True Geniuses Are Different from the Sprout (3)

Fortunately, the hospital bills were covered by the KSM Drama Department's budget.

Whether it was sheer luck or not, I had escaped with nothing worse than a few light abrasions on my back, and according to the doctor, I wouldn't have a single scar or lingering aftereffect to show for it.

As a result, the time between being admitted to the hospital and completing my discharge paperwork came to a grand total of three days.

But thanks to the private room KSM had put me up in under its own name, those three days brought a stream of entirely unexpected visitors.

"……And you are?"

"I'm Min Byung-dae, the PD in charge ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of KSM's new drama, The Spy and I."

"I'm Ryu Soo-min, the writer of The Spy and I."

Making any kind of media content — a drama, a film, anything — truly takes the labor of an enormous number of people. There are those who direct and shoot the footage, those who edit, those who act, and then everyone handling the countless odds and ends in between.

But the PD, as a rule, sits at the very center of it all, managing and supervising every last one of them. That's precisely why a PD doesn't personally wrangle every extra actor on set. More often than not, that job is delegated entirely to assistant directors and floor directors.

"I didn't expect the PD himself to come all the way here. And the writer, too?"

"It was an accident on my set, so it's only right that I come. Your name is Han Seol… is that correct? How are you feeling?"

"Well enough. The doctor says there's no problem with me being discharged today, in fact."

"That's a relief. We nearly had a catastrophe on our hands. Thanks to you, Yoo-hee is alive."

The memory of the accident seemed to flash before him; PD Min Byung-dae furrowed his brow and gave an involuntary shudder. But he quickly shook it off and continued, choosing his words with care.

"By the way — you came to us as an extra. Have you always been interested in acting? Was being an actor ever a dream of yours, perhaps…?"

In that instant, I caught the subtle shift in Min Byung-dae's expression. A question that drifted away from the natural flow of the conversation, delivered in a tone clearly designed to sound me out.

People who are fishing for a particular answer always betray the same tell: a faint thread of tension and anxiety just beneath the surface.

So what answer did the PD want from me?

"An actor, huh… It's a glamorous line of work, isn't it? I'd say it's the kind of job everyone wishes they could try at least once in their life."

And so I decided to play along with his tune for the moment. The first rule of any negotiation, after all, is to make the other side sweat — to dangle what they want just out of reach.

And judging by the reactions of PD Min Byung-dae and Writer Ryu Soo-min, my answer had landed right where they'd hoped.

"Oh, thank goodness."

"'Thank goodness,' you say?"

"I'm not fond of beating around the bush, so I'll get straight to the point. Would you be interested in playing a bit part in The Spy and I?"

The moment I laid the pie they wanted on the negotiation table, Min Byung-dae didn't hesitate to name his price. If anything, it was my side that ended up flustered.

He said it casually enough, but what he was offering — 'Will you become an actor?' — was enough to make my chest swell in spite of myself.

"Hmm."

Still, I held my poker face as I studied PD Min Byung-dae. Playing the role would be a good thing, of course — but there were several parts of this I simply couldn't wrap my head around.

"If you're offering, I'd certainly like to try, even for a minor role… but may I ask why you've made this offer to me, specifically? I confess I don't quite understand why a PD would come here in person to cast a single bit part."

The me of today was a reasonably promising acting hopeful — decent-looking face, good height. But that was all. No matter how interesting a prospect an actor might be, the usual practice was to reach out through an assistant director, not for the PD himself to come sprinting over in person.

And besides — during the shoot, I'd done nothing but walk down a street for about ten seconds as an extra. For them to come looking for me when I hadn't shown them anything at all was, frankly, the stranger part of the whole affair.

"Allow me to explain that part."

At that, Writer Ryu Soo-min, who had been listening from behind, gently nudged PD Min Byung-dae aside and stepped up next to me.

"Would you like to see this first?"

"……?"

What Ryu Soo-min held out was the footage from the accident — the moment I'd pulled the idol, Nam Yoo-hee, out of harm's way. From where I stood, a memory that existed only in first person suddenly began playing back from a stranger's point of view.

Pure, unedited accident footage — no cuts, no direction, nothing.

"Why are you showing me—"

"Shh. This is the really impressive part."

"I'm sorry?"

Ryu Soo-min pressed a finger to her lips for silence, lips still moving silently, eyes riveted to the screen.

