The Lines Between Us
After matching lines with me, Lee Hwa-young smiled faintly at the corners of her mouth and left the office with a perfectly composed expression.
By then, we had already gone through readings for five different scenes, each set in a different situation than mine. We had traded lines in a conversation with his mother, then finished a petty back-and-forth with the same idol group member.
And by that point, the smugness that had colored her face had vanished without a trace.
Even after we finished reading the one-on-one interview scene with the agency president that followed, she still didn’t hand the script back to me. With one eyebrow lifted just slightly, Lee Hwa-young riffled through the pages again.
By the time I saw her humming under her breath with a bright, almost cheerful expression, I understood it clearly.
She’s started a real psychological battle with me now.
Of course, Hwang Dong-jun probably hadn’t noticed a thing.
Lee Hwa-young had made the whole atmosphere feel like a proper reading session, and there wasn’t even a speck of awkwardness in her expressions or tone.
Her finger, flipping through the script, stopped at the scene she had initially waved away as “the meeting with the birth mother,” saying she didn’t like it. Then, with an immersion that bordered less on a reading and more on rehearsal, she poured all her emotion into it and completely took over the office.
Only then did Hwang Dong-jun, who had sensed the subtle shift in the air, slowly knit his brows.
The two employees who had been keeping themselves hidden started peeking at us from behind the partition as well.
They looked as though they were watching something exciting live, right there in the office.
As if she were shaking off stress from the deepest part of herself, Lee Hwa-young fully threw herself into the lines of the birth mother and let her emotions explode with perfect control.
And then, at last, she let a small smile drift across her lips.
The instant I saw that smile, I got goosebumps.
There was a fierce resolve burning in her eyes.
I thought that was the end of it, but her hand was already turning another page.
A low sigh slipped from my mouth.
It felt like this situation wasn’t going to end until I forcibly gave her the “terrible acting” performance she was expecting, no matter what.
She really was the goddess of stubbornness.
She hadn’t even noticed that the office door had opened behind her and Ju Tae-hwan, the Team 1 leader, had come in.
Ju Tae-hwan, who had just caught my eye, watched the situation quietly with a curious expression.
He was holding a thick document envelope in one hand.
Apparently he’d been curious what on earth was going on.
At last, she pointed to one page with a finger.
“Why don’t we try this one last?”
I shifted my gaze from her to the script.
The place her fingertip pressed down on was the scene where I first stepped onto the stage and sang a ballad.
“That’s not a conversation scene between us. It’s just me singing.”
“So? What, do you think it’ll be hard?”
Still speaking in that soft, gentle tone, she changed only her eyes ever so slightly and watched my expression closely.
Is she already smiling inside, certain she’s won?
But her face didn’t change.
To anyone who didn’t know better, she would have looked like a senior actress kindly helping a junior.
Wow, Lee Hwa-young.
Your acting skills are insane, seriously!
For her, hiding the hysterical edge that was usually her trademark was probably nothing at all.
Well, what had ten years of acting experience ever gone missing for?
If she could conceal her true feelings like this in everyday life and show an entirely different face, then of course she was called the top actress among actresses.
Logically speaking, she couldn’t have taken my audition video at face value.
She’d probably wanted to confirm the doubts she already had.
So she was grinding her teeth and trying to find a flaw in me no matter what.
But even in a game of baduk, you don’t play alone.
You always have to remember that the other side can be just as crafty.
Not only the Team Leader, but the two in-house staff members eavesdropping on our conversation were supposed to be the office’s so-called big mouths.
The story they’d just witnessed must be itching to spill out of them.
Then it was only a matter of time before I stopped being that little snack people chewed on for amusement in the company.
I’d been bothered by the whispering behind my back too.
Wasn’t this just the kind of thing where you blew your nose without lifting a hand?
Lee Hwa-young had found such an easy solution and even set the stage for it.
I should probably be thanking her.
“Fine. I’ll do it.”
With a small nod, I finally took back the script from her hand.
Even in that brief moment, it had suffered a great deal, my precious script.
I lightly brushed my palm over the cover, pretended to scan the middle of the lyrics, then parted my lips and started to sing.
And then—
the strength slowly drained from both her shoulders.
Her smile never left her face until the song ended, but her eyes no longer seemed to belong to her will.
“Well, your reading isn’t bad. And the singing... I suppose it’s listenable.”
“...Excuse me? What did you say? You’re saying Han Seo-jun’s singing is merely ‘listenable’?”
With a look and tone full of disbelief, Hwang Dong-jun stared at her as she slowly rose from her seat.
“Wait, are we even talking about the same song?”
There was a clear note of triumph buried in Hwang Dong-jun’s voice as he glared at her across the room, eyes shining.
Only after turning away did Lee Hwa-young seem to realize that the Team 1 leader had been in the room all along.
And yet not a flicker of her gaze wavered.
She simply said,
“I’ll be right back.”
