Gimme, Gimme, Gimme, Gimme
Kim Seonil had no sooner stepped into the waiting-room tent than the five or so crew outside fell to whispering.
"Seonil's going in? But Sua's still in there."
"Wait. You don't think there's something between them?"
"No, no. Did you see his face? Dead serious. And you know what Sua's like. Seonil's got a temper of his own, besides. All those projects he's done, and not a single dating rumor."
"...So it isn't romance. Are they going in there to fight?"
For a moment, nobody spoke.
A clash of wills, between Lee Sua and Kim Seonil?
The thought drained the color from their faces. In all honesty, not one of them had the confidence to rein in either of those two. If the pair truly tore into each other, the shoot would be a total loss.
"No way. That can't be it!"
One of them spoke up then, suddenly sure of himself.
"Seonil and Sua are complete professionals. If they were the sort to let their feelings wreck a production, they never could have made scenes that good in the first place. I think it's something else."
"Something else?"
"Well—settling the next ad-lib scene, maybe?"
"Oh...!"
At that, every face eased, as if the situation had at last made sense. Admiration for Sua and Seonil spilled out with the relief.
"The passion on both of them is unreal. When they're shooting they give the shoot everything, and the moment the camera's off they're already matching the next scene and studying it..."
"That's why the scenes come out brilliant. That's why they're professionals."
"Professionals. I like that. Sua's a rookie, but the word rookie sits all wrong on her. She just radiates professional."
The talk ran on for quite a while after that.
Well—that was only what they believed, at any rate.
Meanwhile, inside the waiting-room tent.
...If he just stands there plugging the doorway, what exactly am I supposed to do.
That was the whole of the thought Sua spared Kim Seonil as she looked up at him. She wanted, badly, to get back to her room and rest, but there he stood at his full conspicuous height, blocking the entrance as if he meant to be looked at, and there was no getting past.
It was then that Kim Seonil nodded.
"As I thought. You were of the same mind."
"Hm?"
"Study is better done if you stay behind on set."
"Ack..."
Sua very nearly let an Acknowledged slip out before she knew she was doing it. Call it the Sua Acknowledges technique, firing on reflex. But life had its moments when a person was simply too tired, and for Sua, this was one of them. Heavy with sleep, she shook her head.
"...I'm only human, and I'm too sleepy. I was going to turn in for today."
"You don't have to be that on your guard. Kim Yu-han and Lee Kang-cheol are rivals, but they're partners too. And with ability like yours, I don't see why you'd need to keep anyone in check in the first place."
"..."
"What I'm saying is, let's be a little easier with each other from now on."
"Uh— uh..."
"And."
Kim Seonil held out a can of coffee.
He followed it by wiping his hands lightly with sanitizer, and only then did it come back to her. Right. This guy's a germaphobe.
"Lee Sua. There's something I want to ask you."
"Something you want to ask?"
Sua tensed, inwardly. He had come up and started the conversation himself, and now he was handing her canned coffee. It wasn't like Kim Seonil at all. So he had wanted something, just as she'd thought. But what he said next left her no choice but to tilt her head.
"When I act—did I look unhappy?"
"Hm?"
What kind of question is that.
It was nothing she had expected, but she considered it a moment and nodded. It was true that Kim Seonil, at the very least, had not looked happy. He nodded back.
"...Right. If they're your eyes, and not anyone else's, they'd be accurate. So it wasn't a thing entirely without sense."
"What wasn't?"
"It's nothing."
Sua's brow drew in, just slightly.
You go and make a person curious, and then you won't even tell them!
Soon enough, though, it stopped mattering. She was too sleepy.
"Before that. Lee Sua, let me ask one thing more."
"What."
"How does a person widen an acting range?"
Kim Seonil asked it with a grave set to his eyes.
"The truth is, I've been shut inside one particular kind of role for a long time. But you move freely between Wi Ji-hye and Kim Yu-han. I want to know the secret. I'd like to hear it, if I can."
"Hm...?"
For Sua, it was a hard question to answer. She was only a peculiar case who had grown with the help of her Special Privilege—not someone who had truly built an acting craft up from the ground.
When her silence stretched on, Kim Seonil seemed to decide his explanation had fallen short, and he added a few words.
"I mean that the variations you try on a script were genuinely remarkable. You can tell a great deal of study went into them. I'm curious what frame of mind you brought to it, that a path showed itself."
"I..."
Sua thought a moment, then said,
"I think what matters is becoming one with the role."
"That much, I'm confident I do well myself. No—I go in thinking of nothing else. I move with care, holding in mind the things the role has to do."
"No. No, that's not it."
Sua shook her head before she knew she was doing it. It was not calculated. It was instinct.
"You said you focused on what the role has to do?"
"Yeah."
"I've never thought about it that way. If anything, I wondered what the role would want to do. And then things just came to me, on their own."
The instant she had let that much out—
"...Ah."
Only then did Sua jolt, inwardly. She had sunk too far into his question, and without meaning to she had spilled every thought she held. That she was miserably sleepy just now had likely played its part. She scrambled to take it back.
