The False Truth of Fate
The manager looked to be in his mid-thirties, maybe a little older, and he was driving.
At the intersection, he flipped on his left turn signal and glanced at me in the passenger seat.
“Did you memorize today’s lines?”
“......!”
He read the startled look on my face in an instant.
His expression twisted, and he barked, loud enough to rattle the car.
“Hey! I know you never wanted to do this drama from the start, but still—how can you not even memorize the lines for the final shoot when you’re not even the lead, just some nobody supporting role?”
“...I had a terrible headache all night. I couldn’t move.”
I couldn’t think of a better excuse.
He shook his head at me. “You really are consistent, aren’t you? Consistently hopeless.”
“......!”
What was I supposed to do?
If anyone deserved to be the most bewildered person in the world right now, it was me.
After the manager had barged into the house, I had searched everywhere — the desk, the bed, even the living room, under the pretense of drying my hair and changing clothes. And yet there wasn’t a script in sight, not even a scrap of paper that looked remotely like one.
I’d spent more than eight years building my career as an actor. I had my own tricks for memorizing lines quickly, enough that I’d once taken pride in them.
But how was I supposed to do anything if the script itself wasn’t visible?
No, what I really couldn’t understand was why my old drama and film scripts from seven or eight years ago were all neatly stored on one shelf, while the script for the very drama I was supposed to be filming today was nowhere to be found.
“...Haa...!!”
As I let out a long sigh, the manager shot me a glance and pointed to the glove compartment in front of the passenger seat.
“Open that. You just left the script shoved in there.”
I reached over at once and pulled it out — a stack of A4 pages, with Truth Like a Lie - Part 2 written on the cover.
So today really was the final shoot.
Just some insignificant supporting role, then. If I could get through this filming safely, I’d at least be able to breathe for a little while.
After that, I’d sort out this bizarre situation one step at a time.
“I stuck a Post-it on today’s pages in the back. The lines are a little long, but just do your best. The death scene at the end is going to be rough too, but anyway, this is the last day, isn’t it?”
There wasn’t a shred of expectation in his voice.
Only annoyance.
He sounded exactly like someone forced to drag himself through work he didn’t want to do, making the motions without any real feeling behind them.
When I opened the script, something unexpected unfolded before my eyes.
As if it had been waiting for me, a blue hologram the size of a laptop suddenly sprang up over the pages.
“...Ah!”
“What is it?”
At my involuntary gasp, the manager flicked his eyes toward the script in my hands, then immediately turned back to the road with a blank expression.
Which meant the hologram was visible only to me.
And yet what appeared before my eyes now was definitely no illusion.
I could see the headline from the entertainment section of a portal site as clearly as day.
I subtly touched the holographic screen with my finger, glancing at the manager as he drove.
“......!”
The screen changed at once, and the full article unfurled before me.
What was this?
An article about a drama ending early while it was still being filmed?
I’d heard this was supposed to be the follow-up to the drama currently airing in the Wednesday-Thursday slot, and that it wouldn’t even begin broadcasting until next week. That meant there was still a long way to go, didn’t it?
I pulled out my phone and checked the date again.
September 12.
Then...
No matter how hard it was to believe, the article floating in front of me was far too specific. It even had the reporter’s name at the end: Ahn Ji-eun from StarInside.
Not only was it a media outlet I knew well, but Ahn Ji-eun was one of those famous reporters anyone in entertainment would recognize.
She was the kind who’d dig up even a celebrity’s private life and torment them with it as an exclusive.
Before I could think any further—
“We’re here.”
The car came to a stop in one corner of the parking lot.
The manager turned to me with a disinterested look.
There wasn’t a trace of anticipation in his eyes, only fatigue.
“Wait in the car for a bit. I’ll go in first and check the set situation.”
“...Okay.”
After he disappeared, I turned my gaze back to the hologram in front of me.
It had to be an image projected from some device installed nearby, right?
