The Audition Room
On the seventh floor of Next Stage Media’s headquarters, in the audition room, a man who looked to be in his early twenties sat alone on a chair planted in the center of the stage.
He hunched his stiff shoulders slightly and stared straight ahead as if something were pressing down on him. Each time he slowly turned his head, the faces of the people seated in the judges’ chairs below the stage flickered across his pupils one by one.
Thin, uneven breaths slipped through his parted lips.
When he set the script he had been holding on the floor, Director Kang So-hee, seated at the far right, spoke without losing her cool demeanor.
“Then let’s go back to Scene 8 on page one.”
Even her tone was indifferent and dry.
She toyed with the script in her hand, her face betraying boredom and disappointment. Keeping her gaze on the pages, she lifted only her eyes and swept them coldly across the stage. The deep lines at her brow gleamed ice-cold beneath her set expression.
From the script reader waiting off to one side, the other character’s lines rang out.
“You didn’t tell anyone about that, did you? Except Director Kim?”
At that moment, the man onstage faltered. He shook his head and opened his mouth.
“No... I mean, that wasn’t exactly a good thing to, uh, go broadcasting all over town....”
His words tangled, and he stopped there.
His lips, moving as if trying to recall the line, trembled violently.
Soon his face went scarlet, and he rose awkwardly from his seat.
The man folded his hands carefully toward the woman and began to beg.
White flecks of spit flew past his twisted lips.
“S-Sorry! I really, really prepared for this, okay? I’m not lying at all—I memorized every single line, word for word. But this is just... wow, this is so freaking ridiculous. My mind just went blank and I forgot the whole thing. Please, just once! Just one more time—can I please look at the script and do it again?”
“No. That won’t be necessary.”
Director Kang So-hee waved a hand in a cold voice.
She did not even give him a proper look.
“That’s enough. We’ll let you know the result later by email. You may head back for today.”
“......!”
The man, unable to tear his eyes away from Director Kang So-hee for a moment longer, finally bit his lower lip.
His audition was already over, and all he could do now was admit there was no turning back.
“Th-thank you... Then, I’ll be waiting for good news.”
He tried and failed to hide the frustration on his face, lifting a hand to rub fiercely at his cheek. Bowing once more, his eyes dripped with regret.
Watching his back disappear behind the stage, the drama writer let out a long sigh and shook her head.
“Ha...! I guess expecting active idols to be good at acting too is asking too much. Their singing and dancing are flawless, but why is their acting always like that?”
The executive producer, seated nearby with his arms crossed, clicked his tongue and shook his head.
“Even so. It’s not like the script is that long... The attachment uploaded to them was only four pages. How can they come in unable to memorize that? This is an audition for acting, after all.”
At that, casting director Lee Min-young from the agency shot back.
“That’s only because you don’t really understand idol life, Director Kim. Do you know how busy they are? They have to squeeze in dance practice, vocal lessons, and then run all over the country for stage performances until dawn. They’re poor kids. They look glamorous on the outside, but they have to grind themselves down just to get through their schedules. They don’t even have time to sleep—they nap in the car while traveling.”
“Ah, so they’re that busy, are they? Busy enough to do that sort of thing?”
The executive producer snorted.
“Just last week there was a huge article about some guy from Eleven Meteors getting completely drunk in Gangnam, picking fights with ordinary people sitting next to him, and getting into a fistfight. I heard he even got sued.”
Lee Min-young smiled awkwardly and waved a hand.
“Of course there are people like that, but they’re a tiny minority. Most of them work far harder than you’d imagine.”
The music director, who had been scanning the paperwork with a furrowed brow, joined the conversation.
“There’s still one final applicant left, but honestly, isn’t the lead basically decided already?”
“...Pardon?”
The drama writer turned toward him, her brow knitting slightly.
“No, but everyone behind the scenes has been saying the same thing. That the lead’s already been chosen. It’s not like the rumor that the role is going to Shin Yeon-ho is just floating around for no reason... He’s tall, he’s got a great face, he commands the stage, and he’s got a huge fandom. The people who’ve auditioned so far can’t even memorize their own lines, so what exactly are they supposed to compete with? At least Shin Yeon-ho looked like he’d memorized them in rough form. He was wrong here and there, but still.”
