The Weight of Another's Memory
Seol Seungjun was a middle-aged actor with a fairly solid fan base in the film industry.
His face suited neo-noir and action films perfectly, but his acting was so exceptional that he appeared regularly in comedies and dramas as well.
It was true that I'd watched every work he'd ever been in, but beyond that, I knew nothing about him. I'd never had any interest, either.
Still, finding out his personality was that much of a dumpster fire came as a genuine shock.
"Who's he taking it out on? Did you see it happen yourself?"
"A while ago, a male actor came in as an extra... and in the middle of a take, he suddenly slapped him across the face."
"Why?"
"Just... to tell him to act properly."
"......."
"He hits the youngest staff members on the head sometimes, too... Everything I saw was done to the men, though. He never did it to the women."
Seong Yijun hesitated, but he forced himself to finish.
"With the women... he harasses them with words."
"....Haah."
In the end, a sigh slipped out before I could stop it.
I wasn't so naive that I failed to understand what "harassing with words" meant.
Assault and sexual harassment? He really is a piece of garbage.
There was plenty I wanted to say, but too many eyes were watching.
"Let's just get through today's shoot, hyung."
"Yeah..."
Regardless of how I felt, there was work to be done.
The staff were holding it in too, weren't they? They had no feelings to spare either. Everyone was barely keeping it together.
I knew reality was never that generous, but today of all days, my mouth tasted bitter.
Is there really nothing I can do?
I deliberated for a moment, then turned on my phone. Opening the memo app, I wrote slowly, deliberately.
Angae. I need your help.
"Yeonjae!"
The moment I opened my eyes, I pulled the onrushing Angae into a fierce hug.
My body, wound tight all day long, finally went slack.
When I didn't let go right away, Angae seemed flustered for a second—then giggled and hugged me right back.
"You missed me that much!"
"I did. Today was such an awful day."
"That guy is the absolute worst! I was so mad too! Because of him, we couldn't even finish filming!"
Tell me about it. Just remembering it made my blood boil all over again.
Even after the assistant director knocked, Seol Seungjun didn't come out of his trailer for a long while.
A full hour later, his manager finally emerged and delivered exactly one message.
'My hyung is far too tired today. Let's reschedule.'
'We already have a backlog of his schedule, so if it slips again, the whole production calendar—'
'Well, we're the ones paying for all of it anyway, aren't we?'
'......Yes, sir. Understood.'
I could see the assistant director grinding his teeth, but the manager just kept smiling, saying nothing more.
One look at his scarlet neck told me exactly which emotions he was swallowing down, fistful by fistful.
Every last member of the staff went home in silence.
When the assistant director carefully asked whether I could come out again next time, I said yes without hesitation.
Muttering his thanks, his face was a tangle of complicated feelings.
So this is how easily people's livelihoods get trampled.
I buried my head between Angae's shoulders as if burrowing in, and Angae gently stroked my hair.
"Yeonjae, aren't you tired? Should we lie down?"
"Let's stay like this a little longer."
Amid all that fury, his clumsy little hands actually coaxed a laugh out of me.
Why is it that everything this kid does is so adorably awkward?
"Angae. Did you look at what I asked you about?"
"Of course! I checked every single thing you said—not one piece missing!"
"Thank you."
"Hehe!"
That marshmallow-soft voice melted the tension right out of my body.
Every part of me wanted to just collapse right there and then... but no. Focus.
"Then... will you show me Seol Seungjun's memories?"
"Okay!"
What I'd asked Angae for was a read of Seol Seungjun's memories as a whole.
I had no idea yet how I'd use any of it. Still, better than having no weapon at all.
"But Yeonjae, I have a question!"
"Go ahead."
"You remember when I showed you the memory of that singing human, right?"
The singing human?
"You mean Singer Kang Sehyun of Space?"
"Yeah! Back then you hated looking at another human's memories. Is this one okay?"
"......."
The words caught in my throat.
