Nothing to Find Fault With

"Sir, look at this."

Choi Sujin, who had been pacing the floor alone in agitation, finally managed to grab the CEO as he passed by.

"Tell me I'm not seeing things."

"You're not."

Intermission had logged 1.7 million admissions in its first week.

"It has to clear five million at minimum, right?"

"Maze passed two million its first week, remember? And it went on to top seven million."

Counting the investment that had come in on the strength of Yoon Jay's casting, the break-even point landed at 1.1 million — calculated, of course, with the premium ticket prices of the sound-specialized theaters factored in.

"It'll probably... climb even higher."

In mere days it had blown past break-even, and at this very moment it held the number-one spot in advance bookings, was spreading by word of mouth, and — remarkably — an N-cha Viewing culture was already taking shape around it.

"What's distribution saying?"

"KE's side says they want to pace it out longer."

"You mean riding on Vice Chairman Jo's gut?"

"Has his gut ever been wrong?"

"This thing... it might actually go past five million."

Intermission had originally been planned as an independent film. With most of the production budget poured into the music, money ran so short that the actors had been cast through open auditions.

'It all changed when Yoon Jay was cast.'

Additional investors came on board, and KE Group's distribution arm attached itself to the project. Walking down the street, turning on the TV, opening MyTube — Intermission's ads and trailers were everywhere, and for a scrappy little production company, this was their first taste of what a corporate giant's muscle felt like.

It was because she had been deeply moved by Shin Ji-won's violin playing in the old days that she had supported his move into directing at all. She had never imagined his second film would show signs of becoming a monster hit.

"Honestly... how on earth did we end up here?"

"Sir, we have a blockbuster on our hands! Aren't you happy?"

"I am. I'm thrilled, it's just..."

In the film business, a hit meant lottery-ticket money. That was exactly why so many people tried to strike it rich with a movie.

The CEO harbored a faintly strange feeling of his own, but it didn't last long.

"We're going to have to give the staff a fat bonus this year."

The employees who had been eavesdropping on the two of them let out a cheer.

It was the other films released around the same time who sensed danger as Intermission's trajectory turned from promising to alarming.

They had believed their release slots were lucky ones — right up until the unexpected Intermission came charging up the charts.

"Why is this thing doing so well?"

The truth was, almost no one had predicted Intermission's success. KE Group had attached itself to the project, sure, but a film's box office was a separate matter from its polish.

It had been slotted in as filler for a release date pushed back over political controversy — who could have guessed it would blow up into a phenomenon like this?

Besides, it wasn't anyone's biopic, and its cast weren't ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠famous singers. They were rookie actors.

The most popular among them, Yoon Jay, was headlining a film for the very first time — an unproven commodity with no demonstrated ticket power.

"Your guy here — what's his past like? Surely there's nothing to find fault with? School bullying, military draft dodging, that sort of thing, you know."

You never could tell. There were plenty of cases of rising stars whose shady pasts surfaced just as they peaked. At his boss's words, the employee's face soured.

"Are you seriously going that far?"

"Look, I'm just saying. Keep it in mind."

"Honestly... I doubt there's anything to dig up."

The employee resented being handed this kind of errand when he was already buried in work. Still, he half-heartedly typed Yoon Jay into the search platform first.

Word had even gotten out that he was an early model for a foreign fashion brand that was all the rage these days, so the fans were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mining his old photos like coal miners.

"Whoa. What is all this."

The sheer volume of material stunned the employee. Fine, he knew the guy was famous lately — but how did one person live this much life?

"You don't know Yoon Jay? Why are you searching him? Forget Yoon Jay. Go dig into the others."

Yoon Jay, if someone seriously excavated his past, seemed more likely to generate endless material worth fawning over. Kang Hajun was a former idol trainee who had failed audition after audition — his past contained nothing but things that would stir sympathy.

"Then what about Baek Do-kyung and Nam Chan-hee?"

"Clean. Apparently Baek Do-kyung was a loner in school — there are reviews going around that all he did was eat and play soccer, and people think it's adorable."

Baek Do-kyung was neat and endearingly cute to boot, and Nam Chan-hee in particular, with his chubby cheeks, drew reactions that he was secretly adorable — people compared him to a hamster or a quokka.

The more they searched, the more they only confirmed that Intermission's momentum was anything but ordinary.

"Military service? That's a mess these days, you know."