I searched the dashboard, the side window, the ceiling, even the back seat, but there was nothing unusual anywhere.
And when I looked more carefully, the screen really was no different from a computer monitor.
There was even an X-shaped close button in the upper-right corner.
When I tapped it with my fingertip, the hologram vanished in an instant.
“......!”
That was amazing.
Could Han Seo-jun have seen this hologram too?
If so, maybe he’d realized struggling was pointless.
Then he should have refused the role the moment he got the script in the first place.
Why had he dragged things out all the way to the final shoot?
Or had the hologram only appeared after filming began?
I didn’t know.
For now, I shoved the useless guesses aside.
There was something more urgent to deal with.
I had to memorize the lines and get a feel for how to perform them.
No matter how badly this went, I wasn’t going to back down.
I flipped to the page marked with the yellow Post-it.
“......!”
Since it was the final scene, I’d wondered exactly how the character was being written out of the drama.
He gets into an argument with three women in a café, loses his temper, and storms out the door.
Then he runs blindly out onto the main road.
Immediately after that, he gets struck by a truck and dies — a painfully predictable cliché.
Getting hit by a truck and dying.
Well, honestly, it wasn’t anything special.
I’d filmed being hit by cars without a stunt double twice in action films and once in a drama.
Every time, the shot had been approved on the first take, and other actors had even applauded me. I was confident I could handle that much.
But now that I was actually looking at this script, I couldn’t help fixating on the setup where he argued with three women and ran out.
The lines and the situation both felt cheap somehow.
In other words, it reeked of a low-grade train wreck.
But hadn’t the hologram article said the drama itself was highly polished?
Was that really true?
Still, whatever the case...
I’d have to do my final scene properly.
Moving my lips, I whispered the lines to myself.
It supposedly had long dialogue, but before long the words had settled in my mouth.
I lowered the sun visor above the passenger seat and looked into the mirror.
Recalling the days when I’d been acting at the height of my career, I ran through the scene from the argument inside the café all the way to the expression as he burst out into the road.
Acting in the body of someone who wasn’t me still felt strange, but once the texture of the performance clicked into place, my heart began to pound.
A nobody supporting character.
Even if this was only a death scene to close out the role, it didn’t matter at all.
It was obvious that actor was the suit that fit me best.
All petty thoughts vanished in an instant.
The three women appeared before my eyes, and a realistic argument unfolded.
The woman I’d insulted, flushed with anger, hurled her water glass at me. In the end, I kicked open the café door and stormed out.
Just in time, I ran out in front of the truck charging toward me.
And then—
Bang!
The moment my body was hurled into the middle of the road, Manager Hwang Dong-jun yanked open the driver’s door.
The world I’d been fully immersed in collapsed in an instant, and reality came flooding back. My body jerked before I could stop it.
“Let’s take a short break and go back in. They’re rearranging the set inside right now.”
His tone held no emotion at all. It almost sounded like he was talking to himself.
He rummaged through the coat he’d tossed on the driver’s seat, pulled out a cigarette and lighter, and then, just as he was about to close the car door, I spoke up quietly.
“By the way, why force in a scene like this? Wouldn’t it be easier to just send him abroad for school or write him off as having disappeared?”
He frowned at my words.
“I mean, it’s a character with so little screen time that he’s barely even worth calling a supporting role, so why give him a scene like this at all? If you just handled it with some standard off-screen ending, wouldn’t that be far more profitable for the production company? It’d cost less, too. The other actors would only need to say a few lines.”
For a moment, the manager’s face twisted hard.
“Hey... you’re not on something, are you?”
What the hell was that supposed to mean?
“...Huh? No, absolutely not.”
I waved it off, but his eyes flashed dangerously.
I looked away, avoiding that glare.
“Then what the hell is it?”
“......!”
“You yourself said the writer and director had it in for you because of your terrible acting. That they’d humiliated you in front of the other actors and staff, saying even an extra sitting in the corner of the café would be better than you.”
