Of All Places
Of all places to meet her?
Ding-a-ling—
I had my back to the door, so I didn't bother checking who had come in.
But the friend sitting across from me—who was supposed to be studying and was instead goofing off—went wide-eyed and stared past me as if he'd been struck.
"Hey. Hey! Isn't that her?"
"Ugh, who is it that you're making such a racket over?"
"That girl—that's Seol Soyoung. The Cheil Electronics CEO's daughter."
Cheil Electronics? Seol Soyoung?
Both the company and the name felt oddly familiar. Curiosity pulled my head around toward the door where the bell had just rung.
And standing there was a girl beautiful enough to draw a gasp on sight.
A fair, delicate face. Long straight hair falling to her waist. Still young, yet carrying a maturity that didn't quite match her age.
I knew who she was by instinct alone.
That girl was one of the leads in the drama A Couple Like Flowers.
It was pure coincidence.
I'd thought I would never cross paths with her in my entire life—and I ran into her here?
In the original world she had been a popular actress named Yoo Jimin. In this drama-world, she was the daughter of a major conglomerate's CEO—and an aspiring actress, at that.
"……."
……What was that look?
Judging by the ice-cold expression on her face, she was not in a good mood. Purely my own guess, but maybe she'd just failed a drama audition?
As far as I remembered, the story of A Couple Like Flowers had her failing auditions about three times before she finally landed a role—and only then rose into the ranks of popular young actresses.
Of course, the moment she got there she got tangled up in a drug scandal and her image plummeted overnight, but……
"Hey! You lunatic! The whole world knows she's pretty, but do you have to stare that hard?"
Crap.
Just as my fussing friend said, Seol Soyoung's eyes had somehow met mine, and she was looking at me like I was some kind of weirdo.
I'd been staring for a while. Hopefully she wouldn't get the wrong idea……
"……."
Fortunately, she seemed used to this sort of thing. Seol Soyoung turned her head away at once, collected the coffee she'd ordered, and sat down at a table by the window, staring blankly outside.
Waiting for someone to pick her up, most likely.
"She's an aspiring actress, right? With a face like that, if she shot a drama or a movie it'd be an instant hit, wouldn't it?"
"Idiot. If a pretty face alone made you a star, idols would have eaten the entire acting industry by now."
Looks were obviously a plus for an actor—but the most important thing was still acting ability.
Well…… looking at it carefully, my friend wasn't entirely wrong either.
At the very least, Seol Soyoung's acting had been known as quite excellent even in the original work.
Though only when the role matched her color.
There were actors whose performance swung wildly depending on whether a part suited their temperament and image. Give them a role that fit perfectly and they could sink into it as if possessed. Give them one that didn't, and their acting dropped to something close to third-rate.
Seol Soyoung belonged to that category.
But……
Put another way, hand her a role that suits her color and she soars like an eagle.
Honestly, for someone at Seol Soyoung's level, finding a role that matched her wasn't that hard. Roughly lock the genre into melodrama, hand her a heroine with a complicated past and a mysterious air, and half the work was already done……
Wait a second……
Looking at Seol Soyoung sitting there in the café—already a painting just by existing—a strange idea suddenly surfaced.
I yanked a notebook out of my bag and grabbed a pen that had been rolling around on the table.
Was this what people called an artist's inspiration?
It felt even sharper than the times, in my previous life, when I had written drama scripts whenever I had a free moment.
Scratch-scratch—
I poured the story that was flooding my head onto the page without hesitation.
Perhaps the first drama script I had ever written since falling into this world without explanation.
I was so absorbed that the images of the story formed on their own.
A moving melodrama about Gyeoul, the owner of Café Violet, who keeps the same place for a long, long time while waiting for one person she misses.
Through reincarnation, Gyeoul has guarded Address 7, Hyeonam-dong across the ages—a mysterious woman. Sometimes a teahouse. Sometimes a flower shop. And in this life, a café called Violet.
She stays there still, holding on to a promise she once made with someone.