He was right. Seol Seungjun being a degenerate was an unchanging fact—but me reading his memories was, in its own way, an overreach of someone else's privacy.
When I fell silent without answering, Angae panicked.
"I'm not trying to talk you out of it! It's just—last time, when you looked at that human's memories, your face got so dark. I only asked in case the same thing happened again!"
"I know. Thank you."
My feelings were a tangled mess. I opened my arms, and Angae settled into them, familiar as breathing.
Running my fingers through Noh Bihyeok's signature curls, I tried to sort through my thoughts.
Is it really right for me to read other people's memories?
Ethically, of course not. But if not that, what else was there for me to use?
I still didn't understand why my fans liked me.
But applying a little common sense, the reason people like celebrities is simple.
Because they can't see it anywhere else.
A specialness found nowhere else in the world.
This was an industry where, if you failed to meet that condition, you didn't survive.
Acting well? That's simply table stakes for any actor.
Every project becoming a hit? That's a concern for the investors, not me.
Which left only one rational answer I could arrive at.
To maintain, for as long as humanly possible, the image my fans were looking at right now.
The words that universally clustered around a search for Lee Yeonjae.
What were they again?
Handsome. Genius. Kind. Gentle. Warm. Polite....
My face burned—but my feelings weren't what mattered here.
The look in their eyes at that fan meeting. I can't afford to lose that.
To keep carrying those face-flushing words with me, acting well alone wasn't going to be enough.
Which actors I was close with, whether I had any conflicts with fellow cast members—I'd have to tend to my reputation down to the smallest detail.
I've just been lucky until now.
There were countless people out there like Seol Seungjun.
And I'd keep meeting them, tediously, for the rest of my career.
I had no time to pace and fret over how such people might damage my image, and how that damage might reach my fans. Which meant—
"That's enough thinking."
"Huh?"
I made up my mind as Angae's bewildered voice reached my ears. Deliberation was over.
Ethically wrong? What kind of well-fed nonsense is that.
Whatever situations unfolded from here on out, I had to be ready. Always.
If there was even the smallest opening for scandal, it had to be sealed shut in advance.
Even if it meant using everything I had.
"......I'm ready. Will you show me Seol Seungjun's memories?"
Even if it meant, in doing so, bringing about someone's ruin.
The youngest staff member on Dogs' Leash let out a sigh.
Please, just let today's shoot end quietly.
He'd known for a long time that celebrities weren't the same offscreen as they were on TV.
But even crew members who'd been grinding through this business for years were stunned by the man called Seol Seungjun.
There were whispers he'd once hit someone with his car and buried them behind a mountain. Rumors that he'd paid off cases that should have gone to trial.
Still—rumors were just rumors. He'd assumed they couldn't be entirely true. Until he'd been hit himself.
Beaten hard enough in a crowded place for the blows to land with an audible thock, on the sole pretext that the boy's filthy hands had touched his clothes—the young staff member's face grew complicated at the memory.
I wish I could post something about it online...
So many people had been burned by Seol Seungjun that exposés about him hadn't exactly never appeared.
But however ironclad his backing was, every time the tabloids tried to spread a story, it got buried without a trace.
The people who once complained openly about him had gradually learned to keep their distance, and his reputation only grew uglier, leaving the powerless crew no option but to endure.
"Hello there."
It was just then that a calm voice settled at the ear of the staff member, who'd been spacing out while unpacking equipment.
"Oh! Yes. Hello."
"You're working hard from this early in the morning. Have a drink while you work."
Lee Yeonjae held out a drink to him. In the plastic cup was a strawberry latte.
How did he know I like strawberry lattes?
Catching the puzzlement on his face, Lee Yeonjae smiled.
"I think I saw you carrying one before. We talked a couple of days ago, remember?"
Whoa, he remembers that? It was literally a two-second exchange.
The staff member mumbled his thanks, dazed.
"There's a coffee truck parked out front of the building right now. They've got strawberry juice too, so help yourself if you'd like."
"Ah... you arranged this, Actor Lee?"
