The Words Wol-hee Never Said
Today's shoot was Wol-hee's final scene — the one where she dies.
For me — and for Luna as well — it was the moment our emotions would peak, but at the same time, it was a scene I wasn't particularly looking forward to, one where old memories with her would come surging back.
That said, I had already decided that getting through this scene and then winning her over (?) afterward would be the best possible outcome.
"There are times when you have to do the things you hate."
Scanning the set, I spotted stuntmen dressed head to toe in ninja gear. Beside them, a somewhat flushed Director Bang and Martial Arts Director Jang Suhong were going over the action choreography.
Steampunk ninjas might sound ridiculous, but the Japanese spies deployed for these kinds of operations had to be ninjas, whatever else you said about them. They could trade shuriken and throwing stars for revolvers, but they simply had to be ninjas. And in North America, this was a code that sold surprisingly well.
Anyway, the scene had a fair amount of action in it, so I needed to pay attention to this part too.
"Siwoo, don't be nervous. Just follow the blocking exactly as we rehearsed it."
"Yeah, sure."
"If it feels too tight we can cut it, so don't put too much pressure on yourself."
"I won't."
"Ideally I'd love to play this scene out in one long take, but if problems come up, well, so be it."
"...."
"It could really look spectacular, if we go for it in one cue...."
So which is it — do you want me to feel the pressure or not?
Come to think of it, the man was a bit of a odd one. Normally perfectly sane, but the moment he started shooting an action scene, something in him shifted. Honestly, this scene was already a stretch to film as a long take.
He was the type possessed by the absurd notion that the more a director replaced actors with stunt doubles, the more of a masterpiece the film became — and since this was a scene he was personally ambitious about, he kept telling me not to feel pressured while visibly burning with the intention to pull off that long take no matter what.
Normally I'd have humored him to a reasonable degree, but today the emotional scene mattered far more, so I planned to give the action only as much as it deserved.
With my emotions duly calibrated in advance, filming began.
"Alright. Scene 6-1-21, Lee Myung raiding the Japanese spies' hideout — action."
Shaken to hear that Wol-hee had been kidnapped, Lee Myung storms the spies' hideout. He strikes so fast that they have no time to take her hostage, cutting them all down in an instant.
Even amid a storm of bullets and blades, Lee Myung's blade blazes brilliant. After a desperate battle, he fells every last spy and breaks through to where Wol-hee is bound.
-My lord!!
-...Sa... my lord?
But this, too, was nothing but a trap.
With a poisoned dagger hidden up her sleeve, Wol-hee was even now agonizing over whether to plunge it into Lee Myung.
Oblivious to her turmoil, Lee Myung draws her into a defenseless embrace. The fingertips of the hand clutching the dagger tremble without end.
Then, in an instant —
A spy, one we'd thought dead, staggers upright and takes aim at Lee Myung's back. Under normal circumstances, Lee Myung would have sensed even the muzzle at his back — but the relief of having saved Wol-hee had dissolved every last one of his guards.
-Bang!!
-Guhk...!
-...My... my lord!!!
Wol-hee, who had been clinging to him and thus seen the man at his back, pushes him away and takes the bullet in his stead. As if by pure reflex. She had protected him without even realizing it herself.
"OK. Next scene. Picking up where we left off."
A small shack strewn with the corpses of spies on every side. With the wick of her life all but burned out, Wol-hee leans against Lee Myung's chest, gazing up at the night sky.
In this remote spot, deep along a mountain path where no one ever came, all he could offer her was to share what little warmth remained.
Dying as she was, Wol-hee somehow looked happier than she ever had. Freed of every torment, she traced Lee Myung's chest with trembling fingertips, and he — hollowed out by his lover's death — pulled her cooling body tighter against his.
For this one moment, she was not the Japanese spy Wol-hee. She was Ga-wol, a woman belonging to Lee Myung.
-My lord...
-...Yes.
-Has the moon risen again tonight, my lord?
-...So it has. Tonight, the moon is... impossibly beautiful.
-Is that so... then I am... truly glad.
She was going blind now; she could no longer gaze at anything in the distance.
The moon was certainly hiding behind thick clouds, nowhere to be found. But the moon that hung before his eyes alone — his own moon — was so endlessly sorrowful, and so achingly lovely, that Lee Myung could call it beautiful.
-My lord, forget me.
-....Wol-hee.
-Like the moon in that sky, I shall watch over you always. I will remember you for eternity, my lord — so please... you must forget me.
-....
-Please, forget me, and be happy. My beloved... my lord...
-Wo... Wol-hee! Wol-hee!!
"OK! Beautiful!"
The Sin Sect, needing intelligence on the Central Plains, had chosen the Haomun as a partner organization. I was the one who handled those negotiations, as the Bima Pavilion Master of the Sin Sect at the time. Through my dealings with the Haomun, I came to meet its master, Wol-yeon — and came to love her.
Trouble began when the orthodox factions started courting the Haomun's elders. Weighing their options this way and that, the elders finally threw in with the Murim Alliance rather than the Sin Sect, and moved to offer me up as the sacrificial price of that alliance.
