Mint Choco Wars and Proper Farewells
Since I couldn't hear any voices through the door, it seemed I was, once again, the first one to arrive.
“You're here?”
“Han Yeo-reum!”
“Whoa, you startled me.”
The moment I opened the door, the silent waiting room echoed with voices.
“It was so quiet I thought no one was here yet.”
“….”
At my words, the two of them fell silent again. Apparently it was still a bit awkward when the three of us weren't together.
Why was it, though? The kind of relationship where hanging out as a group was totally fine, but the moment you were alone together, things got a little strange.
Come to think of it, I remember our first script reading….
Back then, I'd never have imagined we'd end up like this. I'd arrived far earlier than my scheduled time too—needless to say, both of them were more attached to Pachehi than they let on.
It's been exactly half a year since I was last here.
So much had happened. And so much had changed. I sat down in a waiting room chair and opened my mouth.
“This brings back memories….”
For one thing, Ju Jun-seo's once-vivid red hair was now covered in black. His sharp, delicate features seemed all the more refined for it.
Chu Ga-eul had cut her hair into a bob. The ends were curled in with a soft bounce, adding a touch of cuteness to her polished face.
Paying no mind to my wistful reminiscing, Jun-seo handed over a drink piled high with whipped cream.
“It wasn't that long ago. Here, drink this.”
I sipped the new seasonal banana caramel cream frappuccino he'd given me and let old memories wash over me.
“I secretly overheard you losing your temper here, you know…. The waiting rooms were right next to each other back then….”
Jun-seo, who'd been nursing an americano, began coughing like a madman. His manager, sitting beside him, dropped his jaw open and stared at me.
“What was it you said again? 'Screw it, just slam some scenes into the female lead or whatever her name is'…. You know, your projection was actually pretty good. Sounded like you were talking right next to me.”
The coughing Jun-seo abruptly stopped. In that moment, his flushed face had gone bone white. Chu Ga-eul gaped in horror.
“You really do have a terrible personality….”
“…And that would be Ga-eul, who used to keep everyone in line with just her eyes. The entire shoot…. When you came up to talk to me at the company dinner, I honestly thought I was about to get punished right then and there. I was so scared. What could I even do? I had no agency, so all I could get was parachute-casting rumors.”
This time it was Chu Ga-eul's face that turned bright red. As I walked them both back through their most embarrassing history, the atmosphere in the waiting room warmed up in a hurry.
“No wonder. When I followed you out that day, your face looked awful. Who said 'terrible personality' to whom, exactly?”
“I only went along with the mood, that's all. I didn't curse at you like you did, did I? Conclusion: you were way worse.”
It was a far cry from the hushed waiting room of moments ago. They say both of them had been taking acting lessons seriously lately, and it showed—their projection had grown by leaps and bounds. Even their enunciation was crisp.
“I did it behind your back, but you said it to my face! And besides, the extra screen time I got thanks to you worked out great for you, didn't it?”
“Someone got hurt, and you're smoothing it over with screen time? Is that really okay?”
“Oh, we're talking screen time? Then I've got something to say too—you grew your part out of pure greed, so you deliberately came with pink hair and—”
“No! Why is that coming up now!”
I savored the taste of the frappuccino while the two of them bickered. This new flavor was delicious.
If this is how it is, we won't be awkward even when we meet up just the two—or three—of us next time.
The Yeo-reum crew could run just fine without me around.
Just then, a faint knock at the waiting room door was buried under their raised voices. Through the gap in the door, a staff member holding a camera poked his face in.
“…We're here for the making-of shoot. Is something the matter, by any chance…?”
I smiled and gave him a suitably vague answer.
“We're fighting over mint chocolate. Jun-seo's against it, and Ga-eul's for it.”
“That's what this is?”
“Of course. Could you come back in about five minutes?”
And five minutes later, when the staff member with the camera returned, we were framed on camera in a state of suitably harmonious warmth.
Both of them had grown so much as actors.
“Come on, sunbae. They called Pachehi the mint chocolate melon bread—so obviously you have to be on Team Mint Choc too.”
“…If you put it that way, I can't exactly argue….”
They'd captured a scene perfect for the opening segment of the making-of video. I turned toward the lens and smiled. It was finally time to say our proper farewell to Pachehi.
