The First Take That Trembled the Set
As soon as the cue went out, the set was swallowed in tension.
Director Kang So-hee, standing behind the camera, narrowed her eyes sharply, and even the staff nearby held their breath as they focused on a single scene playing out on the monitor.
In one corner of the waiting room, the camera caught five men preparing to step onto the audition stage. In an instant, one of them crumpled to the marble floor.
It was like a bolt of silk sliding to the ground.
Someone behind Director Kang made a startled sound, drawing in a sharp breath.
Good.
Director Kang’s eyes flashed as she caught the moment through the viewfinder.
The next second—
“Ah!!”
The other four men cried out in shock.
They dropped into crouches at once, as if their legs had given out beneath them.
The member with purple hair was down on one knee in a panic.
“Hey, you—what’s wrong?!”
“Han Woo-hyun! Get a hold of yourself!”
“What do we do?”
“Lay him down first, quickly—water, someone give me water!”
At the leader’s urgent shout, one of them scrambled to his feet, and a nearby member of another idol group thrust a bottle of water into his hands.
The leader slipped one arm beneath the fallen man’s head and began undoing the buttons at his throat.
Unlike the calm leader, the other three had completely lost their composure and didn’t know what to do with themselves.
The purple-haired one in particular looked like a frightened rabbit, flustered and darting this way and that. He bit his lip, agitated, and shook Woo-hyun’s shoulder with trembling hands. The camera caught every bit of it.
“Hey, Han Woo-hyuuu—!”
The scream was still tearing out of his throat when—
“Choi Ye-jun! Be quiet.”
The leader’s firm command pressed down on the air.
In an instant, the set went still.
In that silence, the camera began to move slowly.
The lens that had hovered as if skimming behind the leader’s back now cut through the empty air and dropped straight down.
At the center of the frame, the face of the man lying on the floor came into view.
Light fell over Han Woo-hyun’s head, sliding over his forehead, his nose, and the faint tremor of his lips.
With his head resting on the leader’s arm, he didn’t move at all.
Only the faintest flutter stirred beneath his closed lids.
His slightly parted lips twitched very slowly, almost too little to be seen.
Then his eyelids lifted bit by bit, revealing the black pupils beneath.
At first, there was no focus in them.
That wandering gaze gradually began to gather itself, as if clinging to reality one piece at a time.
At that moment, Director Kang So-hee exhaled in front of the monitor.
...There it is.
The short thought drifted through her mind.
At first, she had intended to film the scene from a fixed angle behind the leader’s back.
It was too early in the shoot to expect this kind of delicate emotional acting, after all.
But Han Seo-jun had stepped forward and insisted on trying it.
He said that while flashy choreography and vocal skill were important in an idol drama, that wasn’t the whole of it, and he wanted viewers to see that for themselves.
He had even argued that if the people standing in front of the camera didn’t show serious acting, no one would take the drama lightly.
Convinced by his words, Director Kang had added a crane camera to capture the moment in exacting detail.
And Han Seo-jun’s acting had already gone far beyond what she had expected.
What’s more, the performances of the other four around him were astonishingly natural.
A moment later, Han Seo-jun—no, Han Woo-hyun—came fully to himself and brought the bottle of water to his lips.
After taking a few sips, he looked around with eyes filled not merely with surprise but with a kind of dazed emptiness.
It was the expression of someone who had woken up in another body without warning.
The staff standing behind Director Kang all watched the scene, completely stunned.
The actors seated among them seemed hardly able to breathe.
Today wasn’t even a scheduled shoot day, but they had come to see for themselves what the first rehearsal would feel like, and how strong his real acting would be compared to what he had shown at the script reading.
The young woman with the reporter’s badge had stopped writing in her notebook; the pen hung loosely between her fingers.
Her expression was so blank that it would have been no surprise if the pen slipped from her hand at any moment.
And what was most astonishing of all was that this wasn’t even the actual filming.
Even at the first rehearsal, the chemistry among the five members was perfect, and the synergy between them was enough to send a shiver down the spine.
The camera moved smoothly, following Han Woo-hyun as he pushed himself to his feet.
As he walked with a vacant expression on his face, the lens tracked his back without a cut, carrying the shot forward in a single, seamless take.
“That’s it....”
Director Kang So-hee muttered under her breath.
She had been staring through the viewfinder as if she meant to strike it down, but then she swallowed hard all at once.
