How a Loan Shark Survives as an Actor — Episode 8: Perfecting the Trash
In all my years, I'd seen people pay tribute with money — but serving up a fresh piece of prey on a platter? That was a first.
How immature can you get?
Yoo Seul-ho, Park Sang-in, and Woo Jun-seo — weren't they all twenty-five, the same age?
Was I that childish when I was twenty-five?
I tried to cast my mind back ten years, but the memory came back blurry. I couldn't even remember what I'd eaten yesterday, so how was I supposed to recall that?
Pathetic either way.
A bastard who picks out someone to torment based on a recommendation, and a bastard who recommends an easy mark just to curry favor. Tsk.
Park Sang-in. I'll be dealing with you later.
First, I was going to give Yoo Seul-ho's share a proper beating of its own.
Borrowing his body comes with obligations. This much, at least.
The report from the private investigation agency hadn't arrived yet, so I still knew nothing concrete about the original Yoo Seul-ho. But a kid who took beatings from his own manager wasn't going to have escaped Woo Jun-seo's bullying unscathed either.
When I thought about how the original Yoo Seul-ho must have been toyed with and laughed at by Woo Jun-seo until his pride was in tatters, my mood soured fast. Even elbows bend inward, as they say.
I'll harass him so thoroughly he starts thinking a beating would be preferable.
As I said before, physical intimidation wasn't a particularly efficient choice with celebrities. It risked dragging me into defamation suits and tedious legal headaches.
Now that I was aware I was living inside Yoo Seul-ho's body, I wasn't going to go throwing my weight around at just anyone the way I had with Hyun Jin-gae.
In the end, what mattered was social standing.
If Yoo Seul-ho's fame — his rank, to put it crudely — rose above Park Sang-in's and Woo Jun-seo's, there could be no sweeter revenge.
And grinding them down after that? Just a bonus.
For that day to come, I had to nail this job.
The role itself was disappointingly irrelevant for now, but whining about it wouldn't change a thing.
Better to spend the time reading the script again.
With my mind made up, I headed back to the reading room. The table read was only minutes away, and the room had already shifted into that pre-show hush — everyone shuffling into their seats, murmuring lines under their breath, scripts open on the tables.
I wandered the rows looking for the desk with my name on it, and was mildly surprised to find it placed right beside the male lead, Kang Min-jun.
The role may be nothing, but at least they honor seniority in the seating.
Managing my expression, I sat down. Across from me, I spotted a nameplate reading Seo Yu-na (Choi Ran).
The actress already seated there glanced up from her script and offered a greeting.
"Long time no see, Oppa."
"……Ah. Yeah. Hey."
Caught off guard by a distance I hadn't expected, I hesitated a beat before returning the greeting smoothly. I'd done my homework beforehand, but since I'd found no overlapping projects between the two of them, it had never occurred to me that they might already know each other.
Oh, right.
She was a former child actress too, wasn't she — just like Yoo Seul-ho?
Not many child actors made the transition to adult roles, so of course they'd all know one another. Even without sharing a set, they must have crossed paths at the broadcast station dozens of times over the years.
After the brief greeting, Choi Ran dove straight back into her script.
She has a clean, delicate look about her.
Reading her script, Choi Ran gave off an impression remarkably close to the Seo Yu-na I'd imagined from the pages. And the same held true for Woo Jun-seo — whatever his real personality, his mask suited a male lead just fine.
So that means I'm supposed to wedge myself, shamelessly, right between these two pretty faces?
Abusing the male lead and hitting on the female lead. Busy, busy, busy.
I was in the middle of musing that even trash work required diligence when—
"Whoa, sorry to keep everyone waiting! My apologies for running late~!"
PD Jang hurried into the reading room. Clinging to his side like a barnacle, Woo Jun-seo beamed up at him like a favored concubine and kneaded his shoulder.
"Everyone here knows you're the busiest person in the room, PD-nim. Haha. No need to apologize at all."
The ingratiating warmth of it — a complete one-eighty from the face he'd given me minutes ago — was truly something to behold.
PD Jang, undeterred by the serpent's flattery, apologized to the entire cast and crew for his lateness, then clapped his hands.
"Then let's begin the script reading for Space of You and Me!"
"Waaah~!"
The moment the camera parked in the corner blinked red, identical rehearsed smiles bloomed across every face in the room. Rivalry, dismissiveness, arrogance, nerves — a dense fog of mixed emotion filled the air.
Starting from the leads and working down, everyone introduced themselves, and then PD Jang asked if anyone had questions before the reading began in earnest.
I raised my hand immediately.
"Yes, Seul-ho-ssi?"
"PD-nim, what's your stance on ad-libs?"
"Ad-libs? If it produces a better result than what's on the page, I'm all for it. But…."
PD Jang stroked his chin with one hand, choosing his words.
"Actors who just throw ad-libs around willy-nilly on set? Not my favorite. There's the matter of courtesy to the actor sharing the scene with them, and sometimes you can tell the whole point is just to stand out."
His point was clear: when an actor visibly strained to widen his own screen time, the scene itself went off the rails, and the result stopped fitting the drama as a whole. What mattered in the end, he said, was the work.