Because of the previous Haomun Sect Master who had taken her in, and because she could not betray the Haomun that raised her — Wol-yeon drank the poisoned wine meant for me and died in his place.
Wol-hee's ending kept overlapping with her death, so keeping my emotions in check hadn't been easy for me either. She too had begged me to please forget her, and left me like that.
My emotions had run high, but Director Bang was delighted — that was exactly why such good footage came out of it. He said the action needed no trimming either, that this was more than enough.
Neither take was to my liking, but I decided to leave the scene as it was. What mattered to me now was making sure Luna did not become another Wol-yeon.
She, her emotions just as raw as mine, was sitting across from me right now.
A waiting room in the corner of the set — a place where actors often rested, and where they came to let their stirred emotions settle. The moment filming wrapped, the two of us had naturally found our way here to collect ourselves.
"I don't understand it, sunbae."
"Understand what?"
"Wol-hee's heart. If she'd just been honest with Lee Myung, she could have been saved."
"Honestly? I... understand it, to a degree."
"You do?"
Wol-yeon, the Haomun Sect Master, and Wol-hee, the Japanese spy. Either of them could have survived somehow if she had confessed the truth of her situation. Lee Myung, a member of the imperial house, and I, the Sin Sect's Bima Pavilion Master, would have had no difficulty whatsoever saving them.
But neither of them could do it.
At the time, I couldn't understand why Wol-yeon had done what she did. But with enough time passed, I came to vaguely grasp the thinking behind her actions. There had been something she valued more than her own life.
"And isn't it the same for you, sunbae?"
"Same for me with what?"
"The reason you can't leave Mun Entertainment right now. It must mean Mun Entertainment matters that much to you. Your memories with CEO Moon Young-woo — his trace, the only legacy he left behind."
"...!"
I suspected Luna felt something similar. Mun Entertainment was the company binding her in chains right now, yes. But it was also the company of CEO Moon Young-woo — the one person in the world she'd been able to rely on, perhaps more like a parent than her actual parents. It must simply be too precious to throw away.
"But sunbae, wouldn't it be better to be certain about what you're protecting?"
"What do you mean?"
"Is it the name Mun Entertainment that you treasure? Or the people who were there? Or is it CEO Moon Young-woo's dream?"
"That's..."
"They're still there, you know. The people who made your albums with CEO Moon Young-woo back then."
"...Yeah, they are. I have to keep earning money, or they can't make a living."
Most of that old crew is still at Mun Entertainment. The acquaintances who built CEO Moon Young-woo and Luna's albums together. The mixing engineers, composers, and producers who somehow turned the strange songs the current CEO kept bringing in into music that sounded human. They were enduring to the very end, even as Moon Young-joo — bent on purging everything from the old era — treated them with contempt. Without them, Luna would never have been recognized as the great singer she is today.
"Honestly? I think they'd rather see you leave the company."
This was just my read, but I suspected they were thinking much the same thing as Luna. They wanted out of this cesspool of a company, but they couldn't bring themselves to go, worried how Luna would hold up on her own if they left too. Hostages to each other, in a manner of speaking. A case in point: according to Cheon Yua's reports, several of them had already received offers to be scouted elsewhere — and they were gritting their teeth and enduring at Mun Entertainment anyway.
"A company's nameplate means absolutely nothing. What do you think CEO Moon Young-woo would say, seeing you like this?"
"...."
"Throw away the name. Save the people. You, your people — bring them all over to our side. Our company doesn't even have a music division, so we'd have to recruit everyone anyway. Come, and make the music you and they truly want to make. And then let CEO Moon Young-woo hear it."
"Even if that were possible, it won't be easy. There are all sorts of things they're holding over me, and they'll fight dirty."
"Fighting dirty is, if anything, our specialty."
Yes, it was bound to become a mess. She'd been under the current CEO for four years now, so no doubt they'd gotten their hooks into a few weaknesses here and there. And her opponent would stage every circus imaginable to destroy her.
But when it came to this arena, Representative Ju — far better versed in these affairs than Moon Young-joo, a CEO of barely four years' standing — was the true professional.
"Sunbae. Ask me for help. Right now."
"...What is that supposed to be?"
"Today, I am Lee Myung. Say the words Wol-hee never could. Right now. Ask me for help — so that your drama doesn't end in a sad ending."
"...If I ask, will you actually do it? Can we really get out clean — me, and the others too?"
"Of course. Come on, then."
The words I had wanted to hear from Yeon-ee. The words I never got to hear, in the end. I wanted to hear them — even if only from Luna, who kept overlapping with her in my eyes. Perhaps it was because I still hadn't managed to forget what happened back then. Or perhaps today's scene had simply stirred up that old longing.
"Then... help me. I can't speak for myself, but at least for them."
"The others can only leave once you do. Either way — request received. From this moment on, you're Flame Entertainment's."
And so, I finally heard the words I had never heard, the ones I'd regretted endlessly not hearing to the very end.
Even if she was someone else now, carried across the span of time and space — heard was heard.
All that remained was to move forward, together with Flame.