The truck, a hair's breadth from mowing Nam Yoo-hee down. Her eyes wide with terror as she stared at it.

[Screeeech!]

But in that very moment, just outside the camera's frame, the back of a man came hurtling into view, sprinting at full tilt. The man wrapped Nam Yoo-hee in his arms — and with a motion stripped of every wasted movement, swept her clear of the truck's path.

"Kyaaa!"

"……Is this a cut from the drama?"

"Nope! Isn't it incredible?"

The absurd part was that the raw footage, entirely untouched by editing, had been captured with the pulse-pounding intensity of a first-rate stunt action sequence. The accident hadn't actually happened, so I supposed I was allowed to say this — but even by my own estimation, it looked pretty damn cool.

Ryu Soo-min turned to me with a beatific smile. And then—

"Would you mind standing up for just a moment, if it's not too much trouble?"

"You're tall, and your face is… frankly, too handsome for an extra, but then, handsome is always right… and…"

She studied me up and down for a long while before breaking into a grin incomparably brighter than anything she'd worn before. It was a look of satisfaction borderline enough to give me chills.

"You're perfect. You match Muyoung, the character I just dreamed up, exactly."

"Muyoung?"

Her flushed face came barreling in close, catching me off guard, but she paid my reaction not the slightest mind as she pressed on.

"Muyoung is a character I thought of the moment I saw you save Nam Yoo-hee. It just came to me — ping! — out of nowhere, and then the whole backstory just went phababak! and poured out—!"

For a while, Min Byung-dae and I simply had to sit back and enjoy the one-woman show of Ryu Soo-min running away with herself.

A mysterious man who throws himself into danger to save the female lead. A fully dimensional figure with a troubled past, destined to serve as the male lead's friend and the female lead's ally — the indispensable pinch of seasoning in every scene.

Listening to her description, I began to dimly understand why these two had come looking for me.

"So, in short… you came to me because you want to use this accident footage?"

"Exactly! A man who ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠risks his life to save the heroine! And he's handsome, too. Call it a cliché if you like — ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠isn't it a deliciously good story?"

"Heh."

My prediction had been dead on, and I couldn't quite hide my bemusement. Back in my old life, official duties had kept me too busy to have many chances to watch dramas or films.

Even so, I could not possibly fail to grasp how preposterous it was for a terrestrial broadcaster to turn real accident footage into a drama scene.

"I'll grant that it wasn't in the original outline, but is it actually legal to use an accident site as a broadcast scene? One wrong move and the whole station could come apart at the seams."

At my question, PD Min Byung-dae beside me answered with deliberate care.

"We're prepared to shoulder that. We've looked into it, and by Korea Communications Standards Commission guidelines it doesn't trip any review violations. I won't bore you with every detail of our situation, but internally, the decision to use this footage has more or less been finalized."

A look crept across PD Min Byung-dae's face — too modest to be called naked ambition, but grand enough to be called hunger.

"But we didn't stir all this up without a thought, either. I spoke as if everything were settled a moment ago, but I have no intention of gambling on a long shot."

"Which means…?"

"We'll be holding an audition for the role of Muyoung. Bit part or not, it demands a certain level of acting ability. So — are you interested?"

At PD Min Byung-dae's words, I finally nodded, as if everything had clicked into place. No matter how perfect a scene might be, if the actor cast in it turned out to be spectacularly bad, the character might as well not exist at all.

What's more, the role I'd be taking, minor though it was, would cross paths with the main cast often enough to qualify as a supporting bit part. If my acting were sloppy, it would sour the tone of every scene it touched, and the integrity of the whole production would suffer for it. That much was obvious.

"When and where will the audition take place?"

But I broke into a knowing smile at PD Min Byung-dae's offer. A lifetime of dreaming about the profession called actor — try as I might, I couldn't find a single reason to refuse.

Hwang Gwang-pyo, Director of KSM's Drama Department. These days, he harbored a deep cynicism about every drama KSM put into production.

"An absolute mess."

Hateful comments flooded in the moment any video related to KSM dramas started playing. To be fair, the station did delete the worst of the abuse and defamation at the corporate level — but scraping through a board that had already been overrun only dredged up a fresh wave of inventive new vitriol.

"Damn it. That shaman really does know her stuff."

Today marked exactly one year since Hwang Gwang-pyo had taken the director's seat. When the title was first pinned to his chest, he'd made the trip back to his hometown and sought out the most renowned fortune-teller he could find for a proper offering ceremony.

