How Could They Reject Talent Like This
While Director Kim Seongjin continued setting up the shoot, Chae Seoyun was refining her makeup under the makeup artist's hands.
Manager Kim Gyeonguk glanced over at Manager Cha Doyoung on the other side, then scratched his head.
"He draws out full conté for every single one of Hyejin's lines and locks in solid image directing, but he's kind of leaving this set to fend for itself."
A voice a little short on confidence.
Eyes still closed as she received her eyeliner, Chae Seoyun answered.
"It's not a drama, so that's probably why."
"Don't tell me he's discriminating because we're a different team? The temperature difference between how he treats Hwang Hyejin and this is way too extreme. Even if we're different teams, Team 3 is handling this CF — shouldn't he treat her the same way he treats Hyejin?"
"Manager oppa, are you jealous?"
"Yeah, I'm jealous."
"Hilarious."
"What, I'm not allowed to be a little jealous? I was looking forward to Manager Cha drawing me pretty scenery and showing me what poses and movements and feelings to act with too."
Chae Seoyun, eyes still closed, let out a soft laugh — and the makeup artist said coolly,
"Seoyun, don't laugh. You'll mess up the makeup."
"Sorry, unnie, sorry."
"Manager, stop talking to Seoyun too. She's in the middle of makeup."
"Sorry. I just had nowhere else to dump my disappointment…"
Just then, Manager Cha Doyoung started walking toward them.
Kim Gyeonguk's expression stiffened and he flinched.
"What? Don't tell me he heard what I said?"
"How would he hear that from that far away?"
"No, I was just grumbling to myself out of genuine disappointment — not some toxic delusion about demanding he hand over what he'd prepared for someone else…"
"That's why I'm saying there's no way he heard."
By then Cha Doyoung had arrived.
Kim Gyeonguk forced a bright smile.
"Oh, Manager Cha. As you can see, Seoyun's in the middle of makeup prep."
"I was discussing the shoot concept with Director Kim Seongjin, and I thought seeing it as concrete sketches would help with the model's performance too."
"Huh? What? Don't tell me?"
"I drew a few pages of conté, and the director said this was exactly it and looked very satisfied."
"Unnie, hold on a sec. Let me see."
The coordinator stopped her hands without a word.
Cha Doyoung held the sketchbook out to Chae Seoyun.
A woman surfing waves with a pod of dolphins
A woman diving off a waterfall at the horizon
A woman crouching beside a surfboard, tying her sandal straps
A lone surfboard left on a lake, and the back of a woman running away into the distance
Peeking over her shoulder, Kim Gyeonguk wore a smile so wide it looked ready to spill off his face.
Grinning to himself, he secretly watched Cha Doyoung, who was focused on Chae Seoyun's expression.
Manager Cha really… he prepared everything in advance and still pulls a surprise show. He's got a slyly fun side to him.
Quality that, at a glance, had clearly taken long and careful work.
Kim Gyeonguk naturally assumed Cha Doyoung had prepared it all ahead of time, and felt pleased.
Long, pale fingers calmly turned the pages. Not satisfied with a single savoring, she flipped through the sketches again and again.
Anyone can see it's our Seoyun.
Conté on white paper — lines only, no color. But the composition of the landscapes captured on those pages was anything but ordinary. It was packed with a sense of dynamism that made the viewer spontaneously imagine how the full video would come together.
Chae Seoyun met Cha Doyoung's eyes in the mirror and spoke.
"Come to think of it, there's something I forgot to say. I just remembered."
"What is it?"
"You're really good at drawing."
"Ah, thank you."
"And your reaction is incredibly cool about it. Like it's only natural."
"Well, it's not like I draw badly."
Watching them, Kim Gyeonguk swallowed dryly.
Is that what a genius's confidence looks like? A dry fact that doesn't even register as praise — something like that?
Even to Kim Gyeonguk, who knew nothing about art, Cha Doyoung's conté overflowed with massive talent.
This time Chae Seoyun met Cha Doyoung's eyes directly, not through the mirror.
"Do you like surprise shows?"
"…Not particularly? Were you planning to give me a surprise show later?"
"I asked because you're giving me a surprise show right now."
"Me?"
A baffled retort, as if to say what on earth are you talking about.
Chae Seoyun gave the sketchbook a slight shake.
"This. You drew it all in advance, so why did you act like you had nothing earlier?"
"I didn't draw it in advance."
"…What?"
Faintly trembling eyelashes. An almost imperceptible change in expression on the surface — but Kim Gyeonguk, who'd cared for her so long, caught it immediately.
Seoyun's about to have a fit right now.
"After hearing what Seoyun-ssi said, I thought it would help the shoot, so I drew these in a hurry just a moment ago."
"Ah, I see."
S-Seoyun. You're breathing right now, right?
"Your hands are fast."
"I'm somewhat that type. Anyway, did it help at all with locking in the performance image?"
"Yes, I think it'll be more than enough help."