Had that really happened?
“You also said all the scenes we’re shooting today are pointless. That spending money and time to film your death scene like this was all Director Kim’s idea. That today’s footage would be released only in the director’s cut. You said they were trying to pull a fast one by filming everything even though it could never air on broadcast because of your awful acting, and that Director Kim was just being vindictive and trying to block your future out of sheer spite.”
With his face set and hard, the manager glared at me.
“You even told me they’d just write it off in the main broadcast as him going abroad for school, using a few lines from another actor... You complained to me about how unfair the whole thing was.”
Ha...
How was I supposed to know any of that?
To avoid his betrayed stare, I rubbed my cheek with my palm.
“I’m sorry. I guess I’m still not fully sober.”
“...Seo-jun.”
“Yes?”
The manager who’d called my name couldn’t continue right away.
He chewed on his lower lip, and unease showed through his expression.
Manager Hwang Dong-jun looked to be nearly forty. He had a warm, approachable face on the outside, but beyond that there was something bitter buried underneath.
“I tried my best to keep you with me and make it work... but in the end, it was my own lack of ability that held me back.”
“......!”
“I already told the head office I’d take a month or two off after wrapping things up today. From now on, Seok-hwan will be in charge of you. Or maybe they’ll send you to Team 2.”
He shoved the cigarette back into his pocket and checked his wristwatch.
“Let’s go. It’s time.”
He motioned for me to get out.
***
Right before rehearsal, veteran actress Ahn Hae-sook was sitting at a table inside the café.
She felt the stylist’s hands adjusting her makeup and hair, then turned her head slightly and caught sight of two actresses in their early twenties.
One of them had almost no lines, while the other had a substantial role and had to carry on a long verbal sparring match with the male lead.
The woman was clutching her script and muttering the lines under her breath as she practiced.
Her tongue seemed to trip over the rapid-fire dialogue, and she lightly puckered her lips.
Watching her, Ahn Hae-sook frowned.
Her face was full of disapproval.
“Honestly, you should’ve prepared perfectly from the beginning. Your tongue was tripping over itself during the script reading too. What are you going to do if you’re still like this?”
At Ahn Hae-sook’s gentle but admonishing words, the younger woman’s mouth turned down.
“We’re going to have to reshoot a few times anyway because of someone who keeps getting NGs all the time. It’s not like it all depends on me.”
With a sullen, defiant tone, she snapped back and turned her head away from Ahn Hae-sook.
Well, well...
Instead of saying it aloud, Ahn Hae-sook clicked her tongue inwardly.
“Haa...”
She let out a low sigh, then couldn’t help speaking again.
“Even if we have to reshoot several times because another actor keeps messing up, that still doesn’t mean you can’t even get your own lines right. Isn’t that embarrassing?”
She’d only debuted two years ago, after all. She was still practically a rookie.
At that age, Ahn Hae-sook had spent nights obsessing over memorizing lines and understanding her character. The girl in front of her was so different that, to Ahn Hae-sook, she looked hopelessly immature.
The younger actress turned back to her again, wearing a pitiful expression.
“No, I know how this works. Anyway, they’re not even going to use this scene. I know perfectly well the director shoved it in here on purpose just to step on somebody.”
Her long eyeliner trembled as she made a prim little face.
And what she said was true.
Most of the staff and actors had already picked up on it.
The director had it in for one irritating male supporting actor and wanted to ruin his life.
Wasn’t the proof of that the fact that he’d suddenly jammed a tacky, out-of-place melodramatic element into the climax of a drama that had otherwise been built with such dignity?
Han Seo-jun, the supporting actor with inaccurate diction, poor delivery, and almost no control over his breathing.
They’d given him a long stretch of dialogue opposite another actor, even though just a little length in the lines made him short of breath and unable to hide his panic.
And that wasn’t all.
They expected him to run onto the road and get hit by a truck with no stunt double at all.
With his current skill, it was a scene he simply couldn’t handle.