"If you've got a good idea, just run it by me beforehand. Talking it over and discussing things — that's always fine by me."
"Understood, sir."
"Well, you asking makes it sound like you've got some ideas of your own. Care to share?"
Even as he asked, PD Jang wore a half-doubting expression — and the assistant writers and staff around him mirrored it. Their faces practically read aloud: Does this guy even have a substantial enough character to warrant ad-libbing?
And from the eyes of the man seated beside me, something far less charitable: Did I not tell this son of a bitch to keep his head down?
Sorry, but I have to make a scene.
If I didn't speak up now, I'd be stuck playing useless roles forever.
Pretending not to notice Woo Jun-seo's glare, I continued as calmly as I could.
"The character I'm playing, Kang Min-woo — he's a shameless piece of garbage who hits on a girl while tormenting his own little brother, the same girl his brother's falling for. And the fact that he's a grown man preying on a college freshman who just turned twenty makes him downright repulsive on top of it."
"Uh, th-that's right, yes."
"I've been through the lines you wrote for him, PD-nim, and honestly, he's such trash I loved it. But I thought if we added just a few more touches, he might feel like a truly perfect piece of garbage — so I wanted to offer a suggestion."
"I see. So, uh, what did you want to add?"
Blinking dumbly, PD Jang stared at me. I felt everyone's silent eyes on my back, but the words came out without a hitch.
"When Kang Min-woo makes his move on the female lead, Seo Yu-na — what if he used the exact same line the male lead used on her? Only delivered in a far, far creepier way. Seo Yu-na hears the identical words and yet the feeling is completely wrong, which disgusts her. And I think that disgust would spread to the audience naturally on its own."
"Ooh."
"He's got a point, actually."
The assistant writers leaned in to back me up. PD Jang mulled it over for a moment, then asked if I could show them an example.
"Take scene 2-13, where the male lead tells her, I've been thinking about you a lot lately — all earnest and fresh-faced. Now, in contrast, I'd do it like this."
I let my gaze drop for a moment. A few seconds later, I looked PD Jang dead in the eye.
"I've… been thinking about you a lot lately?"
A voice pitched three tones lower than anything I'd used before — the voice of a man desperately trying to sound masculine. For that one instant, I murmured it as if the two of us were the only people in the room, breath heavy in the whisper, somewhere vaguely sticky about the whole thing.
Somewhere between slimy and greasy.
I gave him moist, lingering eyes, cocked just one corner of my mouth, and the moment the faux-seductive line left my lips—
"Ugh, fucking hell."
PD Jang swore like a man about to gag. Then his eyes went wide, and he whipped around to apologize to everyone.
"Whoa — sorry, sorry, everyone. My apologies. God, I just couldn't help myself."
"HAHAHA!"
Profanity that raw was hard to come by on a running camera, and the room erupted. Maybe it was the honesty of the reaction, but the tension seemed to break, and people began piling on with grinning praise.
"Wow, Seul-ho-ssi, you nailed it just now."
"It's how obviously he thinks he's being cool right now that makes it even worse! I hate it~!"
"So true. Men always drop their voices when they're doing exactly that."
The women's reactions were especially brutal. Amid all the wincing and shuddering, Choi Ran — our female lead — heaved a deep, long-suffering sigh.
"……And that line is the one you'll be saying to me, correct?"
The room burst out laughing all over again.
But in the middle of all that laughter, one person was chuckling along awkwardly, out of sync with everyone else.
Woo Jun-seo laughed just enough to match the mood while seizing every spare second to glare daggers in my direction. Honestly, his reaction was perfectly understandable.
If things were normal, the other actors would have reacted the same way he did.
It was a zero-sum structure: the moment one actor drew attention, everyone else's was automatically diminished. No co-star could be expected to look kindly on me grandstanding like this.
But that's where being Yoo Seul-ho changes the math.
I was the actor saddled with the nickname Useless, cast in a role everyone already knew was worthless. No matter how much of a show I put on, my fellow actors couldn't feel a flicker of threat.
"Seul-ho-ssi, that suggestion was great. Do it exactly like that when we read it in a minute. And our leading lady, just bear with it a little~!"
"Haha, hang in there, Ran-i-ssi."
"Anyone with a good idea, feel free to speak up anytime — just like Seul-ho-ssi did."
The look in PD Jang's eyes had warmed toward me another full notch.
Excellent.
My page count hadn't grown by a single line, but my visibility had. To put it crudely — I didn't possess some genius-level acting talent, and taking the lead role tomorrow would solve nothing anyway.
Start by earning good reviews from the seat you're sitting in now.
One bite at a time — slowly, but surely — that's how you swallow everything.
With everyone but Woo Jun-seo in the warmest of spirits, the script reading began in earnest. The scene where the male and female leads meet at university played out, their fates gradually entwining — and through all of it, I had nothing to do whatsoever.
Then, in the final stretch of episode one, my moment finally arrived.
I felt the man beside me sneak a glance my way.
Three.
Two.
One.
Now.
I delivered the line I'd prepared.
And from that instant, every eye in the room turned.