The Legend Returns
The instant Nari sat there murmuring blankly, she missed her chance to pause the video.
The making-of footage on the monitor kept rolling without stopping, and it was time for the next contestant to enter.
—Contestant number fifteen. [BEEP—!]
Right at the split second the contestant's name was bleeped out again—
"Hack—! Pffft—!!!"
Judge Gang Si-woo, caught in the corner of the frame, sprayed the mineral water he'd been holding in his mouth in a perfect, spectacular fountain.
Water droplets scattered in every direction like a movie still, and the camera caught Si-woo's crumpled, dying expression in what felt like slow motion as the water went up his nose.
Under any other circumstances, Nari would have seized on that reaction alone and milked the footage for content with all the professional banter she could muster.
But in this moment, neither Nari nor a single soul in the chat so much as glanced at Gang Si-woo's water-spitting performance.
They didn't have the mental bandwidth for it.
Thump. Thump.
What ruled their minds was a wild, unbearable anticipation climbing all the way up into their throats.
The making film had thrown down the Kim Chae-eun card without holding anything back right from the start.
So what on earth was waiting in the second half?
Whoever came on right after Kim Chae-eun—
And whoever could make Gang Si-woo react hard enough to spit water…!!!
"Ah…"
Step—. Step—.
The camera angle slowly tilted upward from below, following the footsteps of a young woman walking out toward the center of the audition hall.
"…!"
Nari's breath caught in her throat all over again.
If Kim Chae-eun had been the memorable child actress from the masterpiece Blood Garden from ten years ago, the woman walking out now was Blood Garden itself—the undisputed child lead who had played the main heroine.
And not only that. She was the character who had been romantically paired with the young prince "Min Do-hyun," the role Gang Si-woo had played in the drama.
The prince who had gently comforted the weeping little heroine "Yoo Ji-hye"—and now, after ten long years, a reunion in the real world at last.
"Ah…. This is insane, for real…."
Nari clamped a hand over her mouth. Before she was even a streamer, she was a fan—and the dopamine surging up from the bottom of her chest was more than she could contain.
It felt as if the audition hall itself had transformed, in this very moment, into a scene straight out of a romance comic.
It was Seo Da-young.
The girl who had played little Yoo Ji-hye.
The one who had acted in only a single work and, with that alone, shaken the entire world.
And then vanished without a trace.
The legend of child acting.
It was her.
She was back.
Sure enough, the Metube live chat was being carpet-bombed in real time with viewers' screams.
The camera closed in on Seo Da-young's face.
If Kim Chae-eun had been the cool, lofty ideal of an ice beauty, then Seo Da-young, appearing after ten years, was a princess who lit up the hearts of everyone who looked at her like sunlight itself.
The baby fat was gone, revealing a mature jawline, while her eyes remained as round and clear as ever. It was as if that angelic seven-year-old face had simply bloomed into adulthood without losing a single drop of its beauty.
In Blood Garden, Yoo Ji-hye had lost her family and become a demon of revenge.
But the Seo Da-young standing in the camera now looked like the Yoo Ji-hye from a timeline where that tragedy had never happened at all.
On the monitor, Gang Si-woo's shirtfront was soaked through from the water he'd sprayed—and still he couldn't even think to brush it off, staring at Seo Da-young with trembling eyes.
"…Is that really Seo Da-young…?"
Si-woo's stammering voice carried over the mic.
In the silence of the audition hall, Seo Da-young looked straight at Gang Si-woo seated among the judges.
And then.
Breaking that fleeting stillness, her soft pink lips curved gently into a smile.
With the soft crinkle at the corners of her eyes came a smile like sunshine, as if it had raised the lighting of the entire audition hall by a full stop.
A voice that was somehow ticklishly sweet slipped out between her lips.
"…It's been a while. Sunbae."
Clack.
The mouse slipped right through Nari's fingers.
Goosebumps raced from the crown of her head all the way down to her toes.
Kim Chae-eun's dazzling entrance just moments ago had been more than enough for hot news—
But it couldn't begin to compare to Seo Da-young's return.
Nari knew it on pure instinct.
That smile Seo Da-young was showing right now—that was the real highlight this making film had been saving.
And all the while, the making film kept playing on.
National star Gang Si-woo sat there with his shirt soaked through, completely at a loss—while the first-year high school applicant Seo Da-young, the very cause of it all, looked perfectly at ease.
Da-young smiled faintly and spoke toward Si-woo.
"Judge, your clothes are all wet. That must be uncomfortable—shall I bring you a tissue?"
There was a light thread of mischief in her voice.
At the sheer composure of a high school applicant casually lifting up and setting down one of Korea's top actors like it was nothing, a few soft snorts of laughter broke out among the staff in the audition hall.
"…Pfft."
"Haha, Gang Si-woo's really not having a normal day."
When the casting director seated beside the director whispered it with a wicked little grin, a strange ripple of amusement passed through the entire judges' table.
Faced with his old colleague's easy composure after ten years—and with every eye in the room on him—it was Si-woo who ended up flustered. He averted his gaze and waved his hands in a hurry.
"Ah, no. We're in the middle of an audition, so it's fine. Personal talk can…. wait till later."
"Pardon?"
Seo Da-young's round eyes widened just a fraction.
"I don't believe I ever said anything about talking privately later? Meeting a guy one-on-one outside of this is a little…."
"Huh? Th-that's not what I—"
At a reply he had never seen coming, Gang Si-woo's face went red in an instant.
The sight of that Gang Si-woo being completely steamrolled by a junior applicant so far beneath him, stumbling over his words—the staff on set completely lost it.
