A Moment. I Have Something to Tell You.
"I'd like to peel it off. Just once."
A single remark from Director Go Taemin, who had been watching Sua. The staffer standing at his side nodded along.
"Right?"
"Aigoo. That's not what I meant, Inseok."
"Sir? Ah— I didn't mean it in a bad way either. Ahem..."
When Director Go Taemin glanced over, the man flushed and cleared his throat. He was the PD assigned to direct Go Taemin's new film, Starting Tomorrow, Crescendo. The director only clicked his tongue. He didn't scold him. Even to his eye, Sua's body was striking, and when proportions fell into that kind of harmony, a person was bound to look. It had never been only the PD beside him under the spell. Everyone around them would be much the same. A body that seized the gaze by force — that was what Sua's was.
"...So, what did you mean by it?"
"What else?"
Director Go Taemin went on as if it were obvious.
"I want to peel away the outer shell the makeup is hiding. Aren't you curious what's inside? There's a monster in there, I'm certain of it. The kind of monster none of us has ever seen."
"A monster... Hmm. Yeah, I suppose..."
The PD nodded quietly. He agreed. After that, Director Go Taemin went on studying Sua's acting with care — the scenes with Kim Seonil, the scenes with Park Dohui, and what she did with herself in the lulls when she wasn't performing. All of it.
The skill is already exceptional. Going out to audition wouldn't even have been appealing. She's at a level where she could simply pick and choose among the projects that come to her already bowing. As far as ability goes, that's where she stands.
Chief Seo Jaewoo, once Director Kim Jungi's right hand. Why had he gone to Kim Jungi boasting that he'd found an actor tailor-made for Life is All About Money? Why had he sought out Kim Iseo and Sua out of nowhere and all but clung to them, begging them just to look at the script? Go Taemin understood the reason now. Sua's ability was that far beyond the rest.
But he still did not understand Sua herself.
Even so, a newcomer shouldn't have found it easy to brush off Kim Jungi's name back then. Did she refuse because she was frightened, because the pressure was too much? Or because it genuinely wasn't enough for her? Which was it?
He had his answer soon enough. The face he had first seen on her came back to him — that face, locked stiff in front of the Special Task Force 808 headquarters.
It would have been the latter. That look I'd taken for nerves — seeing her now, I don't think it was. She was simply concentrating. She'd already put Kim Yu-han on, even then.
Around then, Director Go Taemin tapped the shoulders of the people nearby. He had to go that far just to get their attention. The entire production team of Starting Tomorrow, Crescendo had gone slack-jawed.
"That Kim Yu-han role. What do you make of it, watching her?"
Someone beside him answered at once.
"It's uncanny."
A plain reaction. And at the same time, the right one.
"Uncanny is the only word that comes out. Completing an unfinished role — one written for the opposite sex — entirely in her own way is already astonishing, isn't it? How much research must she have done?"
"Exactly. I know the 808 script fairly well myself, and she slips past every spot where the worldbuilding might trip her, with eerie precision. That androgynous voice is hard to pin down, and it has a charm of its own."
One by one, the rest of the Starting Tomorrow, Crescendo crew began to join the conversation, though not a single one of them was looking at anyone else. Every mouth flapped while every pair of eyes stayed fixed on Sua.
"From what I overheard around the set, that whole scene was an ad-lib. How does a newcomer even do that? And her scene partner is Kim Seonil, of all people — the one everyone calls impossible. That means she walked in with an enormous amount of conviction."
"Look, I'll grant all of that. But hold on a second."
That was when it happened. Someone spoke up, sounding almost incredulous. He was the staffer in charge of casting for Starting Tomorrow, Crescendo — the one who compiled the applicants' tapes on a tablet and reported them to Director Go Taemin one by one. He went on.
"Has anyone here actually seen that rookie's face before? Even once? Because this is genuinely the first time for me."
"Us too..."
They all shook their heads. First time in their lives.
"I dug through every newcomer I could find, no exceptions. So why am I seeing her for the first time? A look that stands out like that, acting this singular... she has all of it. How did I not know? What on earth did I miss?"
"I know how hard you worked. Don't blame yourself."
Director Go Taemin soothed the casting staffer as if to say it was all right. No one knew better than he did how the man had run himself ragged for Starting Tomorrow, Crescendo. He had even gone looking through musicals, and then through stage plays.
"A comet always falls without warning. That's simply how it is. We can ask Writer Lee Geumsuk or PD Choi Heewon for the details later. Now then... and—"
Director Go Taemin drew a hand along his jaw.
"Park Dohui. The truth is, we came here because of Park Dohui. What did you make of the acting Dohui showed us today?"
"Dohui? She was incredible today. She's improved so much in such a short time. She wasn't anywhere near this level when she auditioned for us."
"Calling it an improvement in skill feels a little off."
Something subtle settled into Director Go Taemin's voice.
"Right. It isn't skill. Her caliber has gone up a whole tier."
