The Script Reading
The script reading venue was the conference room at Phoenix Studio, the production company behind the drama.
Every major role in the series had gathered here in one place.
I spotted familiar faces. Nam Hyunho, who had grumbled his way through the past few days until he'd grown almost comfortable, and Rion, whom I'd already crossed paths with on the last drama. Rion still gave off the sense of avoiding me, but hey, having one more person who knew my face was encouraging all the same.
"Hello, sunbaenim."
"Hey. I figured we'd meet again sooner or later, but this is earlier than expected."
"Isn't it, though. I look forward to working with you again."
"If anything, I should be saying that to you. You're the lead this time around."
But what pleased me most of all was that Kang Ji-woo sunbae had joined this production.
Kang Ji-woo sunbae, the middle-aged actress who had played opposite me in Yoon Seoeun, was appearing in the same drama as me once again.
Her role was Hae-hwa, the chief handler of the Japanese spies and the final boss of the Japanese arc. Hae-hwa was Wolhee's master — the one who had ordered the assassination of Lee Myeong, and the person who contributed quite a lot to Wolhee's final moments as well.
Which meant that from Lee Myeong's perspective, Hae-hwa was his number one assassination target, and his sworn enemy.
I remembered wondering idly who would take the role, since it clashed heavily with mine, and feeling relieved when Kang Ji-woo sunbae's name came up.
"A little disappointing that I'm not your romance lead this time. That shoot was quite fun, you know."
"Haha, it was fun for me too, sunbaenim."
"Well then, let's do well together, Mister Lead Actor."
From the way she treated me, Kang Ji-woo sunbae — who had thrown herself into the role as my opposite lead last time — seemed to be quite fond of me.
My drama had been a masked newcomer's debut, but hers was hardly that. Though her screen time was limited, every single one of her scenes had been striking, leaving a far stronger impact than the brief appearance would suggest.
So many viewers had praised her for portraying a subtly sensual, mature no-mance through nothing but her eyes and a few simple gestures — no kissing scenes, no bed scenes. For Kang Ji-woo, who had taken the cameo on a lark, it had turned out to be quite the profitable gig.
Her warm welcome now, I figured, owed itself to the good memories from that shoot.
"Yo. You crazy bastard. Since when were you so chummy with Kang sunbae?"
"Ah, Hyunho sunbae."
Nam Hyunho drifted over to my side the moment he walked in. Practically on autopilot at this point. Apparently this guy felt some kind of inner kinship with me. He wasn't mistaking me for a fellow lunatic of his own caliber, was he?
Not that I had any reason to stop him, but it felt oddly awkward.
"Aren't you going to pay your respects to Kang Ji-woo sunbaenim?"
"Kang sunbae? She flinches whenever I come near her. Says I make her feel old. At events like this, greeting her from far away with your eyes is plenty."
"...I see?"
He'd tried to foist the courtesy onto me, feeling it was a bother, and failed.
Even for a veteran beauty just sliding into middle age, the honey-glowing skin of Nam Hyunho — heir to a dynasty of ageless flower boys — was apparently quite the burden.
Granted, everything this guy did screamed sucker, but that face of his was genuinely lethal. Back in Murim, he'd been handsome enough to earn the epithet 'Jade Countenance' — one of the most celebrated looks in the Central Plains.
Talent aside, his single greatest weapon had always been that strikingly beautiful face.
"Oh, it's Luna. God, she's pretty. Filthily pretty, I'm telling you."
"Pretty... yes, she is."
The door swung open and a new figure walked in.
Luna — otherwise known as Moon Sooyeon, the source of all my recent anguish.
Nam Hyunho, who had been grumbling compliments about her looks, immediately launched into his unfiltered impressions of her casting. Her arrival had clearly left quite an impression on him too.
"Man, I was honestly stunned. Luna coming back to acting out of nowhere? I figured she'd quit acting for good."
"Is that so?"
"Yeah. She debuted as an actress around the same time I did. One look and I knew — this woman's the real deal. But after that, she just sang. Kind of a shame, honestly."
"Her acting looked solid to me too, sunbae."
"Oh — she's coming this way."
"Of course she is."
"What do you mean, of course?"
"Because the seat you're sitting in right now is Luna sunbae's."
"...Oh. Right."
So move. Back to your own seat. Now.
Phooey, phooey~
The chatterbox Nam Hyunho, having offered nothing but idle gossip, promptly vacated the seat the moment Luna approached. He'd marveled endlessly at her beauty, yet showed no intention of actually exchanging greetings.
Was this some kind of battle of presence? Whoever greets first loses, that sort of thing.
Then again, Luna, walking straight toward me without even greeting Kang Ji-woo sunbae — the most senior person waiting in the room — hardly seemed like a pushover herself.
In any case, my seat was right next to Luna's, so just as I was deciding I should at least say hello—
The door opened again, and yet another beautiful actress made her entrance: Cheon Yua.
Far earlier than I'd anticipated.
Unlike me, a rookie who had walked straight in thinking I should at least offer greetings, Cheon Yua had said she'd be touching up her makeup in the car for a bit first.
In cases like this, that's usually how it goes — the 'protagonist enters last' rule. Top-tier popular stars traditionally stroll in right before the PD does; it's practically the unspoken law of this industry.
With premier actresses especially, PDs tend to just accept it as the natural order.
Her arriving this early, then, presumably meant she had no interest in playing those games. She really had just touched up her makeup and walked in, exactly as she'd said.
