I'll Take the Role
"Everyone, this is the front gate of our company, JO Entertainment."
I had gone live on social media first thing in the morning. The reason was simple.
"Curious why I turned the stream on? That's because— ta-da!"
"Hello! It's Tsuki!"
I swung the camera sideways, and Tsuki, who had been waiting just out of frame, waved both hands high and greeted the viewers.
The chat exploded into wild speculation. Tsuki and I watched it roll by and snorted.
"That's not it. Yes, Kuro is also under JO Entertainment, but she's apparently been grinding through some intense special training lately. Sounds like she's preparing something."
"Eek! J-Jiwoo-chan! Are you even allowed to say that?"
"...Huh?"
Why? Is there a problem?
I rewound what I'd just said.
I genuinely hadn't realized. I had almost spilled it without thinking. Even so, I didn't let my face so much as twitch. I just brazened it out.
"Of course I aimed for that, too. You really think I'd leak company confidentials? The agency and I have already talked it through, more or less."
A chill ran down my spine.
Behind the phone I was streaming on, Kang Ho-yeon was watching Tsuki and me. The corner of her mouth ticked up.
I swallowed.
The problem was that, unlike that little smile, her eyes weren't laughing at all.
I'm so dead...
That was a problem for later. Right now, finishing the stream came first.
The more the viewers spun their hopium, the colder Kang Ho-yeon's eyes grew—she was clearly watching the stream too. The truly terrifying part was that the corner of her mouth was still smiling.
I licked my bone-dry lips and turned away.
"Alright, alright, everyone. This isn't Kuro's stream, it's mine, so please refrain from bringing up other people."
That was when it hit.
"Ah..."
Kang Ho-yeon's blood-chilling smile had made me completely forget. I hurried to explain to the viewers why I'd turned the stream on.
"That would be... Tsuki."
"Yes!"
"The culprit who mercilessly turned me into Swiss cheese yesterday and made me miss first place! That's right—sukichu_kill11!"
"Hello! I'm Tsuki, the one who played as sukichu_kill11!"
Question marks stacked up in the chat like a row of fishhooks.
Of course they were stunned. The identity of yesterday's viral god-tier player was Tsuki—the same Tsuki who streamed with me all the time and had thoroughly planted a cute image in everyone's heads.
Even I had told her not to lie to me about it.
Even the players who'd lost yesterday in the most infuriating way seemed to have piled in. Chat was demanding proof that sukichu_kill11 was Tsuki.
I glanced back at Kang Ho-yeon. She sent an okay sign, like she didn't have much choice.
"Alright! Then we'll put the JO Entertainment tour we were going to film today on hold... and move straight into a skill verification."
PD Oh Seok-ho had been pressing his fingers into his brow since morning. The reason was last night's news.
No matter how many times he refreshed, articles with the same contents kept going up.
The office door flew open without a knock. It was the drama department director, his face a mix of fury and a demand for answers.
"What the hell is this? What have you been doing this whole time? If she was that kind of person, you never should have used her in the first place!"
"Haa... Director. How was I supposed to know? They hid it airtight, and then this blows up overnight..."
Oh Seok-ho's sighs wouldn't stop.
"We still haven't heard the full story, so for now we wait for the company's statement, and—"
That was when the office door burst open again. A middle-aged woman draped head to toe in designer labels strode in: writer Park Ja-wook. She looked furious.
"So."
"...Yes?"
"So I came to hear what our PD Oh is thinking. What exactly is going through your head."
Thinking? He wasn't thinking anything. He'd have been grateful if Ahn Soo-jin's agency would just put out a statement already.
"We still don't even have the company's—"
"Then call them! Threaten them if you have to, and get the whole story, fast! What are you going to do about my drama?!"
Park Ja-wook's roar made Oh Seok-ho and the director both flinch. If she hadn't been a star writer, someone would have snapped at her for yelling in here—or told her, regrettably, to give up on the show.
But.
"We'll do our very—"
"I personally talked the investors around and put my name on this. I told them I would make this drama a success no matter what. And this is how you handle it? I don't think I'll be able to shoot dramas at KBD anymore."
"That's... even so, please, if you'd just reconsider—"
"I'm done!"
The director scurried to Park Ja-wook's side and rubbed his hands together so hard they might as well have been feet, but her stubbornness didn't budge.
