Become My Tereza
Didn't know?
Director Shin Yeomyeong had arrived without so much as a warning, and my eyes lifted from the script to him.
"Director... Shin Yeomyeong?"
He looked exactly as he had in my previous life, when I'd seen him interviewed after shooting Magnificent Bride. He seemed a little greener now—a little fresher—though that was as far as the improvement went. His gaze didn't appear to land on anything in particular, and his frame was so thin there was no telling whether he ever actually ate. Who would look at this man and believe he was still among the living?
I stood to greet our guest.
"CEO, how long were you planning to leave the director standing in the doorway? At least invite him in."
That snapped Jo Kyuhyun back to himself. He ushered Director Shin Yeomyeong into the office.
"We have coffee and tea. Which would you prefer?"
"Ah... a strong black coffee, if you have it. Cold water, if not."
Director Shin swayed on his feet like a man whose eyes might fall shut at any second.
"Understood."
Jo Kyuhyun stepped out. That left me, Director Shin Yeomyeong, and Kang Hoyeon in an awkward silence.
"I—"
"I—"
Our voices overlapped.
"Please, go ahead."
"Then... have you, by any chance, read my script?"
His voice was unsteady. His pupils trembled badly, and his hands refused to stay still. I knew why. This was the man who had snatched the project out from under Director Shin Yohan. He might already have gone to any number of actors before me. I might well be his last resort.
So what?
I decided to play it shameless. There was no reason to start from a low position—especially not against someone who was already shrinking into himself.
"I did read it once. PD Kang Wonseong recommended it as a good piece of work."
"Then—"
"However."
This was a deal. A negotiation.
"This project has a rather large problem, doesn't it? Investors, for instance. Or... I imagine there aren't many actors lining up to say yes."
Securing investors wasn't an actor's job. That was squarely on the director and the production company. But saying it out loud was a way of pointing out that the project was noisy with controversy—and that even if you took it, there wasn't much to gain. Director Shin knew that too. That was why he had come in person.
He slid a document from the bag he had brought and laid it on the table.
"This is—"
"As you said, there is a great deal of noise around this film. I'm aware it could reflect poorly on the actors who take it. But I would like you to look at this first."
I pulled the papers over and read them one page at a time. Flip. Flip. The more pages I turned, the harder it became not to let a smile touch my mouth.
Same as my previous life.
I almost wanted to ask how he had landed the investors. The backer was a film company any Korean would recognize. SG Cinema had committed both the investment and a green light for production. Location rentals, everything else they needed—it was all already in place. Cast the actors and they could start shooting tomorrow. There would be no running out of money, no production shutdown. If the acting held up, they would clear the break-even point without breaking a sweat.
"I'd like to hear why you showed me this."
"Because I want to make this film with you, Actor Lee Jiwoo."
"As the villain?"
"So you've already heard. Yes. I want to cast you as the antagonist of this film!"
The villain, huh.
Right now the image stuck to me was warm and soft. Until I smashed that image at least once, writers and production companies would keep slotting me into cozy, comforting roles. That much was obvious. Which was why I was genuinely curious.
"Why?"
"I've never played a villain. A warm image like Kang Sora's, maybe—but that's it."
"That's... because I saw it myself. I saw you act."
"Saw me act...? Ah."
I remembered. During the additional shoot for Ghost Singer, there had been a face in the crowd that didn't belong with the usual crew. It had been a sudden extra shoot, so when someone said support might come in from elsewhere, I had just nodded and thought, fair enough. Apparently he had been there.
"I was deeply moved by your performance that day. Inside all that warmth, there was rage and disgust toward the evil that had dragged you down into hell."
That was episode 3 of Ghost Singer, which had aired yesterday. The moment Kang Sora came face-to-face with the agency CEO who had caused her death, her composure cracked. She nearly lost control, and Kang Shin-hye barely managed to hold her back. Then Shin-hye's memories began to surface, piece by piece, and the episode ended on the first glimpse of Kang Sora's true identity.
