The First Defiance
The studio was dim and quiet.
There wasn't a single staff member around, and the only equipment set up was two cameras—one for full shots, the other for close-ups.
There wasn't even proper lighting.
No matter how inexperienced an actor Ruan was, he could tell this wasn't a normal shooting set.
So his first words were laced with confusion.
"Director, what am I doing today?"
Shim Seon-hee, who had been moving behind the camera, perked up her ears.
Truth be told, she had no idea what plan Do Hyun-woo had in mind either.
All she knew was that they were minimizing observers to focus purely on acting practice.
Her role was to film Ruan's performance in a way that made him look as unsettled as possible.
There were plenty of ways to do it.
She could use Dutch angles to distort the frame's horizon, eliminate negative space in the direction he was looking.
Irregular close-ups, abnormally large headroom above his head, snorricam, dead space...
Technically, none of it was hard.
She just didn't know why he wanted this.
Then Do Hyun-woo's gentle voice came through.
"Nothing major. Just some practice."
"I'm sorry. It's because of how I've been..."
"No. It's not that there's a problem with your acting, Ruan. You're doing plenty well. It's just that there's a bit missing in the character interpretation, so we're tweaking the tone."
"Ah, got it. What do I need to do?"
"Ruan, you haven't really watched much of your own acting, have you?"
Ruan nodded at Do Hyun-woo's question.
"Before shooting started, I practiced by filming myself, but once we got on set, there just weren't opportunities."
"Right? As soon as you get 'cut' and an okay, it's on to the next scene."
"Yeah."
"Director Shim Seon-hee here will film your acting. It'll show up on that monitor over there."
Ruan looked up at the still-dark monitor.
"So I watch that and check my own performance?"
"Exactly. I don't know much about idols, but you practice choreography in front of mirrors, right?"
"Yeah."
"Think of it the same way. You're already doing great, Ruan, so no need to feel pressured. Every actor goes through this phase."
"Ah, okay."
This was different from the 'Do Hyun-woo directing' Shim Seon-hee had vaguely imagined.
She'd heard he'd pushed Kim Ra-un hard before, so she expected the same here.
But no—it was incredibly gentle.
Ruan's face had relaxed noticeably as a result.
"Oh Young-hee sunbaenim will be here soon too, right? We can run lines together then."
Oh Young-hee was the actress playing the mother of Pi Do-seon in the drama.
"Ah, yeah. Sorry, it's not even a shooting day, and it's because of me..."
"Don't think like that. Oh Young-hee sunbaenim lives right around the corner. She's coming over for a quick walk."
"Oh, really?"
"Yeah. Ready to give it a real go?"
And with that, practice began.
As Shim Seon-hee filmed the practice scenes, she was surprised in two ways.
First was Do Hyun-woo's skill.
She knew he was a former actor with decent chops.
About 70% of the At Your Fingertips staff had worked on Criminal Community, and they all said the same thing: Do Hyun-woo had guided their actors' performances.
But she figured there was a gap between good directing and good acting, so she'd imagined a respectable but average level...
He's insanely good.
He took on every role as Ruan's scene partner, and the quality was no joke.
When acting a teenage pro gamer, he was genuinely teen-like. For Korean Young or Park Sung-hwa, he suddenly seemed like a full adult.
He even read the stage directions flawlessly.
Should she pity that such an actor hadn't made it big? Or applaud that his failure led him to discover his talent as a CE?
As she pondered while watching, Ruan's acting started to impress her more and more.
That was her second surprise—Ruan's performance.
He's way better.
Shim Seon-hee, who had filmed more of Ruan's supporting arcs than even Director Im Un-jae, had thought Im's criticism unfair and Do Hyun-woo's agreement off-base.
But Ruan's talent was far beyond what she'd imagined.
And she realized something else belatedly.
Ruan immersed better without an audience watching.
It was a bit odd.
Usually, you cast idols because they're trained to handle the camera and pressure.
Well, idols are human too.
As Shim Seon-hee thought that, she felt Ruan's immersion hit its peak.
He'd fully become Pi Do-seon.
Perfect.
This alone made setting up today's session worthwhile.
This experience would be a huge asset for Ruan.
Actors who've tasted perfect immersion even once have their acting floor transformed completely.
Did he know it'd turn out like this? How did he figure it out?
As Shim Seon-hee glanced at Do Hyun-woo with that thought—
A sudden change came over Ruan, sitting in the studio center.
