Even Trash Has a Story
“Me? No, I mean—Jun-seo, come on.”
Park Sang-in clearly had no idea what was happening. Not that I could blame him.
Once you're grown, this kind of fight isn't easy to pick.
Turn on any media and you'll see that people who bicker this pettily are, mostly, teenage girls.
But having spent years poaching VIP clients from rivals through endless intrigue and special treatment, I could say this with full confidence.
Men are bigger foxes than women are.
That's exactly why the media's stereotypes are so dangerous.
People watch every drama under the sun and declare that women are scary—but they can only say that because they've never navigated the world of men.
Men—especially in a group of men—have an invisible hierarchy.
You see it most often among friends made in school, or guys you meet in society in your early-to-mid twenties.
And once that hierarchy forms, it doesn't change easily, even when everyone's grown old.
The tension between ranks simmers just below the surface. Someone has to bend his pride to fit his place; someone has to push himself harder just to keep the ground he's standing on.
It's exactly because this gets so tiresome that more and more guys these days drift out of the group entirely and hang out one-on-one with a single friend.
But that's not Woo Jun-seo's style.
He was a man drunk on his own importance.
He needed a woman at his side to display like a trophy, and a hanger-on of a man to stroke his ego.
Up until now, that role had belonged to Park Sang-in.
And Sang-in must have gotten something in return for bending his pride. For instance…
“Who are you to tell me to learn acting from Yoo Seul-ho? Who the hell are you, when I'm the one who wants to learn from you? Did you forget that I'm the one who got you that role in the first place? And this is how you stab me in the back?”
“No, that's not it. Jun-seo, listen—”
There it was. Called it.
I'd expected this from the moment I heard that Woo Jun-seo had been the one pushing for Yoo Seul-ho at the casting stage.
A man who drags his prey to the workplace was hardly going to forget to take care of his lackey.
Whether he knew he had no ground to stand on or not, Woo Jun-seo kept his voice as low as he could manage while snapping with irritation.
“Then what was it? The second I leave my spot, you come running to Yoo Seul-ho—what exactly did you go there to say?”
“I'm just saying—”
Park Sang-in stammered, flustered.
He hadn't come to me with any special business or any grand declaration.
He was probably just curious why I'd been so cold to him earlier, and his feelings were a little hurt, so he'd come to pick a small fight.
Whether it was being caught off guard by the situation, or embarrassment at admitting he'd come to grovel to Yoo Seul-ho, Park Sang-in just kept dodging the question.
And then he made the worst possible choice.
“No, look, what this guy said isn't true! Jun-seo! He's lying!”
He raised his voice loud enough to be heard a hundred meters away.
Maybe the injustice mixed into it broke his volume control.
The three of us—including me—had been glaring at each other over this conversation, so eyes had already been drifting our way. Now, with the sudden spike in volume, the stares were sharp enough to sting.
“Hey. Lower your voice. What exactly are you so proud of right now?”
Woo Jun-seo's scowl darkened even further, and I hurried to smooth things over.
“Jun-seo, Sang-in. Let's both calm down for a second. This is my fault. I misspoke—I should have known better than to say it where you could hear.”
“You crazy son of a—!!”
At my words, Park Sang-in shrieked even louder. This time there was outright profanity in it, and PD Jang came over with a displeased look on his face.
“Is something the matter over here?”
“Ah, our apologies, PD-nim.”
The moment he spotted PD Jang, Woo Jun-seo hastily melted the hardness from his face.
“We were just talking amongst ourselves and it got a little…”
“I get that friends the same age get comfortable with each other, but let's keep the profanity off set whenever possible. We're going straight into the shoot, so save the personal chatter for after we wrap.”
“Sorry about that.”
“Alright, let's move! Everybody in position!”
At PD Jang's words, Woo Jun-seo and I slipped quickly into the set.
Park Sang-in stood there dumbstruck, his face twisted like he might burst from the frustration—but he was, in the end, a working man like anyone else.
“Aren't we filming?”
Prodded by a staff member, Park Sang-in, a mere actor like the rest of us, shuffled back to his mark.
Park Sang-in's shooting portions wrapped soon after, but mine and Woo Jun-seo's were nowhere near done. He hung around the set for about an hour before calling it a day and leaving first.
Only after I'd confirmed that Park Sang-in was fully gone did I mutter, my voice bitter.
“I was too tone-deaf about it. Sang-in was never talking to you in the first place—you had no business being part of that conversation.”
“How is it not my business? He was telling me that he acts better than I do, and that I should be learning from him.”
“That's not exactly what Sang-in said. He said things that gave off that feeling, that's all. From his side of it, he might genuinely feel wronged.”
“Ah, that snake has slithered out of things like this more times than I can count. He knows I know how he is, so pulling that act on me too—that's crossing the line. You don't need to make excuses for him.”
“Friends are useless no matter how well you look after them,” Woo Jun-seo grumbled, his voice thick with grievance.
“From now on, if Park Sang-in tries to talk to you, don't even listen. I'm done dealing with him too.”
“Understood.”
I answered his commanding tone like an obedient housemaid.
That day, Woo Jun-seo stayed by my side until filming wrapped.
Woof!
The moment I stepped onto the set, a familiar bark rang out and something came barreling into me.
I'd seen it coming, so I wasn't startled in the least—I rolled cleanly backward into a safe breakfall.
“Hello to you too, Wooju.”
Hahh, hahh.
The dog licked my face over and over, delighted beyond words.
