Amateur Basketball Team
The meeting with Director Kim Han-su was scheduled for the very next day.
Yeon-woo headed to the company early that morning.
It wasn't only Yeon-woo who made his way to the office at the welcome of that familiar name. Son Jin-uk had been the male lead in Summer's Closet, and Jeong Cheol-min was Director Kim Han-su's junior from university.
And now they're both actors under Saebyeol Entertainment. They'll be appearing in this drama together.
Yeon-woo recalled the first time he had met Director Kim Han-su.
Back at the audition, when I knew nothing about acting and thought all I needed was to pull faces, I just performed the script I'd prepared.
Even so, Director Kim Han-su had cast him as Cha Woo-joo then, which let him launch his career at once. The experience Yeon-woo had built through work after work as an actor was nothing like those early days, so he himself was curious how differently he might perform under the same director now.
When Yeon-woo opened the conference-room door and stepped inside, a familiar face was waiting.
"Director."
"Oh, Yeon-woo. It's been a while."
The same warm voice, unchanged as ever. This was a director who had always used polite speech with everyone—rookies, high-school students like Yeon-woo had been, and every member of the crew alike.
Yeon-woo approached, took his hand, and smiled.
"Have you been well?"
"Me? After the last project wrapped I went abroad for a while to rest. You can see the tan, can't you?"
Director Kim Han-su smiled as he rolled up a suit sleeve just enough to show skin that had indeed darkened considerably.
"So you went off to some nice place all by yourself and left the rest of us behind."
When Yeon-woo grinned and teased him, the director smiled right back.
"Even overseas, news about you kept finding its way to my ears, Yeon-woo. And I hear you've been doing stage work in a small theater lately?"
"Haha. Are you sure you only just got back to Korea, Director? You're completely up to speed on everything here."
"I heard it from Lighting Director Im Seong-su. He's been working with you in Daehangno lately and spent a full hour on the phone raving about how much fun it is. Besides, when you're abroad you end up watching Korean news even more."
Yeon-woo nodded.
Lighting Director Im Seong-su originally handled lighting on Director Kim Han-su's team. So when the director took time off, he must have picked up side work with other crews.
Just then the conference-room door opened and Son Jin-uk and Jeong Cheol-min walked in.
"Aigoo, Senior!"
"Director, it's been a long time."
At the sight of those welcome faces, Director Kim Han-su's eyes widened.
"What? I never heard either of you were coming today."
The men who hadn't seen one another in ages caught up properly, then took their seats. Watching them with a smile, CEO Jeong Hyeok spoke.
"As you may already have heard through Executive Director Yoon Mi-yeon, nothing about our new project is decided yet except the genre."
"Yes. I'm well aware."
Director Kim Han-su drew a bundle of papers from his bag.
"It's still rough and will need adaptation, but this is the story I've been thinking of."
He handed the pages around. It was far too short to call a full scenario; a synopsis was closer to the truth. Receiving the unexpected pages, Son Jin-uk and Jeong Cheol-min both stared.
"Wait—you brought a story with you?"
"Our senior had it all planned out, huh."
Looking over the synopsis, Yeon-woo smiled.
"So you already had a sports drama you wanted to write, Director?"
Director Kim Han-su smiled in return.
"Wanting to see all of you after so long is part of it, of course."
Yeon-woo studied the pages. They were so rough they were little more than bare bones; the protagonist didn't even have a name. Basketball was the central material. The story he skimmed was a little different from what he had expected.
Hmm? Not professional basketball—amateur basketball.
It was only a synopsis, so anything could still change, yet as he read a question formed. Compared with the rough storyline, the protagonist's character design was remarkably detailed. The subject line simply read "Amateur Basketball (changeable)," while the description of the lead filled nearly a full page.
"Director. The protagonist's description is quite detailed—is there an actual model for him?"
Director Kim Han-su gave a somewhat awkward smile.
"…Yes. It's me."
Jeong Cheol-min, still reading, lifted his head.
"You, Senior? Is this your story?"
"Well, it's hard to call it a true story, of course, and as you can see I added imagination to a rough outline. Still, the protagonist's background was written with myself in mind to some extent."
At that, Jeong Cheol-min clapped his hands as if something had just clicked.
"Oh, right! Back in college you really loved basketball, Senior."
Those had been the days right after a popular basketball drama had finished its run, when Korean professional basketball was at its peak; countless university students played the game. Even so, Kim Han-su had stood out for how much he loved it and how well he played.
"Didn't you always referee the basketball games at the school sports festivals, Senior?"
"Ahem. You remember the strangest things, Junior."
Basketball has so many fine-grained rules beyond the fouls and violations everyone knows—time rules and the rest—that ordinary people can never serve as referees. Before Jeong Cheol-min even enrolled, Kim Han-su had always played as a regular on amateur club teams.