“Still, he didn’t even sing today. And his lines were at the level of a child reading out of a textbook.”
“That may be true, but honestly, if it goes up on Netflix, how are foreign viewers supposed to know whether the lead is acting well or just reading? His vocal skills are already proven, so that was counted as an exception. He’s just been off his game for a while.”
At that, Lee Min-young gave a faint smile.
“There are a lot of foreigners who speak Korean these days.”
“And yet most of them only know a few everyday phrases. Do you really think they can tell the subtle nuances in a script? What matters most is visual appeal and stage performance.”
With the music director speaking as though the decision had already been made, even the executive producer nodded.
But Director Kang So-hee at the far right still looked unsettled.
“I think Shin Yeon-ho is still the best among them. But something keeps bothering me. He absolutely refuses to show us a live stage. And then there’s the excuse about his condition. His agency also said they’d record the songs separately later and give us the files... I keep getting this weird feeling that makes me wonder, ‘What if there’s actually someone else singing for him?’”
At the director’s shocking remark, the writer’s eyes widened.
“Come on, Director. That seems like a bit much, doesn’t it?”
“Wow, Director, you could write a whole novel off that premise. But in real life, that would be a little....”
Even as the others reacted, Director Kang still sat with her arms crossed, narrowing her eyes.
“No. There was a case like that before. That male duo called Milli Vanilli. They won number one on the Billboard charts and even got a Grammy for songs other people sang for them—then the truth came out and everything blew up. Because of them, the Grammy Awards started requiring live performances after that.”
The music director let out a laugh as if he couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Haha, but come on. It’s a different world now. Who would pull off something that reckless?”
“I guess not?”
“Of course. Artists these days are so obsessed with perfection that they won’t sing unless it’s on a fully set-up stage or in a recording booth. There are geniuses out there who’re pathologically fixated on that level of detail.”
“Well, I suppose that does sound like the most reasonable explanation.”
While they were talking, a staff member approached from near the back entrance and bent toward Director Kang.
“The final applicant is ready.”
“Okay. Send him in.”
“Yes.”
Turning away from the departing staffer, the music director glanced down at the list of applicants and lifted the corners of his mouth.
“Wow. He’s finally here. The only actor among the applicants.”
“I heard he submitted his application right before the deadline, too. Still, I don’t get what kind of nerve it takes for an actor to apply to an idol drama. It’s not like the main focus is acting—there’s dancing and singing to get through.”
Out of the hundred or so applicants who had applied, most had been eliminated in the casting team’s preliminary review.
Only ten had made it to the final round.
And of those ten, nine were members of first-tier idol groups whose names anyone would recognize.
Landing a role in this production would literally be a golden chance to ride a global phenomenon, so that made perfect sense.
With the worldwide fever for K-POP Demon Slayers still raging, the moment word spread that this new project was being launched, the anticipation among overseas fans surged even higher.
In a situation like this, if you stepped forward as the lead character in the project, wasn’t that the perfect chance to carve your name into global consciousness?
If the show became a massive hit, it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to ride an explosive wave of popularity. Even if it merely did moderately well, there was no way to lose.
On top of that, the project was being helmed by Director Kang So-hee, who had won Best Director at Cannes, with Netflix throwing its full weight behind it.
It was, in plain terms, a guaranteed success—an ironclad bet that had no chance of flopping.
So it was only natural that pretty much every idol agency was salivating over it.
Which was why it was already remarkable that among the applicants vying for that very role, an actor had fought his way through the competition from top idols and made it to the second screening.
“This guy’s face does all the work. How can someone look like this?”
The writer let out an admiring gasp as she looked at the application photo.
“Right? His looks are already unreal.”
Lee Min-young, the casting director who had participated directly from the document review stage, laughed in agreement.
