Chapter 24
Chapter 24
Between Opportunity and Scandal (2)
“Understood. I’ll head over immediately.”
The female lead of a drama that hadn’t even aired yet getting arrested for doing drugs with a male idol.
What the hell kind of situation is this?
And on top of that, I was guaranteed a forty-hour work week.
“Who cares at a time like this.”
I hurried to the company by taxi.
Even late at night, all the major Team 3 members had gathered in the conference room, including the division director.
Everyone kept fiddling with empty ashtrays, looking desperate to smoke.
“Oh, Doyoung-ssi. You came? By taxi?”
“Yes. I came as quickly as possible.”
“Sorry for calling you this late. But we desperately need a totem right now.”
“It’s fine.”
Even now, he’s still joking about me being a totem.
Team Leader Jo Woonseok summarized the situation briefly and clearly.
“It’s drug sex.”
I almost choked instantly.
That opening line was way too strong.
My head started throbbing.
“D-drug sex?”
“A female actress and a handsome younger male idol. If the two of them did drugs together alone, then it’s obviously drug sex.”
“But the evidence….”
“Evidence doesn’t matter. Ninety-nine percent chance it was drug sex, and even if there’s a one percent chance it wasn’t, everyone in this industry already thinks it was.”
Looking around, nobody seemed to doubt it even slightly.
Like seeing a corpse and immediately concluding someone died.
Could Jo Siyeon even return to screens after this?
At this rate, she might be headed straight for retirement.
“Who’s Male Idol A?”
“Center member of Dexkey. One of the hottest male idols right now. Massive fandom too. Which is why the fire’s burning even hotter.”
I had absolutely no idea who that was.
I secretly searched him up while pretending not to notice anything.
He looked weirdly like some kind of parasitic creature from an old kisaeng house.
When I peeked into the exploding SNS reactions,
pure chaos unfolded so violently that I immediately closed everything without reading further.
“If the female lead gets removed, what happens to our drama?”
I asked Team Leader Jo Woonseok in the quietest voice possible.
“We’ll have to find a replacement. But would an actress at Jo Siyeon’s level really willingly jump into this mud pit?”
Honestly, even if I were a top-tier actress, I wouldn’t touch this situation either.
The discussion spiraled chaotically.
“Everyone listen carefully. Don’t even mention actresses whose level drops too far.”
“What about Kim Jiwoo? She just finished another project recently and is currently resting, but she’s notoriously ambitious about acting opportunities—”
“Her agency already got badly burned in a previous drug scandal. They probably won’t even look our direction.”
“What about Lee Sanghee?”
“She’s too prideful. No way she’d enter just to fill someone else’s collapsed spot.”
“Still, it’s a lead role. Shouldn’t we at least ask?”
“Fine. Keep her as an option.”
Everyone had already accepted Jo Siyeon’s removal as a confirmed fact.
Now they were discussing replacement actresses.
‘This feels strange.’
We’re an acting agency, not a broadcaster or production company.
If we’d placed one of our own male lead actors into the drama, maybe this level of involvement would make sense.
But all we contributed was a rookie actress debuting in the younger-version female lead role.
Yet they were all acting like this was their own disaster.
“Before casting, we’re people waiting to be chosen. But once the project begins, we all become fate-sharing passengers on the same ship. If this ship sinks, our Hyejin’s career gets stained too. We have to grit our teeth and drag this thing safely to port.”
After hearing Team Leader Jo Woonseok’s explanation, I understood a little more.
“So once the ship sets sail, everyone either survives together or drowns together.”
“Exactly. If we sit back comfortably acting like this isn’t our problem? We’ll never work with this PD and writer again.”
Then why did they call me?
I didn’t seem useful at all in this discussion.
Did they seriously summon me purely as some kind of good-luck charm?
“Director, these three actresses seem like the most realistic replacement options.”
The division director examined the actress photos with a strict expression before responding coldly.
“This is really the best we can do?”
“Yes. Considering schedules, personalities, and agency tendencies, these three have the highest casting success probability.”
Honestly, I thought they should just ask all three and take whoever accepted first.
But—
“If an actress realizes she only got approached after others rejected it, do you think she’d feel good? Accepting something another woman refused basically means admitting she ranks lower than her.”
Team Leader Jo Woonseok’s calm explanation made sense again.
The division director frowned while studying the candidates.
Then Jo Woonseok quietly asked me,
“From your perspective, who feels best? Give your honest totem intuition.”
“To be honest… none of them feel right to me.”
“What’s bothering you?”
“I don’t know. It’s not exactly bothering me, but….”
Something prickled inside my mind.
Suddenly, I remembered what writer Lee Sihyang once said.
—If Hyejin had only been born ten, no, even five years earlier, I would’ve cast her as the lead instead of the teenage version.
Apparently drama writers value synchronization between the image of the actor and the character they created more than anything else.
—Originally Han Yuna felt incomplete to me. But after seeing Hyejin, all the scattered image fragments finally connected together. Ironically, the completed version still had to be played by another actress because of adult circumstances.
That was also why she poured so much effort into Han Yuna’s teenage storyline.
The problem was that Han Yuna was twenty-eight years old in the actual story.
