Additional Filming!
Cheongsol High School. Morning homeroom.
The classroom door rattled open, and the restless chatter died the instant Homeroom Teacher Shin Haseon stepped inside.
After she finished taking attendance, Shin Haseon lowered her voice and brought up the student who still had not made it to school.
"Jiwoo will be out for a while due to personal circumstances. I was told she'll be back in about a week, so please make sure the other subject teachers know. I'll speak to them myself beforehand, but still."
The whole class stirred.
Jiwoo had already missed about a week around the entrance ceremony, also under the banner of personal circumstances. Hearing that same excuse not once but twice was more than enough to set the room buzzing.
That was when one of the girls spoke up.
"I knew it. Called it."
"Knew what?"
"You guys don't know? The shoes Lee Jiwoo's been wearing."
Shoes? The girl swept a look around the room. Nobody else seemed to have paid that particular detail any attention. She let out a quiet sigh and went on.
"I wasn't completely sure either, so I looked it up. A pair like the ones Lee Jiwoo's been wearing runs about fifteen hundred dollars."
Not a college student. Not a working adult. A high schooler walking around in fifteen-hundred-dollar shoes. The class reeled.
The girl was not finished.
"And her bag was over twelve hundred. It's all designer. Every last piece."
The noisy classroom sank into silence.
And at the far end of that silence sat Kim Woojin.
"What? Why is everyone looking at me?"
"You haven't heard anything?"
"...Why are you asking me?"
"Well... Lee Jiwoo talks to you a lot. And besides."
Every gaze in the room swung to their other friend, Choi Wooseok.
"Beats me."
He gave a little shrug.
Kim Woojin and Choi Wooseok barely had anything on Jiwoo. What they did know amounted to this: she could act, she could sing, and she had an agency...
"Ah..."
Kim Woojin let out a small sound, like something had just clicked. In a classroom that had gone that quiet, there was not a single person who missed it.
"What is it?"
"There's something, right? There is."
Once curiosity starts to unravel, people cannot stand to leave the thread alone. Fake intel would do. Real intel would be even better. Armed with that particular brand of hunger, the class closed in on Kim Woojin.
The reason Jiwoo could not come to school had to be agency business. Among the little things they had tossed back and forth at school, she had even grumbled that her days felt too short because of her agency.
Kim Woojin looked around at their faces. Every last one of them was lit up with interest. Whatever he said here, they would believe it.
"Should I tell you... or shouldn't I...?"
He tipped his chin up like he was enjoying himself, and the class lost its mind. People even started drifting over from the room next door.
Hah... Lee Jiwoo. You owe me big for this.
Already picturing how hard he was going to shake her down for food later, Kim Woojin started talking.
"The truth is..."
Of course, he left out anything about her agency, and the fact that she was an actress.
"When the time comes, you'll find out!"
That evening, a van rolled to a stop right in front of the dorm.
"Good work today. We've got to head straight into additional filming tomorrow, so get some real sleep."
"Nnnghhh...."
What came out of my mouth barely qualified as a human sound. From the moment school had let out yesterday until just a little while ago, I had been shooting profile stills and the posters they were going to use for the drama. I had been up the entire night, and my body had stopped taking orders.
Where even was I? My feet just kept going wherever they felt like pointing. Some scrap of homing instinct must have survived, though, because I managed on my own to buzz through the shared entrance, hit the elevator, and arrive at the dorm door.
"Welcome home~ Jiwoo-chan!"
"Nnnghhh..."
"Eek! Jiwoo-chan turned into a zombie! Quick, over here! Tsuki drew a nice warm bath for Jiwoo-chan!"
"What?"
My mind snapped clean awake.
The dorm bathroom did not have a bathtub. It was just a glass-doored stall, like a makeshift shower. And yet she had said bathtub?
I stared at Tsuki. Hard.
"Hehe! Hurry up and strip and get in! Or we could go in together..."
"I'll go in alone."
"Tch!"
I shook off Tsuki's hands, tossed aside the jacket I had been wearing, and headed for the bathroom. The second I opened the door, a thick roll of steam billowed out into my face.
"Huh? It's hot..."
My eyes went wide. There really was a bathtub in the bathroom. How? Why? The questions packed my skull to bursting.
Tsuki's hand slid in beside me.
"Here! Give Tsuki the rest of your clothes too, Jiwoo-chan. Especially the underwear... ehehehe..."
"...No. I'm just going to sleep tonight."
"Tch!"
At the second click of her tongue, I snorted a laugh and threw myself onto the bed.
"Ahh... so soft..."
It was the same bed I used every day, but tonight it felt even softer than usual. Soft enough that I would be out in seconds.
"Khh—"
Five seconds after I hit the mattress, I was gone.
And so, around ten the next morning, a corpse was still sprawled across the bed. Or rather — I was. I had gone under so deep I would not have noticed if someone had slung me over their shoulder and walked off with me.
The phone I had tossed beside the bed buzzed and buzzed. A call. The corpse on the mattress did not so much as twitch.
".....Khh—"
Getting up from a bed this soft would have been an insult to the mattress. Even inside the dream, I was still lying in bed, and that was exactly what dream-me thought.
