The Audition
“Ugh….”
Han Dohwa — a child actress who had shown exceptional acting talent from a young age and was now in her fourth year in the industry — couldn't hide the gloomy mood settling over her, not even with all that skill.
“I mean… it's not like I picked a fight with her because I wanted to….”
Every society has its cliques, and human relationships are no different — even child actors had their own little circles. A gathering open to anyone who'd scraped together even a sliver of name recognition.
Which was why most of the people who had come today were faces she already knew, and it was only toward the handful of strangers that she'd pulled the classic newcomer-hazing routine.
'Oh, hey — isn't that the girl from that smartphone commercial that's been everywhere lately?'
'Oh! It really is her!'
'Whoa… she's even prettier in person…?'
Dohwa had simply been out of luck.
'Hmm, a girl like that? Unless Dohwa-unnie steps in, she'll steamroll the rest of us on presence alone.'
'Unnie… I'm kind of scared to go near her too….'
'Dohwa-unnie! Show her what you're made of!'
'Huh? S-sure!'
She didn't want to do this sort of thing, and she knew perfectly well that she shouldn't — but what could she do? She was the leader of the group, after all.
“Geez… my mood just keeps getting worse….”
Seeing Dohwa like that, the kids around her read the room carefully and offered their consolations.
“U-unnie! Pass the audition and crush her with your skills! Then you can tell her she doesn't even act her age!”
“That's right! Cheer up!”
“The audition is right around the corner! Revenge is only moments away!”
The truth was that Dohwa, having first set foot in the entertainment industry back in kindergarten, suffered from one chronic weakness.
“R-right! I'll pull myself together! I'll just have to knock her down a peg with skill later!”
'Th-that didn't sound pathetic, did it…?'
She was weak when it came to friends her own age. Extremely so.
With an adult, she could hold her ground and press her case, even when she had every right to. But the moment a peer asked her for something, she would falter — and in the end, she always bent.
That was how much weight the word "friend" carried for Dohwa, who didn't have a single close friend to her name.
“Anyway, how old is that kid, exactly…?”
For a girl, ten was right around when the first signs of puberty began to creep in, which made her age surprisingly easy to pin down.
Dohwa's rule of thumb: taller than her meant an older girl or a same-ager; shorter meant, in all likelihood, younger — though every now and then, the same age.
Going by that standard, she'd taken Minah for the latter and had opened with casual, informal speech at their very first meeting. It wasn't that she'd been rude for no reason, mind you.
“And if you really think about it, I'm her senior by several years….”
Above all, in the entertainment world, age only matters while you're little — what counts first and foremost is your track record.
'Still, I was the one who picked the fight first, so….'
Her dad often said that anyone who wouldn't own up to their own mess was less than a full person. And she had known she shouldn't, yet caved to the eyes of the kids around her and started the quarrel anyway — so yes, the fault was hers.
'And yet….'
Dohwa could count on one hand the times in her life she'd been humiliated like this, and she knew she was in the wrong — but a thread of resentment toward Minah had taken root all the same.
“All right, we will now officially begin the auditions!”
At those words, the cluster of children, Dohwa included, broke apart and returned to their places.
“Dohwa. Is something wrong?”
“No… it's nothing….”
“Ah! You're already getting into character, aren't you?! Look at you, such a pro.”
'…I'm actually just depressed, though.'
Managing a faint smile for her manager, Dohwa picked up her audition script once more — ragged and frayed at the edges from being read so many times over.
“Whew….”
The protagonist's daughter, Seo Hayoung.
This was the one role she truly wanted to claim for herself, and she had prepared for it with everything she had.
'I felt like she was a lot like me….'
Seo Hayoung's parents were divorced.
Hayoung had gone to live with her father rather than her mother, and she couldn't help feeling hurt by a dad so buried in work that he spared her little attention—
'—and yet even toward that cold father of hers, she never let it show, too afraid of worrying him, always putting on a bright face.'
A child so mindful of others that her kindness looked, from one angle, like foolishness. And it was that foolish part of her that Dohwa felt she saw in the mirror.
'Or maybe it was because of that personality?'
She also loved how Hayoung kept her composure even when the zombie outbreak hit — calm in a way no child had any right to be.
'Most of the roles I've played until now were the kind who just made trouble for everyone around them.'
But Hayoung had none of that frustrating dead weight of a kid who exists to be a burden. If anything, she outshone the adults at every turn.
“Right! I just have to give it everything!”
As passion finally overpowered her gloom, Dohwa felt as though a fog wedged in her head had broken apart and cleared.
“Number one, please come in!”
“Yes!”
“Sebom! You've got this!”
Jeong Sebom, called in as number one, was one of the younger members of their circle, so Dohwa sent her off with a quick word of encouragement before she went in.
“Yeah! Dohwa-unnie!”
Then, about three minutes after Sebom disappeared inside—
Sniffle!
“Sebom, it's okay! There'll be other roles! Don't cry!”
'…Wait, what on earth happened in there to make Sebom come out crying?'
Sebom was by no means a poor actress. If anything, she ranked among the most talented child actors in the room.
'And that Sebom came out in tears…?'
“Next! Number two, please come in!”
At the call for the next number, the anticipation in Dohwa's chest — until now closer to excitement than nerves — grew a shade heavier.
“Dohwa.”
“Y-yeah.”
“Don't be nervous. You're the best one here.”
“…Thanks, unnie.”