“Hello! I'm Han Yeo-reum, playing Pi Chae-won in The Cherry on Top of the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine. Lovely to meet you.”
This time the lead role had gone to Chu Ga-eul, but I didn't regret it one bit. The performance Ga-eul had shown at the script reading let me let go of any lingering attachment with a feeling that was bittersweet but clean.
“Who decided I'm the heroine?”
The Pachehi spinoff was the story of the world Hina inhabited.
Hina comes to realize that she is the heroine of a shoujo manga—but because Hina loves her family, her friends, and everything this world holds, she has no desire to leave the pages of the comic.
“Hina doesn't want hardship, adversity, growth—none of it! No wonder life's been so hard….”
It was the tale of an heroine who, against her will, keeps having incidents erupt around her—Hina's quest to change her own genre.
Ju Jun-seo and I appear briefly in the opening and the ending scenes. The two of them had become the kind of pair whose scenes together now felt completely natural.
In other words—not dating, but not just friends either.
“Shouldn't you be reading something other than workbooks? Like this?”
“I don't even hope to hear 'oppa' from you anymore, so stop calling me that….”
Despite his looks, Jun—a boy who secretly loved shoujo manga—was at the bookstore with Chae-won to buy workbooks. Wondering how to tease her again, Chae-won grabbed the first thing within reach and pulled out a shoujo manga. But the page she opened to was strange.
“Wait, could this be….”
“Is that Hina?”
Hina was in a different shoujo manga. She was in the mystery manga next to it. She was in the cooking manga beside that one.
“She's supposed to be a shoujo manga heroine!”
And then Chu Ga-eul picked up her line.
“Slice-of-life all the way! Something light, like going out to buy pudding—that's the good stuff!”
“…Then why do you keep dragging me around?”
“A certain type of character is essential to slice-of-life. Someone a little dim and foolish, whose only dialogue is a listless 'hmph'! Especially, characters like me need someone like you glued to their side.”
The new male lead of Pachehi was a bit behind Chu Ga-eul in acting skill, but I wasn't worried at all.
Ga-eul, grown beyond recognition, would fill the gap with the character of Hina.
Besides, the aloof-cool-guy type suited Hina's character perfectly. I doubted any glaring acting holes would show.
And so the script reading event wrapped up successfully—but today's Pachehi schedule wasn't over yet. If anything, the real thing was just beginning.
“Yeo-reum, great work. Have some water, water.”
“Thank you. I'll drink it after I change. I have to redo my lipstick in one go anyway.”
Next up was the Blu-ray interview shoot. Coordinator Hwang handed me the school uniform she'd prepared in advance.
I changed into Hyunjego High's uniform for the first time in ages. At some point, Ju Jun-seo and Chu Ga-eul had already changed into their uniforms too.
“Hey. Doesn't it feel weird?”
“I'm a little wistful about it too, but that doesn't mean you get to hold the male lead's seat forever, sunbae…. Greedy for screen time, are we.”
“That's enough out of you.”
Bringing up his earlier fight with Ga-eul over screen time made Jun-seo furrow his brow. Chu Ga-eul gave my back a tiny push with her small hands.
“Han Yeo-reum~. Hurry up and go do your Blu-ray interview already. We are absolutely making a Blu-ray for the spinoff too.”
Well, either way, it felt good. The three of us shot the Blu-ray interview inside JC ENM's in-house studio, dressed up like Hyunjego's classroom. What had been fun, what had been hard, each of our takes on our characters' directions—we filmed for quite a long time, and even then it felt like I wanted to say more.
I hope it turns out well.
And so, along with that modest wish of mine, the script reading video was uploaded a few days later. The reaction? Naturally—
People who had enjoyed Pachehi poured in quickly, so the early view counts and comments were stable, and word of the Pachehi spinoff spread across communities and social media alike.
But what carried the greatest ripple effect of all was—
On the coming 17th, Pachehi plans to launch a crowdfunding campaign for the production of a director's cut DVD and limited-edition Blu-ray.
It was news without precedent—a web drama Blu-ray production. Interest in the crowdfunding came flooding in like a rising tide.
“Finally!”
Ae-ta-mi, after refreshing the page what felt like a hundred times, finally managed to connect to the funding site.
The Cherry on Top of the Parfait Belongs to the Heroine
Today was finally the day the Pachehi Blu-ray funding opened.