My little nest did not last much longer.
Something wriggled under the blanket. A giant serpent, shifting around inside the covers.
This room was still mine alone. Nobody else was supposed to be in here. And if somebody was in here...
I cracked my eyes open groggily and flipped the blanket back.
"...What do you think you're doing?"
I looked at the intruder in a voice still rough with sleep. I was not even mad anymore. Why would I be?
"Hehe, morning! Jiwoo-chan slept so well!"
The giant serpent in my blanket was Tsuki. Of course it was. There was nobody else who would pull something like this.
"Get out."
"Nuh-uh! Tsuki wants to stay with Jiwoo-chan a little longer... ehehehe..."
"Hey! Quit nuzzling your face into my chest!"
I shoved Tsuki off and scrambled to check the time. I was late. Kang Ho-yeon had told me to be waiting at the dorm until ten this morning.
10:08.
I was late. And the phone still vibrating beside me was Kang Ho-yeon.
"This— this is bad...!"
I bolted for the bathroom.
"Ah, nooo... my boobs!"
"Those are MY breasts!"
I dropped a knuckle on the head of Tsuki, who was still talking nonsense beside me, took care of the quickest possible bathroom business, sucked in a breath, and picked up the phone.
"Hell—"
"Jiwoo! You're late! Get down here!"
"Ah... yes, ma'am!"
I threw on nothing but the jacket I had discarded the night before and ran out of the dorm. A van was already waiting, and in front of it Kang Ho-yeon was bouncing her leg and checking her watch.
"Uh, unnie. I'm sorry. I overslept..."
"...Haa. It's fine. We've still got a little time, and you were up all night shooting profiles. But be more careful from now on. If your schedule gets any heavier than this, you might not even make it back to the dorm the way you did yesterday."
Kang Ho-yeon and I climbed into the van and headed straight out for the additional Ghost Singer shoot.
We arrived at a different location from the previous Ghost Singer shoot. There were still plenty of staff and cameras, and assistant directors shouting themselves hoarse as they sprinted every which way.
I spotted Director Kang Wonseong running the set and went over.
"Hello, Director."
"...Oh? Jiwoo, you made it. Sorry about this. The additional shoot got scheduled out of nowhere."
"It's all right. If it makes the drama better, this much is only natural. Besides... school can wait."
Director Kang Wonseong looked apologetic and promised he would wrap as fast as he could.
Next stop was obvious: wherever the actors were gathered.
"Hello~"
I put on the biggest smile I could manage as I walked over, and Jin Joo-hwa and Go Eun-hye both welcomed me in.
Once I had finished greeting every last person, I headed straight to makeup. I had not technically been late, but a rookie actress cutting it that close was still a problem. I tore through prep, winding myself up with the thought that today I was going to act harder than usual — give it everything I had.
That was when it happened.
"Miss Jiwoo. How are we looking?"
The makeup-room door opened, and a woman poked her face through the gap.
"Ah. Writer."
I checked the additional pages I had already been given. There was nothing really different from the acting I had already done. The one change was this: at the end of episode four, I passed on, and Kang Sora's truth came to light. In the original script, she had simply vanished without a word.
"Will you be all right filming today? Additional pages usually come out right away, but these felt too late. If it's going to get in the way of locking in the emotion, I can simplify them a little..."
I knew exactly what Writer Kim Eun-joo was worried about. Most actors needed at least three months to half a year just to catch a role's emotions. I had already pulled off the near-miraculous feat of locking it in within a month, but people like me showed up now and then. The problem was they never climbed very high before they crashed right back down.
"I can do it. And..."
I let out a short breath and gathered the emotion. Good. I already had it. I had already become Kang Sora herself.
"It's enough."
Acting? That was not hard. I had the System, after all.
I'm a Natural Genius (C)
Actor's Basic Attitude (D)
With those two traits running, locking in the emotion took ten minutes, tops.
"Jiwoo! We're going to start shooting soon, so please get ready!"
"Ah, yes!"
"And..."
Director Kang Wonseong smiled, just a little. That smile almost shattered the emotion I had just locked in.
Whoa... I just got chills. That was terrifying.
I checked my arms. Goosebumps had risen all over them out of sheer fear. Writer Kim Eun-joo tilted her head at the way I was trembling.
"What's wrong?"
"Ah, it's nothing. Really."
How was I supposed to tell her I had almost pissed myself at Director Kang Wonseong's smile?
"U-um, Director Kang? What's with that smile?"
"Did I smile? Well... Jiwoo, you just give today's shoot everything you've got. You'll understand later."
Director Kang Wonseong walked out of the makeup room without ever finishing the thought.
Ten minutes later, transformed back into Kang Sora, I stood on my mark. The entire Ghost Singer team that had finished prep had their eyes on me. Every last one of them looked annoyed about an additional shoot that had been sprung on them out of nowhere.
"All right! Additional filming, here we go! Ready—"
Director Kang Wonseong bellowed into the megaphone with everything he had.
"Cue!"
The instant the cue dropped, I looked at Jin Joo-hwa standing in front of me — no. At Kang Shin-hye.
I delivered the line.