The Finale and the Fallout
"Can you believe it's the finale already? Time flies!"
Noh Ham-rak nodded along to his girlfriend's chatter.
It was the same thought he had every time he sat down to catch a drama's live broadcast, not just with this one, You and My Space.
'But the time it took for a drama to actually reach the world is probably several times longer than that.'
Of course, knowing it and having lived it were two different things. Noh Ham-rak had never experienced that grind firsthand. The closest he'd ever come was a high school stage play, the full extent of his practical experience.
'If I'd kept chasing acting after that...'
He quickly shook his head at the thought that came trailing after it uninvited.
'Ugh, pointless thinking.'
It was too late anyway.
He forced himself to focus on the TV.
"Yu-na."
"Yes?"
"Lately, when I try to imagine my life without you in it... it scares me."
The male lead's syrupy line opened the door to the final episode. Naturally, since this was the finale, the two leads were already an official couple who'd confirmed their feelings for each other.
The kiss scene had aired long ago.
'Slow by recent romance drama standards, honestly.'
These days the standard formula was for two leads who despised each other in episode one to start a fling in episode two and confirm their love by episode three. And then, with nothing left to do, episode four would suddenly kill somebody off and spawn a serial killer subplot or something.
'Why? Because the moment the couple gets together, interest drops off a cliff.'
The engine of any romance drama was the breathless tension of will these two end up together? Everyone knew perfectly well they would, of course — it was the getting there that held the audience. Once that process played out, viewers stopped wondering. No matter how gorgeous the actors were or how sweetly they cooed at each other, the fun died the instant the flirtation graduated into a settled relationship.
People fell in love with the falling; the finished romance itself bored them.
'But you can't drag out the getting-together forever, either.'
Then viewers just get impatient and start hating the show.
So the near-universal formula was this: the leads become official around the midpoint, then get hit with a fresh crisis that tears them apart, leaving the audience frantic. And the other crisis the producers had chosen was Kang Min-woo.
When the script reading had happened, Kang Min-woo — the male lead's older brother, played by Yoo Seul-ho — had been nothing more than a minor nuisance who creeped out the female lead in a couple of scenes. But from episode three onward, a backstory was added and his screen time ballooned, and through those revised scripts he'd woven himself deep into the latter half of the story.
"Ah, that stings my pride."
Of all things, it was a woman that had made his little brother defy him for the very first time. Kang Min-woo had tried to dismiss it — she was filth, not worth acknowledging — but the memory of that day kept gnawing at him.
His brother had talked back to him, and instead of knocking him flat for it, he was the one who'd flinched and backed down. That was what had curdled in his gut ever since.
"Hah, he can go to hell. What's he gonna do if she says she's dating me?"
And so, contradicting everything he'd said to his brother, Kang Min-woo started making his move on the female lead. But she was already falling for the male lead and didn't so much as blink. Enraged, Kang Min-woo threw down his trump card.
"If you stay with that bastard, you'll die too. Did you know that before you got with him?"
"...What?"
"Our parents died because of him. Both of them."
The female lead doesn't even dignify that absurd claim with an answer — but privately, she thinks it might not be a complete lie. Of course, she could just run straight to the male lead and ask, hey, your brother's saying this, what's going on? ...But then the drama would lose all its flavor.
"You know you've been acting strange lately? You're always off in your own head, you don't even answer me anymore."
"..."
"Say something!"
Right on cue, the male lead was dealing with troubles of his own, and the misunderstandings piled up one atop another. Naturally, though, the misunderstanding was resolved before long, and the female lead ended up taking the male lead's side. And Kang Min-woo — rejected outright, boiling with rage — showing up to find the two of them together was where episode eleven had ended.
Then, the very moment episode twelve began, as the two leads were trading lines like I can't live without you, Kang Min-woo came at them.
Startled, the male lead immediately tucked the female lead behind him, and Kang Min-woo and he fell into a scuffle. Unlike the male lead, who couldn't throw his full weight around for fear the girl might get hurt, Kang Min-woo charged in with everything he had — and had absolutely nothing to show for it.
"Both of you, stop it!!"
At the horrified cry from the female lead, Kang Min-woo exploded.
"Stop it? Shut the hell up! Who the hell are you to wedge yourself into our family?!"
Veins bulging at his temple, Kang Min-woo roared until his voice cracked.
"Hey, Kang Min-jun. Is this how the family you used to sing songs about ends up? Dropping your family because your head's turned by a piece of ass — is that the family you believed in?"
"...Let's get one thing straight. The one who abandoned this family wasn't me. It was you, hyung."
"What did you say?"
Kang Min-woo let out a hollow laugh, then promptly drowned in a fury he could no longer contain.
"Don't make me laugh. I abandoned the family? I took you in even after you killed them. And now you're throwing me away."
Then he jabbed a finger at the female lead and screamed, You think she's going to be your family now, huh?! HUH?!
Apparently that wasn't enough, because he turned on her and started spitting curses at her face.
"Don't touch her. I won't be able to hold myself back."
That was when the male lead, who'd been doing his best to stay level, finally let the mask drop.
"Ugh, God. So cringey."
Noh Ham-rak's girlfriend's eyes sparkled as she stared at the screen.
She said it was cringey, but her eyes said she was loving every second of it. Watching her, Noh Ham-rak had to fight down a smile.
