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Hwang Min-gwon — the unknown director whose debut feature had gone down in spectacular flames — was staring holes through the monitor just like every other film professional in the country.
"Dude, this is insane. You can actually feel Korean cinema pushing out into the world right now."
"Yeah, but even then it's only the occasional invitation to one of the Big Three festivals. Work in Hollywood long enough and the condescension will make you want to cry."
Hwang Min-gwon turned toward his friend Jeong Yo-han, who was shaking his head beside him, curiosity plain on his face.
"Speaking of which, Yo-han — why the hell did you come back all of a sudden? Your reputation as a CG director in the States was only going up."
"Ah, drop it. Don't ask. Just watch the awards."
"I'm still a nobody even in Korea, and you were doing well in Hollywood. So why come back?"
Yo-han shot him a glare as Min-gwon kept pressing.
"Hey. I said don't ask. I came back to make a movie with you."
"Yeah, right. What would a big-shot like you want with an unknown director like me? You broke up with Katie and flew home in a rage, didn't you?"
"…Ha. If you know that much, just go get us some beer."
Hwang Min-gwon studied his friend for a long moment, then clapped him on the shoulder, rose from his seat, and headed for the living room.
He made a quick stop at the bathroom, opened the fridge, and was pulling out two cans of beer when Jeong Yo-han shouted from in front of the computer.
"Oh! Hwang Min-gwon, get over here! This is a historic moment!"
"What? What is it?"
He sprinted back with the beers in hand. On the monitor Yo-han was pointing at, Director Park Chan-hong and actor Ryu Yeon-woo were beaming in the audience, locked in a bright embrace.
"What — they won?"
"The host definitely said 'Golden Bear.' They got the Golden Bear!"
"Holy shit! Hang on."
Hwang Min-gwon yanked out his smartphone and opened the news tab on a portal site.
"Nothing yet? No articles."
"Dude, the reporters are watching the same feed we are. How would there already be articles?"
Then he hit refresh, and the headlines began to pour in.
"Wait — they're up. Look at this."
Jeong Yo-han stuck out his tongue at the phone screen Min-gwon held out.
"Wow. Watching a historic moment in real time. But wait — Korea's never won a Golden Bear before? We've been invited every year."
"Yeah. We've taken the Silver Bear a bunch of times, and there was one Golden Bear for a short film. But a Golden Bear in the main competition? This is the first."
At Min-gwon's words, Yo-han turned his eyes back to the screen.
Inside the monitor, Director Park Chan-hong was smiling radiantly, trophy in hand, delivering his acceptance speech.
Hwang Min-gwon watched with something like envy and let out a long sigh.
"I can't even be jealous of this. Director Park's commercial career is already in a league of its own."
"Keep at it and maybe you'll get there someday too."
The camera cut to Ryu Yeon-woo and Seo Ji-eun applauding from the audience seats.
"Hey, can you even picture it? Twenty-one years old — a ten-million-ticket movie at home, a Golden Bear overseas."
"Ryu Yeon-woo is twenty-one? That's insane."
Of course Yeon-woo had not only starred but also produced and financed the film — a fact still unknown to the public — but even without that, the achievement he had just added to his career was monumental.
"Ha… I want Ryu Yeon-woo as the lead in the movie we're prepping too."
"You think that'll happen?"
"…Ugh. I'm dying."
Yeon-woo, eyes hollow from the celebratory drinks that had stretched deep into the awards after-party the night before, clutched his burning stomach and sat up groggily in bed.
It had been a genuine triumph.
Privately he had thought they might snag something like Best Screenplay among the Silver Bears, and that landing the Jury Grand Prix — widely regarded as the runner-up prize — would already have been a jackpot.
"But a Golden Bear…"
He washed his face with cold water.
Even after sleeping on it, the achievement he had pulled off the night before still didn't feel real.
The cool water against his skin cleared a little of the fog from his head.
There was one more thing to collect in Berlin, so Yeon-woo prepared in a hurry.
"No rest, straight back out. At least I'm young now — that helps."
In his previous life, even with a body built like a combat weapon, he could never have matched the raw energy of youth. It would have been twice as hard as this.
Dressed in a black hoodie and a mask, Yeon-woo stepped out of the hotel.
