The Power Hidden in a Script
A script had magical power.
The moment he held it in his hands and opened it, it pulled him so completely into another person’s world that he forgot his own.
As he read the lines, his heart began to pound.
At the same time, the words on the page seemed to come alive one by one, taking shape before his eyes.
Adrenaline surged through him, and a vast camera followed every little thing — every line that burst from his mouth, every minute movement of his body, none of it escaping its gaze.
He was already beginning to rehearse a scene he had mentally shot over and over again.
Script in hand, he walked and walked, pacing from the bedroom door through the living room to the kitchen island and back again.
It had long been his own way of learning a script.
With the rhythm of those back-and-forth steps, he found himself naturally sinking into the scene.
The distance was roughly six meters.
As he walked and pictured the setting of the episode, the space before his eyes soon changed into a high-end New York officetel.
Of course, there was supposed to be a brief ballet sequence before that, but he couldn’t practice it here.
The place was too cramped, and even a light jump might cause noise through the floorboards.
He’d found out the upstairs neighbor making trouble was none other than Han Seo-jun. Well, if that kind of rumor got out, it would never do.
So instead, he stood by the window like an actor in a skyscraper office, staring out and reciting his monologue.
He received a letter sent by an old friend, and the instant he unfolded that magical letter, he became possessed by that friend.
He traveled back through time, becoming his friend at twenty — a washed-up idol no one had wanted.
Just how similar that was to his own situation now; the strange kinship of becoming a character from an impossible fantasy made a quiet shiver run through him.
He stopped walking and stood before the full-length mirror in one corner of the living room.
From within the glass, Han Seo-jun looked back at him with sharp clarity.
Even the old him hadn’t been short.
But the man in front of him was different from birth.
At 185 centimeters, he had a perfectly balanced physique and skin that looked clear and fresh.
Black eyes gleamed beneath dark brows.
His nose ran straight and elegant down the bridge, and his lips were naturally full.
It was a face with intelligence, grace, and a polish so impossibly complete that even he thought it looked unreal.
As if he had read his thoughts, the man in the mirror lifted the corners of his mouth slightly, his eyes curving into crescents as he smiled at him.
The preparation was finished now.
With this extraordinary face, they were going to become the finest actor anyone had ever recognized.
He slowly nodded.
There was no way he could let an opportunity like this slip through his fingers.
As he opened his chest wide, white wings spread from his shoulder blades and filled the living room.
Now, he would fly.
He would have to find out for himself how high he could rise.
***
Blizzard Entertainment’s PR team office.
The team leader and the section chief had disappeared somewhere with the department head.
On the surface, they’d said they were “going to a strategy meeting,” but in reality they were almost certainly smoking in some corner of the rooftop.
That left only two employees behind.
The phones would not stop ringing, and both of them were already exhausted.
“No, it’s all in the press release. That’s everything. Why would we—”
With the receiver pressed tightly to her ear, the female employee frowned and looked around the office.
The male employee beside her, about her age, was also on a call.
Even then, the phone rang again.
At the shrill sound that seemed ready to split her ears, the woman let out a short breath.
“I’m sorry, just a moment.”
She put her current call on hold and pressed another blinking line.
“Yes, this is Blizzard PR.”
A low sigh escaped between her lips as she swept her bangs back with the heel of her hand.
“The team leader isn’t at his desk right now... Yes, well, try calling again in about two hours.”
Before the other person could even get another word out, another line lit up, and she reflexively hit the button.
The controversy showed no sign of dying down.
The two employees were simply being battered by nonstop calls and hanging on for dear life.
Fortunately, a brief silence finally settled over the office.
The woman massaged the back of her neck and tipped her head back, and the man let out a deep breath before saying, “Man, just how well did Han Seo-jun do at that audition? I even heard reporters flat-out asking if he was secretly bribed behind the scenes.”
The woman gave a sour little laugh, her brows knitting together.
“If it were only reporters, that’d be one thing. People from Bliss and LTJ have been looking for the team leader too.”
“Why them?”
“They sent two idols to the second audition and both of them got cut.”
“I mean, why are they taking that out on us? If they’ve got a complaint, they should call Next Stage Media and protest there.”
“Exactly. But they keep asking the same thing anyway — ‘Was Han Seo-jun really that good?’...”
Before she could continue, she let out another tired breath.
“Even when I said yes, the section chief called, then the team leader... ugh! Just a moment ago it was the department head, telling us if the rumor is true, he won’t sit still about it as if he was threatening us...”
“Ha... this is insane.”
The woman pressed a hand to her forehead.
It was an absurd situation, yet one plausible article had tied everything into knots.
The spark had come from a single reporter’s piece.
An article claiming that Blizzard’s CEO and director Kang So-hee had met in advance at the lounge of a hotel in Seoul before the audition.
On top of that, it had added concrete-sounding details about “money changing hands” at the meeting.
In the end, that one article became the match that lit the fire, and calls demanding confirmation flooded in from every entertainment agency.
“Seriously... the more I hear it, the more confused I get.”
The woman shook her head.
“Even when I read our own press release, I start wondering if it’s really true.”
