Yoon Ha-eun and Kang Si-woo (2)
To six-year-old Yoon Ha-eun, the world of child acting might have looked laughable to adults, but it was a fierce battlefield.
Throughout her career as a child actress, Ha-eun had faced Kim Chae-eun at the final stage of every audition.
Most of those encounters had ended in her defeat, yet deep down she still regarded Chae-eun as her one and only rival. Of course, it was a completely one-sided relationship—Chae-eun herself never so much as glanced her way.
So when news came that Chae-eun had been cast as the lead in Flower of Blood, Ha-eun nodded rather than fumed.
Outwardly she would never admit it, but if it was her rival—her idol, really—then the result felt only natural.
Then one day a shocking piece of news arrived: the lead role had changed.
Seo Da-young…? Who’s that?
A child actress whose name she had never even heard. And yet she was the protagonist.
In the industry, a sudden flip of the lead role was vanishingly rare. To a six-year-old like Ha-eun, it was simply incomprehensible.
In fact, after the script reading, Seo Da-young had not looked like a lead at all.
It wasn’t merely a question of whether her acting was good or bad.
Even as a six-year-old, Ha-eun had an eye for the aura of a true actor.
Kim Chae-eun overflowed with it. Seo Da-young, no matter how hard you looked, had none.
Crushed beneath Ha-eun’s own overwhelming presence, Da-young’s existence had felt faint—there and yet not there.
She seemed far below even Ha-eun’s own performance, let alone Chae-eun’s. Why the adults had accepted a kid like that as the lead left Ha-eun upset and sulky beyond endurance.
After the script reading, during the break before principal photography began in earnest, the adult actors sipping coffee in a corner of the waiting room began to murmur quietly among themselves.
Their conversation came from a perspective utterly different from Ha-eun’s misunderstanding.
“Namgung-sunbae, did you see the kids’ reading just now?”
Lee Ji-soo asked Namgung Hyun, eyes sparkling with interest.
“I did. How did you see it, Ji-soo-ssi?”
“What is there to say? It gave me chills. That tiny little Da-young actually understood the flow of the drama.”
“Haha, so I wasn’t the only one who felt that. Ha-eun was over there thinking she’d acted better than Da-young.”
“Oh my, of course she was. How would an ordinary six-year-old know? The strange one is the child who understood it without anyone explaining.”
Lee Ji-soo set down her cup and clicked her tongue softly.
“Episode 1 was Yu Ji-hye’s first appearance. She had to firmly establish her presence. So even while acting opposite you and me, she projected her presence without being overshadowed. That was the correct choice.”
“Right. How does a kid that young act so well without a shred of fear? Honestly.”
“But Episode 2 is different. She’s already imprinted her presence in the Episode 1 footage, so she doesn’t need to push herself forward. By contrast, Choi Ji-soo is a lead appearing for the first time, so she has to firmly assert her presence.”
“Exactly. Before Director Han even gave a note, Da-young deliberately dimmed her own presence. She has the skill to overwhelm Yoon Ha-eun with sheer presence alone, yet she understood that this wasn’t her turn—it was the other actor’s—and she funneled the weight of the scene to her. Honestly, even adult actors like us struggle to set our egos aside and do that at her age…”
“You know what’s even scarier? The kid next to her—Chae-eun—defended Da-young as if it were the most natural thing in the world, saying that was exactly what the script required. When I was six I was wiping my nose and playing squid games, but kids these days are real monsters.”
Director Han Sang-in, who had been listening from a distance, quietly nodded to himself.
Just as the actors said, Seo Da-young—who grasped the overall flow of the drama and controlled its pacing without any directing—and Kim Chae-eun, who likewise understood the balance of the piece, were nothing short of a blessing from a director’s point of view. Absolute geniuses.
Yet in Han Sang-in’s eyes, satisfaction was mixed with a faint worry.
Their acting ability and sense are at a level that makes it hard to believe they’re child actors, but…
His gaze drifted to a corner of the waiting room.
There sat Yoon Ha-eun and Kang Si-woo, openly casting arrogant looks at Da-young.
No matter how professional they were in front of the camera—acting that put adults to shame—behind it they were still just six- and eight-year-old children.
If those raw emotions kept colliding, there was no telling when the kids’ twisted feelings might spill over into the actual shoot.
Honestly. My only headache while filming a drama isn’t whether the drama will turn out well—it’s whether the kids will fight. I feel like a babysitter.
Thinking that, Han Sang-in gave a bitter smile.
During the short break after the script reading, I sat side by side with Kim Chae-eun on the waiting-room sofa.
From the far corner, Yoon Ha-eun and Kang Si-woo’s sharp glares stabbed into my cheek like needles.
Even if we were only going to see each other briefly for this Episode 2 shoot, continuing under such open hostility was pretty rough on the mental health.
I leaned discreetly toward Chae-eun and lowered my voice.
“Chae-eun. Um… why do you think Ha-eun and Si-woo are staring at me like that?”
“Dunno. No idea.”
Chae-eun looked as if she had not the slightest interest in the two kids.
I’d heard they often ran into each other on sets during their child-acting careers, yet her attitude was pure “I don’t know.”
This is a problem, Chae-eun.
She was the best information source who should know those two little gold-spoons better than anyone, yet outside of acting she was just an ordinary six-year-old who paid no attention to her surroundings…
I couldn’t give up yet. I was about to ask in more detail.