The Lichtenberg Library opened at seven, so he left at six-thirty, before the morning commute had even begun.
"The flight's at two in the afternoon, right?"
Today he was finally heading back to Korea, which meant everything had to be finished beforehand — and the schedule was tighter than it looked.
He stopped by Berlin Station and checked the luggage locker where he had tucked the payment for the intelligence request inside a book.
Locker forty-seven…
The machine's display showed it as available.
Which meant the contents inside had been collected.
Of the roughly two billion won in euros total, half had gone to the request-acceptance fee — about one billion won in Korean currency.
It was the minimum amount the service would even accept, but for an ordinary person it was still a serious sum.
Some would say you couldn't even buy a decent apartment on Seoul land with that money. Flip the perspective, though, and it was enough to purchase a coveted piece of real estate in the capital of a developed nation.
His best guess was that, on the black intelligence market, information about a secret organization inside Korea simply wasn't that valuable.
The worth of intelligence always hinged on who was willing to pay how much for it.
If the information had been something about North Korea that even the NIS hadn't mapped, the "Government of the Republic of Korea" would have been a guaranteed buyer and the price would have soared. But intel on a domestic drug-trafficking syndicate? There simply weren't many people eager to buy.
Whether the organization called Baeksol even knew about the black intelligence market was unclear — but they had almost certainly focused on erasing their tracks only inside Korea itself.
For all those reasons, the information was unlikely to command a high price overseas, which was why he had submitted the request at the minimum fee.
No idea what quality of intel I'll get, but they clearly accepted the job.
Yeon-woo hurried toward the Lichtenberg Library.
Meanwhile, back in the Republic of Korea, a flood of morning articles had plunged the country into a whirlpool of emotions.
In a university club room, students clustered in small groups talking about Sketch.
"Insane. Did you see the news? The movie Seo Ji-eun shot won the Golden Bear."
"Did you even know what a Golden Bear was before this? I only found out from the articles."
"He definitely didn't know either. He's just pretending after reading the news. And it says Park Chan-hong and Ryu Yeon-woo co-produced it — so why are you calling it Seo Ji-eun's movie?"
"I dunno. Guys don't care. Seo Ji-eun's the female lead, that's why."
The internet, of course, was burning even hotter than reality.
"Hello everyone! WreckerMan Cheol-ju here. The news I'm delivering faster than anyone else today is — drumroll — our film Sketch winning the Golden Bear! Applause!"
WreckerMan was a YouTuber who hauled entertainment issues into frame the way a tow truck hauled cars from accident scenes.
Last time he had tried to milk sweet view counts out of the Ryu Yeon-woo–Seo Ji-eun dating rumor and failed spectacularly — but this remarkable young actor, Ryu Yeon-woo, the issue-making machine himself, had once again delivered a piping-hot story.
"You all remember this video from last time, right? Linked down in the bottom right — the Ryu Yeon-woo and Seo Ji-eun dating-rumor fiasco! If you haven't seen it, check that one out too. Now, the film I mentioned back then was exactly Sketch. What? You already know? Well, of course — the news has been talking about nothing else all morning."
He paused for breath, put up photos of Ryu Yeon-woo and Park Chan-hong as B-roll, and pressed on.
"So what scoop did I bring you today? The domestic release schedule for this film, and the behind-the-scenes stories of how it was made. Did you know actor Ryu Yeon-woo was also involved in producing this one?"
However he had gotten his hands on the material, WreckerMan put up the graphics and delivered the news that Sketch was scheduled to open nationwide in one week — along with the behind-the-scenes detail that the film had been made as an independent production with zero outside investment, financed entirely out of Director Park Chan-hong's and actor Ryu Yeon-woo's own pockets.
These days, information often spread farther through YouTubers uploading videos than through the evening news.
Unlike news broadcasts that delivered only bare facts in restrained tones, YouTubers spoke as if they were revealing some tremendous secret, which locked the listener's attention far more tightly.
It was the same among office workers over lunch.
"Team Lead, isn't this incredible? Idols, and now our movies taking first place at the Berlin Film Festival."
"Ah, the Golden Bear, was it? I saw it on the morning news. Director Park Chan-hong has always been a big deal."
"According to some YouTuber, Ryu Yeon-woo co-produced this one. They submitted it as an indie film."
