Pioneer Spirit (6)
Kang Jaeha, who had just pulled a crazy stunt a moment ago, gave Yoon Dayeon a sidelong glance. She was frozen as if time itself had stopped. Yoon Dayeon. Maybe she was still holding on. She had spread a shield and was protecting herself.
As if that meant anything. A foolish move, plain and simple.
As time passed, meaningless pride would gnaw at her from the inside. And that was only part of it.
She’ll start running short on money too.
For a brief moment, Jaeha recalled the Déjà vu related to Yoon Dayeon. A few lines from it.
“These days, you must be having a hard time with no income. I heard your younger sibling’s health is poor.”
“Work in erotic films? That’s only possible while Dayeon still has some pull.”
From the internal files of Team 4, Jaeha had skimmed through Yoon Dayeon’s family background. At present, she was their family’s sole source of money, and there had also been a note that her younger sibling had weak health and was constantly in and out of the hospital. Pressure from society, pressure from family, all of it would be closing in on her.
But she was already washed up.
Maybe not just now, but as time went on, money would tighten its grip on Yoon Dayeon. And yet there was no sign that reality would improve. Reality forced her onto a train bound for hell.
At that point, she’d be very likely to choose adult films.
When she was driven all the way to the end of the line, someone would reach out a hand. Adult films, or erotic films. They would stroke her heart with all kinds of sweet words, and Yoon Dayeon, caught in a brief illusion, would end up signing on the dotted line.
That might buy her a little breathing room for the moment, but for washed-up actress Yoon Dayeon, that would be the end of it.
Recycling? Comeback? No. A miserable, worse-than-washed-up ending was all but guaranteed. By then, the people who had tempted her would change their tune. They’d already made their money, so they’d dismiss Yoon Dayeon. She would gradually dry up, and maybe even end up taking her own life.
If he hadn’t known, he might not have cared. But now that he did, Kang Jaeha found Yoon Dayeon irritating.
Why should I care?
Jaeha planned to throw Yoon Dayeon to the floor. That was why he’d said what he had.
“Come on. You’re whining like crazy.”
As expected, the atmosphere inside the van turned icy. Kim Daeyong, sitting in the passenger seat, went wide-eyed, and Ryu Jinwoo, the road manager driving, gaped with his mouth hanging open. Yoon Dayeon, who had heard Jaeha’s line right beside her, was...
“......”
She couldn’t quite believe she’d heard that correctly. It felt like someone had smashed the back of her head with a sledgehammer. Maybe that was why no reaction came out. She just stared blankly, as if her soul had left her body.
About ten seconds passed like that.
At last, Yoon Dayeon gathered what little sense she had left and brushed back her long hair. She took a breath. Then she looked at Jaeha and checked again in a calm voice.
“...What did you say?”
Kang Jaeha yawned as if it was nothing and answered casually.
“I said you’re whining like crazy.”
That made it clear. Yoon Dayeon had heard right. Her face promptly flushed red. Not from embarrassment, but from heat surging up in her chest.
“Hey. Are you insane?”
“No. I’m a hell of a lot more normal than you are.”
Jaeha’s voice was utterly indifferent. That only made Yoon Dayeon’s face burn redder.
“I-I’m whining? You said that to me?”
“You did, didn’t you?”
“......”
She was angry, but speechless. Frustration rose in waves, and there was nothing she could do about it. Jaeha was right, and that was what made it even more infuriating.
At that point, Kim Daeyong in the passenger seat stepped in, clearly intending to calm things down.
“J-Jaeha. For now, let’s stop this.”
But Kang Jaeha cut him off.
“You too, Manager. Don’t do it either.”
“Huh?”
“You can’t just keep coddling people like that. It’s only a way to dodge the problem.”
Kim Daeyong opened his mouth, then swallowed the words back down. Yoon Dayeon seized the opening.
“Hey, Kang Jaeha. Problem? You’re saying I’m the problem?”
Jaeha, sitting with his legs crossed in a calm, almost lazy posture, gave a thin smile.
“You’re the problem, from top to bottom.”
“This guy is unbelievable.”
“Yoon Dayeon.”
“What!”
“You know your place, right?”
“...Y-Yeah, I know!”
“No, you don’t really know. More accurately, you’re pretending not to know.”
“Me? No way.”
“No way, huh.”
After letting out a short breath, Jaeha met Yoon Dayeon’s eyes. It was time to draw the blade.
“A washed-up actress whose years of being washed up are far longer than her years of actual activity.”
