When the Camera Rolls, It's Right There (2)
A mountain of blood-soaked corpses stretched endlessly along the beach.
Faint groans of unrelenting agony leaked from between the dead soldiers.
Suddenly, the soldier's suppressed mind within Jeong Seo-hoon erupted, swelling his presence like an explosion.
"Why didn't you follow orders, Private?"
-Why didn't you follow orders, soldier?
Two voices overlapped like hallucinations.
It was a familiar landscape above all—yet that very familiarity made it feel alien.
His head knew he had to deliver the lines exactly as in the script.
But the soldier's mind surged ahead, twisting his lips into a distorted grin.
The incompetent, corrupt officer who had driven him and his comrades to slaughter with absurd orders.
The vivid sensation from that moment—unable to shoot the bastard's head, jerking the barrel to his shoulder at the last second—lingered sharply in his fingers.
"You really wanted to kill me."
Jeong Seo-hoon began his acting.
The soldier began walking through the past.
'Are you insane?'
Hwang Shin-yoon screamed internally.
He was awed by the unexpectedly chilling, polished expressiveness, but his counterpart had just caused a major incident.
He'd arbitrarily changed the line.
The original was "You deserve to die," but he'd twisted it with an ad-lib.
But that wasn't the priority right now.
The writer was on set.
She was infamous for despising ad-libs that deviated from the script, so he'd essentially dug his own grave.
'Focus. Stay focused...'
Hwang Shin-yoon desperately rallied his wavering concentration.
He was startled by the sudden ad-lib, but more than that, his opponent's acting was far more real than expected.
His eyes burned like embers, appearing emotionless on the surface.
Yet Hwang Shin-yoon could feel the condensed hatred lurking within.
The studio atmosphere had shifted unnoticed. Sensing it, he grew anxious without knowing why, his lips drying out.
In the end...
"Cut. Good take."
Hwang Shin-yoon, sweating through his performance, broke concentration and flubbed a line, prompting the cut signal.
He'd been completely overwhelmed by the opponent's ragged breathing right in his face.
-Cut. Good take.
The past landscape froze abruptly.
Sounds that had echoed faintly like a dream grew clearer.
The beach filled with blood, corpses, discarded weapons, and sunken warships faded away.
The vivid expressions of his dead comrades were erased, overlaid by the original studio scene.
In an instant, Jeong Seo-hoon returned from the battlefield to here.
Song Jeong-woo PD approached, somewhat flushed.
"That was fantastic. Wanna see it? Come here."
He grabbed Jeong Seo-hoon's hand, pulling him to sit beside the camera monitor.
And replayed the just-shot scene.
"This. Exactly this vibe I got from you that day. Man, you're perfect for Lee Jin-wook. Spot on."
Jeong Seo-hoon's pupils trembled.
The figure acting on the monitor wasn't Jeong Seo-hoon.
The rage he unleashed wasn't aimed at the officer role played by Hwang Shin-yoon.
It was the raw fury of failing to kill the corrupt, incompetent coward of an officer who had led the unit to ruin.
That resentment had transformed into pure murderous intent, captured perfectly.
The expression of soldier Rashid—not Jeong Seo-hoon—that he sometimes glimpsed in the mirror even now.
It was vividly there.
"Writer Kim. Need to see more? Isn't one scene enough?"
"The acting's fine. But ad-libbing already at an audition? Kinda worrying."
"Ah, that could just be him too immersed and tense. And the ad-lib wasn't bad, right? I actually liked it better than the original line."
"If he's immersed, why the tension? True immersion means forgetting tension and nailing it."
"Anyway, the image is perfect for Lee Jin-wook, isn't it? Right?"
"...Gotta see a bit more."
Kim Sang-hee scanned Jeong Seo-hoon with cold eyes, gathered her papers, and stood.
"Excuse me, gonna wash up quick."
"Sure. I'll come too. You might not know where the bathroom is."
Song Jeong-woo beamed, standing to personally guide Jeong Seo-hoon.
Once they left, the staff were dumbfounded, speechless.
"Whoa. Why's PD Song in angel mode?"