But for all the trouble of the journey, the shaman had laid out his coming year with brutal candor.

Hwang Gwang-pyo had flown into a rage, told her not to spout such filthy nonsense, and walked out — but over the year that followed, one project after another did indeed collapse.

The night before a shoot, the lead actor came down with an infectious illness and filming was postponed indefinitely. On the day of another shoot, a set abruptly caved in, demolishing the equipment along with it. At one point, he'd filed more incident reports in his single year as director than he had in his entire tenure as a young PD.

And then, most recently, word had reached him that a traffic accident had nearly occurred on the set of the drama in development, The Spy and I — and ever since, he'd been plunged into an endless spiral of existential dread.

"I suppose I should be grateful… that at least nobody got hurt this time."

His gaze drifted toward the staff beyond the glass wall of his office. He'd had days like that once, too — brimming with passion, shouting that no crisis could ever break his fighting spirit.

But failure is the mother of success, as they say, and in the end he'd managed to carve his own three syllables into the director's nameplate at KSM.

"That kid will have his day eventually, I suppose."

Through the eyes of Hwang Gwang-pyo, PD Min Byung-dae came weaving through the cluttered mass of employees toward the director's office. Once a promising young talent, the junior colleague now carried the label of washed-up has-been all around the station.

Watching him through the glass, Director Hwang Gwang-pyo slowly straightened in his chair and waited for him to enter.

Knock knock—

"Come in."

At Hwang Gwang-pyo's call, PD Min Byung-dae slid the door open and poked his head halfway in.

"Are you in?"

"You knocked, and you're asking that? What kind of joke is this?"

"Ah. Right, of course."

"……"

To Director Hwang Gwang-pyo's eye, Min Byung-dae's condition seemed profoundly off. How to put it… it was like watching his own young son fidgeting helplessly after smashing a flowerpot playing ball indoors — the exact game he'd been told never to play.

"Did you do something wrong? Or is there something you've done to me?"

"Ha ha. Nothing like that. It's just… well, ah. The weather was so nice, I thought I'd drop by. It's…"

PD Min Byung-dae hemmed and hawed like a puppy desperate for a walk, dragging out his words and stalling. But stalling was fine only for so long — once the silence stretched past a full minute, the one kept waiting inevitably lost patience too.

"Just say it. If you screwed up, you write an apology letter. If you can't handle that, you take your disciplinary action and your pay cut. Simple."

"…You have a real gift for saying horrifying things like they're nothing at all, Director."

"Has this past year made me numb or something? Nothing much shocks me anymore, so out with it while the door's open."

"Then here goes."

PD Min Byung-dae drew a deep breath and stepped fully into the office.

"Regarding The Spy and I, currently in development — there's a video I'd like you to take a look at, Director."

"A video?"

He rummaged in the inside pocket of his suit jacket and produced a single USB drive, then strode over ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to connect it to the TV set into the side of the director's office.

What played was the accident footage — the very video that had kept PD Min Byung-dae awake with anxiety. Though one segment had been trimmed in editing: the moment a crew member bellowed 'Miss Nam Yoo-hee, get out of the way!'

[BOOM—!]

[KYAAAH!]

……

"……Since when did you have this kind of talent?"

Having watched the footage to the very end, Director Hwang Gwang-pyo made no effort to hide his astonishment. All the more so because calling it the work of the Min Byung-dae he knew would have been generous — the sheer polish was overwhelming.

"How on earth did you edit this? Going by the sense of place alone, you'd swear it was shot in a single long take. And the camera composition is pure art… The DP on this shoot was Jung Deok-jin, wasn't it?"

"Ah — yes, that's right."

"Handled well, this could genuinely become something… Hang on. Why is your face doing that?"

"There's a bit more I need to explain… but first, watch this."

Min Byung-dae pulled out the ace he'd prepared especially to get the accident footage approved. This was the final card for slotting Han Seol into The Spy and I — or rather, for slotting in Muyoung.

Kzzt.

[Shall I just begin?]

[Yes. Just act naturally, however you feel.]

[Then…]

……

"……Is this actor really a rookie?"

"Yes. So I'm told."

"Unbelievable…"

It was the audition footage for the character Muyoung — the raw, unvarnished performance of a man for whom method acting had never been a technique, only the life he'd lived.