Si-woo cleared his throat hard a couple of times and somehow managed to smooth his voice back into something resembling composure.
"…Anyway. This is an audition, so let's drop the personal conversation and focus on the acting. Applicant Seo Da-young."
"Yes, understood."
Da-young smiled brightly and nodded.
The director seated at the center of the judges' table took the mic.
"Applicant Seo Da-young. As you already know, this audition has you choose for yourself between Script A and Script B and perform it. Which script will you go with?"
The answer came back before the question had even finished landing.
"I'll do Script B."
Director Park Sung-jin's eyebrows lifted slightly.
"Script B, you say? To be frank, it's not a script I'd recommend to an applicant of high school age."
"Script A already seems to have an owner."
Da-young added it in a calm, even tone.
She was pointing straight at the Script A that Kim Chae-eun had just performed.
It was a bold way of speaking, as if Chae-eun's acceptance were already a settled fact. But after watching Kim Chae-eun's performance, none of the judges on site could bring themselves to argue.
The director studied Da-young for a moment, then continued the explanation evenly.
"…Understood. The situation in Script B is a woman who has been going through the stagnation of a relationship finally being told it's over by her partner, and accepting that breakup with quiet composure. And…"
The director started to go on, then suddenly became aware of the making-of camera above his head. He pressed his lips shut and quietly held the rest back.
Just as he'd said, Script B sat at a very difficult point for performance.
The emotional line was far too complex for a girl who had only just entered her first year of high school.
Asking a brand-new high school freshman to act the feelings of a breakup at the end of relationship fatigue was, in a certain sense, even less accessible than a terminal-illness premise.
Director Park Sung-jin looked across at Da-young and asked,
"Do you need time to get into the emotion?"
Da-young didn't bother dragging it out.
"No. I'll start right away."
Seo Da-young's gaze turned toward Gang Si-woo seated at the judges' table.
"Thank you. For everything."
The performance began at once, without even a moment to settle her breath.
A quiet, composed voice carried through the screen.
There was no fierce emotion, no exaggerated action of any kind.
Calm. Quiet.
Seo Da-young wore the face of a woman who had truly arrived at the end of stagnation and was meeting a goodbye.
"You gave me so many precious memories in the time we had together. I'm really grateful. Because of you, I was warm."
It was a tender smile.
But behind that smile lay a heart that had already gone cold, and a muted sorrow.
"I hope you'll be truly happy from now on. Take care."
Having offered that final farewell, Da-young squared her shoulders and ended the performance.
Acting so mature and restrained it was hard to believe she was a first-year in high school.
She had cleanly expressed the emotional line of a stagnating couple so thoroughly that the director's earlier concerns felt almost embarrassing.
Watching the broadcast, Nari swallowed a breath of admiration too. The stability was on a completely different level from every applicant who had come before.
"Oh. That's solid, for sure. She's on another level from the other applicants."
But the reaction in the Metube live chat was a little more split.
Reactions that it felt dull next to Kim Chae-eun's insane pull, and defenses that she had performed cleanly within the limits of the script, continued side by side.
But the reaction on site was different.
Gang Si-woo stared at Seo Da-young without even trying to hide his admiration, and Director Park Sung-jin also nodded deeply, as if something had left a profound impression on him.
"Well done. I think you'll get a very good result."
With the director's broad, smiling farewell, Seo Da-young exited the audition hall.
After Kim Chae-eun and Seo Da-young's performances had passed, the audition scenes of the remaining applicants in the second half were skipped through in a flash.
For viewers whose standards had already been jacked up to the ceiling, nobody else's acting could even register.
The early-broadcast mood of killing time talking about Gang Si-woo's face was long gone without a trace.
The chat was already deep in a heated debate comparing Kim Chae-eun and Seo Da-young's acting.
That was when someone fired off a Super Chat at Nari with a question.
Nari fidgeted with the mouse cursor and took a moment to choose her words.
"Hmm…. The way I see it…."
She had started to speak—and then stopped cold.
Through the speakers, the last smile and the look in Seo Da-young's eyes from just moments ago brushed through her mind like an afterimage.
"Ah, never mind. I think I misread it."
Nari waved it off lightly and mumbled her way past it.
The viewers teased her for it, but alone inside, Nari rubbed her forearm.
That performance Seo Da-young just showed in the audition hall…. wasn't there something creepy about it?
When she glanced down, she could see the goosebumps standing out in a dense rash along her arm.
Getting chills from a performance. It wasn't common, but it wasn't rare either.
Spend ten years living as a film and drama reviewer and you run into every kind of acting there is.
But whenever she faced that kind of performance, there was always a weight to it—the sense of being overwhelmed by the acting itself.
She could always tell exactly why the goosebumps had risen.
Right now, though, Nari could not for the life of her understand why she had gotten chills.
Goosebumps because the acting was that good? No… this was something else…. a bad kind of chill….
Different from being awed by overwhelming skill…. fear…?
Why did I get that feeling from the performance just now…?
But Nari quickly remembered she was still on air, jacked her energy straight back up, and beamed at the camera.
"Anyway, everyone! I guarantee it—COOKI's Strange Premonition project this time…. is going to be a dark horse we can't afford to ignore, way more than any of us expected! When the main series drops, we are watching it together no matter what!"
Nari pointed a finger at the camera and made the bold claim at full volume.
"Alright, that's it for today's stream! I'll get the edited version cleaned up fast and upload it to the main Metube channel, so don't forget to hit like and subscribe, everyone! Bye-bye—!"
And Nari's bold claim was not wrong.
The moment the stream ended, the making-of film featuring Kim Chae-eun and Seo Da-young began carpeting every community board and internet news headline in a matter of minutes.