The moment I scooted closer to whisper in her ear, Yoon Ha-eun’s eyes in the corner narrowed into fierce slits in an instant.
Lasers were practically shooting from them.
Catching that reaction, I carefully shifted the direction of my question.
“You said you used to run into Ha-eun a lot at auditions, right? Did she get mad at you the way she did at me?”
“Yeah. Every time we met she glared and acted cold. At the last final audition she even shoved a chocolate at me and yelled that she was going to win. I didn’t care, so I just ate the chocolate.”
“…Ah.”
The fragmented pieces of information in Chae-eun’s answer clicked into place.
Ahh, so that was it.
Yoon Ha-eun had long regarded Kim Chae-eun as her one-sided rival and idol.
Even though the person in question, Kim Chae-eun, couldn’t have cared less what Ha-eun thought of her.
From Ha-eun’s perspective, if the lead role had gone to her rival Kim Chae-eun, she could at least have accepted it.
But out of nowhere, some nobody whose name she’d never heard had snatched the lead, so of course the one who had pushed her rival aside looked like a thorn in her eye.
The fuss she’d made during the reading, demanding they switch roles, finally made sense too.
Haa. Director Han.
The karma you dumped is flowing right back onto me.
Anyway, once I understood the cause, Yoon Ha-eun’s prickly behavior became crystal clear. In fact, it felt rather cute for a kid her age, so I decided to be magnanimous and understand.
And while I was at it, I threw out a hopeful question about the other little gold-spoon who had coldly ignored my greeting earlier.
“Chae-eun, then… why is Si-woo-sunbae over there acting like that?”
To eight-year-old Kang Si-woo, the world of child acting might have looked laughable to adults, but it was a fierce battlefield.
And even for Kang Si-woo, there was an angel who soothed his exhausted soul so he could survive that cutthroat world of child acting.
She was none other than Kim Chae-eun, whom he often ran into during his career.
Even though Kim Chae-eun herself never so much as glanced at Kang Si-woo, he secretly regarded her as his one and only angel.
The fact that she was two years younger didn’t matter in the slightest.
Outwardly he acted mature and gentlemanly, yet he would secretly share snacks with her or give her gifts whenever he brought them, desperate to look good in her eyes.
So when news came that Kim Chae-eun had been cast as the lead in Flower of Blood, Kang Si-woo had pulled the blanket over his head before bed—without his parents knowing—and let out a silent cheer of joy.
He had learned that his character, Min Do-hyun, shared several scenes with the female lead, Yu Ji-hye.
Then one day a shocking piece of news arrived: the lead role had changed.
“Stop. Stop.”
I cut off Kim Chae-eun mid-explanation about Kang Si-woo.
I didn’t need to hear any more.
“I see. Si-woo-sunbae is just a simp.”
“A simp…? What’s that?”
“There’s a thing like that.”
Anyway, I could set Kang Si-woo aside for now. Clearing up the misunderstanding and making peace with Yoon Ha-eun seemed like the better move.
Now that I knew the full story, Ha-eun wasn’t a truly mean kid, and strictly speaking the director who had suddenly swapped the roles was the one who had caused the problem.
I stood up and quietly approached Yoon Ha-eun, who was sitting alone a short distance away.
“Ha-eun, when I watched you during the script reading, your acting was really amazing! I got so nervous I genuinely thought Ji-soo was standing right in front of me.”
“Hmph. Of course. You’re the lead and you still got overwhelmed by my presence.”
Ha-eun shot back prickly as ever, but the corners of her mouth loosened ever so slightly at the praise for her acting.
As expected, praise makes even whales dance. How was a six-year-old supposed to resist something even a whale couldn’t?
Seizing the moment, I leaned in and whispered secretly into Ha-eun’s ear.
“Ha-eun, and you know… want me to tell you how to get close to Chae-eun?”
In that instant Ha-eun’s big eyes wavered noticeably.
Even if she pretended to be jealous of Chae-eun on the outside, deep down she had longed to become friends with her idol. My offer to become the bridge between her and Kim Chae-eun was an irresistible temptation.
“W-what is it…? How can I get close to her?”
Ha-eun swallowed hard and looked at me with eyes full of expectation. I smiled in triumph and giggled as if sharing a tremendous secret.
“Go talk to Chae-eun about Fairy Cure. She’ll totally love it.”
But contrary to my expectations, Yoon Ha-eun’s brow immediately crumpled. Looking utterly incredulous, she shouted loud enough to shake the waiting room.
“Hey! There’s no way Chae-eun would like a babyish cartoon like Fairy Cure! Do you even know how mature and cool Chae-eun is? Why would she watch something that childish?!”
Ha-eun’s booming voice drew every gaze in the waiting room toward us at once.
And then.
“….”
On the sofa farther back, Kim Chae-eun’s face instantly froze over.
A chill as if the temperature inside the waiting room had plummeted below freezing settled over everything. From the opposite side, Kim Chae-eun was glaring at Yoon Ha-eun with terrifying triangular eyes.
“Uh, uh…? Chae-eun…?”
Faced with Chae-eun’s sudden, formidable killing intent, Yoon Ha-eun’s pupils shook violently like an earthquake. But the milk had already been spilled.
Ah. I don’t know anything about this.
I pressed a hand to my forehead and quietly muttered to myself.
Reconciliation Operation: Total Failure ★