Fading from the Frame
Pachehi's view count was climbing at a steep angle. Day after day, posts about it kept flooding the forums — some barely a line declaring it was fun, others sprawling, screenshot-by-screenshot recommendation posts that retold the entire story.
Pachehi was stuffed with scenes practically begging to become memes. Capture any moment at random, and it turned into one on the spot. Before long, even people who had never seen the show knew the memes by heart. Yeo-reum's auditorium scene had been circulating as a short clip, and that barely-one-minute video blew past ten thousand retweets.
Yeo-reum's exquisitely cringe-inducing acting translated directly into viewers, and Han Yeo-reum's influence kept swelling with every upload.
When episode six aired, the number of people falling for the Ju Jun-seo and Han Yeo-reum pairing began to climb as well.
The moment episode six went up, the comments blew past a thousand, and the likes stacked up to several times that number. People even started theorizing about where the story would go next — comment sections unlike anything the web dramas of the past had ever produced.
In that short span, Yeo-reum's followers were closing in on twenty thousand. All over the internet, people had begun asking for the SNS account of the actress who played Pi Chae-won.
The public's curiosity was spilling past the character she played and onto Yeo-reum herself.
"Ahh~ Yeo-reum!"
"Director!!!"
"Did you see what I sent you? Did you see it?"
"I did…."
Director Jjang and I were in the middle of a deeply emotional phone call. A handful of celebrities friendly with him had mentioned Pachehi directly in their own stories.
"Honestly…? I'll be straight with you. I never dreamed Pachehi would do this well."
"I knew it would. Because I believed in you, Director."
"Yeo-reum…."
"Director…."
Through the receiver, I could hear Director Jjang audibly swallowing back sobs. Thinking back on the Pachehi of my previous life, the reaction now made perfect sense.
'Because back then, it was never this positive.'
There had been a fair amount of buzz, but almost all of it was mockery — the tone was of a show being consumed as a joke. Predictions about the next chapter, or capture posts passing the episodes around as genuine recommendations, were practically nonexistent.
The leads' atrocious acting. Horrifying dialogue. And music and editing far, far too good for any of it. Those were the three pillars that made up Pachehi.
'As expected of Han Yeo-reum.'
I allowed myself a brief moment of shameless self-congratulation.
"Later on, we're doing this again — together. You have to promise me. I want to work with you, Yeo-reum, for a lot longer. All of it added up isn't even two hours of footage."
"Of course. You'd better call me again next time, Director."
Working with him this time, I'd come to realize that Director Jjang was an even better director than I'd given him credit for.
'Good enough that I'm genuinely looking forward to whatever drama he takes on next.'
I found myself hoping he'd send me his screenplays down the road. With that thought, I ended the call with Director Jjang and turned my attention to the script in my hands.
This was the one Myeong Je-ha had sent me — the most successful work from that box.
"Things like this only circulate inside the industry."
What he meant was simple: people without connections never even get the chance to sit for an audition.
In this business, time is money. Every year, dozens — hundreds — of projects get scrapped, and then scrapped again. Wrapping up casting as quickly as possible was everything.
'That's why the scripts that might actually make it get passed along through connections, hand to hand.'
You auditioned only for the few that survived the filtering. Of course, Myeong Je-ha had handed over the scripts with no audition information attached, so I wasn't part of that equation….
'But I still want to practice my acting. What can I do?'
And I wanted to be that much more prepared. Because if — in the absolute off chance — an audition opportunity ever did come my way and I stood there flustered and unready and fumbled it, I would never forgive myself.
I unfolded the opening pages of the Faster Than the Law screenplay.
With no agency behind me, there was no road to a script unless a public audition opened. Maybe because I'd watched the film in theaters so many times, the scenes bloomed instantly in my head the moment I read.
"It'd be nice if a public audition opened up."
I didn't even dare hope they'd come knocking first. I had only just barely landed a single lead role in a web drama, after all.
"Even a small part would be fine. I just want to stand in front of a camera again…."
The lens locked onto me. The lights pouring down from above. The call of "Ready" ringing out before the take. I couldn't forget a single piece of it. It made me want to die on a film set — even if it killed me.
"I think I could do this role well."
I underlined the lines of a part with barely five minutes of screen time. I wanted it. I wanted it so, so badly.
At last, the release day for episode seven of Pachehi arrived.
Thanks to the posts and videos that had swept every community over the past week, viewers came flooding in. Among them were genuine drama devotees, too — the kind who watch every single drama a network puts on the air, year after year. The realest of the real.
The title alone provoked the curiosity. The previous episode had ended with Chae-won setting out to become the heroine — to turn back the timeline of her world — by dragging out every cliché in the book.
"Alright, everyone. Let's turn to the next page. Chapter 3."
"…It worked."
The needle that had refused to budge all series finally advanced. The timeline was shifting, ever so subtly. And yet something was wrong.
Scritch, scritch— the sound of something being scratched at yet again. Chae-won raised her palm.
The line of life was smeared red. Her body was turning translucent.
"Why…? Why on earth…?"
She tried to find the cause. Come to think of it, Hina hadn't been in her seat — which sat empty alongside Jun's.
"Hina. I have to find Hina."
Chae-won forced her half-faded body to move, and even as she ran, it kept blurring faster and faster. She sprinted to the rooftop and tried to call for Jun.
But no voice came out. Proof that she was being erased. She spread her palm open once more.
"…."
An ominous BGM crept in. Her body would not move as she willed it; wiggling her fingers was all she could manage. And just as Chae-won's expression froze solid—
"Pi Chae-won."
BANG! The rooftop door burst open. Jun strode in, hurriedly shrugging off his jersey.
He draped it over the frozen Chae-won, dressing her in it. As she pulled on Jun's oversized clothes, color slowly seeped back into her translucent hand. Only then could she move again.
"What the— what is wrong with your body all of a sudden?"
"I think… there's a problem with my screen time. Hina's gone right now."
"Hina's gone?"
"Yes! And this is definitely—"
That was the moment. A stir of presence from the corner of the rooftop. Jun and Chae-won bolted straight toward the sound. And there, they found….