No matter how good high-schooler Hwang Hyejin’s acting was, age gaps normally couldn’t be overcome.
Normally.
But I had the future app.
“Team Leader, there’s something I’d like to show everyone. Would it be alright if I used the projector for a moment?”
“This is related to the replacement casting?”
“Yes.”
“Alright. Set it up quickly.”
While I prepared the laptop, Jo Woonseok explained things to the others.
All the attention pouring toward me made my back feel hot with tension, but I calmly continued setting things up.
【I can directly control the beam projector and play the video myself.】
‘I know. But I still need to pretend I’m connecting the laptop manually.’
No matter how much the future app handled everything with a click,
I still had to put on a little performance for the people watching.
Once preparations were done, I focused on the laptop.
“We don’t have time. What exactly are you trying to show us….”
I half-ignored the division director’s grumbling and played the video.
—Remember?
Hwang Hyejin’s acting.
Enhanced through CG into a mature version ten years older.
Once the future app refined the sincere acting, clothing, and background—
the quality honestly looked good enough to use immediately for official drama promotion.
—You told me never to forget what you did to me either, remember?
Yeah… once again, our Hyejin’s greatest charm really is the contrast between her innocent appearance and those vicious eyes—
No. Why do I keep thinking things like that?
When exactly will middle-school berserker Hwang Hyejin finally move out of my brain?
The video ended.
The reactions split instantly into two groups.
Some people were genuinely amazed.
Others looked completely shaken.
“Wow. She acts incredibly well. More importantly, her image matches our Hyejin perfectly.”
“There’s an actress like this? Then why didn’t we know about her?”
“Did someone discover her in a tiny theater company or something?”
Team Leader Jo Woonseok’s pupils practically exploded.
Still, sharp instincts.
“Hyejin acted it herself.”
“What?”
“This is Hyejin?”
PD Son Jungu lived through absolute hell.
Ignoring endless calls from reporters flooding in from every direction, he searched desperately for replacement actresses with bloodshot eyes.
—We’re sorry.
—We’d love to consider it positively if possible, but….
—I think giving you an immediate answer is the respectful thing to do, PD Son.
—You know Ara’s personality. She really wants to work with writer Lee Sihyang, but she’s too scared of the current situation.
Every call ended in rejection.
At least people answered quickly instead of dragging things out, but that hardly felt comforting.
Writer Lee Sihyang spoke with exhausted eyes.
“PD-nim, you’ve done enough.”
“Writer… this….”
“At worst, we delay six months. We lie low quietly and receive a new broadcasting slot later. Honestly, isn’t it lucky this exploded before airing? Imagine if it happened after Episode 1 broadcasted. Just imagining it feels horrifying.”
PD Son Jungu became so mentally cornered that even ridiculous thoughts started appearing.
‘Was the Hyejin school-violence accusation actually a warning sign for this?’
The two situations had absolutely no connection.
If anything, Hwang Hyejin was the victim.
But PD Son was psychologically cornered enough to think irrationally.
Plagiarism controversies.
On-set abuse scandals.
Drunk-driving actor removals.
Broadcast cancellations.
Studio bankruptcy.
Even a broadcasting station president getting fired.
He’d survived all of it and still completed his dramas successfully.
But a female lead actress getting caught in a drug-sex scandal with a younger male idol before the drama even aired—
this was a first.
[Caller: Manager Cha Doyoung]
“Ah, Doyoung-ssi. Yes… yeah, that’s right. Haah, honestly my head’s a mess right now… what? Alright. Yes, yes. I’ll wait.”
Hearing PD Son’s suddenly transformed voice, writer Lee Sihyang immediately rushed over with burning eyes.
“Is there good news?”
“He says there’s something hopeful, but wants us to see it first before judging. Apparently it can’t be explained through words.”
A little later, Cha Doyoung arrived at the studio.
“Writer-nim should watch too.”
“Alright.”
Without even exchanging greetings properly, he opened the laptop and immediately showed them the video.
The staff members trapped in panic and exhaustion gradually gathered behind them one by one.
A woman with vicious eyes glared coldly while standing against the glamorous yet gloomy nighttime garden scenery.
—Remember?
PD Son’s eyes shook violently.
Winter Castle’s female lead.
Han Yuna herself stood there.
With eyes carrying sharper poison than even the vague image he’d originally imagined.
Overflowing with hatred as she mocked the target of her curse.
The blurry image he’d always struggled to fully see through actress Jo Siyeon—
suddenly became crystal clear like a rainbow sky after rain.
Beside him, writer Lee Sihyang trembled faintly before turning toward Cha Doyoung.
“Is this… perhaps Hyejin?”
“Yes. Hyejin performed the acting herself, and the face was CG-processed into an older adult appearance.”
The PD and writer froze in shock.
Then Cha Doyoung played the original unprocessed footage too.
Character age.
Clothing.
Background.
Everything was different.
The only thing identical was the actress’s acting itself.
“Instead of searching far away while wasting time, what if you just entrusted everything entirely to our Hyejin?”
“…Can the CG production timeline really match the broadcast schedule?”
CG quality, studio choice, production cost—
none of those things could even enter PD Son’s brain anymore.
Only time mattered.
“I can guarantee it’ll finish faster than your filming schedule, PD-nim.”