"No, I mean—that's just how it was for me. Don't mind it."
But it was already too late. Kim Seonil had the look of a man sunk deep in thought.
"..."
Sweat slid down Sua's spine. She was only someone acting by clinging to a Special Privilege, and she could not help wondering whether she had any right to hold forth on the craft in front of a person who acted with his whole heart.
"In one ear and out the other. I've said what I said."
And so she hurried to slip free.
Kim Seonil nodded. Slowly—very slowly.
"I understand. Thank you."
What it was he had come to understand, and what he was thanking her for, Sua had no way of knowing yet.
Late at night.
The Special Task Force 808 company had taken several rooms at a hotel near the film studio complex, and most of them, wrung out to the last, were already dead asleep. Not everyone had gone under, though. Writer Lee Geumsuk and PD Choi Heewon were still up.
The two of them had dried snacks set out and were drinking canned beer. They couldn't drink heavily, not with work again tomorrow. Not drinking at all would have been wiser, but they knew that and drank anyway. For them, the day had been so satisfying that they could not have borne it without a can.
PD Choi Heewon spoke first.
"Now that I think of it, there were no major NGs today. The kind that jam the works and shut down the rest of the day's progress."
"And in the middle of all that, our Sua didn't have a single NG, did she?"
"We reshot a few times, but those were not Sua's fault either. What I mean is that she, and she alone, was flawless."
"Incredible. Truly incredible..."
Writer Lee Geumsuk tipped her can back until it was empty, let out a long, blissful breath, and declared,
"Sua! My Kim Yu-han! I really love you!"
Meanwhile, CEO Kim Iseo paid a visit to Sua's room.
Kim Iseo tipped her head, just slightly. Sua was in her pajamas.
The pajamas themselves were not the problem. Changing into sleepwear was ordinary enough. The problem was the pattern. Yes—above all else, the pattern.
Sua's pajamas were tiled, at perfectly even intervals, with the face of a darling little arctic fox. It called something to mind. A grand duchess of the north, who had hunted arctic foxes and kept only the heads as trophies?
...Get blood all over those faces, and it would suit her. It really would.
"Is something the matter?"
"Ah."
Only after Sua addressed her did Kim Iseo climb out of the thought. Right. The point, first.
"Sua, you handled the first day's schedule perfectly. Everywhere I went today, people looked at me with envy. And well they might. You're with our Mystic."
"Acknowledged."
"Rest well tonight, and I'm counting on you again tomorrow."
"That's a fine metaphor."
Sua brushed it off without the faintest idea which technique she had just deployed. There was nothing much in her head. Oh. The CEO looks excited. Seems like she's praising me. Right, right.
And then, abruptly—
"CEO."
"Yes, Sua. I'm listening."
"How are these pajamas?"
"Ah, the pajamas? The pajamas..."
Kim Iseo considered it. A moment later she delivered the answer she judged to be best, and left.
"..."
Alone now, Sua's expression turned grave.
Kim Seonil's room.
This one had a visitor as well, and surprisingly, it was Seo Yeon-ju. Even now she was sprawled in a heap, crunching potato chips.
"...Why are you eating in here."
"My room would get dirty. I hate that."
"And my room?"
"You clean it."
Kim Seonil considered throwing Seo Yeon-ju out the window, then decided he wouldn't. It would be a problem if the street got dirty. Instead he let out a long sigh and opened his script.
Seo Yeon-ju showed a sidelong flicker of interest.
"What are you doing? At this hour?"
"I have a little something to think about."
His answer was short, and her gaze drifted back to the television, which was still on. A while later, he spoke again.
"Seo Yeon-ju."
"What."
"What is it you want to do?"
"...Out of nowhere?"
"No. Do you even live while thinking about what you want?"
"What is wrong with him?"
Seo Yeon-ju stared as if she had heard something deeply strange, but Kim Seonil went on, unmoved. And more than the words, it was his face. The Kim Seonil she knew wore a face like that when he meant it.
"Seonil, you. Why are you suddenly asking a thing like that?"
"Whether you live thinking about what you want to do, or thinking about the things you have to do. I wanted to know."
"Mm... half and half, maybe?"
"Half and half."
For Kim Seonil, that too was an answer with a great deal of thinking in it. What a person held in mind, and the spirit in which they met the work—every single one of them was different. He himself had lived thinking only of what he had to do. Seo Yeon-ju was half and half. And Sua, it seemed, lived thinking only of what she wanted.
He felt himself drawing nearer, little by little, to some truth.
...Thinking of what one wants to do.
He turned that short phrase over, and over. Without end.
The next day.
On a set where the whole crew was busily laying out equipment, the shoot for Special Task Force 808 would burn hot again. PD Choi Heewon arrived with his resolve freshly set, and then—
"Huh?"
His eyes went wide. There was an unexpected guest again today.
"Director Go Taemin?"
At that, Go Taemin broke into a laugh.
"I ended up coming again today, after all. The work simply looks too good."
"Not at all—it's nothing but an honor for me. But are you sure this is all right? A man as busy as you are, what with a new project and everything else..."