At Sigma Entertainment, three men sat together on the sofa in the president’s office on the fifth floor.
Their eyes were fixed on the TV mounted on one wall.
The president sat relaxed in the seat of honor, arms folded and one leg crossed over the other.
As he looked casually up at the screen, arrogance lingered in his gaze.
To his left sat Shin Yeon-ho, and to his right, his manager, both watching the interview on TV with close attention.
On the screen where all their attention had gathered, a reporter wearing a bright smile spoke with a fresh, cheerful expression.
The reporter let out a playful laugh.
Director Kang smiled with easy composure and brushed her hair back with one hand.
This project isn’t just about my name. I’m putting everything I have into it. If I hadn’t gone into this with the conviction that, once it was finished, viewers would lose their minds, I wouldn’t have started at all.
The smile slowly faded from her face.
Before answering, Director Kang lifted the corners of her mouth again and smiled faintly.
Director Kang gave a small smile.
As the reporter tilted her head in question, a meaningful smile spread across Director Kang’s lips.
Her gaze grew more serious as she continued.
Her voice turned resolute.
Director Kang nodded and smiled quietly.
“...Hmm...”
Still watching the interview unfold, the president spoke.
“Not bad.”
“...Yes, I think so too.”
The president’s gaze shifted to Shin Yeon-ho, who was nodding slowly.
A smile whose meaning was hard to read spread over the president’s mouth.
“We should go that route too. Hold a press conference and explain why you’re switching to acting in that style—it’ll probably go over very well, don’t you think?”
“.....!”
“I’ll write the line for you. ‘Even while I was living as a singer, my life was never complete. To find the dream I lost long ago, I’ve decided to take on the challenge of becoming an actor. I hope this challenge gives countless idol and actor hopefuls the courage and dream to never give up.’ How’s that? Pretty good, right?”
Shin Yeon-ho answered only with a brief nod.
“You can finish by saying something like, ‘It still feels like I’ve only just taken my first step, but I want to prove I can succeed. Please watch me.’ Perfect, right?”
“...Yes, sir. That sounds very good.”
The manager seated beside him also bowed his head.
But a strange tension still hung over his face.
A moment of silence passed.
Shin Yeon-ho opened his mouth with difficulty.
“P-President.”
“Hm? What is it?”
“...C-could you give me a little more time? After I do the retirement press conference... if that bastard shows up again...”
“How much more time?”
The president’s eyes went cold in an instant.
Shin Yeon-ho instinctively looked away.
“We’ve already turned over the whole country using everyone I know. He’s not in any immigration records, and we checked every hospital. He either died somewhere no one would find him, or he stowed away.”
“But maybe... maybe he got into a traffic accident or something...”
“I told you, we checked the hospitals first.”
“...O-or maybe he’s hiding at some friend’s house we don’t know about...”
The president’s gaze slowly bored into him.
In the heavy air, Shin Yeon-ho’s shoulders flinched.
“Yeon-ho.”
“...Yes?”
At the president’s voice, softened almost into gentleness, Shin Yeon-ho lifted his head.
“I know you’re anxious. You said memorizing your lines was hard while preparing for this audition, didn’t you?”
“Yes, so I thought maybe acting just isn’t...”
“How much did I invest in you?”
“.....!”
At the president’s unexpected words, Shin Yeon-ho turned his head slightly.
“You think because I’ve been taking care of everything behind the scenes and patting your ass all this time, you’ve become something special? When you appear on a music broadcast, people look up to you; when you go on stage and dance, it feels like the whole world is yours, right?”
The president’s voice dropped low.
“That isn’t yours. It’s only because I’ve been blocking every incoming tide for you. You’re just hiding inside the pretty sandcastle I built. You need to know your place.”
“....!”
“You like that apartment with the Han River view, don’t you? If you want to keep driving around in a Porsche and acting like a big shot at members-only bars, drinking all night with a woman on your arm, then you’d better get a little smarter, got it?”
The end of his sentence was icy.
Shin Yeon-ho dropped his head as if he had forgotten how to breathe.
His hands, resting on his knees, were trembling.
“Let’s do well, Yeon-ho.”
A faint, twisted smile touched the president’s mouth.
His gaze returned to the TV screen.
There, Director Kang So-hee was seen bowing her head and offering her final thanks.
---