A Heart That Trembles
After that, two weeks slipped past in the blink of an eye.
A train, once it has begun to run, keeps going no matter how the dogs bark at it—and whether by its own will or against it, it cannot stop. The production team of Special Task Force 808 hurtled madly toward nothing but completion.
And Sua, standing at the center of it all, caught herself thinking.
Already two weeks? Have I actually gotten used to this?
She shook her head a moment later.
No. Not even close!
People said human beings were creatures of adaptation—but was she, then, truly an Arctic Fox? Sua found it impossibly hard to adjust to the set. The truth, however, was that this had nothing to do with her capacity to adapt.
"Sua! Sua, where are you!"
"Sua! Wipe the bloodstain and we're going straight into scene 82!"
The workload she had to shoulder was, in fact, extraordinary. She had tried every odd job under the sun, and she had never been this busy.
"...Sua!"
Her name, called yet again. Sua's head ached.
The feeling of being buried under every task at once. The sensation of being crushed to death...
But she had to accept it.
Why else? This is still the best option I've got.
Kim Yu-han's makeup demanded a high degree of skill, and starting over from scratch each time took an enormous amount of effort. In other words, batching the shoots the way they were doing now actually worked in Sua's favor.
Right. So this situation really is the best one, but still...
She understood that much.
Even so, this is too much! There isn't a single moment to rest!
"Makeup team! Check the Kim Yu-han makeup one more time!"
"We're rolling in three minutes!"
Yu-han's importance was immense, and his screen time was enormous besides—it was nothing short of living hell. Still, Sua tried to face it without a word of complaint. She had read the exhaustion etched across the staff's faces.
They're all believing in me. They're counting on me.
The crew looked plainly worn out, and yet they were giving it everything they had. Their faith in her meant, put another way, that the moment she wavered, they would waver with her.
So Sua pulled herself together all the more.
It wasn't that she was mature or clever enough to understand all of the above. It was simply that she liked the atmosphere that formed when everyone pushed through together. Before she knew it, a sense of responsibility had begun to take root in her heart.
And of course, thanks to all of this, Sua's standing kept rising.
"Say, Sua never goes back to the script, does she?"
"Right? You'd think she'd ask for a break here and there, but she doesn't say a word. She just keeps at it, quiet as anything. Kim Yu-han has a ridiculous amount of dialogue and scene work. Is all of it just in her head?"
"That much is probably the baseline for her. And that's not even all. We're shooting scenes completely out of order, all scrambled together, and she still locks the emotion in dead certain. Any other actor would've been ground down ages ago."
"...She's just not ordinary, is she. Feels like watching some kind of stunt."
Sua, of course, had no idea what they were thinking. She was simply being worn down to nothing. Even now—like an Arctic Fox pegged to a clothesline, she hung limp, slowly drying out.
Ah, but I still have to manage my expression.
Having to mind her appearance even in the middle of all this was exhausting beyond belief. Image management, image management...
"Sua! This scene was splendid as well!"
She kept cranking out scenes like a factory after that, and whenever praise drifted her way she nodded quietly. She didn't even have the strength left to answer out loud.
But.
Even if Sua churned out scenes like a factory, the work did not shrink quickly. There were several reasons, and the first was that the actors kept seeking out the PD with grave expressions.
"Um, PD. Sua's fine in this scene, but I'm really not satisfied with myself. Could I try it just one more time...?"
"I have no objection, but we'll need Sua's permission."
"I'll work up the courage and ask. S-Sua! P-please, just this once! I'll do so much better this time!"
"..."
Sua nodded on instinct. The Sua Nod. Refusing a thing like this—or slipping out of it—didn't match her image.
Inside, of course, she was desolate.
Truly, she wailed, over and over.
I'm dying.... I'm actually going to die at this rate...
She felt ready to collapse on the spot. Not as a figure of speech. For real.
And so another two weeks passed.
It was now a full month.
"..."
Sua was steeped even deeper in exhaustion, and her face had grown sharper and more brittle for it. Nor was this something only she was going through anymore. The entire Special Task Force 808 team looked like a pack of ghosts.
Among them, there was one person who did not tire.
"Clear the props and gather the extras! Straight into the next scene!"
As if determined to live up to his bulk, PD Choi Heewon showed not the slightest trace of fatigue. He was seasoned, even—and sharp.
"Cut! Dohui! A moment!"
He was currently giving Park Dohui a piece of his mind.
"Why have you gone so timid! Piss it out as freely as you did that time!"
"...Pardon?"
"Ah—a slip! I mean, act with that same refreshing release! Yes!"
"..."
Unlike that rock of a body, he was remarkably delicate.
The instant any impurity crept into a scene, he picked it out with precision, and those around him felt it all over again. Sua, whom a PD like Choi Heewon had never once corrected—she really was something extraordinary.
Sua happened to meet Park Dohui's eyes, and waved.
A kind of inner familiarity, perhaps. She felt they'd grown a little closer than before.