Then she quietly started toward the door.
“Wait, actress-nim, where are you going all of a sudden? You should do a little more reading practice with our Seo-jun, right? Huh?”
Unable to hide the mockery in his voice, Hwang Dong-jun called after her toward the already closed door.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Ju Tae-hwan, the Team 1 leader, frowned sharply at Hwang Dong-jun, who had been grinning to himself for quite some time.
“Hwang, enough already, will you?”
Even while Ju Tae-hwan barked at him, Hwang Dong-jun kept chuckling.
“What if Hwa-young’s crying right now? In the bathroom?”
“Lee Hwa-young? No way. She’s not that kind of character. If she had coins on her, maybe she’d just go beat up the punch machine out front.”
At Hwang Dong-jun’s joke, Ju Tae-hwan clicked his tongue.
“You’re still single because you don’t know anything about women.”
“No, I just want to live freely. Do you really think I could know nothing about women at my age?”
“And yet you went and chewed her out like that? Why not just nail her heart to the wall while you were at it?”
After staring at Hwang Dong-jun in utter disbelief for a while, Ju Tae-hwan shifted his gaze to the two employees beyond the partition.
“Han Ji-ah, can you go check on what Actress Lee Hwa-young is doing? I can’t exactly walk into the women’s restroom myself.”
“Team Leader, really, you should just leave her alone right now. When someone’s upset like that, having anybody nearby only makes it more uncomfortable and annoying. You say you know women, but why do you know less than I do, even after getting married?”
“...He might be right, Team Leader.”
The female employee, peeking over the partition, added cautiously.
“Besides, it’s Lee Hwa-young. Her personality is...”
She swallowed the rest of what she was about to say.
“Still, we can’t just sit here and do nothing. We don’t know what she might do. If she can’t control her temper for even a second and... if she thinks about this the wrong way...”
“Oh, come on. Over something like that? Lee Hwa-young? She’s a veteran who’s seen everything from storms on land to storms in the air, and her nickname is Gumiho, isn’t it? That nine-tailed...”
He said it like a joke, but the laughter was slowly draining from Hwang Dong-jun’s face.
“...Uh...”
The female employee cautiously raised her head over the partition and opened her mouth.
“Then should I ask the older woman in Team 3 to pretend she needs the restroom and go have a look? So it doesn’t seem obvious.”
“Yeah, that’d be better. You and Eun-mi stayed here, so go ask someone from another team and check whether she’s smashing the bathroom windows or something... No, wait!”
Ju Tae-hwan’s eyes flashed.
“Just in case, Hwang, go up to the rooftop. I’ll check every office starting with Team 2. Eun-mi and Han Ji should go walk around outside the building.”
“Really, she’ll be fine. Why are you all making such a fuss over nothing?”
Just as Ju Tae-hwan was turning toward the door, he whipped his head back at that.
“Hey, do you know what happens when a woman’s pride gets really bruised? And this isn’t just any woman, it’s Lee Hwa-young! Ugh...!!”
With his face all twisted in irritation, Ju Tae-hwan turned to me.
“Seo-jun, stay here. If Hwa-young comes back, make sure you hold her here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Then he glared at Hwang Dong-jun again.
“Hurry up and go! My heart’s already rattling!”
At that, Hwang Dong-jun got to his feet with a helpless look.
The two female employees were the first to hurry out of the office.
“Don’t you ever get married. Once you do, the scariest thing in the world becomes your wife.”
“Then I’ll just date.”
When the two men finally disappeared in their noisy escape, silence settled over the office.
At times like this, not even the usual phone call came in.
Still, it wasn’t as if Lee Hwa-young was about to do anything drastic, was it?
Maybe she’d gone somewhere no one would think to look and was throwing back hard liquor.
While wracking her brain over how to take revenge.
Then, my eyes caught the document envelope sitting on the table.
This has to be the drama script that came in for Lee Hwa-young this time, right?
I slowly reached out and carefully opened the envelope.
Today is Sweet Alert
The title isn’t as hip as I expected.
I lifted my head and glanced toward the closed door.
For a moment, I wanted to just turn to the first page and peek.
But looking at someone else’s script before they did wasn’t exactly polite.
And if someone saw me, they might misunderstand.
Still, in the end—
my fingertips lifted the first page just a little.
Then, as expected,
shrrrrrrk.....!
A hologram spread across the script.
But then—
“...Ah!!”
An unexpectedly shocking headline caught my eye.
“Ha...!!”
So because they couldn’t find a substitute vocalist, he’s switching to acting now?
Unbelievable.
Just as my gaze dropped toward the bottom of the article—
bang.
The door opened.
Lee Hwa-young stepped back into the office.
...!
Her face was as flawless as ever, not a single crack in her expression, and that familiar faint smile still rested at the corners of her mouth.
Without a word, she walked toward me and lowered her gaze to the script lying on the table.