Half Right, Half Wrong
"What do you mean, that's…? Half right and half wrong?"
The part Han Yeo-reum had just glimpsed did, in fact, overlap with Seoryeong of Strange Tales.
"Look carefully for the place where you can emotionally connect with the Seoryeong in this show."
Compared to the one-episode single drama she'd handled just recently, Yeo-reum had now taken on an incomparably longer stretch of material.
And the anxiety that came with it was plain as day to Myeong Je-ha's eyes.
"Erase the original from your head. Use the newly written Seoryeong as your skeleton, then pick out one thing inside her that resembles you."
No wonder, then, that Yeo-reum, unlike her usual self, was failing to notice the correct answer sitting right in front of her.
"Do you think the Seoryeong I imagine matches Director Jjang's Seoryeong? That's what matters. What do you see?"
Yeo-reum was working from the wrong premise altogether.
Director Jjang hadn't created Seoryeong's story for the sake of narrative polish.
"Yeo-reum, what kind of person do you want Seoryeong to be? How do you want it to end for her? Tell me your analysis properly, all of it."
A development unmistakably different from the original. Someone had clearly had a person in mind — someone they desperately wanted to show properly — and had turned the entire play on its head because of it.
"I'd want her to want to live. Even if only for Monk Jeong-an, who saved her life — in the world that Myeong-do and Grand Prince Seonghwi are trying to build, I think she'd come to want to truly live in it."
Pretending to know nothing, and yet — Han Yeo-reum was, as ever, Han Yeo-reum. She'd already dissected Seoryeong in the time it took to blink.
In her own particular way.
"Seoryeong lived with one goal only: carving the flesh from Yeomga. So her desires are limited."
This was never meant to be the story of Yeomga and Crown Prince Yunhwi, Grand Prince Seonghwi and Myeong-do — the story of Yeomhoguk itself.
"There's nothing about the future anywhere in Seoryeong's life…. Not even in empty words does she promise a tomorrow. She was someone who lived only in the now, never the next day."
From beginning to end, it had been a story of Seoryeong, for Seoryeong, by Seoryeong.
"But the Seoryeong in the new synopsis — after meeting Myeong-do, she starts to picture a future for the first time."
Which meant the key had been resting in Han Yeo-reum's hand from the very start.
"A Seoryeong who drifted through life throwing her life away — versus a Seoryeong who lived to die suddenly wanting to live. Maybe…."
Yeo-reum's eyes lit up in an instant.
"Maybe the love on that side is the greater one?"
Now it was clear why Han Yeo-reum's character analysis had ground to a halt.
She wanted to understand the role completely — no, perhaps she had already seeped so deeply into it that the things 'the real' Seoryeong would never do had snagged on her.
"So tell me now. Where does the half of my Seoryeong start going wrong?"
There was nothing left to deliberate. Myeong Je-ha rose from his seat.
"Right. Then let's go."
"Where?"
Since Han Yeo-reum had reasoned her way this far, all that remained was to bring the story of Strange Tales to its close.
Her Seoryeong was the correct answer.
"To build the ending."
Whatever the director's intentions might be, Strange Tales had to become a move for Han Yeo-reum that would never come again.
Despite the sudden message, Director Jjang cheerfully sent over the address of his workspace.
Days without sleep had left his eyes gritty and bloodshot, his wrist numb, his stomach sour, his neck stiff — but for a director, this was entirely par for the course.
"Director Jjang!"
"Yeo-reum!"
As always, the two of them greeted each other by calling out like a pair of exclamations. Director Jjang accepted the coffee Yeo-reum had brought, then turned to Myeong Je-ha standing behind her.
"Ah, Je-ha! Thank you for coming. I watched Rampant — loved it."
"Thank you. I saw Pop Cherry Heroine and knew I had to meet you at least once — Yeo-reum had to beg me into coming, honestly."
"Oh, come now. What kind of great man am I, that you'd have to beg~?"
Director Jjang beamed and gestured for them to come inside quickly.
And then there was something small trailing behind Yeo-reum.
"Huh? Is this the little sister you mentioned last time? Hello there~. I'm Director Jjang. You came along to play with your unnie?"
Director Jjang greeted her with easy warmth, but the short-haired kid glared daggers up at him.
"…I'm your senior from school. And my little brother is a boy…."
"Huh? Senior?"
"If we're speaking of me — the once-in-a-lifetime genius of Dae-ye-jong, Dokgo Min. I shot profile photos for Han Yeo-reum here, shot the stills for Not Interested At All, worked with Do Gyeo-ul and so on and so forth."
Facing this grand, chin-high self-introduction from Dokgo Min, Director Jjang sheepishly offered a handshake.
Dokgo Min looked at him with the wary eyes of a soldier sizing up the enemy.
