Don't You Think We'd Suit Each Other?
"...It was that easy?"
The woman from marketing blurted it back, startled, and immediately swung her head toward the handheld camera at her side. Her voice climbed with her.
"Everyone watching this later—you heard that loud and clear, right? Sua says even playing Kim Yu-han was incredibly easy! This is huge!"
"...What?"
For Sua, it was nothing but bewildering. What she had actually said was that it left her wanting. What they had heard was that it had been very easy. A small miracle of the ear—and she had never even produced the extra syllable that turned one into the other.
"But then, it's not hard to believe! With skill like yours, Sua, I can absolutely see it. Shall we start taking the part called Lee Sua apart, one piece at a time? You still don't have an agency, correct?"
"No. I don't have an agency."
"No agency! Now that is truly unprecedented!"
Sua didn't really understand, but unprecedented didn't seem to be a lie. The people around them had actually begun to stir.
"You're in for a rough time today, aren't you, Sua?"
"Rough?"
Rough? What was rough about it? Did having no agency come with some kind of penalty? She was given no opening to amend the answer she had already let slip, and no opening to ask anything further. The questions came down without a pause between them.
"How did you learn to act like that?"
"I never really learned. At first it was just a hobby..."
"You've never learned? And it was a hobby?"
Her eyes went perfectly round.
"...Aha. You're joking for the sake of the mood on set, aren't you?"
The answer was more than she could handle, and she was desperately hoping it was a joke. Sua, however, had no particular intention of lying. She gave a light shake of her head, and the woman's eyes blew wide.
"...S-so you've never studied, and you started it as a hobby?"
"Yes."
"Uh..."
The woman who had threaded her way through any situation like a crafty old snake closed her mouth for the first time. Sua's outrageous answer was the cause. The crew hovering nearby reacted little differently. As the shock spread like a wave, each of them began to put in a word.
"What exactly did she say? I didn't catch it."
"The Kim Yu-han role was incredibly easy, apparently. And acting's a hobby."
"She's just messing around because it's an off-the-record video, right?"
"...Does that look like a face that's messing around? Look again. Tell me that's a joking face."
Among them, one person was startled beyond all the rest.
...A hobby? She did this much as nothing more than a hobby?
Hwang Myung-pil, who had only recently raised his standing by earning the title of luxury supporting actor, could not help the shock that ached at the back of his skull. His was a face that drew laughter, and so he was welcomed above all in supporting roles. He had climbed this far only because he had never once let go of acting through the long years of obscurity. He had never even played a lead.
A leading role, landed as a hobby? An unfinished character, researched with no one to teach her?
The heavens felt particularly cruel. So acting was talent after all, was it?
While the outdoor set steeped itself in each person's private awe, a few kept their composure even now. Lee Geumsuk, Choi Heewon, Seo Yeon-ju, and Kim Seonil. Four of them.
Seo Yeon-ju picked up a thin potato chip and spoke.
"Do you think we looked like that?"
"You were louder. And more unpleasant to look at."
"I never got down on my knees, though. Just so you know."
Between Kim Seonil and Seo Yeon-ju, seated side by side, the usual heartwarming conversation was underway. Lee Geumsuk, who had been listening in silence, laughed.
"Are the two of you actually blood siblings? I mix you up sometimes, I swear."
Both of them looked revolted. Seo Yeon-ju shuddered.
"Please don't say things that give me chills. Anyway, I completely understand the set's reaction. Sua is just that much of a marvel."
And so the marketing team's off-the-record recording came to an end. It had wrapped in a matter of minutes, but there was no helping it. Anyone who lived on a set knew just how extraordinary words like hobby and self-taught really were.
...And the thing those two had combined to produce was Kim Yu-han? How was anyone supposed to not be shocked? At least, that was how Seo Yeon-ju saw it.
Meanwhile, the protagonist of the chaos. Sua, who had become the eye of the typhoon before she knew what was happening.
What is this situation.
She was wholly occupied with trying to make sense of it. A test shoot was an occasion of the utmost importance. If she meant to survive, she had to read the room. A minute of worrying, perhaps.
Then, at last, one fact.
...I wasn't the outcast?
The looks directed at her had grown clear enough to read. She had thought they were simply avoiding her, and now she understood the situation was not purely bad. What lived in the air around these people was not aversion. It was caution.
"..."
She was certain. Glances from every side, flicking toward her—wonder, admiration, and every so often something that seemed mixed with actual awe.
Thinking back, it fits. Even at the dinner celebrating the start of production, they treated it like I'd made some enormous declaration.
