The Commercial
A few days later.
"Minah, you've got your seatbelt on, right?"
"Yep!"
"Aigoo, my little girl. Is having a smartphone really that wonderful?"
"Of course it is!"
Ever since the day I'd agreed to shoot the commercial, I had staged a relentless protest, and it had finally paid off — yesterday, Mom and I reached a settlement, and I won back my smartphone freedom.
"Hahahaha!"
Which was why this trip to collect the device destined to become my other half was proving thoroughly enjoyable.
"Your dad would be heartbroken if he knew you loved that thing this much."
Dad had originally planned to come along, but sadly, work had gotten in the way.
"And you remember the promise you made me yesterday, don't you? You're going to keep it?"
"Mom, do you not trust me?"
"Nope~"
"...Mom?"
"Ah, sorry. It just slipped out."
'...The way this family treats me gets stranger by the day.'
"Did you memorize the whole script?"
"Obviously."
To explain once more: my role in this commercial was "the daughter who waits at home until she can't stand it anymore, then video-calls her mom just as the poor woman is dragging herself home from work."
Which meant my lines amounted to things like "I'm hungry" and "Mom, when are you coming home?"
'Hardly a volume that demands memorizing.' Honestly, there wasn't even enough material to call a script in the first place.
"Just in case, give it one more read. Or want to run through it now? I'll give you feedback."
"I'm good."
We traded small talk like that, and before long we arrived at the set.
"Whoa...!"
It was the first film set I had ever set foot in, and awe spilled out of me whether I wanted it to or not.
"Hey! I told you to put that over here!"
"Sorry, sorry!"
Here, people were fine-tuning the position and angle of every single prop; there, others adjusted bank after bank of lights. Beyond them, still more crew bustled about at their own tasks — everyone busy as bees, and yet, impossibly, the whole space was gorgeous to look at. It was genuinely mesmerizing.
"Are they still setting up?"
"Looks like we got here too early."
In my defense, I'd been so excited that I'd nagged Mom into leaving far earlier than we needed to.
"Well, early means plenty of time to get ready, so that's a good thing."
Being early beat being late by a mile, after all.
We kept wandering, and that was how I spotted Uncle Jun-young off in the distance — the very man I'd been searching for since we arrived.
"Mom, there's Uncle Jun-young."
The reason I'd been hunting for him was simple: since he was the one who'd booked me for this gig, he'd promised to play personal manager for the day — looking after me and showing me around.
'He looks pretty swamped, though?'
Still, we had made it to the set, and I figured the polite thing was to announce ourselves, so I headed over.
"Uncle Jun-young!"
"Oh! Minah, you're here!"
"Uncle! It's been forever!"
"It has! And look at you — you've grown so much! You're all grown up now!"
"Huh? Isn't that basically a curse commanding me to stop growing right here?"
"Uh, wha...?"
I was tempted to pile on at his flustered reaction, but the searing stare burning into my back from Mom made the back of my head feel like it was about to cave in, so I swiftly stood down.
"Aww, I'm kidding!"
"Uh, r-right...! Of course!"
The moment things were smoothed over, Mom — apparently sensing imminent danger — pounced on Uncle Jun-young without giving me so much as a gap to speak.
"Jun-young, you're awfully busy right now, aren't you?"
"Ah, Mi-young. Th-that's... yes, it'll probably take a while yet."
"Can't be helped, then. I'll keep an eye on Minah. Finish up your work first and come find us once you're free."
"I really am sorry..."
"No, no, these things happen."
After a few quick words of caution, Mom and I headed off to the waiting room.
And a few minutes later—
'Hmm...'
I was bored.
'Well. No help for it, then.'
"Mom."
"What is it?"
"I need to go to the bathroom."
"Wait here just a moment. I'll go ask where it is."
"Okay."
I quietly watched Mom's retreating back, and the instant she was sufficiently far away, I slipped out of the waiting room and set off on my own two feet.
"Now then~ where shall I explore first~?"
A stroll, I decided, was just the cure for boredom.
"Minah! I found out where the bathroom is—"
The moment she returned to the waiting room, Minah's mother, Park Mi-young, was confronted with a deeply flustering scene.
"Minah...?"
Because her daughter — the very one who'd claimed the bathroom was urgent — had vanished into thin air.
"Don't tell me...! Did she run off on her own because she couldn't hold it?!"
Worry came first at the sight of her missing daughter. But then—
'Wait. Hold on.'
"Aaagh!"
A single thought flashed through her mind, and Mi-young understood everything.
"I got played again!"
Minah had lied for the sole purpose of shaking her off.
The bathroom excuse had been a plant for later: if she got scolded, Minah could claim she'd been so desperate she'd gone looking for it herself.
'Unbelievable! Even here, she's pulling this?!'
Cursing herself for having trusted Minah even for a second, she hurried out of the waiting room and began to search, frantic.
'Not over there! Not there either! She's not here either?!'
Just as her panic crested and she decided she would have to ask someone for help—
"Ah!"
There, in the distance, was a child who looked exactly like Minah.
'Found her!'
Closing the distance and confirming it really was her daughter, Mi-young opened her mouth to call out — and then froze solid at the sight of the woman standing beside Minah.
'Who is that...? N-no way. It couldn't be...?!'
And the moment she got a proper look at the woman's face, Mi-young's jaw hit the floor.
Because that woman was the actress playing Minah's mother in today's shoot.