"And so I make this offer."
Director Shin bowed his head as he made the proposal.
Not bad. Part of me wanted to grab that hand right now and shout that we should do it.
I turned to Kang Hoyeon, sitting across from me.
"Unnie."
"Huh...? Wha—wait, yeah! Y-yeah. What is it!"
She had been zoning out. She snapped back.
"Go get the CEO. Did he go pull the shots himself? He's still not back."
"Ah. Now that you mention it. Got it!"
Hoyeon shot to her feet and headed out of the office to find Jo Kyuhyun. In the meantime, I had an important conversation with Director Shin.
"Director. I haven't decided on my next project yet. But there are two pieces I'm interested in."
"What are they?"
"One is a battle-format drama. The other is—"
Director Shin stared at my mouth, waiting for Magnificent Bride to come out of it.
And then—
Knock-knock. Click.
The office door opened. Jo Kyuhyun came in with a cup in each hand, the smell of strong coffee rolling off them.
"Sorry. It took a while to pull a proper strong cup. Here you are."
He handed over the coffee.
"Shall we talk now? For the record, Jiwoo currently has a project she's interested in."
"...Yes. I heard. A battle-format drama."
Jo Kyuhyun looked at me as if to say I had already gotten that far. I gave a small nod and whispered.
"We covered the rough outline. Now for the most important part..."
"The asking price."
He had read me perfectly. Whatever the project, whatever the director—there was only one thing that mattered most to an actor. The paycheck.
Jo Kyuhyun sat down with a meaningful smile.
"I'm not sure if you've heard this yet..."
The two of them talked for a long while, revising the contract terms and then revising them again. I savored the espresso in front of me. A few more minutes passed.
"Then let's go with these terms."
"That works for me as well."
They stood and shook hands.
That day, I agreed to play Sister Tereza in Magnificent Bride for thirty-eight million won. Jo Kyuhyun had privately wanted a higher figure, but I was still a rookie, and my credits amounted to nothing more than a lead and supporting turn in a single drama. That undercut his leverage, and the price had nowhere to go but down.
That evening, around ten, commercials were already rolling ahead of Ghost Singer episode 4. Instead of heading back to the dorm, I had come home for the first time in a while. I had dinner with my family and sat down to watch.
"So today's Jiwoo's last episode? Sheesh... one less drama worth watching."
"What's that supposed to mean? The other actors worked hard too. So we're watching it through to the end."
"Of course we are! This is my daughter's first project. This mom is watching every last episode!"
Ji Hyuna threw her arms around me. Lee Hyun-woo, sitting right beside us, just shook his head at the sight, then muttered as the commercials ended and the title card came up.
"It's starting."
"Ah! Focus, focus!"
Ji Hyuna kept her arms locked around me as she turned her eyes to the TV. I would have really liked her to let go. She showed no sign of it. I faced the screen with my neck bent at a slightly awkward angle.
Episode 3 had ended on Kang Shin-hye, who had only just begun to remember Kang Sora's face. Episode 4 opened on Shin-hye running. Memories of the woman in her head kept surfacing, and fragments of words she couldn't place kept rising with them, until she was gasping through the confusion.
"Hah... hah... Who... who are you?!"
Shin-hye shouted at the empty air. Kang Sora was there, of course, drifting through the sky.
Episode 3 had been laying groundwork around the talisman the whole time. The light that had first burned bright would darken by degrees, and when it finally went black, the soul trapped inside would be guided out of the living world and into the afterlife. The talisman in Shin-hye's hand had already lost almost all of its glow. What remained was barely a handful of light. A few days at most. Maybe only until tomorrow.
"Why do you even want to know?"
Kang Sora yawned, as if the question weren't worth answering. She had her reasons. Under the laws of the afterlife, she was forbidden to speak her identity to the living. She swallowed the urge to tell her—and the even stronger urge to fly down and pull her into her arms.
