The Fox and the Rabbit's Siege

I had considered the possibility that Moon Soo-yeon might develop feelings for me. Given what I'd done for her, that much was reasonable to expect. I'm no fool — I could run that calculation just fine.

But I hadn't thought it through all that deeply. This woman may look like a genuine fox who could charm dozens of men on sight, but she's simply not the type to properly approach someone she's interested in. That's just who she is.

Burning fast and bright is the privilege of youth, but a fire that flares up in a hurry always dies out just as quickly. Right now she's rattled by one shocking thing after another, heart raw and exposed, which explains the state she's in — but I figured that once time passed and the kindling ran out, she'd come back to her senses soon enough.

"Honestly, dating Moon Soo-yeon was never possible in the first place."

How could I carry on a serious relationship with a woman who, every time I look at her, makes me think of someone else first? I'm not some hot-blooded kid who would charge headlong at anyone just because they're pretty.

If something kept accumulating, if Moon Soo-yeon herself — not the ghost of who she used to be — kept drawing closer to me, maybe things would be different. But that's not where we are now. Strictly speaking, getting her out of Mun Entertainment was less for her sake than for my own peace of mind.

"But then why is Cheon Yoo-ah acting like this?"

Moon Soo-yeon timidly edging toward me, sure, I could understand that. But ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Cheon Yoo-ah was a genuine mystery. Don't tell me this woman has some interest in me and that's why she's keeping Moon Soo-yeon in check?

Between the two of us, there'd been no exchange of feelings of that sort — not even a single special event, for that matter. Granted, I had done an uncannily perfect job of indulging her every whim along the way. But this wasn't some servant-selection tournament, and no one falls for a person over something as trivial as that.

Besides, this is real life, not a movie or a novel — there's no way she'd felt something as absurd as the pull of souls.

"Come to think of it, something like this happened before too..."

"So in the end, it's just the Heavenly Demon's jealousy kicking in."

If her thinking were simply that, as my employer, she wanted to prevent a hellish workplace romance before it started, I could more or less understand. It was the fact that Cheon Yoo-ah herself insisted on being the one to handle it that left me flustered.

Then again, even back then, the Heavenly Demon had been needlessly sensitive about exactly this sort of thing, so it actually seemed quite plausible.

"In that case, the answer is time."

Moon Soo-yeon, who'll find stability under the company's care and return to normal through psychiatric treatment, will ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠come to her senses soon enough. And once she does, Cheon Yoo-ah — whose jealousy was set off in the first place — will revert to her usual self as well.

Which means my best move is to treat all of this as a temporary bout of confusion and act exactly as I always do.

"Things are already about to get insane. Let's not pile on, people."

Truly, a Murim family if ever there was one. I couldn't help concluding that these people were absolutely impossible to predict.

The twin eccentricities of Cheon Yoo-ah and Moon Soo-yeon carried straight over into the next shoot.

Moon Soo-yeon, who had no reason to be on set, tagged along anyway to watch the filming with Mi-joo, and every single time our eyes happened to meet, she was posed at her most flattering angle. You know the kind I mean — the celebrity angle, the one where your face looks its prettiest and your body's S-curve shows most clearly, the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whole pose and framing built around it.

Once or twice could be coincidence, but seeing her hold that all day long, it was obviously deliberate. The moment my gaze drifted her way, she'd catch it and lock the angle in. Say what you will about someone who's swallowed the entire pond of the idol industry — that superstar — her (?) camera timing was truly flawless.

"I did expect her to be about this level. I just didn't expect it to be quite this juvenile."

So there'd be no grand romantic maneuver — that much matched my prediction — but this childish idea of showcasing her prettiest self was almost cute. This was, after all, the woman who'd spent her career batting away every man who came near her, so it stood to reason that when it came to seriously approaching someone she liked, she was worse than an elementary schooler.

If she'd charged at me head-on like any other rookie, things might actually have gotten awkward, and honestly, I counted myself lucky that Moon Soo-yeon possessed both the fox's beauty and the rabbit's heart.

"And then there's Cheon Yoo-ah..."

The more absurd one in this whole situation was Cheon Yoo-ah. The instant my eyes so much as threatened to wander toward Moon Soo-yeon, she would slyly slip into the space between us and block my line of sight.

She pulled that angle every single break — honestly, this side of things was pointlessly earnest too. If this is merely "a ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠whim," then I have to say, being on the receiving end of it feels awfully suffocating. I genuinely wonder whether she might just straight-up devour a lover, once she ever gets one. No telling what kind of man that would be, but his road of suffering is surely already paved.

"And yet her acting, of all things, remains absolutely flawless."

The truly deranged part about Cheon Yoo-ah was that even while monitoring my gaze all day, she never once fumbled her own share of the work. At this point I had to ask myself whether she was even human.

But more than that, what kept nagging at me was the thought: does any of this really need to go this far?

Worst of all was mealtime. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, the two of them had claimed one seat on either side of me and devoted themselves, in utter silence, to nothing but eating. How bad was it? Nam Hyun-ho, who'd initially plopped down to eat with me, fled to the far side of the room just to escape the endless, pressing weight of that silence.

