The Lead

"There's someone else."

I looked up from the page in my hands.

Harin was watching me from the other side. Only a moment ago she had been slipping her hands into my sleeves, grumbling that she was cold. Now she waited for my answer behind a face I didn't know.

Seven years together.

And still, when she held her mouth shut that tightly, I couldn't tell what she was thinking.

"...Who?"

Harin's brow shifted, just barely.

"No one you know."

Under the table, I closed my hands into fists.

Since when? Last week the shoot had run late. The day before that she had covered someone else's shift, and her messages had gone thin.

Of course the shoot really had run late, and she really had covered the shift. I knew, because I was the one who had gone to pick her up.

Even so, my head was already full of some man I had never met, sitting face to face with Harin.

A man telling her stories I had never heard. A man making her laugh....

"Oppa."

I lifted my head. Harin was waving the script in her hand.

"Next line."

"Ah."

"It's how long has it been, remember. Not who."

I looked down at the page again. That was really what it said.

"Sorry. I mixed them up."

"A little focus, please, scene partner."

Harin tapped my knee, light as anything.

I checked the line with my pen. My second mistake in the space of four lines. At this rate, maybe all I was doing was getting in her way.

"Why this scene, of all of them?"

"Because you can see the feeling turn. At first she's sorry, and then, when the man won't let go, she gets angry."

"The one who wants to break up gets angry too?"

"Being sorry doesn't mean you're a good person, right? That's probably why she cheated."

She wasn't wrong.

I just wasn't sure it was a scene you wanted to rehearse with your boyfriend sitting across from you.

Harin took a sip of coffee gone cold and settled back into the scene. This time I even set a finger on the line, determined not to get it wrong.

People had been telling me I had a good imagination since I was little.

In elementary school I thought that was a compliment. When we wrote stories I did better than anyone else, and I was perfectly happy playing alone. Give me a single toy and I could keep my imagination spread open all day.

The trouble was that I imagined things even when there was no need.

If Mom didn't pick up, I went straight to an accident. If a friend said we should talk for a minute, I combed back through whatever I had done wrong the day before. If my boss said we would talk tomorrow, I was already calculating how I would pay the rent after I quit.

And then Mom had only been in the bath, my friend had wanted to get dinner, and my boss had asked nothing more than which days I wanted off.

If it ended with me worrying alone, that was still the better case. Sometimes I managed to get hurt ahead of time by words the other person had never even said.

Like just now.

"You that tired?"

Harin asked.

"I'm fine. Let's go again."

"No. Let's stop here for today."

With that, she closed the script.

The clock on the wall was a little past ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠eleven. Harin had worked the cafe since morning, gone to an audition in the afternoon, and come home without a proper dinner.

If anyone was exhausted, it was her.

"You practicing tomorrow too?"

"Yeah. If they don't call, I'll have to put in somewhere else."

"How was today's?"

"Hard to say. The director did laugh, though."

Harin fiddled with her straw.

"He laughs a lot anyway, doesn't he?"

Director Kang Taegeon.

I knew him too. We had met a few years back on the set of an indie film Harin was in. I had helped carry equipment and ended up following them all the way to the wrap party. That was how it started.

The film did well, and he came away with the title of famous director. And a man like that had been the one to offer Harin an audition first.

The part was the lead.

"Hyung says he remembers your acting. Doesn't that mean he might cast you?"

"Remembering and handing someone the lead aren't the same thing."

"Still. He wouldn't have called just anyone."

Harin smiled instead of answering.

It was a careful face—wanting to hope, and afraid that hoping too hard would only make the disappointment worse. I had seen that expression plenty of times.

Every day she waited on a result while digging through other audition notices, and whenever the call came to say she hadn't made it, she would tell me, perfectly calm, that she had known all along it wasn't going to happen.

Brrrr—

Harin's phone rang.

A name lit the screen on the table.

Harin looked at me. I hurried to turn the television down.

"Yes, Director."

Spine straight, she looked exactly like someone sitting an interview.

"No. I'm fine. I haven't gone to sleep yet."

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

I gathered the pages into a neat stack. It wasn't anything that needed doing just then. Sitting still was simply hard.

"...Yes?"

Harin's hand stopped.

A drop fell from the straw in her other hand. A small stain bloomed on her pants, and she never noticed.

"Me?"

I set the pages down.

"Yes. I can. My whole schedule... yes. I can move things around."

Her voice climbed, little by little. She cleared her throat and nodded again.

"Thank you. I'll work really hard."

The call was over, but Harin didn't take the phone from her ear.

I waited.

Then, slowly, she lowered her hand and looked at me.

"Oppa."

"Yeah."

"They said I got it."

I had already guessed, and my heart still kicked.

"The lead?"

"Yeah!"

Harin smiled.

"He wants to talk contract next week."

I opened my arms. She came across on her knees and folded into them. She knocked her foot against the table in the rush and never said a word about it hurting. The arms around my neck tightened.

"That's great."

I patted her back.

"Really great, Harin."