"...Her caliber went up?"
Praise for Park Dohui, and genuine awe. And yet, nowhere in the conversation did anyone suggest casting her as the lead of Go Taemin's new film. They all knew. There was someone else here who deserved the praise even more.
"Yes. And it isn't only Dohui. Kim Seonil is the same. The Kim Seonil I know is an actor who wouldn't even consider varying his performance, and now he's matching her without a hitch. What do you think the cause is? Kim Yu-han, obviously."
And the one at the center of it was, of course, the actor playing Kim Yu-han.
"I thought so. I'd been feeling it too, vaguely."
The PD in charge of direction agreed.
"It looks like they're walking in step, but look closer and they aren't. When Kim Yu-han takes a step ahead, Lee Kang-cheol hurries to catch up. It ought to be the other way around. Kim Yu-han is the newcomer."
"True. This industry is built to disadvantage newcomers."
It was a hard business for a rookie to take the lead in. The director, the crew, the actors around them — there wasn't a single person whose standing sat below a newcomer's, and so a newcomer's voice was bound to be weak. But Lee Sua was different. She led without hesitation and without difficulty, as if she had always done it this way.
"I don't know what happened during the rehearsal shoot, but she already seems to have an enormous amount of trust behind her. It's hard to believe. A newcomer acting freely, and the whole set pushing her forward?"
No one could bring themselves to answer. They had understood it in their heads, but it was far too difficult a fact to actually accept. It was the casting staffer who finally broke the silence, a moment later.
"So she didn't just finish an unfinished role. She's pulling the people around her up with her, too?"
"That's right. The work as a whole has gotten much better."
Go Taemin rubbed his rough chin.
"...I'd like to try my film on her. Just once. I wonder how it would sit."
Just as he murmured it, the Starting Tomorrow, Crescendo crew began to whisper among themselves.
"Director, we should go. They just spotted you over there. They've started murmuring like mad."
"Looks like they're getting ready to come over and pay their respects. We ought to head out."
Director Go Taemin rose at once. Having people come greet him on the strength of his name was welcome enough, but this was the set of Special Task Force 808. If attention swung toward him, it would be a terrible imposition.
Leaving like this is an awful shame, but.
Even as his feet carried him off, Go Taemin kept looking back.
The emotional line is extraordinarily fine. People already more delicate than the ordinary sort tend to express music well, in all sorts of ways...
He went on with a great regret caught in his throat.
The first day of filming for Special Task Force 808 had come to an end.
"This! You didn't pack the camera!"
The set was still noisy, though, because the work of striking the equipment was in full swing. They couldn't simply leave the gear sitting out. It had to be folded away and set up again every single day, and the labor was grueling.
"I didn't forget it! There's just too much that has to be moved first! We'll pack it in order, so don't worry!"
"Sound team's moving out first! The gear's too sensitive!"
"Stay focused to the end! It isn't over until the wrap is done! Filming isn't completely finished! We have to do it again tomorrow!"
Setting the equipment up every day, and taking it all down again. The workload was bound to be absurd. And yet not a single person showed any sign of resenting it. If anything, a smile sat on every face. The reason was simple.
"Today's shoot was really something, wasn't it?"
"I lost track of time. To see this with my own two eyes..."
"How are the viewers even going to wait for this, one episode at a time?"
"I know! I'm dying to see how the audience reacts!"
The scenes the cameras had captured today were insanely good. They themselves could barely stand how good it was, and that made them wonder, all on their own, how it would land with the viewers. In the end, one of the crew couldn't hold it in.
"Ah! When's the premiere?! I'm actually going to lose my mind!"
Sua, meanwhile, looked like an arctic fox that had been soaked to the bone.
Would a fox that lives in the Arctic ever get caught in the rain? Sua had no idea either! Either way, she was profoundly tired, and so she was presently indulging the delusion that she resembled a rain-drenched fox.
Uuugh...
She pressed her fingertips into her eyelids.
Even if the Special Privilege somehow scrapes the skill up to scratch, my stamina isn't keeping up, so I'm wiped. I really ought to start exercising.
A rehearsal shoot, or a short film — this was a difficulty on an entirely different track. Film one scene and it was straight into the next, and after that the one after that. There was simply no room to breathe.
A phrase came to her all at once.
O arctic fox, bear the weight of the crown.
...Is this the weight of being the lead?
Honestly, Sua had never thought much about leads at all. A lead? Wasn't that just something a little better than a supporting role? Living it in her own body, she found it was not. A lead carried a staggering weight. The sheer volume alone was overwhelming — from the first thing to the last, it was all Sua's to shoulder.
Sleepy... tired... I want to die... no, I don't want to die...
She was just about to head back to her lodging when it happened.
Fwoosh—
Someone flung aside the flap at the entrance of the waiting-room tent. And the person who appeared was the last one she expected.
"Lee Sua."
Kim Seonil.
He had come looking for her, and his face was utterly grave.