"All of them served active duty. No shortcuts."

"Huh..."

The man slumped heavily into the chair beside him and sighed. Their film's budget was three times Intermission's. It looked like they wouldn't even clear break-even.

"And we thought our timing was so good..."

Truly, no one knows what life will bring.

The acting had its share of praise, but reviews were raving that the music was insane too, so the distributor held back the official music releases to pull in additional audiences.

The message was simple: if you're curious, go see the movie.

In the meantime, the promotional material they had been sitting on was doled out piece by piece.

Live videos of the three songs the actors had practiced while cutting their sleep went up — along with footage of Yoon Jay slipping in among exam-takers and taking a test as a proxy.

People who had clicked expecting Yoon Jay and a movie promo sneered at the sudden change in content strategy.

Listening once and replicating it perfectly — did that even make sense? And he wasn't even a music major... The channel owner, insisting it was no fabrication, went so far as to release the full unedited video.

Reactions from those who refused to believe it to the very end — is this real? There's no way it isn't rigged — tangled with reactions from those declaring that their actor was a genius too, across every corner of the internet.

Yoon Jay didn't care either way. The whole point was getting people interested in the movie once they watched those videos.

And the promotion didn't stop there. In the end, the Intermission actors found themselves with music show bookings on their schedules, and they arrived at the broadcasting station for the recording.

"...This feels so strange."

Kang Hajun found it surreal — standing, as an actor, on the music show stage he had yearned for so desperately, as the group his character belonged to.

He had shaken off that old inferiority complex from the days gone by, but the strange, wistful feeling welling up anew was beyond his control.

That day's music show saw a modest bump in viewership.

It was already famous as a goldmine for fancams, and foreign viewers with a passion for K-pop who had yet to see the film even left comments asking when this group had debuted.

And with university festival season conveniently overlapping, they ran event stages doubling as promotion.

Yoon Jay took the stage not as the film's actor, but performing as Yoo Tae-hyuk. As if the group truly existed.

The variety shows they had pre-recorded were released one after another as well. But the promotion still wasn't over.

"Hey, if we'd been late we wouldn't have gotten our posters."

"Whoa, the movie's not even over and everyone's getting up?"

"They're all here for the freebies, obviously."

People began hopping from one theater to another to collect the official merch given out with the movie. Because of that, audiences who had come purely to enjoy the film sometimes fell victim to a Gwan-kue disruption or two.

As the film's success snowballed, articles from fault-finding competitors piled up too.

Yoon Jay was the most famous of the actors, so the competitors propped him up as the target, posting one critical piece after another.

"Can't stand watching people do well, can they."

"Don't let it get to you."

Yoon Jay wasn't particularly bothered — it was Han Jin-woo who was seething on his behalf.

Intermission kept cruising along. With the daily admission count swelling by the day, the distributor suggested filming a promo piece for a ten-million milestone, just in case — but surely, surely, it couldn't reach ten million.

Yoon Jay found it fascinating how a single film had spread until the whole atmosphere felt like a festival. Had it been like this with The Child too? Probably not.

'When a work does well, it's a wonderful thing.'

Yoon Jay understood perfectly why Intermission was so popular.

At first, it was the high-caliber music and the actors' performances drawing attention; now, so many people had latched onto Agitato as a group to stan that the acting and the film's artistry had been pushed into the background.

The worried words of Park Hyun-ah, who had just come back from seeing the film, reached his ears, but Yoon Jay was happy with anything and everything.

Intermission was the work that had given him an epiphany, and with no sign yet of the admissions slowing, it would remain a jewel in his career.

The Intermission actors carried out all manner of promotional activities as Agitato, and as actors they were working through a full slate of stage greetings and GV events.

"What are you staring at so hard?"

"Reviews of our movie. Look at this one."

At first only Yoon Jay got the spotlight, but as audiences piled up and longtime viewers racked up repeat viewings, the other members began drawing notice too.

On the screen was a meme of Oh In-soo photoshopped onto a quokka. The comments were flooded with people calling him adorable, and Nam Chan-hee grinned ear to ear.

Yoon Jay chuckled. Perhaps because they'd shot the film together and spent so much time side by side since, they didn't look like mere colleagues anymore — more like a set of adorable younger brothers.

The film ended, and the audience began to stir, all eyes fixed on the front door. And then, Director Shin Ji-won and the actors filed in.

"Kyaaaaaaah!"