Okay.
The moment Sua and her party stepped out of the hair studio, every employee flocked to Yeonhwa’s side. The way they had all, only a moment earlier, pretended to be looking elsewhere had been irritating — but there was no time now even to take them to task for it.
“Unreal. Who was that woman? The vibe was no joke, right?”
“I have every celebrity’s face memorized, and I’ve never seen hers.”
“You know I’ve been reading webtoons lately? The Northern Grand Duchess, something like that? She kind of looked like one.”
“What are you even talking about. Wasn’t it just a wolf’s face? Like she’d bite the second anybody slipped. I spent the whole time terrified she was about to go for the director’s throat.”
“Guess stylists aren’t stylists for nothing. You saw that before-and-after, right? How do they even find a look that suits someone that perfectly, and then send them to a salon?”
“Well, that’s only possible because the director’s skill is there to back it up.”
No.
Lee Yeonhwa quietly shook her head.
She sank into thought. Her own sense of it differed, a little, from the staff’s. Of course the stylists had done their research well, and of course she herself had brought the best of her skill to bear.
But.
She felt certain that none of that had been the deciding thing.
‘…Whatever we had done, it would have suited her. That was unmistakably the feeling.’
A thousand faces. A face that would wear anything.
It had, without question, been that kind of face. Never once, until today, had she felt such a thing from a client.
That was when it happened.
Someone came pounding up the stairs in a rush, and an instant later the door banged open. A man, his face lit with extreme excitement.
He was a regular of this place, a manager at some agency, a spectator who had dropped in on the mock shoot of Special Task Force 808, and the very man who had once talked about Sua here before.
“Hey, hey! Yeonhwa! That client who just walked out—!”
“Huh?”
“The contract! Did you sign her? You said you were looking for a model!”
“Uh? No. Not yet.”
A light came on, then, in Lee Yeonhwa’s head and in the staff’s alike. It was a brilliantly sharp instinct — the instinct that if they could only hold on to that one celebrity, it would do more for them than any promotion in the world.
“Hey, call her again, right now! Do it this second, no matter what!”
“Uh, uh…?”
The man put force behind his voice.
“A little from now, her price doubles. No — what am I saying, double. Five times! Five times! If anything, right now is the floor!”
Meanwhile, Sua had come home.
She was plastered to the mirror and showed no sign of peeling herself off.
“Ooh…”
She liked the way she looked.
“Oooooh…”
She liked it. She really, truly liked it.
It was the first time she had ever adorned herself like this, and the snow-white hair pleased her down to the bone. They said that after a few days, and a few more washes, it would turn even whiter. Good heavens.
Sua pulled out her phone at once.
Looking at it now, there were already quite a few messages searching for her.
‘Right. I called them and then never actually said anything.’
Back on the bus she had been about to brag, only for Director Park Joon to sit down beside her, and so she had put the phone away. But that was then. The Sua of this moment wanted to show off something else entirely.
“…?”
Met with a reaction nothing like the one she had expected, Sua put the phone away again — at the same instant, of course, as swiftly kicking one person out of the chat.
“Hah. What would any of you know. I can’t even show you this.”
She was dying to photograph herself and boast, but she resolved to be patient. If they treated her like this now, wouldn’t the shock land all the harder later?
Instead, Sua picked up the script she had been given.
“Right. Practice first. Practice.”
The moment her hand settled on it, she entered the hotel that was her Special Privilege space, and without a shred of hesitation she lifted the receiver.
▶ Renderable elements: Sufficient
001 — Kim Yu-han
002 — Lee Kang-cheol
003 — Ha Yun-jin
The method of training was the same as before. Experience every situation, every role, with nothing left out, and in doing so melt into her own body every possibility that existed in the world of Special Task Force 808.
Sssss—!
Sua began at once to live through the principal-photography script.
No — by now it would be fair to call it absorption.
And a long while later.
