At Last, Seoryeong

The day had finally arrived. Because we had CG photography to complete, the schedule had been moved up considerably.

The final episode….

This was the hinge where episode fifteen tipped over into sixteen — the exact moment Yeomga and Seoryeong would come face to face. A strange expectancy hung over the set as the crew worked, threaded through with a thick, humming tension.

Professor has been inside the whole time.

Geum Bit-gang hadn't once stepped out of the van, presumably holding on to her emotions. A straw mat had been laid over the bare dirt, and red cloth hung fluttering from the bamboo we'd planted earlier — and through all of it, I watched the scene quietly.

A ritual grounds Yeomga must have prepared with her own hands….

I thought I had pressed all that bitter, festering resentment down tight into my chest — and the moment I did, my body suddenly felt heavy.

Yeomga. The enemy I had to fight.

I recalled the analysis of Yeomga that the professor and I had built together in conversation.

After ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠all, this is barely a step away from the market scene where Seoryeong was walking the stalls with Myeong-do, browsing trinkets — I'd assumed it would ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠be hard to find the emotional register.

But comparing that set to this one, I slipped into the feeling faster than I'd expected. Because the straw mat spread across the marketplace and the straw mat spread beneath Yeomga's ritual were one and the same. Looking at that rough, dirt-caked weave, I could almost hear Geum Bit-gang's voice at my ear.

"I could never tolerate a world that goes on so peacefully, so harmoniously."

Had Yeomga's child been a daughter, or a son? Would they have had Myeong-do's straight, honest character — or been headstrong and unruly, like Seoryeong?

I don't know.

No matter how I turned it over, I couldn't know. Because that child…

had died….

No longer existed in this world. What they would have loved, what they would have hated; what they'd have been good at, what they'd have failed at — all of it was sealed away forever, unknowable.

If Yeomga's child had existed in that market where Seoryeong and Myeong-do walked together, where would they have run first? Maybe to the fruit seller to haggle. Maybe they would have bought a trinket worthy of Yeomga and pressed it into her hands.

But that was never going to happen.

In the world where Seoryeong and Myeong-do laughed in the sunlight, where those bright hours unfolded at their leisure — Yeomga and her child were a foreign substance that could not exist. A thing to be excised.

And so for a day, a year, ten years… for a span of time like an eternity, Yeomga must have filled herself with a single thought: swallowing all of it whole.

Maybe those hours Seoryeong and Myeong-do shared were the very moments Yeomga had wanted to give her child….

The mountain path where the water ran clear and beautiful, the shade of a tree on a rainy day, the creak of the waterwheel, the wide-open sky, the air at dawn.

The crew members passing in front of me began to blur. And the whole of Seoryeong's past life flashed past like a lantern show — all those days when even Seoryeong, who had buried her vow of death in one corner of her heart alongside Jeong-an, sometimes ached so badly to simply be alive.

Could Yeomga really have been blind to all that beauty…?

She would have seen it. There must have been moments, in the middle of ordinary life, when an unbearable joy pierced straight through Yeomga's heart.

When the wind blew beneath the same sky she'd once watched with the man she loved, the wind they'd once faced together. When the wild raspberries they'd split between them tasted, for no reason, unbearably sweet.

In those moments, Yeomga must have been crushed by the wretchedness of never being able to give any of it to her child.

The status window had appeared. And at last, the ritual grounds were fully set.

"Yeo-reum, shall we go?"

A stage had been built that might as well have been prepared just for me. I nodded. The moment had finally come — the moment I would stand against Yeomga.

The emotions came crashing down on me all at once. My throat ached from a vocalization that scraped its way out of me like something being torn loose. The gong and the flute that had rung across the set hummed and reverberated at the edges of my ears.

For a while, I couldn't feel the pull of the earth. The camera lens wavered in the distance; the microphone vanished from view; every scrap of my focus had narrowed to Yeomga alone.

Everything went soft and indistinct. Only Yeomga, standing before me, burned sharp and clear. And in that moment, the illusion took hold — that I was not a being with my feet planted in this world, but something adrift, floating free of it.

I don't know how much time passed like that. Someone approached where I lay collapsed on the ground, chest heaving. A pair of black shoes entered my field of vision. When I slowly lifted my eyes to the person kneeling down beside me, there was Geum Bit-gang, wearing an expression I couldn't quite read.

"…."

"…."