Was she the only one?
Anyone who had seen Han Seo-jun act on TV — and had not seen the way he performed at the audition — would naturally think the same thing.
A moment later, she let a bitter smile curl at the corner of her mouth and glanced at the man beside her.
“But it’s really true, right? That Han Seo-jun can act well, sing, and even dance perfectly?”
“Of course. You have to believe it. There were five judges, and they weren’t all dead-eyed fish, were they? It’s not like they’d waste a movie they spent money making.”
Even as he said that, the man’s expression didn’t hold much certainty.
The woman watching him worried her lower lip between her teeth.
Then the man leaned slightly toward her, lowering his voice until it became almost a whisper.
“Actually... I saw Han Seo-jun act once before. Back then, I was so embarrassed for him I could barely watch.”
“Well, that’s common knowledge...”
Frowning at him, the woman’s gaze drifted up into empty space for an instant.
With her lips pressed tight, she quickly lowered her eyes to the desk.
The man immediately clamped his mouth shut, looking like he’d just realized his mistake.
With his face stiffening, he turned his head — and a short-haired man came into view.
His expression practically said, Is this funny?
But what came out of his mouth was mercifully different.
“Where’s the team leader?”
At Hwang Dong-jun’s question, the male employee awkwardly got to his feet.
“Ah, yes... he went into a meeting with the department head.”
“...Ah.”
With a faint smile, Hwang Dong-jun let out a soft chuckle.
Before he turned toward the office door, he glanced at the two employees and spoke.
“You’ve got a rough time of it, what with all these random calls from everywhere.”
“......!”
“It’ll blow over soon. Director Kang So-hee knows that ridiculous article is nonsense too. They said they’re going to release the audition video through the broadcast station, so tell people that when they call.”
“Ah...! Understood.”
The two employees were flushed red to the ears, looking embarrassed, and Hwang Dong-jun seemed about to look away, only to glance back once more with a small lift of his lips.
“And the final shoot video from that drama that went up earlier is already circulating on YouTube, haven’t you seen it yet? Our Han Seo-jun actor is seriously killer in it, so go check it out.”
“...R-really?”
With eyes gone round, the two employees quickly turned to their monitors.
At that, Hwang Dong-jun let out another little snort of laughter.
He turned and began walking toward the door, and in his ears he heard the click of a mouse, followed by —
“...Whoa—!!”
The astonished cries of the man and woman echoed behind him just as he stepped out of the room.
Rather than heading for the rooftop, Hwang Dong-jun changed course and went toward Team 1’s office.
If he went up there, the result was obvious.
The PR team leader and the department head would just be puffing away on cigarettes again in some corner of the rooftop garden.
It was better to stay in the office and call the reporters they had good relations with.
At the sound of the door opening, Ju Tae-hwan, who had been sitting back against the sofa, lifted his head.
“You’re back?”
“Yes, I’m back.”
“How was PR?”
“There were only two employees in there and nobody else. They said they were in a meeting, but... I’m sure they were back up on the roof talking trash about people.”
Grumbling as he came in, Hwang Dong-jun avoided Lee Hwa-young’s gaze. She was sitting across from the sofa with one leg crossed.
“Hey, that’s not what was happening.”
Team Leader Ju Tae-hwan gave a sly grin.
“A little while ago, the PR team leader and the department head were both in the CEO’s office. I was there too. We were having a strategy meeting with the CEO, and I came down first when I heard our Lee Hwa-young actor had arrived. They probably went off for coffee after the meeting ended.”
“...Really?”
“Yeah. You know that reporter who wrote about the CEO meeting Director Kang So-hee in the hotel lobby and went on about money changing hands? The department head called him personally. He told him he’d be sued for defamation and should handle it himself, and the guy folded right away. I checked just now, and that article has been pulled completely.”
“I saw that too. It was gone.”
Hwang Dong-jun shrugged as he answered.
But then he let out a low sigh.
“What good does that do us? The abuse articles are already all over the place. I told the PR staff to use the final shoot video that was uploaded to YouTube. You know, that last scene from the drama.”
“Good work. But that video — did you upload it?”
“No. Why would Director Kim hand over his footage to us?”
“Then who uploaded it? Director Kim wouldn’t have done something that kind at just the right timing.”
“It looked like someone on the staff filmed it on their phone during the shoot.”
“Really? But for something shot on a phone, the quality is...”
“......!”
Hwang Dong-jun’s eyes widened.
He had simply assumed it was some video recorded by an on-site staff member.
Since it was raw footage with no editing at all, it wasn’t strange that there were unnecessary scenes in it.
These days, phone cameras were good enough for that.
But thinking about it carefully, something felt off.
The composition of that video was an angle that, on set, could only have been captured by the director’s camera.
Then... did someone from the editing team maybe steal the raw file?
He shook his head.
There wasn’t a single staff member under Director Kim with the guts to do something like that.
Even if there were, there’d be no reason to.
Unless someone had put a huge amount of money in their hands.
And there was no way that could have happened.
Then what the hell is it...?
Frowning, Hwang Dong-jun stared into space, lost in thought.
