The PD Who Wants Controversy
"Doyoung oppa, give me my phone. Come on?"
"No. Ego-surfing is banned."
"Ugh, it's not like I'm some idol. I'm an actress — this is a bit much."
"It's Team Leader's decision for your mental health, so you will obey it completely."
Hwang Hyejin's phone was currently in her mother's possession.
It was to keep a young actress from being left defenseless against the hate of online trolls.
Jo Siyeon had been a top-five actress by recognition, and with the drug, sex, and pregnancy scandal piled on top of everything, her fans were in a state of total mental collapse.
To stop that panic from redirecting onto Hwang Hyejin, the company had banned ego-surfing.
She's still a kid. If her mental state wavers, it'll mess with the drama shoot going forward…
Ah. Suddenly it came back to me.
That sharp, ringing voice from middle school, the one that had thoroughly dressed down a group of bullies picking on a powerless classmate.
—You piece of fucking—
…Maybe it would be fine to give her the phone?
Our Hyejin had the kind of mental fortitude that could weather a storm like that, didn't she?
"I can seriously handle whatever crap, whatever fl— comments. Okay?"
"Actress Hwang Hyejin, were you just about to say 'whatever bullshit hate comments'?"
"N-no. I was going to say 'whatever perverted hate comments' and bit my tongue."
"We'll go with that."
"I'm telling you it's true."
"Even so, I can't go against company policy. Instead, I'll screenshot only the positive reactions and show you those."
"Okay! Show me quick! Hurry, hurry!"
I skimmed the community reactions on my tablet.
I picked out a few decent ones and took screenshots.
I blurred out anything sensitive.
"Here."
Hwang Hyejin took the tablet with pure delight and started flipping through the captures.
I looked over her shoulder with her.
"Oppa, what's the stuff you blurred out?"
"Mm, sexual harassment comments. I covered them so you wouldn't see."
"Not the ones calling me some girl who still needs to nurse at her mom's breast, the one they shoved in as a replacement after locking Jo Siyeon up?"
She was a mind reader.
That was roughly the vibe of the hate comments I'd deleted and then covered by calling them sexual harassment — and her instincts were terrifyingly sharp.
"It's not that. They're sexual harassment hate comments, so I blurred them to protect our Hyejin's mental health."
"Okay. I'll believe that."
"I'm telling you it's true."
"Yeah, I believe you."
The halfhearted answer made it clear she didn't believe me at all.
Team Leader Jo Unseok might have miscalculated on this one.
There probably hadn't been any real need to confiscate her phone.
Hwang Hyejin whipped her head around so fast she startled me.
What kind of girl just shoved her face right up against mine like that with zero hesitation?
"Doyoung oppa, somehow it feels like there are more compliments on my face than my acting?"
"So that's even better, right?"
"What's good about that. That's not even my real face. It's CG."
"It's not your face yet."
"Huh? Yet?"
"In ten years, that will be your face. 99.9% match rate."
"The CG company said that?"
"Yeah. They scraped every photo from your childhood to now, ran it all through AI training, and generated it — so unless you go under the knife, that's the face you'll end up with."
But was it really that different?
Aside from losing a bit of baby fat and the ultra-cute baby-face softening away, it was basically the same person.
"Ugh, but this face looks a little fierce, I don't like it. I want to grow up into a pure, delicate beauty like Senior Chae Seoyun from our company."
"Right? I wonder what kind of inner storms you'll weather over the next ten years to end up with a face like that scheduled for you."
"Oppa!"
I'd been teasing her, but in just a few years Hwang Hyejin really would become a beauty so strong and mature it took your breath away.
The Future App had guaranteed it, so there was no doubt.
Personally, I thought the image of someone with a real temper was even better.
Hard to approach, looking haughty and proud.
A peerless beauty like that had commercial value all its own, didn't it?
"Doyoung oppa, I'm done."
"Okay. Give it here."
"I mean find me more."
