoo?!"
"K-Kang Shin-hye... why are you here."
"That can wait! First we take out that Ghost!"
Kang Shin-hye swung the stick wildly, and Kang Sora crumpled under the blows without any real resistance. It was a scene so sloppy you couldn't even call it B-movie action.
But the whole thing had been staged by Kang Sora and Kang Shin-hye. The reason: to mess with Kim Jinwoo, who never missed a chance to torment Shin-hye. This didn't so much bring Kang Shin-hye and Kim Jinwoo closer as it gave them a chance to actually get along. The two of them connecting for real would have to wait until the next ghost appeared.
And so—
"C-uuut! Great work, everyone."
With that, my roughly four-episode stretch of drama filming came to an end.