A Night at the Manager's House
"Actor-nim! Not over there—you need to come this way."
"Ah, yes."
"Take my hand."
Manager Ahn Jinbae led me along with a beaming smile.
Thanks to him, I managed to avoid walking into what appeared to be some kind of restaurant. He lives in a place like this? Before the question could even settle in my mind, my senses were thrown into disarray by marble so dazzlingly polished it hurt to look at.
What was it with this building and covering every surface in marble?
"Good evening."
Was that really an elevator? As I approached the massive golden doors, a staff member standing by bowed courteously. There was no button where a button should have been. Instead, Manager Ahn Jinbae exchanged a few words with the employee and casually tapped his card against the panel, and the doors slid open without a sound. The inside of the elevator was nicer than my own room.
"Wow…."
I'd resolved to keep my composure, but the moment I stepped through the door, an exclamation slipped out before I could stop it.
The interior was even better than anything I'd imagined during the ride up. I gave one sweeping glance at what I assumed was the 'entryway' and I was already overwhelmed. How is anyone supposed to sleep in a place like this? One wrong touch and I'd probably owe a million won.
"Actor-nim, you can change in that room over there. There's a bathroom inside, so wash your hands too. I'll get dinner ready first!"
Thankfully, I'd packed spare clothes in case of trouble on set. I just never imagined I'd be changing into them at Manager Ahn Jinbae's house.
I stepped into the bathroom and washed my hands, then froze for a moment—the towel hanging there was softer than anything I could have imagined. After standing rigid for a good five seconds, I finally pried my hands away and moved to change clothes, at which point the curtain drew itself closed automatically.
By that point, I'd simply learned to roll with it. Fine. A place has to be at least this nice before a 700,000 won watch can walk past and survive. There was no law saying a manager couldn't be wealthy. That was another prejudice I needed to throw out.
With a serene heart, bracing myself not to be surprised even if I opened the door to find a uniformed attendant standing there with a plate of steak, I pushed it open.
What I saw instead was something entirely unexpected.
"Actor-nim, is omurice okay?"
"Yes. I love omurice."
"What a relief! Have a seat right here. It'll be ready in a second."
Manager Ahn Jinbae, dressed in comfortable clothes, was stirring away at a frying pan. His plating left something to be desired, but the fluffy omelet over rice was warm and soft.
After clearing the plate without leaving a single spoonful behind, we watched a movie Manager Ahn Jinbae had appeared in. Honestly speaking, his acting was passable at best—his eyes were too clear and guileless to sell the sleazy gangster he was playing, which kept breaking my immersion. But when he thanked me for watching it through so attentively, and I found myself bowing right back to thank him for indulging me, we had to wave each other off. Enough already.
"How could you carry on so without even consulting me!"
"Your Highness, lower your voice."
"This humble one has failed Your Mother's expectations of… sorry. I'll try that again."
After the movie, we rehearsed the scenes we'd be filming tomorrow. I'd never practiced lines back and forth with another person before, so my focus kept slipping.
Until now, whenever I practiced alone, the other actor's performance had always existed purely in my imagination. The voice I pictured, the look in the eyes I imagined, the timing I expected—none of it matched Manager Ahn Jinbae's acting in the slightest.
I'd always rehearsed around myself—whether my gaze looked unnatural, whether my emotional expression carried enough conviction—so accounting for a scene partner on top of everything else kept tripping me up. At one point, frustrated, I simply ignored Manager Ahn Jinbae altogether and ran the performance I'd prepared, and he broke into a cold sweat and signaled surrender.
"Are you all right? Have some water."
"Thank you…. Whew. I'm starting to understand a little of how Actress Kim Hyeonju must have felt."
According to Manager Ahn Jinbae, it was like sprinting at full speed only to find your opponent moving too fast to keep up with. Watching someone already so far ahead in the distance made it impossible not to be conscious of them. But if I simply dialed back my own intensity, I couldn't pack in the conviction I was aiming for, and that left something to be desired.
In the end, a sigh escaped me after two hours of uninterrupted practice. So matching your breathing with another person really wasn't easy.