Classic Cheon Yua. There was a certain audacity to it — the confidence of a woman who would happily plant a Heavenly Demon Punch in an opponent's face rather than waste her time on petty power plays.
...Or so I thought.
"I'm Cheon Yua."
"Yes. I'm Moon Sooyeon."
Striding straight up to Luna and extending her hand for a handshake, Cheon Yua looked... subtly strange, somehow.
The two actresses clasped hands and exchanged names. I was so transfixed by that eerie, crackling tension between them that I forgot to greet Luna entirely.
Not that I could be blamed — my seat was exactly in the middle of it. Yua on my left, Sooyeon on my right, seated squarely between the two actresses.
Anyone watching would call it an absolute jackpot of a seat, but let me tell you: it was unbearably uncomfortable. The two of them exchanged precisely one handshake, then each settled into her chair, leaving me stranded in the middle with absolutely nothing to do.
"So Cheon Yua is every bit the leading lady."
Nothing was actually happening, and yet the air alone felt like a knife-edged windstorm. It was a deeply unpleasant stretch of time.
"Well then, everyone's here. We'll do brief role introductions and move straight into the reading."
The one who rescued me from my discomfort was Director Bang, the man in charge of this production. Arriving precisely on schedule, he paid zero attention to the atmosphere in the room and immediately kicked off the script reading.
He probably knew from experience that this was roughly how a first script reading always went, movie or drama alike. Yang Yuri, who had departed ahead of us to meet the director first, stationed herself behind Director Bang with hawk's eyes, ready to police the entire reading. That "work only" mindset, I thought, was genuinely admirable.
"Pleasure to meet you all. I'm Baek Siwoo, a new actor. It's my honor to play Lee Myeong. I look forward to working with you."
My turn was second to last. I offered brief greetings to the other actors and sat back down.
This shoot really did seem blessed with luck. Even though this was my first time headlining as a rookie, I already knew most of the actors playing the key roles, so there was hardly a ripple of commotion. Even Nam Hyunho — the one person with the most grounds to be displeased by this situation — had accepted me, so I doubted any complaints would surface.
"Then let's begin. We'll start from scene 1-1-1 and work our way through."
Once the introductions wrapped up, the script reading began at once. Today's schedule was a taste of the scripts for episodes one and two.
As with any drama, the pre-shoot script reading is the final stage of verification — checking whether the character you've analyzed aligns with the director's and writer's intent, and whether you mesh well with your fellow actors. It's not the real battlefield, so there's no need to strain yourself — but you can't afford to phone it in either. That's precisely what a script reading is.
And the actors cast in this drama, it seemed, were taking the reading very seriously indeed.
-Ha, a gold mine? In some backwater nobody's ever heard of? Keep handing me gigs like this and I'm going to sulk. I'm Violet, I'll have you know! Violet, the finest female private detective in Pinkerton's employ!
Starting with Cheon Yua, who packed raw force into every single line.
-Shall this girl play you a tune? I am called Wolhee, of the Yeonghwaru.
Moon Sooyeon, whose short lines carried a strangely sultry undertone.
-Wh-what's a high-and-mighty gentleman like you come all this way for? Nam Seokho, that butcher bastard, died a long time ago, I tell ye.
Nam Hyunho, switching gears from village idiot older brother to A-list actor, was positively formidable.
-This insane... What kind of backwards hole is this? Blyat! The steam engine is supposed to run, you hear me? Run!
Even Rion, an idol but earnest about his acting, had clearly done his homework on his character.
"Huh. This is better than I expected."
At first I'd wondered what sort of people were flocking together here, but the atmosphere was surprisingly good. The situation — a few core members having formed a full-blown Murim Assemble — still made me uneasy, but at the very least, I couldn't foresee any problems on the acting front.
The strange war of presence between Cheon Yua and Luna — Moon Sooyeon — would vanish the moment they stepped on set. From what I could tell, there was no particular reason behind it; it felt like pure, instinctive territorial sparring. And if that was all it was, it wouldn't last long.
Cheon Yua wasn't the type to throw her weight around on a set, and a mid-career actress like Kang Ji-woo would hold the center steady. And Luna — if her temperament matched the woman I knew — was no one to waste energy on pointless battles.
"So all I have to do is act well. Not bad."
Yes. Right up until that moment, I genuinely believed things would go more smoothly than I'd expected.
"Ah — cooperation with the shooting schedule?"
"Yes. Luna's schedule is... a bit complicated. Since she's joining us under difficult circumstances, we ask for your understanding."
"Wh- but with a schedule like that..."
"Haha, if that doesn't work, I'm afraid her appearance may be difficult. This is the best compromise we could manage on our end..."
...Right up until the reading ended, and a representative from Mun Entertainment came in requesting that we accommodate Luna's shooting schedule.
To be fair, top stars and idols with packed calendars do sometimes receive this kind of schedule accommodation. Luna was certainly a top star of that caliber.
But looking at the actual schedule sheet, it felt like they were asking for far too much. It would have been a borderline request even if she were the undisputed top billing of our drama — and this production included Cheon Yua, whose name value, at least on the acting side, far outweighed Luna's.
"That's rough, Director-nim."
And a shooting schedule, for an actor, is a matter of pride all its own. Roughly the equivalent of a guaranteed appearance fee — a nuclear bomb of an issue.
Something spectacularly messy, it seemed, was going to blow up from the very start.