Clean Shot
Swish—
The basketball slipped cleanly through the net hanging from the rim, producing a satisfying sound. It was a clean shot, the ball dropping neatly after tracing a perfect arc.
"Nice!"
Yeon-woo gave a short round of applause as he looked at Jin Yu-han, who had thrown the ball.
"You've really been practicing a lot. Your form, the arc of the ball—it's completely clean."
"Eh, I just did whatever the coach told me to."
Jin Yu-han offered a slightly sheepish smile at Yeon-woo's praise, and Dong-ha chimed in.
"I heard Yu-han hyung even comes out on his own to keep practicing on days without official training."
"Don't even get me started. When it comes to anything related to acting, he's thorough to a fault. In some ways, he's even more intense than Yeon-woo."
Watching Son Jin-uk wave his hand with an exhausted expression, Yeon-woo tilted his head.
"Yu-han? He's an acting fanatic on a completely different level from me."
"You're no slouch either. Last time I saw your script, I nearly had a heart attack. Every single page was black with notes—at first I didn't even think it was a script."
Apparently Son Jin-uk had seen Yeon-woo's script for Moon while Yeon-woo was analyzing how to express certain scenes at the café on the third floor of headquarters. Of course, thanks to that thoroughness, Yeon-woo had become something of an actor-vending-machine who could help Director Lee Yong-su and Kim Ju-hyeong whenever they revised the script.
"Wow, you still do that? Same as when I was teaching you. That's my student, all right."
Jeong Cheol-min remembered how, back when Yeon-woo was in high school, any scene he taught him would come back the next day with the script worn to a tattered rag from dense annotations. It wasn't mindless scribbling either—every note had real insight, which was how he had recognized Yeon-woo's potential from the very beginning.
Well, to be fair, at first I just decided to make him act somehow based on his looks alone…
Tweet—
A whistle sounded. From the entrance of the gym, the coach waved and approached, followed by the action team who would play the opposing side. Enough time had passed while they warmed up that it was time for the real lesson to begin.
Coach Jeong Dong-seok—a former Korean professional basketball player who now ran a youth basketball school—walked toward the actors.
"It's been a while since all five of you were here together."
"It has, hasn't it."
Not only Yeon-woo but the other actors as well had plenty of non-acting schedules—variety shows, photo shoots, interviews, events—so training days with only two or three of them present were common. All five gathering was rare.
"I've coordinated with the director and writer and mapped out the movement for the game scene in episode four of the drama. Even a real basketball player would find the quality solid."
Coach Jeong Dong-seok was also serving as a consultant for this drama. Just as action films needed a martial arts director, sports dramas needed an expert to choreograph proper movement.
"Finally, the choreography is ready. Now all that's left is to practice it hundreds of times until it's completely in our bodies."
At Yeon-woo's words, Coach Jeong Dong-seok nodded with a pitying smile, as if he could already see the grueling road ahead.
Now that filming was about to begin in earnest, there was a reason so few sports films and dramas—especially those involving ball sports—got made. Filming them came with major headaches. In dramas and films, almost no scene was shot in a single take. Completing one sequence required re-shooting from countless angles—full shots, bust shots, close-ups, over-the-shoulder—and piecing them together.
Even a simple two-person conversation meant alternating cameras on both sides, re-recording the same lines multiple times, then editing them to interlock. With multiple people moving in a sport, that difficulty multiplied.
Because during re-shoots, the actors' paths and positions will shift slightly every time.
The kind of continuity errors commonly called production gaffes were bound to multiply.
"All right, I'll demonstrate first, then we'll start."
At Coach Jeong Dong-seok's words, the action team scattered across the court.
"We'll begin with Actor Son Jin-uk's movement."
Coach Jeong Dong-seok went to the innermost center position under the basket and began performing the sequence of moves one by one.
Squeak—
Every time the gym floor and Coach Jeong Dong-seok's basketball shoes squeaked against each other, Son Jin-uk's expression grew darker.
"C-can I even memorize this? I'm completely tone-deaf when it comes to dancing—zero rhythm."
"Jin-uk hyung, haven't you done quite a few action movies?"
"I shot a couple, sure, but I was always the weak link."
Leaving the despondent Son Jin-uk behind, Coach Jeong and the action team began moving through the complex choreography. Dong-ha, long accustomed to catching choreography and breaking down detailed moves from his idol days, started memorizing his own path with shining eyes. Jeong Cheol-min also seemed fairly confident, used to moving along fixed paths from musicals and theater work.
Jin Yu-han, as always, stared with a deadly serious face…
Looking around at the other actors, Yeon-woo nodded to himself.
Well, I shouldn't have any problems.
Compared to the action he'd done filming White Blood, this looked easier.
Once Coach Jeong Dong-seok had finished explaining every actor's movement and returned to his place—
Clap—
Jeong Cheol-min clapped to draw attention and called out.
"So, what's the best solution at times like this?"
"Just infinite repetition until it works."
At Yeon-woo's answer, Jin Yu-han beside him nodded with a resolute expression. Seeing that face, Yeon-woo snorted a quiet laugh.
