The Actress You've Been Looking For
A controversy that had sparked from a single community post caught fire and burned with surprising heat.
The two works in question could not have been more different — a drama that had already ended its run yet stood as the year's biggest hit, and a variety show that had held the public's affection for a long time. Different genres, different networks. And yet, between them, the first hints of friction had begun to show.
Of course, it was a stretch to call it friction just because a short-form clip had borrowed its title from the same song. Even if some reporter with nothing better to do went around asking the people involved, the most they would get was a blank I don't know what you're talking about.
Reality hardly mattered. Netizens had already decided this was a quiet flexing match between KBC and ENV — and the decisive blow had been ENV's official Wetube admin changing the title of the short-form featuring Lee Su-a.
Public opinion, by and large, sided with KBC.
As long as you don't get caught in the middle, even a shrimp can enjoy watching whales fight.
The problem was that fights are contagious. All that had really happened was a little tension between two network Wetube channels — and yet, out on the internet, a war had broken out.
Once every kind of opinion starts flying, someone always crosses a line — and the moment anyone points it out, the argument ignites on the spot.
While drama fans who still hadn't shaken off the afterglow of Go Jin-gi and E-Chu fans who'd been hit by stray sparks traded blows, the ones who were truly anxious were the fans of the actors in the one-act.
Some people might have thought, It's a one-act barely anyone watches — isn't getting talked about a good thing? From an actor's fan's point of view, it was a different story. An internet fight could bounce anywhere, in any direction.
It was volatile, too, which was why the fans desperately hoped some other scandal would break before this one grew any larger. What dropped instead of a new controversy was bait.
The teaser Choo Won-woo had so carefully cut together went up on KBC's official Wetube channel and across every lead actor's social media.
People exhausted by the fight between Go Jin-gi fans and E-Chu fans snapped toward it at once.
Dropped at just the right moment, the teaser at least did the work of splitting the firepower so the fight couldn't grow any bigger.
On top of that, while the lead actors took to social media to push for a live-broadcast watch, Lee Su-a put up an adorable pledge of her own.
As if some of the fans' wishes had finally reached her, she had promised to sing Even If You Don't Know if Dad's Screening broke a 5% rating.
A certain corner of the fandom — the ones who had been thirsting so badly for the full version of Even If You Don't Know that they'd been dogpiled as Poolmosae — promptly lost their minds.
A darkened bedroom. On a wide bed, someone thrashed and then woke.
"...Hey. Da-hee!"
"Honey?"
Yu-seok woke as Mi-seon sat up calling Da-hee's name. He carefully wiped her cheek, which was soaked through.
"Did you have a bad dream?"
"I don't... know. Whether I should even call it a bad dream..."
It had been a long time since Da-hee had appeared in a dream. And to appear with a face that open, that brightly smiling — that was the first time since they had sent the child away.
In Mi-seon's dreams, Da-hee had always been covered in blood.
"She said she was relieved because I looked okay... that she was okay too..."
Mi-seon fumbled the dream out in pieces. When she had finished, Yu-seok spoke carefully.
"Actually, I... dreamed of Da-hee too."
"In your dream?"
"Yes. She said she passed Dad's Screening."
"I see... Da-hee must have wanted to congratulate us on the marriage."
Mi-seon sniffled, and still she smiled. Yu-seok smiled back, gentle, and eased her down to sleep again.
And the next day.
Mi-seon, who had taken the pregnancy test Yu-seok handed her with a look of complete bewilderment, came out of the bathroom with her face gone scarlet.
The two of them, laughing, wrapping each other up in a hug, receded into the background — and a photo frame on the shelf filled the screen.
Da-hee in the frame was beaming.
The wish she had passed on to her precious little sibling drifted by, faint as a whisper.
"Huuuuaaangh! Da-hee!"
"Aigoo. The downstairs neighbors are going to come up here after you."
Lee Ok-dan wiped her own tears and laughed, watching her daughter cling to the television and wail like a child. The girl who had grown so distinctly more adult since moving out, showing this side of herself — it was funny, and it was something she had missed.
Even with her mother's scolding, Hong Do-yeon could not climb out of the one-act's afterglow.
"This isn't fair. We were having a good time. The vibe was fine! The trailer made it look like the whole thing was going to be cute and funny!"
"It's a trailer, so of course they didn't show the most important twist. They planted the foreshadowing properly in the actual episode, though."
"I knew the name felt ominous. Na Da-hee — if you skim it, it's Na-Die! How do you name a child that...!"
"Oh my, do you think they did that on purpose? That's actually delightful."
"Mom, you think this is funny?!"
Hong Do-yeon, who had been sprawled on the living room floor cleaning it with her back, shot Lee Ok-dan a ferocious glare. Lee Ok-dan laughed until her shoulders shook.
The drama had been good. Her daughter's reaction was funnier.
"A kid who never even cared about dramas suddenly declaring she has to watch a one-act and sprawling across the living room floor — it's hilarious. What on earth got into you?"
"I don't know... It was a pledge, okay."
"A pledge?"
"There's this thing... Just you wait if it doesn't break 5%..."
After lying face-down on the living room floor and suffering for a while, Hong Do-yeon turned her eyes on her father, who had been quiet for some time. Ordinarily he would have been rattling off a running evaluation — the camera angles, the lighting — but his mouth was shut tight, and he was lost in thought.
He was staring quietly at his phone.
"What, Dad? Did the ratings come out already?"
"Mm... huh? No."
"Then what are you looking at so hard? Was the drama not fun?"
"It was fun. Very much so."
The gaze that had briefly met his daughter's stuck itself back to the phone screen.
On it was a message from a close friend, received a few days ago.
"Lee Su-a..."
Watching her father rub his beard, sunk in thought, Hong Do-yeon had a gut feeling.
That Lee Su-a's next project might be a film.