Kim Gyeonguk fretted as he watched the nape of Chae Seoyun's neck faintly flush red.
Seoyun, breathe. Breathe!
"Thank you."
"Not at all. I should have been paying attention to this from the start — I think I was being a bit complacent."
"It was a concept that simple direction would have been enough for, so you didn't need to go this far."
"Oh, that's what I said earlier. You didn't hold that against me,"
"I'm not holding it against you. I'm saying you worked hard."
"Still, it was rewarding."
"I'll make it even more rewarding. In front of the camera."
"I'll look forward to it. Then, if you'll excuse me."
Cha Doyoung bowed politely and walked away.
Only then did Chae Seoyun silently take several deep breaths.
The quick-witted coordinator lightly massaged Chae Seoyun's back.
"Were you that tense? You weren't breathing for a long time."
"When did I? Unnie must have seen wrong."
"Sure, sure. I saw wrong. I'll finish the makeup."
The coordinator answered dryly, then picked up her brush and began quickly coloring Chae Seoyun's face again.
Eyes closed, Chae Seoyun held the sketchbook out to Kim Gyeonguk.
He took it quickly and flipped through the pages in a flurry, examining them again.
Unlike before, no admiration came out now. Pupils seized by shock trembled as if they would shatter his skull.
He drew this just now? This? All of it?
Could you just write it off as having fast hands? Was this a volume of work physically possible for a human?
When admiration piles up it becomes praise, but when it grows too dense it turns into shock.
"Wow, this is actually insane. Why didn't someone with talent like this go to art school?"
"He said he got rejected."
"Is that crazy? Why would they reject a prodigy with skills like this?"
"Arts admissions corruption has always been bad. To break through the fixed quotas, talent alone isn't enough. You need family, connections, money — all of it."
Kim Gyeonguk kept flipping pages, clicking his tongue. Knowing it was the work of an art school reject made it hit with even heavier meaning.
"If you just colored these, they'd sell like crazy as merchandise."
"Merchandise, what are you talking about."
"Doesn't Manager Cha already have the full CF video sitting in his head in 16K resolution? It feels like he stripped the color from that and just lightly traced the lines by hand?"
Kim Gyeonguk paused inwardly.
Not "drew" — "realized." Whoa, that somehow sticks to the tongue like rice cake. My expressiveness is killing it.
"To reject talent like this too… what kind of place is art school, really? Did God reject him so he wouldn't waste his gift on painting and would go conquer dramas instead?"
Now able to purely admire and enjoy it again like at the start, Kim Gyeonguk glanced over at Cha Doyoung in the distance, deep in serious conversation with Director Kim Seongjin.
"There's a reason Team Leader Jo hands even that expensive camera over to a newbie and nurtures him. Even if art school abandoned Manager Cha, our Pine Tree Entertainment will reclaim and cultivate him…"
He stopped mid-muttering.
Why does my head feel so itchy? Did I miss something?
Kim Gyeonguk suddenly caught what he'd been overlooking since earlier.
"Seoyun."
"What."
"But how do you know so much detail about Manager Cha failing art school? Did you hear it from him?"
Chae Seoyun averted her eyes.
"Cut! Good, very good!"
Director Kim Seongjin called out with satisfaction.
Chae Seoyun stopped running on the treadmill and came over for the monitoring. I played the footage we'd just shot, with the Future App's CG processing applied.
Director Kim Seongjin and Chae Seoyun sat side by side checking the monitor screen.
I'd love to show them the final version if I could.
It was just a shame I couldn't — for the sake of "realism."
The quality of the video playing now was under twenty percent of the finished product.
"This is a rough version shown with real-time CG applied, so a lot of the detail is missing. For now, just look at the overall composition and color."
"Couldn't we just put this out as the CF as-is? You're saying it gets better from here?"
"Yes, according to the CG company."
Right now Chae Seoyun was repeatedly, intently watching herself diving off the infinite ocean waterfall spread across the end of the horizon.
Even to my eyes, that scene was pretty magnificent. It was a scene I'd made by carefully nagging the Future App.
Of course, being rough CG, the fine details were missing — things like finely shattering water droplets, salmon swimming upstream against the waterfall, sea turtles and seabirds enjoying a dive, and so on.
Manager Kim Gyeonguk exclaimed in an excited voice.
"Wow, really. The fact that this is an unfinished skeleton is genuinely amazing. So it gets even better from here?"
"Hold on. This scene here."
Chae Seoyun suddenly paused the video.
The scene of Chae Seoyun sliding down the water-formed ocean waterfall cliff on a surfboard. She opened the conté sketchbook I'd drawn earlier and held it right up next to the monitor.
"Huh?"
"Whoa…"
"Heh, how…"
First me, then Kim Seongjin and Kim Gyeonguk made sounds.
The composition of the still frame and the conté matched perfectly. Even I got goosebumps.
Manager Kim Gyeonguk made a deflated sound.
"If you just colored it, it'd be completely identical. What kind of art school…"