"Then why do you keep digging through my head?!"
Shin-hye was just as frustrated. The camera filled with her face, serious, her eyes shining with tears she didn't seem to understand. A small voice slipped out beside her.
"Is it really not allowed?"
"It is not. The afterlife has its own laws."
The voice that came down from the sky checked Kang Sora's hand. She clenched her fists and bit down hard. Seeing that furious expression, Ji Hyuna pulled my face even closer, as if she were declaring she would never let the heavens take her daughter.
After that, Shin-hye gave up asking who Kang Sora was. She put distance between them instead. She couldn't keep living with a ghost that rummaged through her mind every day. As that distance grew, a day passed, then two, and the light in the talisman stained itself darker and darker.
That was when Kim Jinwoo called Kang Shin-hye aside.
"You wanted to see me?"
"Yeah. Sit down."
Hiding the tension in his face, he pulled several photographs from inside his jacket.
"There's something I want to ask you. This person... you know her, right?"
He cut straight to the point. Shin-hye picked up one of the photos scattered in front of her. In it, a young Kang Sora stood with a familiar woman, both of them wearing happy smiles.
"This... person."
"You know her, right? Of course you would. Her name is Kang Sora. The eldest of you three—no. You four. Your oldest sister."
"Oldest sister.... Kang Sora... what, no. More than that, why are you showing me—"
"Why? I let it slide before. But Kang Sora... I owe her a great debt."
"A debt...?"
"I know why Kang Sora died."
Shin-hye heard everything about the two of them from Kim Jinwoo. Kang Sora had been his vocal teacher. The requests she had made just before she died were two. One was to love music. The other—
"Was to look after you."
"Ah... ahhh..."
Once she had the whole story, Shin-hye wept without end.
It was no different in the living room. Ji Hyuna was streaming tears and snot, and the tissues beside her were piling into a mountain.
Shin-hye went looking for Kang Sora. The pizza place they had gone to together. The karaoke rooms. The practice studios. She searched every one of them, and Sora was nowhere.
Where... where was she...
"Don't tell me..."
A memory surfaced all at once. Shin-hye pulled out her phone and called her eldest sister—no. Her second-eldest. She asked about the house they used to live in, and she went straight there.
When she finally arrived, Kang Sora was standing in that place. Her body was already faint. If you didn't look carefully, you would have missed her entirely.
"I found you!!"
"Shin-hye..."
"You can't go! I... I remember!"
Shin-hye held up the photograph she had brought.
"This is it, right! I... I..."
There was so much she wanted to say. Why hadn't Sora told her from the beginning. Why was she leaving again. She was angry, and ashamed of herself for not recognizing her own sister even with her standing right there.
Kang Sora pulled her youngest sister into a fierce embrace.
"It's okay... it's all okay... Don't think about taking revenge for me. That's... my last request."
She already knew. She knew exactly what heart Shin-hye had come running with. Kang Sora knew her death had not been a suicide but a murder, and she knew who had done it.
"I just want my little sisters to live well. My wish... I've already gotten everything I wanted."
Eating together. Singing together. Being together... as a family...
Kang Sora looked down at her own hand. It was disappearing. Time to say goodbye.
"This is goodbye, then. My baby sister. Even without this unnie here, don't slack off. You have to grow up strong... all the way to the end."
When Shin-hye opened the eyes she had squeezed shut against her tears, Kang Sora was already gone. After she had vanished, Shin-hye called for her in a small voice.
"Unnie... Sora unnie!!"
She cried and called and cried again, staying right there and shouting herself hoarse until Kim Jinwoo found her. And she swore she would take revenge on the one who had dragged Sora into misery, even if Sora herself had left happy at the end.
With that vow, episode 4 ended.
Silence hung over the living room for a long time.
"I didn't know our daughter could act like this."
It was the first time I had ever heard Lee Hyun-woo praise me. All it did was make my face feel hot.