I hadn't done my makeup yet, so I let him have his fill.
“Aigoo, our Wooju. Do you like the actor that much?”
The trainer, who had fidgeted nervously the first time we met, had completely transformed since discovering the hidden bond between Yoo Seul-ho and the dog. I was grateful for the trustful glances he sent my way. Grateful, yes… but couldn't he maybe stop the dog from tackling me every single time?
“Could you give me a hand, please?”
“Oh—sure.”
I grabbed the trainer's belatedly outstretched hand and managed to get to my feet. The dog, who came all the way up to my knees, pranced around me in excited circles.
“Oh my, look over there.”
I could hear the staff laughing as they watched us.
The trainer beside me wore a fond smile.
“Wooju is the best-behaved of all the dogs in our agency. He's honestly brilliant—I've caught myself thinking he's better company than people. That's why it threw me so badly when he wouldn't listen during that scene with actor Woo Jun-seo. I genuinely started wondering whether we should be having him act at all.”
“Really? Was it that serious? He did fine in his scenes with Ran.”
“Even if the production is understanding about an animal that won't cooperate, there's only so much that gets you. A dog you can't control is a fatal problem. But once I heard the story about you and him, it all clicked—slapped my forehead right there.”
The trainer gave my shoulder a light whack, as if to say he should have been told sooner.
“Apparently, before he was adopted, his name was Kkamangi—'Blackie.' If it's more comfortable for you to call him Kkamangi, feel free.”
“No. He should be called by his name now. I think that's easier on him.”
“Ah, right, of course.”
Though honestly, whether it was Kkamangi or Wooju, the name meant nothing to me.
I quietly studied the dark eyes of the dog gazing up at me.
Hahh, hahh.
Looking at the creature grinning as if his heart were full, I found myself smiling back.
I'm sorry I'm not really Yoo Seul-ho.
“Let's do good work today too.”
Woof!
I stroked the dog gently as his tail wagged nonstop at the sight of me.
The scene we were shooting today didn't exist in the original script. It had sprung into being when Kang Min-woo's share of the story suddenly swelled.
Kang Min-woo never used to cross paths with the female lead's dog.
Before the rewrite, Kang Min-woo had been pure garbage—a man who abused his younger brother and fawned repulsively over the female lead. That had been the entire sum of his role.
But once the male lead's troubled family history entered the story, Kang Min-woo gained one too: a younger brother who'd lost their parents because of him.
That didn't mean the story bent toward excusing him.
Give a trash character a backstory, and handled carelessly, it can read as vindication. PD Jang and I had discussed the problem seriously.
The safest choice here was to cut the villain's story altogether.
Framing the villain as something other than a 'person'—a piece of garbage that was rotten from day one—made things comfortable. It let the audience curse him freely and sleep soundly after.
But people are two-sided.
Kang Min-woo wasn't garbage twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year. You didn't even need a drama to see that—reality made the case on its own.
Not everything a piece of trash does is an evil act, and not everyone suffers for it.
Sometimes, when one coincidence brushes against another, an act of evil committed by a wretch ends up saving someone.
Not every piece of trash was born that way.
Erase the story of how a villain became a villain, PD Jang had said, and in the end we become people who see only what we want to see.
Ordinary people, too, are reborn as villains through a single moment, a single turning point.
Only by knowing that turning point can we stop the precious people around us from becoming villains in the first place.
There was a reason even I needed to understand the story of the trash—so that I would never choose to live like one. After all, we were the ones who had to make a different choice.
But how that's staged is the director's job, not mine.
What I needed to focus on was showing Kang Min-woo, whole and unfiltered.
PD Jang had left the editing entirely in his own hands and asked me for exactly one thing: to show him the Kang Min-woo I had in my head, exactly as I imagined him.
“I'm so sorry for being late!”
Choi Ran, held up by a snarl in her earlier schedule, came running from far across the set, apologizing to every staff member she passed.
And Choi Ran's manager, Choi Yoon, was bowing over and over with such fervor she seemed about to grind her forehead into the dirt.
“I'm so sorry! We said we'd be early, and—! Truly, I'm so sorry.”
Watching Choi Yoon near tears, I clicked my tongue inwardly.
She shouldn't be groveling like that.
It wasn't some other production—they'd been delayed shooting a different scene of Space of You and Me. There was no need to apologize to that degree.
Standing stiff as a post through the very moment you ought to apologize, the way I did, was obviously poor form. But groveling like this wasn't good either.
“Choi Yoon-ssi!”
Worried she was settling into the role of everyone's convenient punching bag, I hurried over.
“I heard the prop setup wasn't ready for the morning shoot and it caused a delay? Word's already made the rounds. You've really been working hard.”
When I said it deliberately at full volume, the other staff members chimed in with similar remarks.
Choi Yoon, wiping the sweat from her forehead, murmured her thanks with a face considerably lighter than before.
“Ran-ssi, get changed first and head to makeup. We'll shoot Seul-ho-ssi and Wooju first.”
At the staff member's words, everyone bustled into motion.
The whole crew eyed nervously the tail that kept wagging at the sight of me.
“Do you think Wooju will do well? He adores actor Seul-ho so much…”
The trainer murmured anxiously.
The dog, who could not possibly understand a word of human speech, panted up at me.
But I wasn't worried at all.
“Wooju.”
I whispered, low enough that no one else could hear.
“Just do what you did to Woo Jun-seo last time.”
Hahh, hahh.
The dog grinned as if he'd understood every word.