And because she was a famous, heavyweight actress — one of the most celebrated villain performers in the country.
"But you always play the villain — is that because your personality's actually bad in real life?"
And because she had just overheard her daughter ask that famous actress the question with a bright, innocent smile on her face.
'I'm losing my mind...'
Parenting was so, so hard...
The actress Kim Hee-sun normally worked exclusively in dramas and films, and she was famous for almost never shooting commercials.
There was no complicated reason.
No matter how well an advertisement paid, an actor, in her view, ought to face the public through their work.
That was simply her creed.
But when word reached her recently that her daughter had failed to pre-order the very smartphone this commercial was promoting, Hee-sun found herself filming an ad for the first time in ages — so that she could give the phone to her daughter as a birthday present.
'Whoa! It's Kim Hee-sun!'
And so Hee-sun, who had arrived at the set early as was her habit, wanting to acclimate to the environment before shooting, had crossed paths with Minah as the girl wandered here and there.
"I'm Ryu Minah — I'll be acting opposite you today! Please take good care of me!"
That was how she learned that Minah was the child actor she'd be sharing scenes with.
They got to talking, and—
"So in your eyes, does this auntie seem like she has a bad personality?"
"No? You seem really sweet. I was just curious, since you only ever play villains."
And somehow, the conversation had arrived at the present moment.
'What a fascinating child.'
Hee-sun considered herself quite good at seeing herself objectively.
'She's the first kid who's ever been this warm with me.'
Her face was built to intimidate, her aura didn't help, and stacked on top of it all was her fame — she knew perfectly well that children found her hard to approach, even frightening.
'...Adorable.'
Because for all her fierce looks and image, Hee-sun was, unexpectedly, enormously fond of children. It was the children who didn't care for her — never the other way around.
"Auntie, can I ask you one more thing?"
"Of course. Ask away."
Watching the girl chat with her so comfortably, unwinding her curiosity one question at a time, Hee-sun couldn't help but feel a warm glow.
'She reminds me of my little girl at that age...'
Memories of her daughter — all grown up now — from when she was small put Hee-sun in an excellent mood.
'Though in the looks department, this one wins by a mile.'
She thought her own daughter quite the beauty, but this child was simply playing in a different league.
"Is there any other kind of role you'd like to play?"
"Other roles?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Hmm... I'd like to try playing a kind mother sometime."
'It's about time I freshened up my image.'
A career built on villains had earned her plenty — money, certainly, and serious acting chops besides. But I've swallowed far too much hate along the way.
It would be no exaggeration to say Hee-sun had absorbed three generations' worth of curses.
"Oh! Is that why you're playing a mom today?!"
"That's right. Well? Do I look the part?"
She flashed her gentlest smile and tossed the question to Minah —
"Nope? You don't really look the part, but challenging yourself is what being an actor is all about! I'm rooting for you!"
"Oh, I— I see... Thank you..."
'Definitely not an ordinary kid...'
For a moment, the sheer unexpectedness of the damage left Hee-sun faintly dizzy.
'How should I put this... it's like talking to pure evil in its most innocent form?'
That was the impression Minah left on her.
And meanwhile—
'Ah, this is seriously going to kill me...!'
From a short distance away, Mi-young — unable to find a single opening to cut in — had been reduced to a trembling spectator.
'That's it! I'm going in now! One more second of dithering and who knows what that child will pull next!'
Steeled by resolve, she stepped closer and called her daughter's name with firm finality.
"Ryu Minah!"
"Ah. Busted already."
Hee-sun turned toward the voice and found a woman who looked enough like Minah to be mistaken for a celebrity in her own right.
"Is that lady your mother?"
"Yes."
Between the read she'd gotten on Minah's personality in their short time together, the girl's remark just now, and her own experience of raising a daughter, Hee-sun could do the math well enough.
'...So she's been wandering around behind her mother's back.'
No wonder she'd been on her own.
"Hello, Minah's mother. I'm the actress Kim Hee-sun."
"Oh! Yes! Actress Kim Hee-sun! Hello! I'm Minah's mom, Park Mi-young!"
The instant the two women exchanged greetings, Minah cut in from the side.
"Mom, say hi. This is my new mommy."
At those words, Mi-young and Hee-sun both felt their grip on reality wobble all over again.
"...You introduced me that way because I'm playing the mother in this commercial... right?"
"Yep."
"...I see."
'But why on earth did she have to go with "new mommy"...?'
Clasping the hands of a visibly aching Mi-young, Hee-sun looked at Minah and let the words slip out.
"You must have such a hard time of it... truly..."
"...Thank you."
Comforted so out of nowhere, Mi-young felt something hot surge up in her chest — but she fought it down with everything she had.
"I'm so sorry for all the trouble our Minah causes!"
"Not at all. I was bored stiff, actually — it was a blessing that Minah kept me company."
"See, Mom? She says so herself."
For that needless little remark, Mi-young applied silent, crushing pressure through her eyes alone.
"Well then! Please take good care of our Minah during the shoot! I'm always cheering for you!"
With that, she fired off her remaining pleasantries, gathered up Minah, and scurried back to the waiting room.
"Ryu Minah."
"Yes, ma'am...!"
"If you disappear from my sight even once between now and the moment we go home today, understand that you will not eat for three days."
Perhaps her sincerity had finally gotten through — mercifully, Minah remained meekly planted in her chair.