For a moment we simply looked ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at each other without a word, sweat running down both of us from the back-to-back shoots. It was Geum Bit-gang who spoke first.

"You did it."

"…."

"Seoryeong."

And at that very moment, the status window rose before my eyes once more.

With three weeks left until the finale, I had finally earned for myself the name Seoryeong.

She isn't in her right mind.

That was the one and only conclusion Jegal Rok reached after stopping briefly by the set. She was not sane. Definitely, absolutely not.

If Yeomga deployed every muscle in her face — hundreds of different expressions funneled through a single voice to crush her opponent — then Seoryeong was the exact opposite.

Her expression never changes, and only her voice shifts…?

With a face that looked as though something were truly being torn out of her, Seoryeong poured out everything she had. To the point where blood might have traced down from the fingernails gripping the dirt below her as if it were her last lifeline.

Jegal Rok took in every single moment of it from a corner of the set, eyes fixed and unblinking. He had come to verify, and instead he had witnessed something that blew far past every expectation.

She really isn't in her right mind.

What word could possibly capture this? As he searched for something adequate, Jegal Rok picked up his phone. Faster Than the Law was pulling in audiences smoothly, and the box office had come back to life.

"This is Jegal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Rok."

He placed a call to someone. If things continued on this track, a ten-million admissions score for Faster Than the Law was all but guaranteed.

Which meant it was time for the next stage — one worthy of the name of JC ENM's newest innovation.

"For the finale of Gimyodam, rent out a cinema and screen it there simultaneously with the broadcast. Proceed on that basis."

He was about to hand this industry yet another paradigm.

What would audiences do, faced with a colossal screen and sound that wrapped around them whole?

Inside that fast-turning whirlwind, just how high could Han Yeo-reum climb?

"Yes. I understand. I'm aware that what I just said won't sound sane to you."

Once again, Jegal Rok had chosen the road no one else was walking.

"Even so, the finale gets the theatrical screening. One screen is enough. All that matters is bringing Gimyodam's viewers through the doors."

Anything JC ENM's power could accomplish, he would use.

"This is not a celebrity event. Invitations go to reporters and critics only. Every remaining seat goes to general booking."

Jegal Rok had cleared an entire screen at GCV Yongsan to match the date of Gimyodam's final broadcast.

"That will be all."

Gimyodam's ratings were now climbing past 17 percent.

Overtime again today. A weary office worker pressed play on Gimyodam on the way home — a drama that dissolved the fatigue of the commute like it had never existed.

Gimyodam carried its story forward without a hitch. Episode seven in particular was hailed by the drama fandom as an all-time masterpiece scene.

Especially the moment Myeong-do realizes Seoryeong is a woman… that one was perfect.

The office worker had rewound it so many times they could summon the scene the instant they closed their eyes. The soft OST weaving through the sound of falling rain — it was simply perfect.

Seoryeong, soaked through by the rain, burns with fever and collapses; and the instant Myeong-do reaches out to change her soaked clothes for her—

The comment section had absolutely detonated that day.

Myeong-do spent the following day fumbling and stammering in front of Seoryeong, and everyone rode through episode seven with fond, contented smiles on their faces.

For some of them, Gimyodam changed their lives outright.

It felt as though life itself had been split into days with Gimyodam and days without it. And this wasn't even the level of "happy starting at nine because it airs at ten." People were counting down every single day like it was D-Day for Gimyodam.

Those who guarded the live broadcast used the remaining days of the week to rewatch old episodes.

The rain scene — episode seven's crown jewel — shot up in view counts the moment it was uploaded, then spilled outward across the internet in GIFs and screencaps, reaching farther and farther.

It was like watching someone cry without a single tear….

Ever since that shot of Seoryeong with the rain streaming down her face, a new meme had been circulating among Gimyodam's fans.

She was the polar opposite of the "Foolish Regretful Girl" character she'd shown on variety shows. The nickname that stuck to Yeo-reum now was "The Woman Who Lives in Your Head." And here is exactly how everyone was losing sleep over her:

Pretending to wistfully fuss over Seoryeong had become the defining meme of Gimyodam's viewership — all of it owed to the sheer impact of Han Yeo-reum's rain scene. Somewhere along the way, Seoryeong had become the fandom's collective sore spot, the character whose suffering they felt in their own bones.

And above all — that cliffhanger!

It didn't end there.