“......”
As if this was the moment he’d been dreading, Kim Daeyong shut his eyes tight, but Jaeha had no intention of stopping.
“Everyone keeps it quiet. You do too. And what’s more, even though you’re at a big company like Leon Entertainment, you’re still in Team 4, where they gather up the washed-up ones.”
What was the use of a good background if there was no substance? Yoon Dayeon, getting hit hard in the face and the gut with cold facts, felt her pupils gradually dilate. Jaeha, as if he’d been waiting for this, fired off the second and third blows.
“And even that supporting role that’s barely more than a bit part will be over in a month. Your contract runs until this November. You don’t get it? You can’t be that stupid.”
“Stop it.”
“If your contract ends in November, do you honestly think it’ll be renewed? You already know the answer, don’t you? By now, they should already be talking about re-signing you. That’s why you’ve been panicking. Manager, what do you think?”
“......W-Well.”
“My guess is you’ve already heard it from Team Leader Jang.”
Both Jaeha and Yoon Dayeon looked at Kim Daeyong in the passenger seat. Kim Daeyong’s face was full of awkwardness. Because what Jaeha said was true. And at that moment, words from a meeting with Jang Hyeongsu a few days ago flashed through Kim Daeyong’s mind.
“At this morning’s executive meeting, Yoon Dayeon came up. The CEO mentioned her plainly too. Yoon Dayeon is done when her contract ends this November. Make sure you know that.”
She had been branded irredeemable. If Han Taeseong himself had given the warning, there was no room to argue. In Leon, his word was law. Jaeha had simply guessed at the right answer, and because it was right, Kim Daeyong looked away.
Yoon Dayeon, whose spirit had been ripped to shreds until it was little more than tatters, called out to him.
“O-Older brother?”
“......”
Instead of the speechless Kim Daeyong, Jaeha answered in a cold voice.
“This isn’t the time to act pitiful or whine. It’s the time to find your own way to survive.”
It was already too late. Far too late. Yoon Dayeon swept her hair back again and clenched her molars hard. She didn’t answer right away. If she opened her mouth, something tightly coiled inside her felt as if it would come loose, and tears would spill all at once.
But holding it in could not stop her eyes from turning red.
Jaeha let out a small sigh at her.
“Hit bottom. That’s what you need to do right now, Yoon Dayeon.”
“...I’m already at the bottom. What bottom are you talking about?”
“So your metacognition’s kicking in? Now this is starting to feel like a conversation.”
“This guy is really insane!”
Jaeha pointed at Yoon Dayeon with his index finger.
“Throw everything away. What Yoon Dayeon needs to do now has nothing to do with some decent-sized project or whatever. An audition? That’ll never come to you. You have to throw yourself into it, like a crazed boar.”
More desperately, more urgently, with her life on the line.
There was an old saying that luck and skill together made a career, but in entertainment, luck decided far too much. Which meant the reverse was also true: there were people who got by with next to no talent at all. In the entertainment industry, which itself was a jungle, there was no such thing as “moderation.”
“Forget pride, inferiority complexes, your ruined past, defense mechanisms, being a psycho, all of it. Start over from zero, purely as actress Yoon Dayeon.”
Yoon Dayeon had calmed a little, softened a little. It couldn’t be helped. Everything had been laid bare, inner thoughts and reality alike. In the end, she asked back.
“From zero. You mean I have to hit bottom, right?”
“That’s right.”
“H-How do I do that?”
“That doesn’t sound like the attitude of someone asking for a favor.”
It was a kind of question she had never asked before, and Yoon Dayeon bit her lower lip slightly.
“I! I’m stupid like you said, so I don’t know! Teach me!”
Jaeha smiled, clearly amused by her reaction.
“Well. I don’t know either.”
For a second, Yoon Dayeon thought, Is this bastard actually insane??
“Hey!”
“I’m kidding.”
Then Kang Jaeha looked at Yoon Dayeon with sudden seriousness. She flinched.
“W-What is it.”
“Strip off the ego. Just try walking the road I tell you to walk.”
“......”
“If you’re confident you can crawl in filth worse than being washed up, then there’s at least some chance.”
Jaeha’s faint, sharp smile lingered.
“Are you in, or are you out?”
But Yoon Dayeon had no way back now.
About two hours later.
Yoon Dayeon arrived at the filming set for The Last Man and went straight into makeup. The atmosphere on set was definitely more relaxed than before, and Kim Daeyong, watching her, stole a glance at Jaeha.
