Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (3)
"My daughter's a genius!"
"A genius!"
The pass had been a foregone conclusion. The lady swept Seo Yu-rin up into her arms and bounced around the room with her.
Well, good for her.
She'd just landed a child role in a drama by the best director in Korea right now—the very director who, twenty years from now, would still be counted as the best in the country. It would have been stranger if she weren't in a good mood.
"Thanks again, Tae-oh. If you need anything, just say the word."
"Seo Yu-rin did all the work. There's nothing I need."
I shrugged. I was a conscientious sort of person—far too conscientious to expect payment for a single wave of my hand through empty air.
Not that I'm likely to be short on money anyway.
With just a well-timed bit of information on coins or stocks, this life would be free of financial worry.
Doesn't your conscience prickle at that? you ask. Where exactly is the conscience that gets pricked by hundreds of billions of won—or more? A conscience that size should learn to look the other way and mind its own business.
"Can you show me what acting you did in front of Director Shi?"
The lady asked Seo Yu-rin. At those words, Seo Yu-rin narrowed her eyes and looked straight at me.
Gulp. My body froze on the spot. Even performing that act in front of Director Shi had been mortifying enough to die of—now I was supposed to do it in front of the lady? Better to just kill me instead.
I gazed at Seo Yu-rin with all my desperate hope pinned to the request, and she gave a small nod, as if she understood.
"No!"
"Oh dear, oh dear. They always say there's no use raising a daughter. I suppose at this point I'll have to marry her off to Tae-oh."
"Okay!"
Seo Yu-rin answered instantly. Why do adults love nothing more than tying people to each other? I waved my hands in protest.
"Ma'am, you can't say that kind of thing to a child."
"You're a child yourself. What, don't you like Yu-rin?"
I turned my head away without answering. I could feel Seo Yu-rin's gaze burning into my cheek, drilling a hole straight through it, but this once, I refused to respond. I was a man who had lived well into his mid-twenties in my past life. Did they really expect me to say I wanted to marry a five-year-old? Even with my mouth torn open, I could never say such a thing.
Perhaps she sensed the steel in my refusal, because it was Seo Yu-rin who surrendered first.
"Waaang…"
"What kind of skill name is that supposed to be."
What's not allowed is not allowed. At least thirteen more years, kid. Come back when your brain's finished cooking.
Seo Yu-rin's lips puffed out, and she made a show of sulking with every inch of her body. Fortunately for me, though, I knew exactly how to handle this particular Seo Yu-rin. I reached out and picked up a bundle of papers.
Untitled.
That bundle was the script Seo Yu-rin would be performing for this project. A drama that had never once surfaced in the world—and, in my past life, had never existed at all—yet somehow its contents were astonishingly familiar to me.
This is that movie Director Shi first put out in America, isn't it.
There were some differences from what I remembered, but the broad strokes were close enough that I could call it essentially the same work.
What She Saw. A literal translation would be "the things she saw."
In Director Shi's own intent, it was a film that captured the world through the eyes of geniuses. It began as a low-budget picture, went on to a massive hit in America, and was the work that decisively paved his way into Hollywood.
Now I understand why I never saw it in my past life.
Word had it that shortly after the film's release, when a reporter asked why he had decided to go to America, Director Shi gave this answer:
"I came looking for a star."
It hadn't been an exaggeration. Unable to find a talent that satisfied him in Korea, he had crossed the ocean in search of that talent.
If he hadn't found a child actor he liked in America either, the film might never have seen the light of day at all.
Director Shi's exacting standards transcended common sense. He wasn't a man who sat in front of the camera to make money—he did it because he wanted to shoot something that satisfied himself. And that man was the person Seo Yu-rin had to satisfy this time around.
"Never mind all that. Come here. We need to practice, and quickly."
"Okay!"
The moment acting came up, Seo Yu-rin's eyes lit up as she came bounding over. Was acting really that wonderful? In my past life, I couldn't even say with certainty what I loved until I was past twenty—compared to that, I'll admit I was a little envious.
"So what scene are we practicing first?!"
Seo Yu-rin beamed. For a bright, energetic girl like her, a smile was basically her default expression. Unfortunately, though, the child role Director Shi wanted this time was an emotionless genius. The exact opposite of the Seo Yu-rin standing in front of me.
"Okay, so here's the thing…"
I rummaged through my pocket and pulled out a neatly wrapped piece of chocolate. The lady had given it to me, saying it was Seo Yu-rin's favorite, but by now snack distribution had become my responsibility as well. I'm seven years old myself, you know. Well—Seo Yu-rin was practically glued to my side at all times, so it couldn't be helped.
"Chocolate?"
Bewildered by the sudden word, Seo Yu-rin's face nevertheless lit up. Chocolate, acting, and Baek Tae-oh—the three things Seo Yu-rin loved. The last one embarrassed me a bit, but still.
I peeled back the carefully wrapped foil and held the chocolate out to her.