“Haaaaah…”
Sua dropped onto the bed with a deeply satisfied look.
Perhaps because her proficiency had risen, she had already finished every experience. There wasn’t even the sensation of her head about to split from the drain on her mind. So she really had become a master. That was what this was.
What to do from here. Rest? Play?
But all at once her expression turned grave.
She had realized she couldn’t simply kill the time. Right — as she was now, there was a task she absolutely had to settle.
Sua looked at her phone.
It wasn’t even a pile from several days. This much had stacked up only in the time she spent absorbing the principal-photography script. Confidence that she could handle so many things herself? Sua had not a speck of it.
But she knew the right answer that could take care of them.
There had been a moment at the salon when she had been nodding off. Even then, writer Lee Geumsuk had gone on pouring out words without a pause, and among them one line had lodged in her mind with peculiar force.
An agency.
That was it. An agency. An agency that would do the work in her place.
“…An agency. I do need one. I really do.”
The task was clear. Find an agency.
Sua spread open every business card she had kept buried beneath a rabbit plush as if it were a blanket. Counting them, there were many. Fifteen in all.
“So this means I have to pick, out of all of these, the agency that will work the hardest. An agency that will work for no one but me.”
But how was she supposed to meet every one of them?
It was difficult from every angle. Touching a business card didn’t make a grade appear over it, and it wasn’t as if Sua possessed an eye sharp enough to judge them on her own….
Then Director Park Joon’s words surfaced.
‘Mystic. He’d said it was an agency a rookie would want to enter even if they had to slip money under the table to do it. He had definitely said that.’
Thinking it over, Mystic wasn’t bad from Sua’s side either. They were people she knew, so the faces were reasonably familiar, and they had been well-disposed toward her from the start.
And image management!
The mask Sua currently had on was that of an expensive woman, the sort people around her could not easily approach. If she meant to keep an image like that, calling each place one by one would hardly do.
In that case….
Sua placed a call. She had made her decision.
Somewhere in a park in Seoul, a coffee commercial was in full swing.
Under a brilliant sky, with petals drifting slowly down, Kim Seonil and Seo Yeon-ju walked side by side. Then a woman appeared without warning and planted herself in front of the two of them.
“…Ha?”
It was the face of someone who had finally witnessed a sight she could not bear to see.
The woman let out a hollow laugh and came toward Kim Seonil.
“Oppa, your standards have dropped like crazy since I last saw you. The person you date after breaking up with me is a woman like this?”
Seo Yeon-ju ducked her head timidly, as if conceding the point. Kim Seonil, on the contrary, wore a smile as though he found the whole thing laughable.
And catching the wrist of Seo Yeon-ju, who was trying to flee—
“If you’re nothing but coffee, then she is my Credit.”
He declared it like a nail driven home. The woman who had cut in froze where she stood, and before her the two of them put on a display of tenderness, plainly for her to see.
It was then that the director of the shoot shouted.
“Okay! Incredible! This is incredible! Credit Coffee is going to sell like crazy! We wrap it right here — no reshoot!”
An instant later, Kim Seonil and Seo Yeon-ju shoved each other away.
A hard movement, like the same poles of a magnet driving each other off; a sight of two people recoiling as if they had seen a ghost. Both of them wore faces of pure horror.
“I actually have goosebumps. Don’t you ever grab my wrist again.”
“I’ve done something unforgivable to my hand. How am I supposed to beg its forgiveness.”
Seo Yeon-ju shook her wrist out hard. Kim Seonil scrubbed his palm like a madman with hand sanitizer. To the eyes of the crew, it was a sight that made them wonder how on earth those two had managed to get through an ad script at all.
Then someone came toddling over on small, quick steps.
“Seonil, Yeon-ju. Both of you worked hard. Admirable professionalism.”
The CEO of Mystic Entertainment. Kim Iseo.
She looked as she always did. Two large hairpins in her bangs, and clothes that brought a professor to mind.