And all the while, they'd look at each other over their trays, smiles loaded with unspoken meaning and bristling with thorns. What was this, a pincer strategy to isolate me to death by double compression?

To be perfectly honest, I wished they'd both just disappear. I felt like I was going to be suffocated at the table.

Even so, the scenes piled up one after another, and every time a scene wrapped, Director Bang's applause followed. Whatever strange cold war the two of them were waging, the shoot itself was sailing along with the wind at its back.

Granted, Director Bang, having fully tasted the intoxication of retakes, kept pushing ever more unreasonable directions and do-overs in pursuit of a better shot — but since the results were uniformly good, nobody voiced much complaint.

"Seriously, you couldn't shoot like this even on a film set..."

"It's pre-production, so honestly, there's not that much difference from a movie."

"And that's because you keep doing insane things."

"You should be saying that to Yoo-ah sunbae, not me. Blonde hair, blue eyes, and a gatling gun — her very existence is a cheat code."

"You too... ha. Whatever. Never mind. The results are good, that's what counts."

"Exactly."

Now and then Nam Hyun-ho would jab me in the ribs and whine, but that man was just bored and milking it. He, Rion, and senior Kang Ji-woo barely needed any retakes at all.

Well, Kang Ji-woo barely has scenes on this set anyway, so it hardly counts. But Rion and Nam Hyun-ho were without question delivering good performances, and Director Bang largely left the two of them alone.

Though even Nam Hyun-ho, whenever he was thrown into a scene with me and Cheon Yoo-ah, did seem to struggle just a little...

"Ah, this is good. Really good, but the balance is a bit off, isn't it? We should probably go again?"

Compared to the scenes where the two of us went head to head, his retake count was practically nonexistent. And they wonder why I don't want any part of their staring contest.

I'm telling you, this is genuinely beyond reason.

On set, they were filming the scene where Violet and Lee Myeong plan the operation to retake the gold mine.

Despite not being in the scene themselves, Nam Hyun-ho — along with Rion and the other supporting actors — had drifted over to watch the take up close.

"No, I'm telling you, we just push straight through."

"That won't do. We haven't even retaken the mine yet — we can't afford casualties."

"Nobody's dying. Nobody. I'm going to sweep the whole place clean myself. What casualties?"

"With that precious lump of iron of yours? Against a Gigant Ogre? It's settled fact that a firearm's lead shot can't touch a Gigant Ogre."

"Funny. Says who? How many ogres do you think I've already put down?"

Snarling, razor-edged dialogue flew back and forth, while several cameras captured the exchange from every angle. A few short lines had utterly crushed the atmosphere of the set, and everyone held their breath, watching nothing but the monitors.

That's it. That's exactly it. Have you ever seen anything like this madman?

In an industry brimming with actors who each carried their own aura, Cheon Yoo-ah was renowned above all for the sheer force of her presence.

The clumsy amateurs who'd barely scraped together the fundamentals of acting couldn't even calculate what they'd look like sharing a frame with her. The competent ones — decent actors who knew their way around a set — would watch their own characters crumble under her overwhelming presence and hit a wall.

Only the solid mid-career actors who'd firmly established a world and a character all their own, the true heavyweights who'd earned recognition even in an industry drowning in prodigies, could hold onto their own color in the face of Cheon Yoo-ah's presence.

Nam Hyun-ho, naturally, was confident he belonged to at least that third tier.

"But even I would struggle against that. And besides — something's lit a fire under Cheon sunbae. She's completely serious right now."

Cheon Yoo-ah, back after a year away, was throwing herself into the shoot with far more intensity than usual, for whatever reason. She'd stripped away the dye and the contact lenses entirely, acting as her true self — and this real Cheon Yoo-ah carried a presence far thicker and fiercer than before. And greedier, too. As if she were declaring that every single scene on the call sheet belonged to her.

No, really — shouldn't someone at Cheon Yoo-ah's level simply be working in Hollywood? Wasn't her citizenship American? Why on earth had she started her acting career in Korea in the first place?

Ever since she'd taken Best Actress at Cannes, renowned directors abroad had pursued her quite seriously — and supposedly still did — and she was, without question, a performer worth pursuing.

But the most ridiculous thing of all was this: even opposite Cheon Yoo-ah, a mystery wrapped in human form, Baek Si-woo's presence didn't fade one bit. It wasn't merely that it held its own — at times, it was Baek Si-woo who radiated the stronger presence.

And from a rookie actor, no less.

"They say there wasn't a single agency in the business that didn't beg PD Yoo Myung-woo for his contact info."

Same story with this shoot. A director keeps demanding retakes because the footage can't properly keep pace with what he sees and feels. By now, the man's professional pride had to be in tatters — which also explained the flood of hard-to-fathom directions.

And yet the actor himself kept voluntarily calling for retakes, as if something were still missing.

"Yeah, that's a certified lunatic all right."

Just how far would that deranged maniac go? One thing was certain: once this drama aired, that lunatic's position would never, ever be beneath his own.

"Should I look for something we could co-lead on for the next project? Honestly, doesn't look much different from co-leading with Cheon sunbae."

Even for Nam Hyun-ho, who took his acting quite seriously, a double-billing with Baek Si-woo was a seriously enticing prospect.