"Wow!"
Seo Yu-rin, an old hand at this by now, flung her mouth wide open and charged at the chocolate. I could imagine the future she was picturing: in a few seconds, sweet chocolate melting on her tongue.
"Ahm."
But that was not to be. I popped the chocolate into my own mouth.
"…Wuehng?"
Seo Yu-rin tilted her head, utterly unable to process the situation. The face that had been brimming with happiness a second ago vanished in an instant. This was probably the first such betrayal in Seo Yu-rin's entire life.
"Ah—I'll, uh, go do the dishes!"
The girl who normally smiled like sunlight had turned blank-faced in the blink of an eye, and the sheer gap sent a shiver down my spine. Even the lady felt the danger and hastily fled the room. But I couldn't chicken out here. Suppressing my nerves as best I could, I spoke.
"—Let's start by holding that exact expression. No chocolate until the shoot."
The light went out of Seo Yu-rin's eyes.
"..."
Am I… not about to die?
The casting director sat on the set, finally able to smile in relief.
"Final check on the set is complete."
"Run the sound check one more time."
"We've already done it three times."
"The man we're dealing with is Director Shi Yeon-seo. You don't want to go home tonight? Work hard now and get it perfect, and everything after will be easier."
The staff slaving away over there had no idea how lucky they were. I had put my neck on the line hunting for a child actor; they were working for nothing more than the privilege of going home on time.
Hee-hee. I wonder how much this will pay out.
Of course, thanks to that very success, he was about to be swimming in incentive money—so he no longer resented Director Shi Yeon-seo in the slightest. If anything, he simply drooled in anticipation, imagining the row of zeros that would soon be stamped into his bank account.
"Hello there, Director Shi. Good morning."
"Good morning."
He had enough breathing room now to exchange pleasantries this familiar. Director Shi, still expressionlessly leafing through his script, gave a small nod.
"You know, I've read this script myself."
"Have you, now."
"I never imagined you'd ask that child to perform something like this."
When the director had picked a girl who smiled like sunshine, he'd assumed he wanted that kind of child actor—but going by the script, the protagonist was about as emotionless as they came.
Can that kid really pull off that kind of acting?
The girl who beamed so brightly, keeping a deadpan face as if every last thing in the world were beneath her—honestly, he could hardly picture it.
Not my problem, though.
It would be a lie to say he wasn't worried, but it was no longer his affair in any way, shape, or form. He had delivered every talent the director wanted; there wasn't a mote of responsibility left on his shoulders. Director Shi shook his head as if it didn't matter at all.
"Whether she can or can't is of no consequence."
"Oh, brilliant as ever, Director! So you have a backup script prepared in case she can't?"
"We simply won't shoot."
Had he misheard? The casting director rubbed his ear. But sadly, the sounds of the world came through as clearly as ever.
"Th-that is… what do you mean, exactly…"
"You weren't aware? I signed with the network on the condition that filming may be canceled up until the child actor's scenes are complete. The other two actors are proven—but the child actor is an unverified quantity."
If the result failed to meet his standards, the drama simply wouldn't air at all. In a capitalist world it was a genuinely arrogant, almost unthinkable arrangement—but Shi Yeon-seo had the talent to make it possible, and enough money to absorb the fallout that talent brought in its wake.
The casting director came face to face with reality: at minimum, his neck was not fully attached to his body until the child actor finished shooting. Cold sweat traced its way down his spine.
"I-if that was the case, shouldn't you have vetted her a bit more at the audition…"
"More vetting would have been meaningless. If a child of that caliber fails to meet my expectations, then there's no hope left to hold for this country. And besides…"
"Besides?"
Director Shi's gaze drifted past the casting director's shoulder. He spoke.
"There doesn't seem to be any need for you to worry."
The casting director turned his head, following Shi Yeon-seo's gaze. Two children were being led into the studio by a staff member. Nobody had announced their arrival, and yet every eye in the studio was already riveted on the pair walking in. Two little kids holding hands as they entered. Their cuteness, so out of place on a film set, should have drawn warm smiles from every adult present—but somehow, no one could quite bring themselves to smile.
"…Hoo. What kind of eyes does a child have?"
Because in the little girl's eyes there was nothing but a hollow emptiness, a listlessness that no child her age should have possessed.
"Hello."
Seo Yu-rin, her eyes calm and devoid of feeling, bowed with perfect courtesy. At the sight, the casting director swallowed hard.
How on earth does a child that small manage to look like the whole world betrayed her?
It was a thought that, in all likelihood, everyone in that room shared.
Crunch.
From the hand Seo Yu-rin refused to let go of even as she bowed—a hand I most certainly should not have been occupying—came a sound no human being should ever have to hear. I bit down on my lip for dear life and endured the pain.
Calling them chocolate cookies this morning and handing over raisin cookies instead—that was maybe a bit much?
I'm really sorry. It will never happen again. So could you please, please let go of my hand…?