It happened when Actress Oh Young-hee arrived.
Pi Do-seon was a high schooler who'd lived her entire life under her obsessively controlling mother's iron grip.
Her schedule—from wake-up to bedtime—was rigidly set, with five academies she attended.
But her grades were only middling-upper tier, and she had no standout talents.
Unhappy with that, her mother kept pressuring her.
Worn down amid those times, Pi Do-seon stumbled upon a game called TOOL by chance.
And for the first time, she discovered her own worth.
Some might call it just a game, but for Pi Do-seon, it was a massive shift.
It was the moment she found something she wanted to pour her all into.
She dove into the game headfirst.
As her in-game rank climbed, her real-life grades plummeted.
Eventually, when her mother caught her skipping academies to game in secret...
Pi Do-seon made her choice.
Just imagining rebelling against her mother made her tremble, but she couldn't back down now.
She couldn't return to the fenced-in world her mother had staked out for her.
Thus, Pi Do-seon raised her first flag of rebellion in life.
"I... I want to be a pro gamer."
It terrified her.
She was scared.
But there was also a strange thrill.
This was the first moment she was taking responsibility for her own life.
The start of living as herself.
Even if it meant facing her mother's wrath and getting kicked out, she felt she could bear that pain gladly.
But...
Pi Do-seon's mother opened her mouth with a chillingly bright smile.
"Yeah, studying was always iffy for you, huh?"
"...!"
"I hear pro gamer's a good job these days. Shall we look into academies first?"
Her life's first act of defiance was just another controllable element to her mother.
This was the starting point of Pi Do-seon's arc.
Even after becoming a pro gamer, she couldn't escape her mother's control.
She had to prioritize her mother's words over the director's, even getting in-game decisions approved by her.
To Pi Do-seon's mother, Seonghwa Empire didn't matter.
All that mattered was proving Pi Do-seon was transferable merchandise to another team.
In the end, despite her generational talent, Pi Do-seon was dismissed as a pro gamer lacking courage.
The final piece to complete Seonghwa Empire—but a seed that would never bloom.
The conflict exploded when Sa Mo-yeon approached Pi Do-seon's mother.
Sa Mo-yeon offered a way out of the doomed Seonghwa Empire, and the mother accepted.
Regardless of Pi Do-seon's will.
But in the final moment, Pi Do-seon broke free of her mother's control and carved her own path.
This was the sticking point where Ruan struggled with the acting.
At first, it seemed like just a tough scene.
Exploding pent-up emotions in one burst is hard even for veterans.
But watching closely, she realized it wasn't that.
Ruan was an idol.
Outsiders mentioned Eum Sung-hyun's case when I cast Ruan, but that insulted both.
Eum Sung-hyun was an idol who'd utterly failed, left with an empty self and nothing gained.
Ruan, by contrast, was a popular idol loved by many.
How many times had he killed his true self, 'Kim Si-woo', to reach that position?
He'd endured pain, swallowed anger, silenced his urges to express.
Why?
Because he didn't want to disappoint his agency that raised him, his fellow members who'd shared hardships, or his fans' excessive love.
This connected directly to Pi Do-seon.
It was essentially the same as not wanting to disappoint her mother.
Not that Ruan's supporters were wrong—it was that the self-imposed pressure was similar.
Ruan had instinctively sensed this point but couldn't fully portray Pi Do-seon's emotional line.
To act Pi Do-seon, he needed to unearth Kim Si-woo—but he'd lived as Ruan for so long after burying him.
That's why...
"So? You're staying with Seonghwa Empire? After all I've done for you!"
He couldn't easily respond to Actress Oh Young-hee's pressure.
On a normal set, he'd recite the scripted lines adequately.
But staring at his own face on the monitor in this dim studio made honest acting impossible to fake.
"Say it! Say it! That you'll listen to Mom!"
Actress Oh Young-hee deviated from the script, ad-libbing to press Ruan.
It was pre-arranged.
"Pi Do-seon! You won't answer?!"
She'd push for a response to the end.
Ruan's breathing grew ragged, his eyes drifting to the past.
What he was thinking, I didn't know.
But I knew what came next.
Ruan, crumbling bit by bit, lifted his head to stare at Actress Oh Young-hee.
Tears streamed from eyes that weren't crying.
"...Sorry, Mom."
But his gaze was filled with conviction.
"It's retire or lift a trophy with this team."
The eyes of Pi Do-seon from the script.
"Nothing else left."
Exactly that.