That was when —
“I watched that video too. Isn’t it fake?”
A sharp female voice brushed past his ear.
He turned his head, and Lee Hwa-young was smiling at him with bright, almost glinting eyes.
“Did you see the comments? They’re all saying it’s AI. These days, if you give AI a decent source, it can move like a person all on its own, right? Acting couldn’t be any different, could it?”
“I suppose that’s what you’d like to believe, but it’s real.”
Hwang Dong-jun gave a snort of laughter.
“I was there.”
“Really? To my eyes, it looked like AI too, but the movements and expressions were just slightly unnatural...”
“The unnatural thing is the smile Lee Hwa-young actor makes when she’s in front of a camera for interviews.”
In an instant, her eyes sharpened.
That ferocious look, as if she could cut the air apart, softened again almost at once.
“Hey, Section Chief Hwang. Is that any way to talk to an actor?”
Noticing Lee Hwa-young’s mood, the team leader shot Hwang Dong-jun a warning glare.
“It’s fine. I’m not delicate enough to get hurt by that kind of thing.”
She lifted a hand and casually swept her long hair back, then spoke again with an air of easy composure.
“If you’re so wronged, why doesn’t Han Seo-jun appear on television himself? What’s he so scared of that he’s hiding?”
“......!”
“He’s doing nothing, so of course people suspect him more. He’s the one at the center of all this heat right now, so the broadcast stations must be calling him from everywhere. They’ve got guest corners on the 8 o’clock news and shows like that, don’t they? He could go on and show them himself.”
“So what, he should go on a news guest segment and perform choreography, sing, and act on the spot?”
“Why not? If the chance comes, you should do anything, even if someone tells you not to.”
When Hwang Dong-jun made an expression of utter disbelief, she spoke again as though it were nothing.
“Fine. Well, since Han Seo-jun was the one chosen as the lead, I won’t ask you to manage me anymore.”
“That much is obvious.”
“So, here’s what I’m thinking. Let’s make a bet.”
Lee Hwa-young leaned forward slightly.
“If Han Seo-jun really is that good at acting, singing, and dancing, and if he gets praised for his acting on set and recognized in the industry, then from now on I’ll keep my mouth shut about Han Seo-jun and Section Chief Hwang.”
She raised a hand to her lips and made a little zipping motion.
“Isn’t that obvious? There won’t be anything to say.”
“...Ah, then...”
Seeing Hwang Dong-jun’s dumbfounded expression, she let a faint, ambiguous smile slip across her face.
“I’ll give you one wish I want from you, so just keep it in reserve. Use it whenever Han Seo-jun actor needs my help later. If it’s something I can do, I’ll do anything.”
“I know you’ll try to wriggle out of it later.”
“Oh! Our team leader’s listening too, and you think I’d break a promise I made myself?”
Lee Hwa-young raised one corner of her mouth and gave a sly smile.
“And besides, those employees over there... they’re probably live-streaming our conversation by now.”
As her gaze drifted toward the cubicles, the two employees behind them quietly lowered their heads.
“Instead, if that turns out not to be true, just come on A Total Drunkard’s Point of View on SBN. I really won’t ask you to manage me.”
“Fine.”
“Okay! Then it’s settled.”
Lee Hwa-young’s smile widened even more.
A satisfied grin spread across her face.
She was certain of it.
No matter what the CEO or Hwang Dong-jun were scheming, it didn’t matter.
Only one thing was certain: Han Seo-jun’s terrible acting was an undeniable fact.
Only a month ago, she had happened to pass by the set and seen it for herself.
It was acting so bad it was embarrassing to even say they were from the same agency.
And that wasn’t all.
She had also heard Han Seo-jun sing at a company dinner once.
He was off-key from start to finish, and his sense of rhythm was a complete mess.
It was bad enough to make the listener’s face burn with secondhand embarrassment.
Remembering those days, Lee Hwa-young looked straight at Hwang Dong-jun with full confidence.
***
There was one more place completely shaken by the final acting video from Han Seo-jun’s drama appearance.
His family home.
Seated on the sofa in the spacious living room, a middle-aged woman was trying to call someone.
Her face was flushed with irritation, shifting red and blue.
-Mom? Why?
When the other side finally answered, she exploded in annoyance.
“Hey! Why do you never answer your phone?”
-Because I’m busy. Did you think I was ignoring it while I was lounging around?
“That’s one thing, but is that you?”
-...What? What are you talking about? What do you mean it’s me?
At her daughter’s incredulous response, the middle-aged woman’s face twisted again.
“Are you really pretending not to know when you’re talking to your own mother? The video you uploaded. That damn video.”
-Oh, what are you on about? Mom, don’t say ridiculous things and just hang up. I’m so busy I can’t even breathe right now.
“Hey! ...Hey!”
The call had already ended.
“No, then who was it? Who put that video on the internet...?”
As she lowered her phone, her brows drew together sharply.
“It wasn’t from Director Kim’s side, that much is certain. It wasn’t Ye-jun either, and if it wasn’t him, then... no way...”
As if something had just flashed across her mind,
her eyes flew wide open.