What exactly is this guy...? Even with the rice cake incident with Dayeon, I thought he was unusual, but now he’s not just handling Yoon Dayeon like he owns her—how did he even know about the contract talk between me and Team Leader Jang?
The more he looked, the more impossible the guy seemed.
He’s ruthless and half-mad, but he’s clearly smart too. Where exactly is he supposed to be weak? No matter how I look at it, he’s just a cheat character. Sort of. No, just a guy with a truly incredible brand of madness.
Still thinking to himself, Kim Daeyong cleared his throat and moved closer to Jaeha. Then he blurted out an apology.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what, all of a sudden?”
“What you just did, Jaeha. That should’ve been my job.”
Kang Jaeha shrugged.
“Whoever does it doesn’t matter. It’s fine. I’m good at that kind of thing. The person who’s good at something should be the one doing it.”
“...Thank you.”
Kim Daeyong let out a long breath and looked toward Yoon Dayeon inside the set.
“I’ve known Dayeon for quite a while, but I’ve only been avoiding things. Today, though, after listening to what you said, I came to my senses. I was the worst one of all. Maybe the title of manager is useless after all.”
“Well. Where there are people like this, there are people like that too. Everyone has a different role. The world needs managers like you to keep running.”
Kim Daeyong, somewhat moved, nodded toward Yoon Dayeon and asked,
“But do you really mean to do something?”
“I’m bored, for one thing. And lately, propping up washed-up people has been kind of fun.”
“You say the word washed up so easily, huh. Hah. I’ll help too.”
“Then I’m grateful.”
“That bundle of papers you gave Dayeon earlier, that was a script, right? You’re doing something with that? You said you were throwing Dayeon down to the bottom.”
Jaeha nodded.
On the 27th, after a day had passed, late in the morning.
Inside a film company meeting room. This was a company that mainly produced short films, and it was fairly well known in the short film and indie scene. In the somewhat cramped meeting room, a few familiar faces could be seen. Director Kwon Seongmin, looking tense, and Lee Chanhoo, looking completely at ease.
Of the two, Lee Chanhoo shook hands with the film company’s representative while smiling.
“Please take good care of us.”
Director Kwon Seongmin quickly bowed too.
“Please take good care of us!”
While the handshakes went back and forth, the script for Gyeollo sat on the desk inside the meeting room, and the film company representative, a broad-faced man with a pleasant expression, laughed heartily.
“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen such a good work. I should be the one asking to be taken care of. We’ll move fast and make sure production doesn’t hit any snags.”
After finishing the handshake, Lee Chanhoo patted Director Kwon Seongmin on the shoulder as the younger man adjusted his glasses.
“Congratulations, Director. Now the real pre-production starts. From here on out, it’s all about picking up speed.”
For Kwon Seongmin, memories of a past filled only with disappointment flickered through his mind. But pre-production. The moment was so moving he could hardly stand it.
“Yes! I’ll make it without sleeping at all!!”
The producer for Gyeollo had been confirmed.
At the same time, in a rather cramped officetel.
It was a living room with white-toned walls, neat despite the tight space, and a large poster of an actress hung on the wall. The actress in the poster looked familiar. It was Yoon Dayeon, though from a fairly long time ago.
Why was Yoon Dayeon’s poster hanging there? Simple. This officetel belonged to washed-up Yoon Dayeon.
She used to live in a fairly large house, but now she was in an officetel that was practically a one-room apartment. As the house got smaller, she had to throw out a great deal of her belongings, and the only thing she had managed to keep was that giant poster.
-Swish.
Soon, Yoon Dayeon emerged from the shower, shaking out her wet hair. She was wearing beige pajamas. Her face was bare, without a trace of makeup, but her skin looked almost translucent. Even if she was washed up, she still felt like an actress. She silently stared at the giant poster of herself for a moment, then...
“......”
She took her place on the small one-person sofa used for script practice. She picked up the fairly thick script lying on the folding table in front of her. She looked at the cover first.
Gyeollo
Director: Kwon Seongmin
Screenplay: Kwon Seongmin
The script was for the short film Gyeollo, and as Yoon Dayeon skimmed the cover, an unexpected man’s face came to mind. Kang Jaeha. Thinking of him made her unexpectedly choke up.
“Damn it.”
Yoon Dayeon stuck out her lower lip a little as Jaeha’s indifferent words came back to her.