But Gyeoul is wearing down—mind and body both. Whether the person she promised will ever come to find her, whether they even still remember the promise, is impossible to know. Cursed to die at twenty-three without fail, she feels her life growing more and more hollow.
In the end, Gyeoul sets out to find a clue that can sever the reincarnation eating away at her.
Somehow she discovers a way to cut the cycle completely during the total lunar eclipse three months away—and from then on she spends what may be the last stretch of her life waiting quietly for that day……
HAON(holding out a card)
One warm espresso, please. ……Hm? Is there something on my face?
By chance, a month before the total lunar eclipse, a photographer named Haon walks into Violet. Gyeoul can only stare at him with wide eyes—this stranger who has suddenly appeared at Address 7, Hyeonam-dong.
A brief silence settles between them. Coming back to herself, Gyeoul takes the card he offers with trembling hands.
GYEOUL(in a shaking voice)
Ah—no. Please wait just a moment.
Clack—
Before long, Gyeoul carefully sets a cup of warm espresso she has brewed herself on the table where Haon sits. He lifts it and slowly savors the taste and aroma.
At first he thinks it is a perfectly ordinary coffee—but then Gyeoul's voice from a moment ago floods through his mind without rest, and before he knows it the cup is empty.
HAON
…….
GYEOUL(stepping closer)
Was it all right?
At her question, Haon nods in affirmation. He wants to put it into words, but his head is too chaotic to manage anything more.
In the end, to settle that confusion, he has no choice but to ask her.
HAON
Have we…… met somewhere before?
Looking at Haon with tears welling in one eye, Gyeoul smiles a meaningful smile. For some reason she shakes her head—a difficult, reluctant denial.
But even through her refusal, Haon feels an inexplicable pull, and from that day on he comes to Café Violet every single day.
Scratch-scratch-scratch—
Hmm.
About this much?
I'd written on pure instinct and in a rush, so it was a bit of a cliché pile-up—but if I polished it a little further from here, it felt like it could become a decent story.
And since I'd written the script with Seol Soyoung sitting over there as the heroine in my mind, if she herself played Gyeoul, it would surely become an outstanding drama.
Honestly, the inspiration had just hit me—bam—and I'd jotted it down simply, yet I could confidently say it was far more entertaining than any drama currently airing in this drama-world.
But why can't the writers here manage something this easy?
A curse rose all the way to my throat; I forced it back down.
Disappointment only exists where expectation does.
Foolishly enough, it seemed I had still been holding out hope for the writers of this world.
Haaah……
Still, it was a little strange.
Was a calling really a calling, after all?
Or maybe it was just the thirst of never having seen a truly interesting drama in this world.
Anyway.
I looked down at the notebook filled with the script and smiled a wry little smile.
Falling into a drama-world without any explanation had made me completely forget about writing scripts—and now, seeing the words covering the page so suddenly, I felt a fresh sense of wonder.
Ah—of course it wasn't fully finished yet. But when the inspiration first hit, I'd roughly worked out the ending as well, so that wasn't really a problem.
Hmm……
The question was what to do with it now.
I'd put real effort into writing it. Leaving it as pure self-satisfaction felt like a waste of something this good……
"Let's see……"
So that day I searched the internet for every possible avenue.
Unlike my previous life, I wasn't attached to any famous drama production company, and I had no useful connections—so the ways I could get my script out into the world were extremely limited.
Which meant the only realistic option right now was a contest. There was no age restriction, which solved my biggest problem, so it might well be the best path. And as luck would have it, a drama production company called Studio NMIX was holding one.
The one small issue was that this was the same company that had produced The Warm Princess—the drama I had cheerfully torn apart a year ago.
So I was more than a little worried about the judges' taste. But as things stood, I didn't have another choice.
Well, if it doesn't work out, it doesn't work out.
I submitted the file in the required format and returned to my ordinary daily life with a light heart.
……Of course.
The ordinary life that had been briefly ordinary for a few years began, from that contest onward, to change little by little.