'Right. Whatever happens with the other kids, first I have to do well myself.'
With that resolve, she began sinking into Seo Hayoung ahead of time.
“Hooo….”
“Number seventeen, please come in!”
'It's my turn…!'
“Yes!”
She opened the door and stepped into the audition room, where three figures sat waiting: the film's screenwriter, its head director, and the director of photography.
'I-I am nervous, all right.'
But a healthy dose of nerves, she knew, only ever helped. Slipping back into the mindset she always armed herself with when the jitters came, Dohwa introduced herself with spirit.
“Hello! Number seventeen! I'm Han Dohwa!”
“Yes, actress Han Dohwa. You've studied the script in advance, of course?”
At the question from Noh Seojun — the film's head director and one of the directors Dohwa had long looked up to — she answered with even more force, crisp and confident.
“Of course!”
“Then shall we begin with scene S#8?”
“Yes!”
'S#8, then….'
Raising her emotions bit by bit, she called back up everything she had analyzed about the scene.
'The one where Hayoung asks her dad to let her go see her mom over the holidays….'
“I'll read the father's lines myself. If there's any business or blocking you'd like to perform, my apologies, but you'll have to play it to empty air.”
“Yes!”
She thought of Hayoung's feelings in this moment.
'She asks brightly, full of energy — but inside, she must be terrified.'
She let that feeling pour out.
“Daddy! I-I want to go see Mommy this time…!”
She forced herself not to think about how she might look to the judges. Factor that in, and the acting turned stiff. Every other stray thought, she emptied out as well. There was only one thing she allowed herself to hold on to: I am Seo Hayoung. That conviction alone.
“Your mom? Hmm… what to do….”
“I don't see why not…?”
“…All right, let's do that.”
“R-really?! Yay! I love you, Daddy!”
Dohwa pictured a father standing right before her eyes and mimed throwing her arms around him.
“Yes, that will be all.”
“Whew….”
At Seojun's call of cut, Dohwa released the character and took a long, deep breath.
“Hmm… for what it's worth, that was the best we've seen from any participant so far.”
“Th-thank you!”
“You've passed the first round. We'll be gathering the first-round passers separately for the second round later, so please wait just a little while.”
“Yes!”
Doing her utmost to smother the swelling joy and the surge of achievement, Dohwa bowed to the judges and walked out of the audition room.
“You were amazing! Dohwa!”
“Yeah! Unnie!”
The moment she was outside and let her happiness show, the kids who had already been turned away came flocking to her.
“Whoa! Unnie, you passed?!”
“That's our Dohwa-unnie!”
“Right? Who else could take on a role like this but you?”
“Hehe, thanks, everyone!”
She allowed herself to bask in the warm glow only for a moment. Then Dohwa steadied her heart and turned her mind to preparing for round two.
“Next! Number twenty-one, please come in!”
“Th-the child just stepped out to the bathroom! Please give us just a moment…!”
'Huh? Who's that?'
It was the woman who had stood beside the unnie that had handed Dohwa such a humbling defeat earlier.
'Her mother, maybe?'
She took after that unnie enough that, looks alone, you might have mistaken her for a celebrity.
'But that wasn't the point.'
To be late at a moment this important.
'She doesn't even have the basics down.'
Sure, Dohwa had thrown the first punch, so to speak — but Minah was the one who'd humiliated her. What kind of face would she make, Dohwa wondered, if she came back from the bathroom and discovered her number had been called?
Even Dohwa could admit the fantasy was a little petty and childish. Still, she indulged in it with no small measure of glee as she waited for Minah to hurry back.
“Ah, Minah! Come on, hurry!”
“Eh? It's my turn already? How'd the line move so fast?”
But when Minah appeared with an attitude that was the exact opposite of Dohwa's imagining, a surge of indignation boiled up inside her.
'Seriously! What does she think an audition is?!'
That breezy, flippant manner, as if she didn't have even one shred of nerves or embarrassment in her.
Someone like that, Director Noh Seojun — a man dead serious about acting — would absolutely tear into. Convinced of it, Dohwa allowed herself to imagine, one last time, what expression Minah would be wearing when she came out of that room.
And a few minutes later.
Clunk.
“Ugh… maybe I shouldn't have eaten all those pork trotters last night… my stomach just keeps hurting….”
“See? Mom told you not to eat it.”
“Mom, even if I run to the bathroom again, the second round won't start without me, right?”
“I shouldn't think so?”
'…Huh?'
…She passed the first round?
“Minah, go on ahead for now. I'll call you once I know how things stand.”
Once again, reality had outdone Dohwa's imagination.
“And with that, the first round of auditions has come to an end. The list of successful candidates will be displayed on the TV, so please give it one more look.”
I stared up at the TV where the names were lined up in a row.
“Huh? Including me, only five people passed the first round?”
'Seriously, why is the cutoff so brutal?'
That said—
[ Ryu Minah (10) ]
'…Oh. So they announce your age along with your name, huh.'
A premonition told me trouble was about to find me, and I hurried to slip away from my spot — but—
“Hey!”
At the voice barking my name from behind, my escape launch failed.
“Oh, isn't that Han Dohwa? What's up?”
'Man, she's quick.' This was exactly why I didn't much care for the diligent type.
“Ryu Minah! You— you said you were my unnie!”
“Huh? When did I ever?”
“Y-you did too!”
“What are you even talking about.”
I swear on my life, I have never once said, out of my own mouth, that I was Han Dohwa's unnie.