Yoon Dayeon, try this short film called Gyeollo. Naturally, a role isn’t something the people around you spoon-feed you; you have to win it yourself. And it’s not even a lead role. You’d be aiming for a supporting part. Well, if you don’t want to do it, don’t.
Even though he wasn’t in front of her, Yoon Dayeon answered rather sharply.
“I’m doing it, I said I’m doing it! You already know I’ll do it anyway, so why are you acting so cool?”
Haa. So, a short film? And not even the lead, just supporting. It was almost like treating Yoon Dayeon as a nobody.
“What is this. Even if I’m washed up... I’m still on a weekday drama, you know.”
Kang Jaeha seemed determined to drag Yoon Dayeon down into something even deeper than the bottom. Honestly, it was terrifying. That was Yoon Dayeon’s thought. How would other people see it? Then Yoon Dayeon let out a snort.
“Other people? Like hell. Who’s paying attention to me? They’ve probably forgotten all about me already.”
Maybe because she’d been beaten into shape by the cold hard facts Jaeha had thrown at her a few days ago, Yoon Dayeon’s heart seemed much lighter. Then she straightened her posture and turned the first page of the Gyeollo script.
-Flip, flip.
Yoon Dayeon’s eyes moved quickly as she read.
The story of women driven into the gutter, and a quiet revenge.
She hadn’t finished reading, but Yoon Dayeon had grasped the rough shape of Gyeollo, and she murmured with complete sincerity,
“...What the hell, why is the quality this good?”
Her greed had begun to surge more strongly than ever before.
By then, Kang Jaeha was meeting Team Leader Jang Hyeongsu at Leon Entertainment’s Team 4. Jang Hyeongsu still looked as though he hadn’t slept in days.
“Yeah, Jaeha. What is it?”
Jaeha, without beating around the bush, cut straight to the point in a slightly bored tone.
“I’m thinking of having Yoon Dayeon do a short film.”
Team Leader Jang Hyeongsu’s eyes widened a little.
“Yoon Dayeon?”
“Yes. Oh, and An Jihee too.”
“An Jihee... well, she’s a trainee, so I can see that. Yoon Dayeon? That crazy psycho we know?”
“Yes.”
Jang Hyeongsu blinked several times, then narrowed his brow.
“What short film all of a sudden? More importantly, Yoon Dayeon agreed to do a short film?”
“She will.”
“...What role is it?”
At the question, Jaeha played dumb.
“No idea. It’ll be decided after the audition.”
“An audition...? Yoon Dayeon is going to audition for a short film?”
“Yes.”
Jang Hyeongsu, who knew Yoon Dayeon well, wondered if this was real.
“Huh.”
He also got the feeling that Team 4 was grinding along with all the cogs half-broken.
And then, the next day, Friday the 28th.
It was early morning, but reports were in full swing in Leon Entertainment’s representative office, rich with wood tones. The one giving the report was a sharply jawed executive, and Han Taeseong, in a full suit, read through the report while listening quietly.
Soon the executive’s report neared its end.
“Finally, there’s news from Team 4.”
Han Taeseong responded with the smile of a middle-aged man blessed by the gods.
“Team 4?”
“Yes.”
“What is it?”
To the representative’s look of surprise, the executive recited,
“It seems they’re planning to have Yoon Dayeon do a short film. They’re preparing for an audition.”
Han Taeseong slowly crossed one leg over the other and folded his arms.
“That Yoon Dayeon is taking an audition for a short film.”
“I was surprised too. I have no idea how they managed to persuade that prickly Yoon Dayeon.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Team Leader Jang confirmed Yoon Dayeon’s intention as well. In addition, they’ve also shifted one former idol trainee, whose contract is about to be terminated, over to the acting side.”
“Interesting.”
Han Taeseong, unfolding his arms, tapped the desk with one index finger. Tap, tap, tap. As if organizing his thoughts. A few seconds later, he spoke again.
“Team 4 has been stuck in place for a while now, and this is at least a slight change in direction. Team Leader Jang, is it? No, it wouldn’t be Team Leader Jang. It must be someone more unexpected than that.”
With a faint smile, Han Taeseong continued.
“Recently, there’s only been one man changing Team 4, hasn’t there?”
He seemed to be thinking of someone vague.
“The name was Kang... Jaeha? Was he the one handling this?”
The executive didn’t seem to agree.
“Ah, that friend probably isn’t it. You heard the other team leaders’ evaluations, but he seems rather weak-minded.”
But a small thread of interest was already showing on Han Taeseong’s face.
“We’ll see when we see. Bring me Kang Jaeha.”
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