Seo Yeon-ju grumbled.
“Honestly, why do I have to do a commercial like this. No — the commercial isn’t even the problem. Why does it have to be with this guy, of all people?”
“Accept it. There are far too many people who want the chemistry between the two of you. And the next commercial even has an embrace in it.”
“I’m not doing it. I’m telling you now: I would rather die than do that.”
Mystic, at present, had become busy past all reason. Several commercials that had never been on the existing schedule had been added.
“…Ugh. Do we really have to go this far.”
Seo Yeon-ju pressed a palm to her forehead.
The three of Mystic let out a deep sigh all at once — and yet they themselves understood why they had to keep moving at this pace. There was a reason worthy of it.
Money.
Money, to bring in the monster rookie.
Fanning herself with one hand, Seo Yeon-ju said,
“But what if we go this far and she still doesn’t call? What if she just cuts us loose? Now that I’ve said it, it’s a little absurd, isn’t it? Us, at our weight class, having to worry about getting dumped…?”
That was when it happened.
Kim Iseo’s phone rang, a bright little melody cutting in, and she answered without so much as checking the caller. Not a single second wasted on any piece of business. That was Kim Iseo’s creed.
“This is CEO Kim Iseo.”
“Hello. This is actress Sua.”
For an instant, Kim Iseo went still.
Then she moved quickly.
She turned one palm toward Seo Yeon-ju and Kim Seonil, and brought her thumb and forefinger together into a circle.
The reason they had been earning money. A call had come from Sua.
“…!”
At that, Seo Yeon-ju threw her arms around Kim Seonil on the spot.
The two of them nodded at the same time. They would shoot the next commercial after all. They would earn more money however they had to. Whatever the terms, just bring her in.
Taking the full force of their two laser-bright stares, Kim Iseo opened her mouth.
“Sua, what’s going on?”
She played dumb, as if she knew nothing at all.
Her heart was another matter. Please let it be a contract. Please let it be a contract.
“I think it’s about time we talked about an agency contract.”
“Good. Tell me a time that’s convenient. I’ll send a van.”
Kim Iseo settled a few more points, then ended the call.
And a moment later she herself went to Seo Yeon-ju and Kim Seonil, and was gathered into the embrace.
Two days later.
The employees of Mystic Entertainment were busy from morning. It was a building a cleaning company ordinarily kept in meticulous order, but today the staff themselves were going over it with careful attention.
Of course, being a young company, there were not many of them.
The work they usually saw was simple — at most, handling office duties from their own desks. Today was different. They were engaged in a task unlike the usual.
Stand posted in various places, neatly dressed.
That was Kim Iseo’s order.
None of them had done anything like it before, and so the murmuring never quite stopped.
“Is some head of state coming today or what?”
“I’ve seen this in a drama. Isn’t this how they line up to receive you when the youngest daughter of a conglomerate family walks in? Wild.”
“Who on earth is coming, for it to be like this?”
“Just a rookie. She’s coming to sign a contract, they say.”
“I heard the contract was already done?”
“That’s that she’s already under Mystic. The details aren’t settled yet. This is the meeting to work those out, apparently.”
At the word rookie, the employees went wide-eyed and looked up the person’s information. The moment they checked the photo, reactions burst out from every side.
“…Is she actually a conglomerate’s youngest daughter?”
“She looks incredibly fierce.”
“Feels like she wouldn’t wear anything but heels.”
“Feels like she’d take a cab for a one-meter walk.”
“Make eye contact and you get a drink thrown in your face, don’t you?”
While they were muttering, Kim Seonil, Seo Yeon-ju, and Kim Iseo appeared first and went up to the floor above.
All three of them were dressed more finely than ever, and a new hire who had been watching blankly asked,
“All three of them really came in hot, huh? It’s not a shoot, just a contract, right? Is there a reason to go that far?”
“You really don’t know a thing.”