"Must really like him. But yeah, the acting was good."
"I got chills too, hairs standing up. Why'd it suddenly get so cold...?"
"Guy says he's never acted before, but that's seriously solid."
"Felt like he pulled Lee Jin-wook straight out of reality. Like a totally different person."
"PD Song's eye for talent is seriously..."
While Jeong Seo-hoon washed his face, Song Jeong-woo hovered, chattering nonstop.
"Don't sweat the ad-lib too much. Happens when you're too immersed. When a character fully possesses you, the raw truth not in the script spills out. Our writer Kim knows that."
Jeong Seo-hoon splashed cold water on his face, cooling the heated excitement.
"She said she'd need to see more, right? That's code for liking it. But first meetings, she doesn't wanna seem too easy, so she plays hard to get. Keep the potential flowing, get close later, and she'll be all over you."
In the mirror, the soldier's gaze glared back at him.
"I knew from that one scene. You gotta be an actor, Jeong Seo-hoon. Born for it. This role's short, but next time, something like a handsome, rich villain—perfect fit. I've even got a follow-up project in mind..."
Song Jeong-woo's prattle echoed like a distant reverberation.
'What the hell happened?'
The moment filming started, everything around him transformed.
Too vivid for hallucination or auditory illusion—the battlefield felt real again. Intense, crystal clear.
In that instant, he hadn't been acting.
He'd simply unleashed the soldier's raw fury explosively, and it meshed perfectly with the script's scenario.
His heart pounded wildly.
The barely suppressed soldier's mind seemed to revel in its first breakout, rampaging madly.
The boiling combativeness—if not vented—threatened to scald his entire body with frustration.
'Captain Durierad.'
The inept commander who'd thrown him and his comrades into the meat grinder.
The desperate cries of his comrades pleading against murdering a superior, instant execution be damned.
That sharp echo clung to his ears, constantly tempting the frenzied soldier's heart.
"I've already hung the 'pass' medal around your neck, so do a few more scenes no pressure. Gotta save face for Writer Kim, though. Show great acting, and she'll bump up your screen time. She gets inspired and rewrites like crazy. Jumps high, but always lands right."
"...Hey."
"What."
"Didn't I say skip the cheese but don't step in the trap?"
"Yeah?"
"But you go and get lured by a scrap of cheese, step in the trap, and flop?"
"Thought it was a cheese trap, turns out it was a whole cheese factory."
"Ha. You're nuts?"
Jeong Su-ryeon thumped her chest in frustration, took a deep breath, and said,
"Fine. I admit it."
"Admit what?"
"You were good. Honestly shocked me. Staff reactions were solid too."
"Really? First time, so I wasn't sure. PD was praising so much, wondered if he's always this heavy on the lip service."
"That guy's allergic to lip service. First time seeing him grinning ear to ear. Usually just scowls."
"..."
"You really gonna do it?"
"Passed, so why not give it a shot."
Recalling that moment still made his heart race.
'I didn't just remember that place. I was definitely there.'
The soldier's mind endlessly craved that battlefield scent again. Longed for his comrades' breaths.
And now, Jeong Seo-hoon desired it more earnestly than ever.
'Will I see that place again when the camera rolls?'
Whether coincidence or inevitability, he couldn't endure without confirming.
Proof that those three years he'd lived weren't a mere fleeting illusion.
"Know how tough acting is?"
"Nope."
"The glamorous, rich actors on TV? Tiny fraction. 0.01% top tiers propped up by 99.99% unknowns. Know the average annual income for unknown actors from acting? Under 500,000 won. Annual, not monthly."
"So?"
"Think hard. Waste time chasing acting, end up with no career built, a worthless duck egg with nowhere to go. Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine out of ten thousand end up like that."
Jeong Su-ryeon took a deep breath, speaking calmly.
"So do this one for experience and fun, then bail without looking back."
"But Mom's favorite first daughter? Isn't that exactly what I said?"
"What?"
"All that was my words verbatim."
"...Oh, was it? No wonder it rolled off the tongue so well. Shit."
Making-Of Aside, Solo Camera (1)