"Ha… we film tomorrow, and it's just not improving."
"Don't be so discouraged. You ran through it with me today, so tomorrow with Actress Kim Hyeonju will go far more smoothly. After all, she's a real actress—not someone you could ever compare to me."
He put it in terms of animals: I was a cheetah, Actress Kim Hyeonju was a horse, and he himself was, at best, a snail. How easy could it be for a cheetah to walk at a snail's pace? But a snail and a horse weren't even in the same league, so I shouldn't worry.
He chose each word with such careful hesitation, as if my slumped shoulders were weighing on him, that the image of an actual snail rose so vividly in my mind I burst out laughing.
"Shall we end practice here? You're filming again tomorrow, so you should sleep early."
"Yes. Let's stop here."
Part of me wanted to keep rehearsing, but I nodded obediently. I could always do more with Angae later.
After a quick wash, we launched into another lengthy standoff—this time over where I would sleep. Manager Ahn Jinbae insisted he'd take the guest room and that I should sleep in the master bedroom, and I countered that no guest sleeping in the host's master bedroom made any sense at all.
After roughly thirty minutes of negotiation, the situation was resolved when Manager Ahn Jinbae dragged the mattress out of the guest room and hauled it clear across the master bedroom floor. He said he'd sleep on the mattress and I should take the bed, and I opened my mouth to argue once more before simply nodding instead. I wanted to sleep quickly—and I'll admit I was a little worn down by the sight of him carrying in a mattress taller than himself without so much as a change in his breathing.
"Hyung. You're more stubborn than you look."
"…Only with you, Actor-nim."
What did I ever do?
As I lay down on the bed and stole a glance toward the mattress, I could hear him murmuring that he still hadn't gotten over the way it felt when I'd paid him 30,000 won. When I pointed out that it probably couldn't compare to the shock of being handed 700,000 won, silence fell instantly. Honestly.
The feel of the blanket wrapped around me, the softness of the mattress against my back, the faint trace of another person's breathing mingled in the air—none of it was familiar. But whether it was because of the first shoot today or how intense the rehearsal had been, exhaustion pulled my eyes shut almost immediately. I sank into sleep before I could even picture a lamb's woolly fleece.
And so the night in a stranger's home that I'd expected to be awkward passed by, unremarkably and without incident.
"Ahh, excellent. Wow, you two are perfectly in sync. We're moving straight into the next scene!"
At the PD's words, the staff scattered in a flurry of motion to set up the next shot. Props were repositioned, lights were adjusted, and amid the chaotic bustle, a thick silence hung around Actress Kim Hyeonju and me.
"What were you thinking about?"
"Sorry?"
I was mentally turning over my next line when the gruff voice cut in. She was whispering, apparently wary of the people around us, which only made it that much harder to concentrate.
"What were you thinking when you played that? Was it because I blew up at you yesterday? Was that it—you figured you'd humor me since I can't act as well as you?"
The faint crease between her brows laid bare an undisguised, festering displeasure.
What on earth is this person's problem?
If she was dissatisfied even with a take that hadn't produced a single NG, then no matter what I did, she was clearly bound to find fault with it. The tension I'd been holding in my body all this time, loath to be a burden to anyone, slowly drained away.
Her glare was sharp enough to sting, but instead of stinging, it left me feeling faintly hollow, and when I opened my mouth, a listless voice came out.
"It's never once occurred to me that you can't act."
"What?"
"You're a genuinely good actress. You already know that."
Manager Ahn Jinbae had been right.
Just in case, I'd run through the lines with Angae exactly as I had with him, and the result had been an utter mess, same as before. I'd arrived at the set carrying that tangled knot of a feeling—but the moment the cue came and I looked at the Queen Consort through Yuhyeon's eyes, she was simply the Queen Consort, complete and whole. Not a single thread of her performance was out of place, and the steadiness that came of it set my heart at ease. I wondered if this was what it felt like to have been tumbling down a sheer cliff and suddenly meet a gentle slope.