“But the thing is, it’s not just his appearance... When I first checked his self-tape, I was honestly shocked. His dancing and singing are both top-notch. And acting? Well, that’s his actual job, so there’s no need to mention it.”
“...Ha!”
At Lee Min-young’s words, the music director snorted.
“What’s so funny?”
When she turned to stare at him, he curled his lips and gave a faint laugh.
“Oh, you don’t know Han Seo-jun? He’s the king of terrible acting. A total legend!”
He immediately mimicked a scene from a drama, mangling his face into an exaggerated expression as he recited a cringe-inducing line.
“Yeonhaaa~ I can’t live without yooou~.”
In an instant, a strange burst of laughter spread through the room.
The scene had long since been frozen into memes and shorts, consumed across countless communities and on YouTube, where it had become a running joke and a target of mockery.
Of course Lee Min-young knew that perfectly well.
She had even watched those shorts on YouTube herself and laughed uproariously with the people around her who were there with her at the time.
And yet the Han Seo-jun she had seen in the self-tape had been an entirely different person.
His acting had a level of polish without a single flaw, his vocal ability was astonishing, and on top of that, his dancing was incredible—every complex movement strung together cleanly and without a hitch.
His overwhelmingly handsome face was merely a bonus.
Then wasn’t there enough reason to let him onto the audition stage again and see for themselves, even if they had to take the chance of being fooled?
After all, skill could be upgraded through effort, and there were stars who awakened in a single moment and leaped to an entirely different level.
In entertainment or sports, an unexpected star was always bound to emerge somewhere.
And people always consumed that kind of surprise with greater passion.
When you came across an unexpected dark horse in a conventional, by-the-book audition?
Of course that would become an even bigger talking point.
And then it happened.
A man stepped out from between the stage curtains.
He walked to the center of the stage and bowed his head neatly.
“Hello. I’m applicant Han Seo-jun.”
Han Seo-jun raised his head and looked at the judges with a bright expression.
“...Oh my God, he’s really unbelievable.”
The writer let out a soft gasp before she even realized it.
The faces of actors she had seen on TV had never inspired much trust in her.
That was because they were faces seen through thick makeup and after all kinds of postproduction touch-ups.
But the Han Seo-jun standing before her now was different.
And to make matters even more striking, he had arrived at the audition dressed in a white outfit that looked entirely plausible as the center member of an idol group stepping onto a music show stage at any moment.
“...Hmm.”
Director Kang cleared her throat lightly and asked,
“Did you prepare the outfit you’re wearing today in advance?”
“Yes. The protagonist, Han Woo-hyun, has a lot of scenes where he performs onstage in a white uniform.”
At Han Seo-jun’s calm answer, Director Kang’s gaze moved over him once more.
The pure-white uniform highlighted his perfectly balanced build and shone brilliantly.
Even the golden chain draped over his shoulders and the intricately detailed buttons matched the costume worn by the protagonist in the original work.
He looked like a magazine spread simply by standing there.
Director Kang, who had been nodding faintly, suddenly tilted her head.
She dropped her gaze to the documents on the table and quickly scanned the four-page audition script.
Then she lifted her eyes back to the man onstage.
“We didn’t include in the materials that the protagonist performs onstage in a white uniform. Where did you get that information?”
“Did you... read the original web novel, perhaps?”
Before the director had even finished speaking, the writer seated beside her added,
“Yes.”
“How far did you read?”
“I read all the way to the end of Part Two. Up through the final performance scene.”
“......!”
The judges’ expressions changed at once.
Unlike the music director’s skeptical look, clear smiles of approval spread across the faces of the writer and Lee Min-young.
It might not seem like much.
But while it was easy to say, finishing a web novel that ran to more than eight printed volumes was no small feat.
Among the nine idols who had come to the stage so far, not a single one had read the original.
And that was true even though they all knew the drama was based on a web novel.
“You’ve... prepared quite a lot.”
Director Kang’s voice, though still casual on the surface, now carried the sense that he was finally worth taking seriously.
At first, she had simply thought, “He’s one of the first-round passers, so let’s look at him and send him home.”