'Well, fair. As long as the cringe lands right, it's actually fun.'
If he'd been a stiff, boring male lead, he'd at least have needed that kind of charm to carry the show.
'Definitely proper youth-romance dialogue.'
Unlike Noh Ham-rak and his girlfriend, who could laugh the male lead's line off, Kang Min-woo could not take it.
"You son of a—"
His eyes went suddenly feral, like something in him had snapped, and he lunged for the male lead.
No — he tried to.
BAM!
Out of nowhere, the female lead's dog bounded in and planted itself in front of the male lead.
For a split second Noh Ham-rak thought, hasn't that dog just been standing on the street corner every episode? but he kept his mouth shut for the sake of his girlfriend's immersion.
"Wh-what the hell is this. You damn mutt."
Blindsided by the large dog's charge, Kang Min-woo's momentum died abruptly. In the process his feet tangled, and he went down in spectacularly ungraceful fashion.
"Beep! Freeze right there!!"
That was when the police came running. The officers, arriving none too soon, hauled the frenzied Kang Min-woo away, and the male lead — standing there beside the girl and the dog — made his decision.
He reminded himself that he was an adult now, that he had no obligation left to regard his own flesh and blood as family.
'He's what, twenty, though?'
Yeah, funny one.
By Noh Ham-rak's standards, twenty was far too young an age to strike out on your own — but he accepted the drama's logic anyway. There was no point in nitpicking frame by frame.
"I really wanted us to live together. But I'm done now."
The male lead handed his brother — released from the police station — the blueprints for a house he'd once finished designing with his family in mind.
"I still hope you find happiness, hyung. Live well from now on."
"..."
With no way of knowing what feeling had been folded into those blueprints, Kang Min-woo glared at the male lead and flung the papers to the ground.
"And here I thought you were handing me money. The hell is this garbage? Forget it. Don't ever contact me again."
With those venomous parting words, the brother turned his back.
And just as the male lead stared blankly after that retreating figure, watching it grow further and further away from him—
"Can I keep this?"
The female lead smacked a palm down flat on the blueprints just before the wind could snatch them away, and smiled up at the male lead from beside him. Only then did he manage to smile back, and the two of them clasped hands.
And so the drama was over.
"Ahh, that was so good! What'd you think, babe?"
"It was decent."
"Right?! Definitely didn't feel like a waste of time. Oh — what are we watching next week?"
His girlfriend was already reaching for her phone, grinning.
Noh Ham-rak, meanwhile, drifted into thought.
'Just rediscovering Yoo Seul-ho made this drama worth watching.'
It was awkward to talk about him this way, given that he'd been an actor Noh Ham-rak had never liked — no, had outright disliked. But a fact was a fact. You and My Space had proven that villain roles suited Yoo Seul-ho like a glove, and that the man could, in fact, act.
'I wonder what he'll do next.'
The leads of the drama had been Woo Jun-seo and Choi Ran — but the only person left lingering in Noh Ham-rak's head was Yoo Seul-ho.
He was just sinking deeper into the thought when—
"Oh my god. What is this."
His girlfriend clapped a hand over her mouth, staring at the avalanche of messages stacked up on her phone.
They'd been flooding in like crazy starting about ten minutes before the drama began. She'd left the phone far across the room to focus on the show, so she was seeing it all far too late.
"What? What is it?"
"You know Ji-ye, the Woo Jun-seo fan? She texted me about it. Look at this."
His girlfriend turned the phone screen toward him. Noh Ham-rak looked at it without thinking — and his eyes went wide.
"What?? Gapjil??"
"What the hell is going on here? Did the company know about this?"
Once the company dinner had wound down into its usual aimless shuffle, PD Jang dragged Woo Jun-seo outside. And I slipped quietly through the back door with Choi Ran, eavesdropping on the whole thing.
"Have you lost your mind?! Talk, and talk NOW! Otherwise how are we supposed to do damage control?!"
PD Jang wasn't even bothering with polite speech anymore. The 'Actor Jun-seo' that lived permanently attached to his lips had been tossed unceremoniously overboard, and his mouth was now loaded with curses that began with 'you little bastard'.
"You — you're a lead actor, and you can't even manage your own manager? You don't have the clout to bury a piece like that, and that's the guy you pull gapjil on?!"
"Ah! It's not like I'm the only one who does that to their manager!!"
"Oh, congratulations, you little shit. Real proud of you. Why don't you print it out and wear it on your forehead? Walk around town announcing how proud you are of abusing your manager, huh?! Huh?!"
"Ha..."
Under the relentless barrage of PD Jang's sarcasm, Woo Jun-seo wiped his face with a dry hand, visibly annoyed.
Then, apparently fed up with keeping it bottled in himself, he started spilling the whole mess to PD Jang, piece by tenuous piece. Talking to PD Jang would solve nothing and cost him plenty — and yet the situation had thrown him so far off balance that he seemed desperate just to vent it all to someone.
"You know how rough these past few days have been, PD-nim. I'll admit I was sensitive. But going off to do a secret interview behind my back — that's his fault. I honestly thought of him like family. Who does that to family?"
And there, saying those words, Woo Jun-seo looked exactly like Kang Min-woo.
The actor cast as the victim of domestic violence, delivering the abuser's lines. Truly, the world worked in ways no one could predict.