I Am the Principal
We headed for a café nearby. Even after we sat, Bong Junoh still looked dazed.
"What can I get you?"
At Jeong Jinwook's question, Bong only blinked.
"Would coffee be all right?"
"Huh? Oh—yes. Yes."
While Jeong went to place the order, Bong's gaze drifted toward me. The instant our eyes met, he turned his head away with an awkward smile.
A short while later the coffee arrived, and Bong forced the question out.
"The principal... hasn't come yet?"
Just as I'd thought. He hadn't begun to imagine who I really was.
"I'm the principal."
Bong nearly jumped out of his seat. Then, as if he felt the reaction had been too much, he smoothed his expression at once. He must have written it off as a child's joke.
He turned back to Jeong Jinwook.
"The principal is... where, exactly?"
"It is as he said."
"Pardon?"
"This is Principal Park Jihoon."
Pale with shock, Bong turned slowly toward me.
"The... the principal?"
"Yes. I read the manuscript you sent."
"You read it... yourself?"
Perhaps he thought the material too heavy for an eleven-year-old. A plain anxiety flickered through his eyes: what if the work was marked down for want of the principal's judgment?
Hm.
If this conversation was going to go anywhere, now was the time to prove, at least in part, what I could do.
In that case.
"One of the pieces you sent caught my eye in particular. That's why I asked to meet."
"...Which piece was it?"
"The story about the unsolved case."
"Ah. Yes."
I began, slowly, to explain which parts had stayed with me.
"...!"
I saw the light in his eyes waver, clear as day. Sure enough, Bong sat up straighter.
"Why did those scenes feel... important to you?"
"Because that scene explains, whole and intact, why the killer is never caught in the end."
I went on.
"Picture a field of reeds taller than a man. If I step into it, who could find me? Go further—if I swung a knife in there, could anyone even see the act?"
Bong's throat worked in a hard swallow.
"It was an age when the state turned guns and blades on its own people. A crime by one private person, committed inside that vast reed bed of violence, wouldn't even have been visible. The scene cut straight to a structural fault in our society."
"How did you..."
"It's in the work."
"It is, but even so..."
How was an eleven-year-old supposed to know all that?
Sorry. I'd seen Memories of Murder something like five times. I could have gone on without end, but I was eleven, so I left it there.
"The strength of this piece is that it's gripping even if you never catch the director's message. It has a force that carries the story."
Instead of answering, Bong only sat with his mouth hanging open. The look didn't seem ready to pass, so I spoke first.
"What's so hard about reading something and thinking about it? You're the one who made the work."
"But biological age is..."
"That was actually what I wanted to ask you."
"...?"
"How did a university freshman manage to draw a story like this?"
"Well, I've always liked to dream things up..."
"I'm similar. I've been reading the world's classics since long before this."
"Forgive me, but how old are you?"
"Eleven."
Stunned blank, Bong stared at me for a long time.
If he couldn't understand it, what else was there to do? The person was sitting right in front of him. He would have to accept it.
Around the time Bong emptied his cup, I turned the talk to business. The moment he answered, a second coffee was set down before him. I let enough time pass, then spoke.
"The manuscript was excellent. Good enough to publish as it stands. But giving you the prize is awkward. It wasn't in the category people submitted to, and there's a question of fairness."
"I understand."
Bong smiled bitterly. As if his only hope had just flown off, a deep regret settled in his eyes.
"Even so, I asked to meet because of a personal greed."
"...?"
"I wanted a contract."
"No. An agency contract."
"Pardon?"
"In America there are plenty of agencies that manage only writers."
"...!"
"The field would be film director. You take the megaphone and lead dozens of crew."
Bong didn't seem able to feel that any of it was real. Still, the Hyeon-gang name carried weight. He couldn't simply hear it as empty talk.
"I'm only asking because I don't quite follow."
"Ask anything you want."
"Then... you find me work, so I can work as a director? Something like that?"
"That's right."
"What makes you trust me?"
"I read the manuscript."
It's a film. That's why I'm signing.
"Think of it as a kind of investment."
"I'd be glad to work, but... what does the company get?"
"Honor."
"...?"
"The honor of being the agency Director Bong Junoh belongs to."
"What does that even..."
Maybe my eyes were too full of certainty. Bong soon changed the question.
"Then how long is the term? Until the investment is recovered—a contract for life... and if that fails, sold off as a slave... is it that sort of thing?"