"...!"
But Park Dohui only offered a polite bow and fled the spot. There was no greeting that could be called warm.
"...?"
Sua was flustered, then quickly turned the blame on herself.
Ah. Is she saying we should keep work and personal life separate?
On a professional set, focus solely on the work. Unexpectedly, she thought there was a great deal to learn from Park Dohui.
Meanwhile, another challenge had arisen on set.
"Everyone! Take a look at this script!"
The cause was writer Lee Geumsuk. Now the script itself was the trouble.
Ah—not that anything was wrong with the script itself.
"Sua, dear, I patched this in a hurry. What do you think of something like this?"
With everyone burning with passion, writer Lee Geumsuk's own drive had surged in turn, and she kept bringing in revisions.
Of course, revising a script was a serious matter, and not something writer Lee Geumsuk could impose on her own. It could proceed only once every actor had given their consent...
Sua was stunned.
Wait, they're actually accepting this?
The actors had nodded without a word of complaint.
It wasn't just one or two of them. All of them.
Well, Park Dohui hesitated a little. But still.
The actors agreed as one.
"...Yes. Let's try it with the revised version."
"We'll give it our all!"
To Sua, it was simply astonishing.
She had her Special Privilege, so there was no penalty for her—but for the other actors to receive a revised script the very day they had to shoot it was madness. Why were they accepting it? Her head filled up with question marks.
Only she didn't know that the cause was Sua herself.
I want to try ad-libs like Sua's.
I want to stand out, even a little more.
I have to give it my all! Ah, but peeing myself is a little much.
I want to contribute more!
Whatever their inner thoughts, on the surface Sua was a perfect rookie—brilliant at acting, and without a single complaint. It was reason enough for the will of the actors watching her to blaze.
But the gulf between ideal and reality is wide.
All the wider for those without a Special Privilege.
Naturally, the shoot ran long, and the NGs multiplied.
From Sua's perspective, the problem was the growing number of retakes.
It wasn't that she had failed, and yet they had to shoot again—and when someone wanted, in good faith, to take another swing for the sake of the work, she couldn't refuse...
"This time, let's go without an NG!"
"Yes! I'll do my best!"
And yet—NG.
NG again.
With things as they were, more and more actors began watching Sua's mood.
"S-Sua, I'm sorry. I keep making mistakes..."
"Please don't worry about me."
She meant it.
Don't read my mood! Focus on your own acting!
And the retakes went on without end.
"Let's go again! Sua, if it becomes too much, you must say so!"
"I'm fine."
"Good! Everyone, pour your fighting spirit into it!"
In the end, Sua had to meet everyone's passion head-on.
"..."
The result: on the outside she looked solemn, but inside she had become an empty tin can. The sort of state where a single poke of an index finger would topple her at once.
I want to sleep. Please, I want to sleep. Just for about a week...
In that very instant, a thought flickered through her mind.
Hm?
Sua hatched a scheme. A visit to the space within her Special Privilege.
There was a way to clear her muddied mind—the trick of slipping briefly into other roles and coming back.
Without a moment's hesitation, she chose Wi Ji-hye, from the short film Sword.
Meditating the whole day away on a silent mountain, that sort of thing. Wi Ji-hye was the greatest under heaven, which meant she often had nothing in particular to do and time to spare.
The result.
Sparkling—
Somewhere along the way, a gleam had returned to her eyes.
When she came back, Sua felt her mind wonderfully clear. It wasn't that the fatigue had lifted from her body, though. Only her mind, literally. As proof, the moment she tried to move, she still felt heavy as a thousand pounds.
Well, being able to clear even just my head is nothing to complain about, is it?
From then on, Sua faced the shoot with shining eyes.
And the staff, on the verge of passing out, began to click their tongues.
"Sua... hasn't she been handed the most revised pages of anyone...?"
"...How is she that perfectly fine?"
"There's even talk that Sua offers her opinions first, and Writer Lee refines the script from there. In other words, Sua is the one handing revised pages down to the writer."
"...Sorry? That would mean the writer is being led around by a rookie."
"It's not entirely wrong, though, is it? They say Special Task Force 808 has already diverged quite a lot from the original script. Something changes every day, all over the place."
And at last.
When another month and three days had passed, the production team stepped forward with an official announcement.
Reading those articles, Sua swallowed dry.
"..."
Her own face, as it would appear in the viewers' eyes. What would that be like.
She was desperate to know.
...What will it be like? What kind of reaction will I get?
Her heart tingled—a fine, electric tremble.
Something that tightened her nerves, and at the same time thrilled her through.
Sua felt a flutter. Greater than at any other moment in her life.
The next morning.
Sikarin, a virtual YouTuber under Neo Live—and, in the group chat, Saseum. Ko Eunbi's brow drew tight before she even realized it.
"What?"
As if she couldn't believe it, she squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again.
Once, twice, three times...
In the end she was blinking like a madwoman.
"...What? What is this?"