Let's Give Them a Real Shock

Rip—!

Kim Seonil tore a page from the script and snapped it open, and Sua took it in at once. A scene for the role of Kim Yu-han.

From across the table came a resolute stare, a tension drawn so tight it seemed ready to snap, the low rustle of whispers. It was fine. Sua felt no particular sense of danger. She was only curious.

It's an unfinished role. Why can I even experience it?

To anyone watching, she would have seemed lost in the script. In truth, she was pacing the corridor of the Special Trait Hotel.

Well. I'll know once I try it.

She stepped into a payphone booth, and the instant she dialed 001—Kim Yu-han's number—

Sssss—!

White flooded her vision from the edges inward.

All at once, she was in an underground parking garage, though she couldn't have said when the world had changed. Cars stood packed in tight rows, and she sat with her hips hooked over a hood, humming under her breath. A sketchbook and a pen filled her hands, and those hands never once went still. What took shape on the blank page was the scene around her, so exact it might have been mistaken for a photograph.

To anyone else, she might have looked like a person of deep artistic feeling.

Sua knew better. It wasn't that at all.

Her sight and her thinking were not like other people's. The breadth of the space, the makes and plates of the parked cars, which doors had been left unlocked, how far the tires had worn, the belongings inside and the drivers one could infer from them—she could feel all of it. Everything lay within her grasp. The sense itself was different from before. These were plainly human eyes, and yet it was as if she had been given some other way of seeing. Peculiar.

Genius. A height others could never reach, no matter how they struggled, was simply a given to her now. She wasn't doing it for any particular purpose. She had only been killing time, and it had come out this way on its own.

At some point she stopped sketching. A tall, trim man was walking toward her.

"Good day."

He spoke first.

If rules and regulations were ever kneaded into the shape of a man, this would be it. He did not look like someone who would tolerate an error of a hair's breadth.

"Lee Kang-cheol. I've been assigned to the special task force. Starting today I'll be moving with you, Mr. Kim Yu-han, and we'll be using Vehicle 808."

"Ah…!"

Lee Kang-cheol's face was hard, hardly an expression at all, but hers lit up as she rose from the hood. Delightful. Meeting someone new made her genuinely, thoroughly happy.

She bowed her head first.

"It's my first time with a special task force, so please teach me everything. I'll study hard. I'm in your care!"

Lee Kang-cheol said nothing. His face stayed blank, and yet he looked quietly thrown—because the Kim Yu-han of the rumors had been nothing like this. He had heard of an unpredictable walking disaster.

And even that thought of his slipped, somewhere along the way, into Sua's head. Perfectly naturally.

She smiled at him, bright as anything.

"We're heading out right now, aren't we? Then we ought to split the roles first. One of us drives, and one takes the passenger seat."

"I was told you aren't familiar with this area yet. I'll drive until you know the roads."

"Oh my, how kind of you!"

She beamed, and all the while her eyes never stopped moving. His clothes. The habits one might read from a sleeve or a collar. How strong was he? What was in his pockets? And that thing caught on the toe of his shoe…

The calculations finished, she smiled and held out her hand.

"Shall we shake on it and head out? Same rank or not, you've got far more experience than I do. Please, don't stand on ceremony."

An attitude so unlike the rumors seemed to lift a weight from Lee Kang-cheol. The proof was in the way he moved—no longer as rigid as he had been at first.

He took the hand she offered. Their historic first meeting. On its face, nothing but warmth.

And right then—

"Ha-ha."

With a laugh that set Lee Kang-cheol on edge, her hand moved before she quite meant it to. Very fast.

Flick—!

Sua snatched the car key hanging at his waist. Too quick for him to answer.

By the time his eyes went wide, she was already in the car. Locking every door happened in the same motion.

"…Mr. Yu-han. What do you think you're doing."

He pounded on the door at once, but she didn't hear him. Sua turned the engine over and pressed her ear to the wheel.

"Ah…."

A sound soaked in rapture slipped out of her before she knew it. How many criminals had this car chased? How many stories had soaked into it? And this exhaust note…

"…This is the best."

Fun. Rolling out. Fun. Fireworks seemed to be bursting in Kim Yu-han's brain.

Fun. Fun. Fun. But a dull investigation won't do. If one of us has the car, the other has to run… that's what makes it fun… You must never handle a criminal according to common sense…

Vroom—!

In the end, Kim Yu-han left Lee Kang-cheol standing there and floored it.

"Kim Yu-han! You bastard!"

His shout chased her from behind.

"…You run, Senior. You know the roads, don't you?"

The rearview mirror held her own face, drenched in madness.

Eeeee—!

A rather loud ringing in her ears, and then she was in reality again.

"Hoo…."

Sua settled her breath and looked around. Kim Seonil, Seo Yeon-ju, all of them—still staring at her alone, and with enormous curiosity.

Agh. My eyeballs are going to fall out.

She had no choice but to squeeze her eyes shut. Kim Yu-han's thoughts and habits were lingering with unpleasant vividness, and something in her kept trying to examine everything from the café's interior down to the people in front of her. This was Sua's body, not Kim Yu-han's. Of course her head hurt.

A small shake of her head brought her back. A very light motion, and a large effect. Reality felt real again.

"Kim Yu-han…!"

"You're going to try the Kim Yu-han role?"

"It's a man's part. And it's unfinished, at that…?"

Kim Seonil's gaze bored straight through her, and the people around them chattered. She didn't care. If anything, her body itched to reproduce what she had just experienced.

There was still one thing she wanted to know. Sua looked again at the page Kim Seonil had torn out.

…Ah. Looking at it again, the script ends here?

An unfinished role, exactly as they had said. Unlike what Sua had just lived through, all the page contained was the two of them exchanging greetings. It only made her more curious.

