When the Acting Is Middling
"I think this is simply beyond what I can do...."
Park Joon said it, and the words curdled into self-mockery. Having to spit out a line like that himself was miserable enough. More miserable still was the fact that it wasn't even wrong.
"...Right. I'll just let it go. This isn't my film."
Yang Ha-rin's agency meant to seize the whole thing and shake it however they pleased. How was he supposed to hold out against that? Better to accept it. From the moment he had started depending on their money, the work was already dead.
In the end Park Joon let out a sigh and spoke. He was placing the call to Yang Ha-rin as he did.
"Hello. Ha-rin?"
"Yes. What is it."
"It's... about seating you as the lead, and the part where you asked me to find a new rookie."
"Why. You don't want to do it that way?"
The sharp voice came stabbing back at once. Park Joon rushed to explain.
"No, no. It isn't that. If we're going to do it that way, I wondered whether we might as well hold an open audition."
"An open audition?"
"Yes. You want to work alongside a rookie, so wouldn't it be better to line the candidates up and see them yourself?"
Yang Ha-rin was quiet for a moment, thinking.
"Hmm...."
"Doesn't seem like a bad idea. Let's do that."
Whatever the project, there were always people eager to be part of it, and all they had to do was pick the decent ones out of that crowd. Nothing more. This time, they could simply do the same.
A week later.
Wonsung-ing had been frantically busy since morning. Not, of course, for any reason the rest of the world would have called respectable.
Taka-taka-tak—! Her fingertips hammered the keyboard without a moment's pause.
Games, movies, dramas... Wonsung-ing loved a diversion more than anyone, but today her work had already been decided.
"Well, look at that. It finally exists."
Articles had been sprouting like bamboo after rain, and at last a community had appeared for the sole purpose of talking about Special Task Force 808. Today, Wonsung-ing intended to play here.
Even if she tried to pick up some other hobby now, a lifetime spent only in communities had made this the thing that fit her best. And it was simply too fun. As luck would have it, the place looked excellent for playing today—the rate at which new posts spawned was no joke at all. She had to be startled, first, by the speed of it. Refresh once, and nearly a full page got shoved down.
"...Whoa, why is it this packed? Number one on the real-time hottest galleries? This many people were waiting?"
Which post to start with? She hesitated, then decided to read every single one. That, after all, was how she truly savored a gallery.
[Photo: Seo Yeon-ju and Kim Seonil]
Both of them look unreal.... How are you supposed to not watch this?
[Clip: a gun aimed straight at a monitor]
Kids.
Big bro looked at it for you.
What if this had been a bait post? Huh?
What if it had been something cruel?
What if it had been something disgusting?
Don't go clicking threads at random from now on.
Hey, kids. It's your big bro, the one who only ever hit the right answer on the other drama galleries. Kim Yu-han is basically a genius-detective role, so— (omitted) —I'm thinking it might be a male actor along these lines.
"Insane. I only skimmed, and the time's already gone."
Maybe because the crowd was so large, every kind of person had gathered—those cheering, those baiting and playing pranks, those who took their pleasure in reasoning out facts no one had confirmed yet.
Wonsung-ing thought for a moment, then simply wrote a single post.
She meant it. How was she supposed to hold back.
Meanwhile, the day of auditions for the short film Sword.
"Thank you for your time. We'll be in touch."
Director Park Joon saw off the actor who had just finished, then immediately slashed an X through the name on the roster. Rejection.
Reject. Reject. Reject. He hadn't imagined there would be no one—not one—who caught his eye. At this rate, when was he ever going to cast someone he actually liked? He was about to lose his mind.
At that, the woman seated beside him let slip a pleased little laugh.
"You're stricter than I expected. I was worried you'd start arguing that we ought to pass these pathetic things."
She, too, had been marking X's down the list in front of her, just as Park Joon had. She was the actress who had already claimed one of the leads in Sword.
Yang Ha-rin. The very person with Park Joon's lifeline twisted in her fist. Her bearing was the same as ever: black hair like the darkest hour before dawn, eyes sunk in quiet composure, and an air that seemed to freeze everything around her.
Park Joon nodded.
"...Of course the screening has to be thorough. This isn't just anyone. I'm looking for an actor who will stand beside you, Ha-rin."
"Director Park has finally come to his senses. How delightful."
Yang Ha-rin nodded, thoroughly satisfied. Park Joon kept his head lowered, his face drawn tight. What he felt inside was nothing like what he showed.
'Judging strictly for your sake? Bullshit.'
A few people with genuinely fine acting had shown their faces today, and Park Joon had slashed an X through every last one of them, feeling as if he were swallowing tears of blood. There was only one reason.
'...No matter how badly I want this film finished, I will not do it by offering someone else up as a sacrifice. Never.'
Yes. That was the only reason. Yang Ha-rin would torment her fellow actor by every method she had. In the most selfish way imaginable, she would knead them into an elixir brewed for no one but herself, and drink them down to the last drop. He could not allow it. He could not stand by and watch that happen.
That was when Yang Ha-rin stretched. Even in a motion so ordinary, there wasn't a single crack of carelessness.
"Only one audition candidate left now."
"Ah— ah, right. So there is."
Jolted out of his thoughts, Park Joon nodded in a hurry. Yang Ha-rin turned toward him and lifted the corner of her mouth, the smile meaningful.
"Lee Sua... something like that, I think. Pray this one is of any use. If she isn't, your film gets scrapped, Director Park. After all the work you poured into it."
"Yeah. All I can do is hope she's something remarkable."
He said it, but inside he felt otherwise. A rookie who could stand level with Yang Ha-rin, simply appearing out of nowhere?
'I don't even hope for that anymore.'
Clinging to something so close to impossible would only let his heart rot. Park Joon chose the possibility that was actually real. Now he only hoped the film would be scrapped.
That was when it happened.
"Hello."
A woman appeared, passing through the open door. A director's instinct took over, and Park Joon looked at her appearance first.
'Excellent proportions. Put her in front of a camera and those curves will frame beautifully. The legs, especially. And the face is... huh?'
He had no choice but to be badly startled. The applicant's face was fiercer and colder than he had imagined—cold enough that Yang Ha-rin, sitting right beside him, seemed almost warm by comparison.
"...!"
He shook his head hard.
'I looked at nothing but a face, and this is what I just thought!'
For an instant he rebuked himself. It was also a deliberate effort to shake off a hope he had picked up without meaning to—the hope, born of looks alone, that she might be all right standing next to Yang Ha-rin.
The applicant's appearance seemed to have caught in Yang Ha-rin's eye as well. Head cocked at a crooked angle, she stared straight through the woman. What followed, though, was not what Park Joon had expected. The applicant did not look away from that gaze. Not even a little. This was entirely outside his predictions.
"..."
Their eyes stayed locked for a long while. At last Yang Ha-rin brought one hand up in front of her face and wagged it up and down, as if the whole display were ridiculous.
A voice like hoarfrost over frozen ground. Your expression is insolent, so fix it this instant—that was the meaning. Yang Ha-rin had only said it at a slight angle. But a moment later her face went blank and foolish.
The answer that came back was nothing more than that.