"Yes. Iijun-hyung sent me one when we were filming the movie, so I wanted to return the favor. I know you're busy—but sip on it whenever you get a moment."
That face, the very portrait of an upright young man, gave a small bow and was gone.
The staff member stood there like he'd been placed under some kind of spell.
It was only when a droplet of condensation slid off the plastic cup and landed on his hand that he jolted back to his senses.
The kid's genuinely kind...
Give a sweet kid like that enough years in this industry, and wouldn't he turn into another Seol Seungjun too?
The thought left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Bitter thoughts aside, the strawberry latte was sweet and delicious.
...Let's just get through today.
After draining the strawberry latte like a drowning man clutching at the water of life, the staff member threw himself into prepping the shoot with even greater energy than usual.
Perhaps thanks to the coffee truck Lee Yeonjae had arranged, the set felt warmer than it had in days.
Chatting and laughing with the crew in that soft easygoing way, kneading Seong Yijun's shoulders to work the tension loose—Lee Yeonjae looked utterly endearing.
The main PD, a die-hard Seong Yijun fan, seemed oddly piqued by the display.
But after trading a few words with Lee Yeonjae, even he broke into a satisfied grin and gave the boy's shoulder a friendly pat.
Something good's going to happen on set today, I can feel it.
Could one person's influence really be this powerful?
The gloom that had hung over the staff ever since filming began was lifting, face by face.
The moment that warm, convivial atmosphere shattered was sudden.
"PD-nim. Swap that kid out for someone else."
"......Seungjun-ssi, what's this all of a sudden? Hmm~? The main writer has been counting down the days for this scene. And with Seungjun-ssi's brilliant performance layered on top, it practically glows!"
"Save it. The kid gets on my nerves. He's just an extra anyway. Put someone else in."
The scene being shot today had been revised: Han Seungmin attempts to shake down Student 1 for money, then falters when he sees the look of resignation on the kid's face.
Lee Janhyeok, drifting past without a care, reads the guilt clinging to Han Seungmin's face and a flicker of interest crosses his expression.
Now there's a kid who'd be fun to keep around—wearing exactly that look, Lee Janhyeok approaches the pair and uses his power on Student 1.
Lee Janhyeok's psychic ability was memory erasure.
By the time Student 1 came to with a blank look on his face, he was standing alone at the end of the alley. And cut—that would be the whole scene.
A simple shoot that, done well, could wrap in under two hours.
The problem was Seol Seungjun's rock-headed stubbornness.
Seol Seungjun, who'd been chuckling about scoring a rare treat of good coffee thanks to his polite hoobae, had frozen the instant he watched Lee Yeonjae act.
And then thrown a tantrum demanding the boy be replaced with a different actor.
That's one nasty check.
Anyone could see it was insecurity. He wasn't even a bad actor—so why act like that over a kid more than a decade younger?
Contempt flickered across the staff members' faces, though honestly, it wasn't hard to understand.
Lee Yeonjae's acting was, quite frankly, excessive in its excellence.
In the instant Han Seungmin brought the student to his knees, the clarity drained from the boy's eyes.
.......
A blank face. A bewitched gaze. Lips gone slack at the corners.
As the watching crew beheld an expression that transformed entirely in the space of a heartbeat, a sound seemed to reach their ears.
The soft snap of a thread that had been straining to hold—vivid as hallucination.
No sound effects needed in post. The performance was perfect as it stood.
"Seungjun-ssi, let's handle this nicely, hm?"
"PD-nim, why can't you understand simple words? Do you want more money?"
"......."
When the main PD's mouth clamped shut under the rising tide of humiliation, silence swallowed the set.
The staff members turned toward Lee Yeonjae, hearts heavy with pity.
And then froze in shock.
"...?"
He blinked—and Lee Yeonjae was simply standing there, wearing a troubled, awkward expression.
Oh. Never mind. Must've been my imagination.
Right. There's no way that kid could be wearing an expression that cold.