"Yes…. Hello. I'm Director Jang. Please, feel free to just call me Director Jjang…."
Dokgo Min brushed straight past him. Myeong Je-ha seized her by the nape and hauled her back in front of Director Jjang.
"Senior. What kind of greeting was that?"
"I don't want to shake hands! They're all my rivals anyway!"
"Then go home, senior."
"You're the one who said come along! You said you didn't know which director might steal me away!"
Watching Myeong Je-ha laugh as he dragged Dokgo Min toward the door, Yeo-reum quietly tried to soothe Director Jjang.
"She may look like that, but honestly she's a huge fan of yours, Director…."
"Can you promise me that ajusshi isn't a weirdo like Director So? You wouldn't know, Myeong Je-ha! Directors can't be trusted — any of them!"
But Dokgo Min's flailing had blown the lie wide open. Watching her squirm and whimper in Myeong Je-ha's grip, Director Jjang smiled with gentle, grandfatherly warmth.
"…Just bring her in, Je-ha."
The plan had been to entertain the twenty-something kids for a bit and then dive back into the script.
It was an accepted truism in the industry: film is the director's game, drama is the writer's game. And here Director Jjang had gone and taken on both directing and the adaptation.
Which meant, in the end, that on the game board called Strange Tales, every ounce of responsibility rested on his shoulders alone.
My shoulders feel twice as heavy as they should….
On his laptop, the still-unfinished Strange Tales lay asleep.
He'd answered Yeo-reum's message hoping to forget the weight of it for a while, but the sighs kept slipping out between his breaths all the same.
And then, moments later, that breathing changed completely.
"Hooh… hooh…! How did you know, Je-ha?"
He was panting like an otaku who'd finally met someone who spoke his language. Director Jjang's heart was swelling.
In all his years, no one who had watched a mere four episodes had ever understood his direction this deeply.
"The intro uses sound in so many layered ways. From the bell tones onward, the audio keeps stacking, so I wondered — could all these sounds be threading together into the ritual sequence… haha."
"Yes! That's exactly it! God, how did you figure it out? You actually guessed it?"
Director Jjang had hidden a clue in the intro. And Myeong Je-ha had spotted it at once.
"The curse ritual calls the spirit with the pipe, confirms it with the janggu drum, marks the target of the curse with the gong, and finally seals the curse with the barrel drum —"
Gulp. Director Jjang swallowed hard, eyes shining, staring at Myeong Je-ha.
"— and since the final drumbeat never sounds, I assumed you were holding it back to use in the ending scene."
"Exactly, exactly that, Je-ha…!"
Director Jjang clutched his forehead and collapsed. Finding someone who understood his intent had set his heart pounding. And yet the tangled skein still wouldn't come undone.
"Director. So how does it end?"
Yeo-reum asked, dead serious. Director Jjang hesitated for a moment.
A Plan B, of course, existed. Every director works out their highlight first — that was simply how it was done.
But he couldn't go with Plan B.
…Yeo-reum already has far too much to carry on her own.
An ending Director Jjang had harbored in silence, told to no one. If Yeo-reum could pull off that one scene in Plan B, nothing could be better… but unleashing her fury at Yeomga was enough.
A rookie actress leading a sixteen-episode drama was already more than a full plate.
"The ending closes with Seoryeong stopping Yeomga's curse ritual. I'm going to do the staging a little differently from the original — why? Did something catch you?"
"The lines from the original."
Yeo-reum bit her lip briefly.
"I don't think this Seoryeong would risk her life for Myeong-do."
The Seoryeong Yeo-reum had analyzed matched Director Jjang's exactly.
Not a divine shaman with power to shake the world, but one ordinary human being afraid of death.
Director Jjang nodded along eagerly as she explained, careful and measured.
"Right. It's exactly as you said, Yeo-reum. So in the end, Seoryeong pours out every last ounce of her power trying to carve Yeomga's flesh away, takes terrible internal injuries, reaches death's door — and lets go. Because she knows that dying together with Yeomga isn't the only answer."
How many times had he read the script in the meantime? The edges of it were worn soft from handling.
Director Jjang smiled, thinking what a fine actor he'd found in her.
"Yeomga lives on in the world where Seonghwi becomes king, imprisoned just like the Saetani she once made, and Seoryeong sets off in search of a new life. That's our Seoryeong."
"Oh, thank goodness!"
Just as Yeo-reum was smiling in relief, the mouth of Myeong Je-ha, who'd been listening quietly, opened.
"That's not the whole of it, is it? It seems you've pictured a separate scene of your own, Director. Don't hide it — tell us."
Director Jjang's gaze wavered.
"The part you cut from the original ending. Are you really going to leave it that way?"