Listening to the exchange, Yeon-woo nodded.
So it's an autobiographical story.
He had filmed one work before in which a director had taken his own life and shaped it into a narrative—Director Park Chan-hong's Sketch. There had been plenty of adaptation, of course, but it had been the story of immigrant parents and their second-generation son.
And I never once regretted choosing that film.
Yeon-woo turned back to the synopsis and began reading it slowly and carefully.
Born the so-called "child of a well-off family," with both parents lawyers who ran their own firm, the protagonist had been steered into go from an early age. Among his peers he was a promising youth player hard to match.
But go had only ever been a way to train him to keep his seat for long hours of study; his parents never wanted him to continue with it.
"How precarious is it to make a living from go as a profession, and this kid is having useless daydreams. Of course when you grow up you'll follow us into the law. Did you finish the assignments I gave you today? Hurry into your room."
Living a life endlessly tailored and tightly fitted like his parents' custom clothes—leftover scraps cut away without mercy—the protagonist's illness finally erupted around high-school age. The cut-away scraps had been his individuality; the fit tailored to his parents' bodies constricted his chest until he could barely breathe. In a way it was only natural.
Whether to call it an illness or the manifestation of some ability, he himself thought of it as a mental disorder. Every facial expression, every flicker of a fingertip, the twitch of an Adam's apple, the slightest change in the shape of lips—countless visual details poured into his head. Like the battle of moves in go, he would calculate one step, two steps ahead, analyzing and predicting the other person's next action as if reading the future.
In daily life he came to see every single movement of every person he met slowly and with perfect clarity. Just as when he had read an opponent's moves as a child at the go board, time itself seemed to slow while his mind raced ahead at tremendous speed.
But it was not an ability. It was a curse. It looked like something that could make a movie hero, yet in reality his overloaded head ached as if it would burst and his heart hammered so wildly that ordinary life became impossible. He eventually dropped out of high school and lived like a wreck, shuttling only between home and hospital.
Then one day, by chance, he saw people playing basketball at the street court under the bridge by the river near his house. Ten players from both teams moved in chaotic patterns; the visual information flooded in and he began analyzing it automatically. Afraid the symptoms would return, he quickly looked away—yet his head did not feel ready to explode, and his heartbeat stayed calm.
"Huh? What is this?"
He looked back. The movements of everyone on the court entered his eyes again.
"That one will pass to the player in front. Dribble behind the leg, cut left, jump—but the defender charging in will block it."
Exactly as he predicted, the players moved.
"But why am I still okay…?"
He realized that even when this symptom—illness or ability, he still could not tell—manifested, it was uniquely bearable only with basketball.
Having finished the pages, Yeon-woo quietly looked at Director Kim Han-su.
"Director. If this is developed well, it could be really fun."
"Is that so?"
Jeong Cheol-min seemed to have finished as well; he raised a hand.
"Senior. This kimbap-shop owner—did you write him with me in mind?"
"That's right."
"Aigoo, how did you know I like kimbap?"
For any sports drama, given the age difference, Jeong Cheol-min had expected to appear as a director or coach. But according to the story Director Kim Han-su had prepared, it was amateur basketball—so he would be playing as an athlete.
"Teacher Cheol-min. Think you can still run around?"
Jeong Cheol-min grinned.
"What do you take the Flying Squirrel of Hyehwa-dong for? Basketball or soccer, I was number one in Daehangno."
Grinning at the playful exchange, Kim Han-su continued.
"But basketball is played with five, isn't it? I heard the plan is to film with actors from the company—what about the remaining two?"
Present now were only Jeong Cheol-min, Son Jin-uk, and Yeon-woo—three in total. They had known from the start that a sports drama would leave them short-handed. That was why Yeon-woo had already finished scouting.
"First, one person will be handled through a favor exchange. Since I once went as a soccer mercenary, I'll use him as a basketball mercenary. Dong-ha from the idol group Axis has agreed to join."
Director Kim Han-su clapped as if the name rang a bell.
"Ah—the one who played that prince in White Blood this time?"
"Director, did you only watch movies and dramas while you were overseas?"
"Hahaha. He's just that famous. The bartender at the place I always went asked me first—whether I was from Korea, whether I knew White Blood."
Then, curious again, he asked,
"Then will you cast the last one?"
"No. There's one more actor scheduled to join our agency soon. Jin Yu-han."
Director Kim Han-su's eyes widened.
"Jin Yu-han? The Jin Yu-han I know?"
"Yes, Director."
He crossed his arms, clearly intrigued, and fell silent for a long moment. At last he spoke.
"If we write the scenario with all five already cast like this, we could draw out roles that fit each actor perfectly."
Ryu Yeon-woo, Jin Yu-han, Son Jin-uk, Jeong Cheol-min, Dong-ha.
The five-member amateur basketball team took vivid shape in Director Kim Han-su's mind.