You're already the kind of person who infinitely repeats everything until it works—why the resolute face…
Then again, thinking about it, according to the movement Coach Jeong Dong-seok had just explained, Jin Yu-han was arguably the most important person in this scene. In the story, Jin Yu-han played a guard position, so they could film just the final three-point shot in isolation and it would be enough. But if the ball Jin Yu-han actually threw went in, shooting that part in a single take would dramatically raise the audience's immersion.
"Shall we give it a try, then? It's the first attempt, so it'll definitely be a mess, but…"
The actors nodded at Yeon-woo's words.
"I was over here, right? I think I can nail it in one go."
"Me too. Dancing is my daily life. Hmm, start from this side, cut inside to the left…"
Each took their assigned position, looking reasonably confident.
"All right, we'll start practice with the whistle."
Tweet—!
Squeak—
Squeak-squeak—
As Coach Jeong's whistle blew, they began moving along their paths, shoes squeaking against the floor—but contrary to their confident expressions, it was a complete disaster. And immediately, a whistle signaling they'd gotten it wrong filled the gym.
Tweet—!
"Ahh, all five of you got it wrong."
"Ahem."
"Huh? I thought I did it right?"
As expected, you couldn't fill your stomach with the first spoonful. It looked like it was going to be a long day.
"Whew, this is brutal."
Son Jin-uk sprawled haphazardly in a corner of the gym, gulping an electrolyte drink. Sweat poured from his head like rain. Still, compared to when they'd started, there had been considerable progress.
"By the end, it looked roughly similar to the demonstration Coach and the action team showed us, right?"
At Yeon-woo's words, Son Jin-uk brightened and answered.
"Right? At first, when I tried to follow the moves, my body just glitched out—I was running with the same-side arm and leg moving together like an idiot."
"Yeah, we all saw that."
"Ahem."
Bzzzt—
Then Yeon-woo's smartphone, left in the corner, buzzed.
"Ah, let me take this call."
"Sure. I'm gonna lie down. Aigoo, my back."
Yeon-woo picked up the phone and checked the screen—it was a call from Han Hae-un.
"Yes. Ryu Yeon-woo speaking."
"Ah, I'm calling because it's urgent. It seems our friend is looking for another route in a hurry—the traffic on his commute is pretty bad. Looks like there's something he needs to collect from the homeless."
"Is that so? I'll be heading home soon, so just leave it by the front door. I'll check it when I get back."
"Yes, understood."
Click—
After exchanging nothing but nonsensical conversation, the call ended.
"Delivery guy?"
At Son Jin-uk's question, Yeon-woo nodded.
"Yeah. I ordered something from Okinawa—looks like it finally arrived."
"I see. Whew, is it food? Share some with me."
"Nah, not food. Just a wallet."
Not Yeon-woo's wallet, of course—Baeksol's wallet.
The primary objective of the Okinawa operation had been the elimination of the drugs they were clearly about to distribute domestically. The secondary objective was to seize the tail of Baeksol as they scrambled inside the country and left traces behind.
"Traffic on the commute is bad" means their cash flow is blocked and they're in trouble…
And "something to collect from the homeless" means Baeksol is so desperate they've started scraping together the cash, stocks, and other liquid assets they'd scattered across straw accounts.
The Real-Name Financial Transaction System introduced in 1993 had prohibited parties to financial transactions from holding accounts under false names or anonymous accounts in addition to their own. In plain terms: don't hide dirty money. But of course that didn't mean they would stop hiding it.
Which is why they mainly use the method known as straw bank accounts. They'll have split the enormous funds they've accumulated so far into hundreds of tiny pieces and stashed them across multiple accounts that way.
The code word Han Hae-un had used—"homeless"—meant the straw accounts opened under other people's names had started moving. The classic method was to press a little cash into the hands of homeless people whose lives were already unmanageable, have them open bank accounts, and then use those accounts. It was a technique black operatives frequently employed in the field not only in Korea but in other countries as well when operating in secret.
We've only identified two or three of Baeksol's key members so far, but even if we identify every last one of them, simply rounding them all up won't be enough.
Striking Baeksol's funding pipeline in Okinawa directly had required a long preparation period and a certain acceptance of risk. It hadn't been an operation run just to screw with them, nor one carried out solely out of a sense of mission to destroy the drugs.
An organization, at a certain point, begins to move on its own like a living organism. Cutting down Baeksol's entire leadership might look like pulling the roots, but if any of their funds remain, someone else simply takes the head and sinks even deeper into the shadows.
Even if we lock them all up, if we don't identify and seize every last scrap of those hundreds of dispersed funds, it means nothing. And that's realistically impossible.
So the solution was to make them gather it themselves.
Squeak—
When Yeon-woo looked toward the court, there was Jin Yu-han, still practicing his shooting alone even while everyone else was sprawled out, as if he never got tired.
Swish—
The ball arced through the air and cleanly rattled the net on its way in. Another clean shot.
"Nice shot."
He had woken up in a strange body with no information, starting from nothing. From beginning to act, meeting Han Hae-un, building Saebyeol and the agents up to now. The outline of the enemy was clear, and he had a plan for how to face them going forward.
Whether a basketball or a bullet, the only differences were speed and trajectory—both flew drawing a parabola.
At this rate, my own parabola is looking pretty clean. Time I delivered a clean shot of my own.