All she had meant was that she would keep quiet and do her work. People had taken the words another way. And today?
...I did all right, didn't I? I proved it, one way or another.
She had blurted out a monstrous ambition and then gone and proved it. Once her thoughts reached that far, understanding clicked neatly into place. She was not being treated badly. She had only been receiving a degree of regard with no precedent in her life.
Whoa. I'm being treated like this?
Sua's eyes glittered.
I'm shaking so hard I could lose it. No—this is the reaction I wanted, isn't it? And so what? It's not like I answered with a lie.
Sua began frantically soothing herself.
They're seeing you exactly the way you wanted. Be happy. Be happy, me.
Enjoy it. Don't shake—enjoy it, Lee Sua. Calmly. Naturally.
She threw herself in earnest into the work of managing her own face. This was different from earlier, when she had clung for dear life to a blank expression and nothing else. A touch of ease. A hint of hauteur. She was very nearly the haughty madam of a trashy melodrama.
But.
"..."
How long passed like that?
...Ugh. I can't keep this up. My heart hurts.
Wherever she looked, the view was the same. A whole landscape of people glancing and murmuring about no one but Sua still came down on her as a terrible weight, and the arm that had been bitten earlier still ached. She did not want them seeing her face crumple just because she was in pain.
"Meat's here! Meat!"
"I have to drive. This is tragic. Can't even drink."
"Just call a designated driver. You think a day like today comes around often?"
A group came over hauling boxes crammed with ingredients, the sign that the real company dinner was about to begin. Sua brushed herself off and stood.
"I'll be heading home early."
She offered no reason. Nothing but the conclusion—outrageous, as ever. Yet not a single person pressed her for one. Every gaze she met answered with a greeting and a cleared path.
Sua thought it, bright and simple. Oh. It works. It works. This is working.
Quietly pleased, she left with her shoulders held a little higher than before, and those who remained could only watch her go.
Then—
"Yeon-ju. And Seonil."
Hwang Myung-pil called Kim Seonil and Seo Yeon-ju over.
"That rookie who played Kim Yu-han. The more I look at her, the less I understand. What kind of person is she, exactly?"
Seo Yeon-ju answered, calmly crunching a potato chip.
"Sua is Sua. It's hard to explain her any other way."
"...What does that mean? I thought the two of you knew her."
"We don't know either. We've just gotten used to her."
"What?"
"I'll tell you in advance. Give up on trying to understand."
Seo Yeon-ju let out a short laugh.
"You won't understand anyway. Accepting it is about all you can do, wouldn't you say?"
Sua walked in silence toward the parking lot. Once she reached it she would catch a taxi, and the moment she got home she would collapse like a corpse and sleep. Satisfaction aside, the day had truly worn her out.
...Still, I was kind of cool. Lee Sua? You've got talent.
And yet, even while she felt tired enough to die, a dopey grin kept leaking out. The situation had been born of a misunderstanding, yes. If she maintained it well from here, though, what did it matter? Being thought well of by other people was, for Sua, an immensely happy thing. A first. Never once in her life had it happened.
Auuu. Sleep first. Hospital tomorrow.
But in that very moment—
Ah.
Something she had to do rose up in her mind. There are things in this world that must be done right now, no matter how tired you are, and one of them had just occurred to Sua. Namely—
Come to think of it, should I hand out a few of my business cards?
She turned the idea over. At present she had no agency and was working on her own. Her only connection to the broadcast world was Soyeon, an older friend who had been a guild master—and strictly speaking, even Soyeon didn't count. Mutube and the actual industry were different things entirely.
And today, of all days, wasn't this a gathering where every sort of person tied to the drama had come together? If she wandered around, greeted people politely, and slipped them a card on the side, wouldn't that be fine?
Get the face remembered!
Office life or anything else, she had never heard of anyone coming out the worse for handling this sort of thing politely. Of course, she had no idea what kind of reaction that face of hers would earn....
And so Sua busily made the rounds, scattering her cards.
"I'm Lee Sua!"
"I'm Lee Sua, the actress who played Kim Yu-han today. This is my card—if you could just remember the face..."
"Lee Sua!"
Fortunately, they took the cards as if they had been waiting for them. Quite a few also looked as though they had something they wanted to say to her.
But then. At a certain moment—
"There's no need for that."
Someone's voice struck her ear.
What? Did I overdo it?
She turned her head on that worry, and startled hard.
None other than Kim Iseo, CEO of Mystic Entertainment. She was the one who had spoken.