So even as I eased off, I was able to deliver the performance I'd prepared, and Actress Kim Hyeonju's acting—sharpened with new intensity from yesterday—was excellent too. And as the hours wore on and the light gradually returned to her eyes, she seemed to have regained her certainty in her own craft. The PD's face, for its part, had bloomed so wide it was unrecognizable from yesterday. She couldn't possibly not have noticed all that. So why pick a fight—and with such pointless words at that?
"If you tell me you hate me, I won't have anything to say to that. But you don't have to say things that no one hearing them would believe."
"…."
She can't even stand making eye contact with me, let alone conversation. Is there really any point in talking?
Actress Kim Hyeonju stayed quiet for a long moment after my words, then muttered something about me being insufferable under her breath and turned her head away. Thankfully, she didn't speak to me again after that.
We ironed out only the details that needed aligning before the shoot, then got straight to filming. Not once did we stumble, and the scenes flowed to a close like water running downhill. Even from a distance, the staff's brightened faces were unmistakable as they dashed around with a spring in their step, and the PD pounded my shoulder for a good long while, a contented smile spread across his face.
Actress Kim Hyeonju greeted the PD and left at once, just as she had yesterday. It seemed she glanced briefly in my direction before her composure fully cracked, but I didn't much care. As long as she isn't wishing me dead, that's fine. If it had come to that, things could have gotten complicated in all sorts of ways. Compared to that, this level of petty hostility was almost endearing in its smallness.
The troublesome part I could simply endure; what worried me was her spite dragging other people into harm's way for no reason. But after watching her today, it was clear she handled the work professionally regardless of her personal feelings toward me, so leaving the matter alone was the smarter play.
There are things worth worrying about more than this.
Just thinking of the perfume I'd left sitting on my desk made my head throb. Wednesday—only three days remained until the shoot with Han Seyeong.
Given the limits on how far young Yuhyeon could plausibly move from place to place, it was no exaggeration to say that eighty percent of my scenes were with Nabi. Which meant I'd be spending long stretches of time with whichever actor played her. Which meant I needed to get accustomed to that godforsaken scent as quickly as possible.
Once I sank into character, the smell stopped registering, so the scenes themselves I could manage. But I had zero confidence that I could sit through all the waiting time between takes breathing that scent in and stay upright.
"Is something troubling you?"
"Ah."
It was only at the careful voice drifting over from the driver's seat that I realized how deeply I'd been sighing. About thirty minutes had passed since we got in the car, which meant we'd be arriving at the orphanage soon. The thought made my chest tighten further.
"I'm fine. It's nothing."
"…Very well. If anything's bothering you, please tell me freely."
I considered asking Manager Ahn Jinbae, but shook my head inwardly. This had nothing to do with acting, and I couldn't very well make myself a nuisance over it.
I lifted my head to look out the window, and in the distance the orphanage building came into view. Could I maybe ask them to let me stay just one more day? The words rose all the way to my throat before I barely managed to swallow them down. If a shot had to be taken, better to take it sooner. Right—today I'd just lift the lid and see. What could possibly happen?
It was an hour better described as the small hours of dawn than as night when Lee Sihyun woke and carefully opened her door.
Of all the times to wake up thirsty. So annoying….
Eyes barely open, she was shuffling her way toward the kitchen when an odd sound reached her ears. She followed it to its source. The closer she drew to the men's bathroom, the clearer the sound became. She pressed her ear quietly against the door and heard what was unmistakably someone retching, and hurriedly knocked.
"It's me, Teacher Sihyun! Who's in there? Are you feeling sick?!"
She couldn't raise her voice—not with the children and the other teachers asleep just down the hall—so only the knocking grew more and more insistent against the door.
The moment she knocked, the sound stopped, was quickly swallowed up by running water, and a short while later the door opened.
"Who's—oh my, Yeonjae? A-are you okay? Are you feeling unwell?"
The figure standing in the doorway was Lee Yeonjae—eyes rimmed red, face slick with moisture. Whether he'd washed his face or not, even his bangs were damp. Startled, Lee Sihyun's pupils shook all the harder.
She took an urgent step toward him, then faltered at a heavy scent she couldn't hide from.
What is that smell? Flowers?
It was drifting off of Lee Yeonjae as he steadied his breathing.