A stretch even the writer couldn't get down on the page, and the Special Privilege let me experience that too. What would they do if I showed them?

The answer wouldn't be hard to come by. She only had to show them herself and watch. At last, Sua began to move.

"Hey."

At Kim Seonil's request, Sua shook her head.

"That won't work."

"…It won't? You're saying this won't work?"

Everyone took it for a refusal. It was the only reading that made sense—an unfinished role, and the wrong gender to begin with.

But then—

"Let's do it together."

One added sentence, and all of them felt the difference. An intonation and a bearing nothing like her usual self. They understood at once: Sua had simply sunk into the acting.

Seo Yeon-ju immediately poked Kim Seonil in the side and whispered.

"Kim Seonil, you take Lee Kang-cheol. This isn't a simple reading, you know. I think she means to show us the whole thing as a performance."

"…Yeah."

It was sudden, but Kim Seonil agreed at once. He was far too curious himself about the Kim Yu-han that Lee Sua had found in the part.

By then Sua was going through the motions of drawing—skritch, skritch—glancing over the place as if a ghost had gotten into her. Kim Seonil stepped up to her and spoke.

"Lee Kang-cheol. I've been assigned to the special task ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠force. Starting today I'll be moving with you, Mr. Kim Yu-han, and we'll be using Vehicle 808."

"Ah…!"

Sua's face, instantly glad to see Lee Kang-cheol. That reaction alone threw the people watching.

Her whole impression changed.

That fierce face—was that really her? There's none of it now. She never had a look this soft and bright…

Eyes that had been sharp as a drawn blade traced a gentle arc, like a fan opening, and came across as warm. Inviting, even.

"Oh my, how kind of you!"

Glad as she sounded, Sua's eyes never stopped moving. Kim Seonil, with her right in front of him, couldn't catch it—but to the judges watching from the side, it was unmistakable. Lee Sua's gaze, checking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every last detail with meticulous care.

Seo Yeon-ju set down the coffee cup in her hand.

"Ah…."

An expression ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠almost like sexual arousal. The acting was vivid, no question—but the real reason to be shocked lay elsewhere. She ran her hand over the script again and again.

Unfinished… This part isn't even written. Is it?

And yet Lee Sua's performance never snagged for a moment.

"…This is the best."

No one so much as blinked. Even with Kim Seonil frozen, Sua carried the scene on, as if she simply meant to walk her own road to the end.

"…You run, Senior. You know the roads, don't you?"

That was the end of it. The playful Sua drew the line between acting and reality, and the fierce expression returned to her face.

Silence. For a while, nothing but silence.

"…Um. That's as far as it goes, for now."

Even after Sua explained that she was finished, it stayed that way for a long time.

The first to break it was the writer, Lee Geumsuk.

"Sua."

Even that short word came out with a slight tremble in her voice.

"I'd like to ask why you played it that way."

Because that's how I experienced it. Sua barely swallowed the answer. They would be wanting some other explanation, and this was more awkward than she had expected.

…What is this reaction? They didn't like it?

She wanted to mumble her way past it. Impossible. In the writer's sharp eyes she could feel a will that meant to have an answer out of her no matter what. In the end Sua began, timidly, to say what she had felt.

"A genius. Someone whose oddness puts everyone around him through hell at all hours, but who's also more devoted to justice than anyone—sincere, down to the bone, about catching the criminal. That's how the character felt to me."

"In detail. Just a little more detail, please. All of it. Why you read the character that way—don't leave anything out."

"Um, that part…"

Is it all right to say this honestly? Ah, whatever. Aside from what the experience put in my head, I don't have anything else to say anyway.

"…It's because of the Lee Kang-cheol role."

"Lee Kang-cheol?"

"Yes."

Sua nodded.

"Criminals are already people who've stepped outside common sense, but the protagonist, Lee Kang-cheol, only ever acts by the regulations. If there were a partner who could give a man like that a reason to change… I thought it would feel something like this."

Bang—!

That was when Lee Geumsuk shot up out of her seat. The table shook so hard that the coffee and the ice in the glasses dumped onto the floor, every last bit of it.

Wh-what the—why is she doing that all of a sudden?!

Sua startled as if she'd been electrocuted.

"Wh-why, why are you—?"

"Sua, wait just a moment. My laptop. Give me my laptop."

Lee Geumsuk took the laptop from Jung Soyen and, still on her feet, began hammering the keys like a woman possessed. She kept at it even as the spilled coffee dyed her fuzzy slippers brown, and the others weren't sparing the overturned glasses a glance either. To Sua, the whole thing felt deeply strange.

"Oh, this is good. Here and here—switch them like this…."

She's lost it. Or something's possessing her. Is she a pianist?

Snap. A moment later the writer shut the laptop. Then she faced Sua and spoke as if declaring something.

"Sua, that was a brilliant interpretation—and on top of it, you gave a performance that matched the interpretation perfectly. Thank you. Truly."

"Uh…."

This is a compliment, right? Anyway?

"But let's add just one setting."

"A setting?"

"Yes. The kind of setting that lands like one very powerful blow."

What was she planning to attach? Sua wondered, and a moment later the writer let out something shocking.

"I'm changing Kim Yu-han's gender to female. Only—early on, we'll have her cross-dress, so she reads as a man. And then in the later half, ta-da! She shows up as a woman, right in front of everyone."

"Uh, so you mean… a woman disguised as a man?"

"Exactly. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Kim Yu-han's an eccentric genius, isn't she? To catch a criminal she'd do anything. I can see her starting by deceiving her own side."

Writer Lee Geumsuk was extremely excited. Extremely.

"And you don't have a single credit yet, Sua. Put another way—not one viewer out there knows who you are."

As if a spirit had descended on her, the writer nodded.