Her face against my shoulder was hot. For a while she didn't speak. I started to say something more, then let it go.

I couldn't have said how many times I had imagined a day like this.

Harin accepting an award. Her face hung huge in a movie theater.

But the first thing she actually said wasn't what I had pictured.

"Guess I can cut back on the part-time work now."

I laughed and nodded.

Harin lifted her face.

"Want me to come pick you up when you get off?"

"The lead actress?"

"A lead actress isn't allowed to pick up her boyfriend? I'm taking the chance to announce it. This one's my man!"

The corners of her eyes were wet, but the words were crisp and sure.

I wiped the edge of her eye with the back of my hand, and she closed her eyes for a moment. Then she caught my wrist and leaned her cheek in a little further.

"Buy me chicken tonight."

"At this hour?"

"Your girlfriend just became a lead actress and you can't even spring for chicken?"

There was no arguing with that.

I picked up my phone. Tonight I didn't care what the delivery fee came to.

A week later, the day we were meant to meet Taegeon-hyung.

He was already sitting in the cafe when we arrived.

He raised a hand from the back of the room, and the planter behind him hid those broad shoulders about halfway. The black knit clung tight across his forearms.

"Doyun. Hard to get a look at your face."

"You're the busy one, hyung."

"If I'm busy, that's when you ought to call."

He stood and offered his hand. The moment we shook, mine all but disappeared inside his.

See it again and I still couldn't tell whether that body belonged to a bodybuilder or a film director.

Harin laughed beside me.

"Doyun says you make him uncomfortable, Director."

"Hey. What did I even do."

"I've never said that."

Both of them looked at me at once, and I felt wrongly accused for no reason at all. Hyung laughed and waved me into a seat.

Two copies of the script lay on the table.

What Harin had been given at the audition was only a handful of scenes. Today was the first time seeing the full script.

"We're still talking contract terms with the company. Harin, read it through, and if there's anything you're curious about, just ask."

Hyung pushed a script across.

I glanced at the copy in front of me and asked.

"Is it all right if I read it too?"

"That's why I brought two. Harin said the two of you have been rehearsing."

Harin drew one copy over in front of me.

I turned the cover, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the character introductions came up. A woman living with a lover she had been with for a long time. And a stranger stepping into the ordinary days of that woman's life.

I read as far as the next line, then went back to the beginning.

"It really is a makjang film, isn't it."

"It is."

Hyung took a sip of coffee.

"It's the kind of film where people think they know each other, and the important things are exactly the ones they can't say."

Harin was already on the next page. The face that had been smiling a moment ago had gone quiet. I watched that profile, then dropped my eyes back to the script.

The story went like this.

Without meaning to, I looked at Harin's phone.

Inside the clear case I had bought her, a photo of the two of us was slipped in. Last winter—the sea wind so hard that neither of us could quite open our eyes.

"Here."

Harin held up a page.

"In this part, did she actually go to his place?"

Hyung leaned forward.

"Read on for that. For now the audience is going to think she did."

"So I play the scene as written, and the reason is something we find out later."

"Right. Some of it's mixed in with what the man imagines, too."

I pressed the corner of the page with my fingertip.

Harin kept on with her questions. Why the woman dodged an answer. How differently she ought to carry the feeling from the scene before.

Sometimes hyung answered at once. Sometimes he thought for a moment, then explained.

All the while, I was reading the same stage direction.

Just two sentences.

But in my head the scene went on after the door had shut. Harin set her bag down and turned to look at someone. I reached for whatever expression came next and flipped the page in a hurry.

"Mark anything that feels like too much."

Hyung said it to Harin.

"Those are things we need to talk through properly before we shoot."

"Yes. I'll read it and tell you."

Harin nodded, serious.

I drank the cold coffee. My throat was dry, and still it wouldn't go down.

Harin had the lead.

It was what she had waited years for. She had laughed in the middle of the chicken, and she had laughed again before sleep, setting her alarm.

She hadn't worn an expression like that in a long time.

Even so, maybe I couldn't help how little the story sat with me. As a man with a girlfriend, there were scenes that got under my skin.

The part where the protagonist imagines his own girlfriend out there, having something awful done to her.

What if that were Harin?

With someone bigger than me. Someone stronger....

For an instant, Harin and Taegeon-hyung rose up in my mind.

I shook my head hard and snapped out of it. Under the table, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Harin's knee touched mine.

I turned, and she asked in a small voice.

"What's wrong? Stomach?"

"No. I'm fine..."

Harin studied my face.

I smiled first, and she seemed to relax; the corner of her mouth lifted.

While hyung went over the next dates, Harin wrote her name at the very front of the script.

Seo Harin.

Beneath it she wrote the character's name, and then her hand paused. She looked quietly at the name she had written, then tilted the script toward me.

"I'll do it right. I promise."

I nodded, watching her lips move without a sound.

"You will."

On that, at least, I didn't hesitate for a second.

But on the way home, too, that ominous scene from earlier kept rising in my head....