It looked reckless on the surface, but in truth it was just a scheme to capture Han Seo-jun’s worst terrible acting and bury it in the deleted footage for the director’s cut.
It was obvious that, naturally, Han Seo-jun would never earn a proper place as an actor.
Ahn Hae-sook, as a significant supporting actress, understood most of the filming flow.
But still, to go this far just to trample one man’s future...
“...Honestly.”
It was then that she let out a quiet breath.
Beyond the café window, Han Seo-jun, waiting outside, came into view.
A little while later, the director gave the rehearsal signal.
Ahn Hae-sook lifted her coffee cup.
What reached her ears was the low murmur of the two younger actresses talking to each other.
And then the door opened, and Han Seo-jun came in.
His gaze swept once across the room and met the eyes of the three actresses.
He frowned for a moment, then slowly approached the table where they sat.
He dragged out a chair roughly and sat down hard.
Then he fixed the younger actress in front of him with a cold, frozen stare.
“Ha....”
The low breath he exhaled carried a trace of mocking laughter.
His voice held old wounds and a deeply buried hatred that seeped through the cracks.
“So what are you trying to bury me with this time? Embezzlement? Breach of trust? Or forged accounting records again? You probably thought if you stitched together enough circumstantial evidence and shoved it at people, they’d all believe it. Don’t fool yourself. This time, it won’t go the way you want.”
As he continued, his pronunciation was crisp, his intonation cutting cleanly through the air.
Within the cold, subdued tone, anger mingled strangely with a lingering attachment to an old lover that had never fully disappeared.
The younger woman was the one thrown off balance by his unexpectedly strong performance.
“...W-we just need to admit you did it, don’t we? Was it really necessary to drag in a lawyer too? How petty can you be?”
Han Seo-jun tilted his head down and slowly raised it again, glaring at her.
The corners of his eyes twisted faintly, and a dry laugh sliced the air.
The other young woman beside her crossed her arms and jumped in.
“My, my, that’s awfully harsh for a woman you used to love. And it’s not like she’s the only one who knows what happened...”
In that instant, Han Seo-jun’s expression changed.
One corner of his mouth curved crookedly, and a sneer flashed across his face.
It was a cold, contemptuous smile, mixed with disbelief and irritation, as if he were testing them.
“Oh, I get it now. You bought yourself a witness too? You really are thorough. Fine! Go on, spill it all. I’ll hear every dirty little detail of how carefully you set this up, right here.”
His low voice carried a strange resonance.
Goosebumps rose over Ahn Hae-sook’s skin before she realized it, and she found herself completely drawn into the man’s performance.
“Ah!”
The actress opposite him was now red with embarrassment.
She’d forgotten her lines and was just opening and closing her mouth like a goldfish.
“NG!!”
The one who saved her was the director’s sharp shout.
“Hey, look at that. Hah... Seriously!”
Director Kim got up from behind the camera and let out a sour laugh, as though the whole thing was absurd.
“Han Seo-jun! What do you think you are? Why are you acting all heavy and important? Do it like a punk off the street! Can’t you do that much?”
At the director’s sudden yelling, Ahn Hae-sook hurriedly picked up her script.
But the stage directions clearly said: calm expression and tone, charismatic.
Just then, as she frowned and turned her head, what entered Ahn Hae-sook’s line of sight was Han Seo-jun’s face — and it was not at all what she expected.
To her surprise, there was no panic on his face at all. Instead, a composed ease flowed through his expression.
As though he’d already anticipated this exact situation, Han Seo-jun was quietly smiling with one corner of his mouth lifted.
He took off his jacket and draped it over the chair.
Then he loosened his tie and flung it aside, undid the buttons at his shirt cuffs, and rolled up his sleeves to his elbows.
He unbuttoned two more at the top to ease the pressure around his neck, ran both hands through his hair as if roughing it up, and then spoke to the director in a rough, easygoing tone.
“Director, let’s go again.”