Very much a Bong Junoh flight of imagination.
"Of course not. The industry standard is about five years."
"So if I don't make my debut within five years, the company just takes the loss?"
"Are you worrying about Hyeon-gang?"
"Ah, not exactly..."
"If it truly weighs on you, you can renew then."
"Even after a renewal I'd barely be thirty. Still too early for a debut..."
"Then we renew again."
"Ha!"
As if even he no longer knew what he thought, Bong raked hard at the back of his head.
"If you've decided, let's settle the signing fee."
"Pardon? There's a signing fee too?"
"How about ten million won—around ten thousand dollars—the same as the prize? That seems about right."
A mouth fallen open was as good as a yes.
"Team Leader Jeong, please bring the contract."
Bong turned the Montblanc over in his hands for a long while.
"Signing a contract with this was my dream. I never imagined I'd manage it at barely twenty."
He tried to open the pen. Pull as he might, the cap refused to budge.
"You twist it open."
"Ah... it's my first time using one."
He wrote his name in the signature line in careful, square print. An honest hand, without a scrap of flourish.
"Once the signing money comes in, what's the first thing you want to do?"
"Equipment, first thing. A camera, film, lights, a microphone... what else was there. Oh—and I ought to cover the actors' meals..."
"All of it goes into the production?"
"Well... yes."
"You're shooting a short, aren't you?"
"Yes."
"What's it called?"
"Paradise."
I had looked up every one of Director Bong's films, shorts included. It was a title I had never once heard.
Hm. Maybe it never won anything, so no record survived. Or maybe things soured with the Hanyang students and the film fell apart.
Either way.
"When it's finished, you'll show it to me too, won't you?"
"Of course. You're the agent."
I grinned.
"Since we're on the subject, may I offer one piece of advice? As your agent."
"...As my agent."
Bong turned the words over slowly. He looked as if he needed time to get used to an unfamiliar word. I let a suitable pause pass, then spoke.
"Watching you shoot earlier, I noticed you were putting a great deal into coaching the performances."
"Ah. Yes."
"What if you cast a professional instead? Not an aspiring actor—a real one, working with a company."
"That would be better, but would a professional come to someone who hasn't even debuted...?"
"Or even among students, there are people who are genuine monsters."
"Monsters?"
"I heard there's an acting monster in Dongguk University's theater department. You haven't heard of him?"
A freshman was hardly going to know another school's affairs. I asked knowing that full well.
Bong scratched at his head, looking ashamed, as if he had committed some serious crime.
"Dongguk's theater department, you said?"
He opened the pen at once. Whatever the information turned out to be, his face said he meant to write it down.
"I don't know the details either, but I did hear one name for certain."
"School and a name—that's everything!"
Bong's eyes shone brighter than they had at the mention of the signing fee.
"W-who is it?"
"Choi Minseok."
"Choi. Min. Seok."
He sounded out the three syllables I had given him, clear and separate.
"He acts that well?"
The greatest actor in Korea. It hardly needed saying twice. Kang Je in Hwairan, Go Daesu in All Boy, Choi Wukhyeon in Crime War, and the rest. The characters Choi Minseok played had always struck a fierce spark in me.
The strange part was that Bong Junoh, the greatest of directors, and Choi Minseok, an actor at his peak, had never once worked together. Connecting the two of them might be nothing but my own curiosity.
And why not?
I was spending a fortune as it was. Now and then a little selfishness was allowed.
Anyway.
Bong gazed for a while at the name he had pressed hard into the page.
"A contract, and an introduction to an actor. It's been a day like a dream."
As if it were time to return to ordinary life, he moved to hand the pen back. I could always buy another.
"Keep it, Director."
"What?"
"Won't you need it when you sign the renewal?"
"I'd still have to be offered a contract five years from now..."
After that shy answer, he went on.
"Ah, and, Principal—I'm only asking because I'm curious."
"...?"
"Are there writers at the agency besides me?"
Interest, maybe. He looked quite intrigued.
"He's Japanese. Things are only just starting, so even if I told you the name, it would be hard to place."
"Ah. So you picked him for his promise, the same way you picked me."
Hm.
In truth, you and he were both lottery tickets with the winning numbers already drawn...
I hadn't meant it that way.
Well, since it's come to this... why not sketch the bigger picture?
I let out a small laugh along with the mischievous thought.