Another employee answered.
“In a contract, even your appearance becomes a weapon. Sit there looking like you’ve pulled out all the stops, and that alone is pressure, isn’t it? You can come out ahead in the negotiation without actually doing anything.”
“Ah. I see.”
It was a world a new employee could not even imagine.
Using grooming as a weapon to seize the advantage, and with that saving or spending tens of thousands of dollars. Wasn’t that, quite literally, war?
That was when it happened.
A face never met in person, and yet familiar, came into view.
Silence came first.
It felt as though the inside of the building had gone cold. Winter had walked in. The woman passed slowly down the corridor, snow-white hair stirring, and she did not spare the employees so much as a glance.
“Welcome!”
The greeting came far too late. Everyone had been slow to guess who she was, because she looked far too different from the photograph. Had it not been for those fierce eyes, they likely would never have recognized her at all.
While they were all dipping their heads together, the new hire asked,
“She’s completely different from the photo! There’s a mole under her eye, and she even dyed her hair? If we’re calling that a weapon, what grade is it?”
“Well… a nuclear bomb?”
“…Sua. Welcome.”
Kim Iseo could not take her eyes off her.
‘What is this styling? Did she come prepared?’
A solitary fox of the Arctic, where a cold wind blows without mercy.
Kim Iseo thought a chill even greater than usual hung about Sua.
“Thank you.”
In truth, Sua was only cowed. Kim Seonil and Seo Yeon-ju standing right there beside CEO Kim Iseo only made it worse.
And all three of them had dressed to a degree that could not even be compared with the usual. For Sua, it was a pressure rather difficult to endure.
“Sua, let’s go straight to the point.”
The feeling-out across the negotiation table lasted only a moment.
Kim Iseo’s real proposal began.
“Last time, Sua, you said it was cute. Well, I understand. Looking at it now, the terms I offered were thoroughly ordinary.”
“…?”
“I don’t imagine the other agencies failed to contact you, and I expect their terms were mostly cute as well. Am I right?”
Sua simply nodded.
The Sua Nod.
“So I found myself wanting to offer you terms that are not cute, but pretty. To put it simply, the question is how far we at Mystic are willing to go for you.”
She really does talk about nothing but the point, Sua thought.
She was a little scattered, a little shaky, but she steadied herself. She repeated Park Joon’s words.
He said I was a very fine property, didn’t he? So there’s no need to lose my nerve. I’m not a criminal.
Right then.
“Or would you like to speak first, Sua?”
“Yes?”
“Is there something in particular that you want?”
Sua recalled what Director Park Joon had told her.
That line about mentioning it, if she had a dream car.
It was a tempting idea, that much was true. Ever since she had lived through Speeding, she had wanted to try driving.
‘But is it actually right to say this? Really?’
‘What if I look too arrogant, and they start disliking me?’
Contrary to Sua’s worries, Kim Iseo’s thoughts ran in the exact opposite direction.
‘I have to land her. No matter what. She motivates Yeon-ju and Seonil enough to make them volunteer for commercials. She’s a living totem. Lock her down, and she will send Mystic soaring. No question.’
However much this recruitment cost her now, she was confident she could earn it back later. With that conviction, Kim Iseo set her jaw.
And Sua, who had no way of knowing any of it, was busy flying off on a tangent.
‘What if the car they say they’ll buy me is barley tea? Or green tea? Do I report them?’
“Sua. Look at this.”
The one who broke the silence was Kim Iseo.
At a jerk of her chin, the employee waiting at her side brought over a single long, narrow box.
Opened, car keys lay stretched out in a row like silkworm pupae. It had taken a careful look for Sua even to realize that they were car keys.
Cars whose names she didn’t know at all. And yet, even Sua, who understood none of it, could be certain of one thing.
Every last one of them was surely something tremendous.
Kim Iseo eased the box across toward her.
“Pick one. Whatever you please.”