"Even so. Something came up that I absolutely have to ask."
"Ask anything you like. I'll answer with all sincerity. Or would you care to watch a little again today? There are several scenes with Park Dohui being shot. I imagine they'd be of help to you."
A moment later, though, PD Choi Heewon tipped his head. Go Taemin did not have the look of a man who wanted Park Dohui.
"Ah. Perhaps not Dohui, but some other part...?"
"That's right."
Go Taemin nodded.
"Dohui acted well, too. She's come along so much in so short a time that I was startled. But someone has appeared who I'm even more curious about."
"Someone you're even more curious about..."
"Yes. The actor playing Kim Yu-han. That person—I'm a little curious."
"I thought as much."
PD Choi Heewon let out a laugh.
"The truth is, I've been waiting for the moment you would ask."
"Really, now. How can you keep a monster like that hidden? You might have given me a word beforehand. Where on earth did this one come from? The casting staff on our end seemed not to know a thing."
"Well, I'm in much the same position. Are you familiar with the variety program I Became an Actor Like This?"
"Of course I am! The one that discovers actors through a survival audition."
"Yes. That's the one. A contestant who appeared on it."
"A contestant? Would you tell me a little more?"
Director Go Taemin's deeply sunken eyes glinted.
"In truth, I don't know the details myself. All I have over others in the business is that I've watched a little longer. As for who this really is..."
"That's plenty. Even your observations. Let me hear them."
"Mm... in that case..."
PD Choi Heewon folded his arms and began.
"To start with, acting began as a hobby, and other fields seem to have been picked up along the way as well. The astonishing part is that all of it was self-taught—"
"...!"
The longer the account ran, the wider Director Go Taemin's eyes grew. By the end they looked ready to spring free and go rolling across the floor.
When people pass a story along, they are bound to add a word, and if it is a story they are fond of, what they add is praise. PD Choi Heewon was no exception. He was exceedingly fond of Sua. He imparted to Director Go Taemin every misconception he carried, and every virtue he was convinced Sua possessed.
"That can't be..."
A single murmur from Director Go Taemin.
Sua, of course, had not the faintest idea.
Meanwhile, Sua arrived on set and met a curious sight. Whisk, whisk—Seo Yeon-ju and Kim Iseo were pitching great armfuls of something into a burlap sack. Look closer, and the common point showed itself: whatever either of them held was, every time, a bundle of paper.
Sua craned in for a look and asked,
"What is all this?"
"Ah, Sua, there's no need for you to concern yourself."
Kim Iseo said it as she tossed a bundle. Seo Yeon-ju sent them flying in long sweeps of her arms, while Kim Iseo, small as she was, heaved them one by one with visible effort. She looked, truly, like a little kid. She added a few words.
"Don't feel left out. It isn't that we're keeping it from you in particular—it genuinely isn't important in the least. All of this is being thrown away. We'll handle the tiring part."
"...CEO, why are you saying we? Just have the staff do it later. Or do it yourself."
Seo Yeon-ju grumbled, but it got her nowhere. Kim Iseo only looked at her, shaking her head.
"This is all yours, Yeon-ju. Do try to have a conscience."
All these bundles of paper belonged to Seo Yeon-ju? Sua, growing still more curious, asked,
"What is all this, that you're going on like that?"
"Scripts, dear."
Seo Yeon-ju flung one as she said it.
"I'd been stacking up every script that ever came to me with an offer, nice and neat. You know how it was back then. Look at a great tall pile of them, and your popularity starts to feel real, and your self-esteem just fills right up."
"Ah."
Sua thought she understood. It was probably like letting friend requests pile up past ninety-nine in a game. The sense that this many people were looking for you was, in its way, a thrill, and it fed the hunger to be acknowledged from every side.
"Then why throw them out now?"
"They take up too much space. And getting excited, collecting them one by one—that was a rookie pleasure. These days I don't feel much of anything."
"Aha. There really are a lot. Were the scripts all bad?"
"Some of them really were bad, some didn't fit the schedule, and the material itself was all over the place, I think? There's singing, there's violin... huh?"
Seo Yeon-ju tilted her head, all at once.
"You're right, aren't you. Thinking back, an awful lot of them have to do with music. Why do scripts like these always come around to me at least once?"
The answer came from Kim Iseo.
"Because you have that pure, refreshing image, Yeon-ju. Set you on a stage and anyone would think you'd sing like a nightingale. Clear and bright."
Sua went quiet. She thought. Then she thought some more.
"These scripts—don't throw them away. Give them to me."
Both of them turned to look at her at once. Seo Yeon-ju was the first to break the silence.
"These are ancient, you know? Even if they've caught your eye now, they're works you couldn't join anymore. Isn't that right, CEO?"
"It is. And they aren't even all Korean scripts. Yeon-ju's looks are especially loved in China, so some are in Chinese, some in Japanese—all sorts of things mixed in."
The meaning was plain enough. They were no better than garbage, so she ought not to take an interest. Sua's eyes, however, only grew brighter.
"It's all right. Give them to me."
It was not garbage.
In Sua's eyes, every last one of them looked like treasure.