But if the other side had prepared this thoroughly, the situation changed completely.
“Good. Let’s see the acting first. We’ll do the singing and dancing after that.”
“Yes.”
“Then start from Scene 14 on page two.”
Following Director Kang’s instruction, the man handling the opposite role’s script reading on one side of the stage fixed his gaze on the paper.
Seated in the chair, Han Seo-jun crossed one leg over the other with effortless ease and stared straight ahead.
“You bastard! There are lines even when you’re slandering someone that you should never cross!”
As the opposing character’s line rang out, a chilly smile spread across Han Seo-jun’s lips.
Keeping his gaze on the judges, he slowly rose from his seat.
As if he were picking up a coat draped over a chair back, he reached out and grasped the empty air with a natural motion.
“I completely agree with what you just said. There are lines one should never cross, even when slandering someone.”
His tone was measured.
It was a voice that revealed his inner emotions without provoking his opponent.
“That’s why I’ve always lived by those lines.”
Then his eyes sharpened.
Though his voice remained low, every word carried weight.
“But if anyone crosses that line... I’ll cling to them until the very end. I’ll sink my sharp teeth into their heel and tear at them until they’re screaming.”
The corners of his mouth curved coldly upward.
And in that instant, brilliance flared in his eyes like sparks.
Goosebumps rose on Director Kang’s arm.
“If it’s Han Woo-hyun... I’ll make sure he’s completely sick of me.”
Still low and calm in tone.
Yet within it lay an unbreakable fighting spirit and resolute determination.
The charisma pouring from his eyes plunged the audition room into a silence so profound it was hard even to swallow.
“Ha...!!”
The writer and Lee Min-young swallowed back breaths of admiration, and even the music director’s expression hardened as he let out a low exhale.
“...Hmm. Let’s see one more.”
Still staring at the man onstage, the executive producer asked Director Kang for another round.
“Then let’s do one more scene.”
Director Kang gave a short nod and dropped her eyes back to the script.
Her fingertips skimmed quickly over the pages before stopping at a scene.
“All right. Then Scene 17 from Part Two. Let’s go with that.”
As soon as she spoke, the opposite actor recited his line with an impassive face.
“Hey, do I not know the son I gave birth to myself? You are absolutely not my son.”
The moment that line landed, a pure, innocent smile bloomed on Han Seo-jun’s face.
“Ah, I really am your son, though. Look closely. Don’t I look just like you?”
After answering as if teasing the other person, Han Seo-jun tilted his head slightly toward the judges onstage.
A light, almost mischievous sneer rested at the corner of his mouth.
“My mother is a queen of greed who’d even sell her own son for cash, and I’m the quick-witted prince who always slips away while laughing at a mother like that.”
With an easy expression, the man let a faint, sly smile creep onto his lips.
“Mother and son, cut from the same cloth, aren’t they?”
Director Kang So-hee, watching him, swallowed hard.
The “king of terrible acting” she always saw on TV was nowhere to be found before her now.
The pronunciation and diction were so precise she could have believed he was a news anchor.
And the way he immersed himself in the situation, the way he delivered the lines—everything flowed smoothly, without the slightest break.
If he could express such a completely different texture of performance in an instant, then he was unquestionably a professional actor.
Not only that, but he seemed like the sort of veteran actor who had already accumulated an impressive body of work.
As his performance continued, the executive producer clicked his tongue.
“Wow... At this point, what more is there to say?”
Beside him, the music director added in a dazed voice,
“Still, we haven’t seen how he sings or dances.”
“Then let’s have him do it.”
With eyes that looked as though she had already fallen completely for the man onstage, the writer murmured softly.
“Hurry up and let him show us. I’m dying to know how good he is.”
Director Kang’s impatience was no less.
Looking up at the stage, she raised a hand lightly.
“This time, let’s hear the assigned song. Tell us when you’re ready. We’ll cue the accompaniment.”
At Director Kang’s instruction, a staff member quickly moved the chair off to one side of the stage.
Now standing alone at center stage, he lifted his head and smiled faintly.
“I’m ready.”