"…Fine. Wait."
"Hurry hurry. I'm bored."
Even on days without a shoot, PD Son Junggu was busy.
Once a drama set sail, the days until the finale were ones where even a catnap felt like a luxury.
But right now, far from being tired, PD Son felt so light his whole body might float away.
"The making-of video response is excellent. Hyejin's acting has properly captured the public fans' hearts."
"Of course it has. You saw how Hyejin acted."
"The majority of reactions are saying that with this level of skill at eighteen, they can't wait to see how big a star she'll become."
"And the visual reviews on Hyejin?"
"Oh, no need to even say it — top tier. People who didn't know it was Hyejin at first and thought we'd cast some unknown visual powerhouse with real acting chops — once they heard it was CG aging, the reactions went nuclear."
"Obviously. I was shocked myself."
PD Son had nearly flipped over the first time Cha Doyoung brought in the adult CG.
Because the most ideal adult Han Yuna had been right there.
There's a reason the writer took one look at Hyejin and heaved those deep sighs wishing she were just a few years older.
Hwang Hyejin matched the female lead image the writer had wanted perfectly.
Except for being far too young.
But thanks to Cha Doyoung's CG company connections, that problem had been cleanly solved.
Writer Lee Sihyang had even set her laptop wallpaper to adult Hwang Hyejin.
"Good. Hyejin's on-set footage isn't in the first making-of drop, right?"
"Yes, you told us to put it in the second, so we cut it during editing."
In the first making-of, fans could only see the CG-processed adult version.
PD Son had very deliberately intended that.
"Fans are digging hard for Hyejin's footage from the production presentation."
"She didn't get that much attention back then. How is it now?"
"The response is insane. They're all raving that even with that young, fresh face, her development is already pure Han Yuna itself."
"Good."
PD Son nodded and grinned.
"Drop the second making-of. The one with Hyejin's real on-set face."
The first making-of had no Hwang Hyejin's original face.
Only the desperate Han Yuna in her mature adult form, CG applied.
Those looking for something to pick at latched onto this point and wouldn't let go.
Clack. Clack. Clack-clack-clack.
Park Cheolmin. Age thirty. Office worker.
With hollow eyes he drifted through community spaces like a ghost, scattering the Winter Castle making-of videos everywhere he went.
He rolled bait nonstop, and whenever he found a post that could become a problem, he screenshot it and saved it.
To tip off Hwang Hyejin's agency.
Clack. Clack-clack-clack.
Park Cheolmin's ten fingers flew across the keyboard.
Then a real-time notification popped up in his browser.
He rushed to the production company's official YouTube channel.
There was a brand-new video with zero views, uploaded less than ten seconds ago.
Heart pounding, he clicked — and watched as if he were being sucked into the footage, barely able to breathe.
—Actress Hwang Hyejin, what are you laughing about so hard?
—Look at this lunchbox. The sausage got stuck all alone between the bulgogi side dishes.
—That's funny?
—Yes, it's so funny.
Off the main camera, a girl who burst into inexplicable giggles over the most trivial things.
—This is all your fault…
The moment filming started, she transformed into the vicious expression of Han Yuna.
At the look in her eyes — as if her soul had been completely swapped out — a chill ran down Park Cheolmin's spine.
An innocent girl who couldn't understand what was funny about a sausage and bulgogi,
delivering fierce, desperate acting that didn't match her young face at all — within a restrained spectrum with zero excess.
No adult CG whatsoever. Eighteen-year-old Hwang Hyejin's face, exactly as it was.
"The PD planned this. He deliberately left her real face out of the first making-of to manufacture interest through controversy."
Park Cheolmin slapped both cheeks with his hands, then opened his video editing software.
He started editing so that Hwang Hyejin's pre-CG face and post-CG face would appear side by side in a split screen.
Click. Click. Click. Click.
After more than thirty minutes of editing, he went around every community he knew and uploaded it.