"Really? Impressive for such a young guy. The one from Master Plan, right?"
Team Lead Kim Sil-mu listened to his colleague, then picked up his phone and opened the mountain-bike club café he visited regularly.
Internet communities were reacting even more fiercely than the real world — and the response in Ryu Yeon-woo's fan café, Woo's, was a furnace blazing out of control.
The moment they stepped out past the arrivals gate, a storm of camera flashes erupted.
The public's interest in a director and actors returning home in glory with the Golden Bear from the Berlin International Film Festival was, as expected, enormous.
"Just as the director requested, we've set up a space farther inside so we don't inconvenience other airport passengers."
"Good. Well done."
"This way, please."
A production staffer arrived to guide the party, and they agreed to hold a brief interview in the VIP lounge prepared at the airport.
The moment the interview began, reporters from various papers raised their hands in a scramble.
"The director and actors have only just returned and are still dealing with jet lag. We can't take too many questions, so we'll take five simple ones in order. The reporter in front."
The staffer asked for understanding and pointed to the journalist at the very front, who spoke up.
"Hello. Ju Hye-yeong, CBC Entertainment. First of all, congratulations on the award. We've heard this film was produced as an independent feature — could you tell us why you chose that route?"
At the question, Director Park Chan-hong, seated on the sofa, leaned slightly forward and considered.
"Hmm. With this film, I wanted to go back to my beginnings and shoot from there. In the story, the young people Jay and Nari are clumsy, but they throw themselves at the world with fierce passion — and I thought, even as an old man, why shouldn't I be able to do the same?"
Having finished his answer, Park Chan-hong started to settle back against the sofa, then a sudden curiosity made him speak again.
"I'd also like to hear actor Ryu Yeon-woo's thoughts on the same question. As the director, I've been curious myself."
When Park Chan-hong looked at him and passed the question over, Yeon-woo — who had been sitting beside him with his head slightly bowed, listening carefully — lifted his gaze.
He sank into thought for a moment.
Since his reincarnation, this had been his first return to Berlin — the city where he had once been stationed as an agent in his previous life — and on the flight home he had found himself lost in all kinds of reflections.
After a brief pause, Yeon-woo nodded and opened his mouth.
"I've always found that things which shine only now and then look more beautiful than things that shine all the time."
It was hard to tell whether he was answering the reporter or speaking to himself.
Then he continued.
"As you live, those occasional shining moments do come — and when you think about it, romance is always what creates them. And romance stands at the opposite pole from efficiency."
He smiled gently at the reporters and spoke again.
"Romance is born when you deliberately take the hard road, even though you know the easy one. The moment I read this screenplay, that's what I felt."
The room fell quiet for a beat. No one had expected a young man in his early twenties to answer with the word romance.
"So if you want to see what that romance actually is — please watch Sketch in theaters."
He broke the atmosphere with a witty close and a wink, and faint smiles had already found their way onto the reporters' faces.
"Heyyy. Winking is my job."
Seo Ji-eun's playful grumble from beside him drew a soft ripple of laughter through the lounge.
Behind them, manager Kim Min-su watched quietly and gave a small nod.
"Ever since the velvet antler training at the last fan signing, the actor's charm work has become completely natural too."
More questions poured in for Park Chan-hong and Seo Ji-eun as well; as announced in advance, they answered only a few before wrapping up the interview.
Still carrying the fatigue of the long journey, the Sketch team agreed to save their proper reunion for later and dispersed for now.
A van sent by LN Entertainment picked up stylist Lee Ye-eun — who had come all the way to Germany — Team Leader Jeong Hyeok, manager Kim Min-su, and Yeon-woo, and headed for Seoul.
The moment he finished unpacking at the officetel, Yeon-woo picked up his smartphone and hit the call button.
Not family. Not friends.
Not Representative Kim Ju-seong.
Not his fellow actors either.
"Yes, speaking."
"Hae-un. Come up to Seoul right now. We pulled off something pretty big in Berlin."
"I already came after seeing the articles about your return. I'll be there within twenty minutes."
He ended the call, drew from the inner pocket of his coat a slip of paper dense with numbers — something that looked like a cipher table — and smiled.
"Interesting. You Baeksol bastards."