In that case...
"Then how about this?"
"What."
"We've already slotted a new stand-in into The Days We Had. So..."
"You want to throw in yet another person? Into my drama, with no audition, no vetting?"
"Writer, you liked Jiwoo's acting when you saw it, didn't you?"
Park Ja-wook sat, uncrossed nothing, and folded her arms as if to say, keep talking.
"So. Who's this new face PD Oh Seok-ho has in mind?"
"I was thinking... actress Oh Hye-jung, whose performances have really come into bloom lately, alongside Jiwoo."
At that, Park Ja-wook uncrossed her arms and shook her head.
"Not good enough for you?"
"No. Oh Hye-jung's acting isn't bad. She even had a bit part in one of my dramas a few years ago. But... let's do it this way."
She pulled out her phone and played a short clip—the footage Oh Seok-ho had shown her before, of Jiwoo performing as Lee Boram.
"We use this kid as the lead, and we put Oh Hye-jung in as Lee Boram. Make the call. Tell them I want her as the lead."
The chat was nothing but bewildered spam. Why was everyone losing it? I couldn't understand what they were so shocked about.
"Uh... Jiwoo? Of course people are freaking out."
CEO Jo Kyuhyun's voice cut in. I tilted my head, still not getting it even after that.
"Haa... Jiwoo. Do you know where you are?"
"Where? JO Entertainment."
"Not that. Do you know what this office is?"
What did Jo Kyuhyun take me for sometimes? Of course I knew. This was the CEO's office at JO Entertainment.
"The CEO's office?"
"Right... and what kind of artist barges in here, throws the door open, and asks to borrow the computer?"
"That's... I do feel sorry about that. I'm sorry."
I bowed my head. Jo Kyuhyun sighed and waved it off.
"So what's the reason?"
"Ah. The viewers won't believe that sukichu_kill11 is Tsuki."
"That part I understood. Then why do you need the computer in the CEO's office? There are computers everywhere else."
A fair question.
"That's..."
"Ah! Download complete! Logging in right now, everyone!"
Tsuki finished installing Survival Ground, logged in at speed, and confirmed beyond any doubt that she was sukichu_kill11. She didn't stop there. She hit start and rolled straight into a match.
"If they see us downloading it somewhere else ahead of time, you get people screaming cheats and hurling abuse for no reason. You don't really game, CEO."
"It's not that I don't really game. I just don't. Anyway..."
Jo Kyuhyun nodded as if that settled it, scooped up the documents he'd been working on, and sat on the guest sofa to get back to work.
"So you pulled this whole stunt just to keep Tsuki from getting flamed?"
"Well. Yeah."
I sat down across from him. As for the stream—
"Alright, let's gooo~! Diiiie!!"
—Tsuki was handling that just fine. Jo Kyuhyun glanced at her grinding away, then looked back at me.
He slid two bundles of paper across.
"They're both scripts, but one of them is..."
"I know."
The title on top of the stack made my mood sink.
The Days We Had.
The project I'd filmed as a stand-in for Lee Boram, filling in after a drunk idol got forcibly dropped. A new offer for that same work had arrived with my name on it.
"Well? Want to try it?"
Me? Could I? Stepping in for someone who wasn't even a stranger—someone who'd made the wrong choice because of a mistake I'd made?
I didn't know. I just stared at the script, lost in thought.
"You'll be fine. It wasn't because of you, Jiwoo. That person was just mentally fragile. And they still didn't know this industry."
Jo Kyuhyun tried to soothe me, but my chest wouldn't loosen that easily.
"If you're chewing on it that hard, why not just do it? You've still got time before the next project. Director Shin Yeomyeong said they won't even start shooting until September."
May was almost over, so there was still plenty of room.
"On top of that, writer Park Ja-wook specifically asked for you."
"For me?"
"Yeah. She called and said she wants you to take the lead—not Lee Boram."
"Uh..."
I was going to have to think about this one.
And.
"Are you sure you should be talking about that here?"
"What are you talking about?"
I turned my gaze. Beside us, Tsuki had already taken first place and was standing there with her phone camera pointed this way. She looked panicked, as if confidential talk had just leaked to the outside world.
"J-Jiwoo-chan... what do we..."
"Haa..."
I flicked a look at Jo Kyuhyun. There was no way he hadn't known.